Box Score Recap – 8/27/2013

Box Score Recap

A big night from Derrick Mitchell helps Devid Buchanan’s cause, as Lehigh Valley beat Buffalo. Buchanan induced three double-play grounders to keep his so-so night from looking like a nightmare. Jim Murphy hit a walk-off two run shot for Reading, (their second walk-off bomb in a row), after Seth Rosin and Hector Neris gave up 6 runs in the top of the ninth. Kelly Dugan was a late scratch, though I haven’t see a reason. Clearwater managed one hit but walked seven times as they best Tampa 3-2, with 2 runs in the bottom of the ninth on 4 walks and a walk-off sac fly from Harold Martinez. Nice line from Severino Gonzalez – 7 IP/1R/4H/3BB/6K. Drew Anderson pitched well, striking out six and allowing just 2 hits in 5 scoreless innings. Mitch Rupert reported that he was hitting 92-93. Here’s Mitch’s game story.

I forgot to mention that the DSL season concluded recently, with the Phillies finishing 3 games over .500, but 8.5 off the wild card pace. There were a couple interesting names there, but in my mind, no standout like Sam Hiciano from 2012. We’ll have to wait and see if we get any positive reports on any of them out of instructs, or beyond that, wait and see which guys make the GCL squad out of spring training next year.

Here’s the affiliate Scoreboard from MiLB.

http://www.milb.com/scoreboard/index.jsp?sid=milb&org=143&ymd=20130827

8-27-13 boxscores

93 thoughts on “Box Score Recap – 8/27/2013”

  1. Is it time to become more interested in how Drew Anderson (21st rd HS pick in 2012 – Slot 100k) is pitching? He has a nice frame for a pitcher and though his K-rate is far from spectacular it has been much better of late. His other peripherals are outstanding. Should be an interesting pitcher to watch at Lakewood next year

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      2. He’s got a slight build, definitely some room for growth. His pitchability is probably beyond his level right now. Spots the fastball well, and the curveball is an above average pitch. It’s more of a sweeping breaking ball than a real 12-6 hook. He has a change-up but doesn’t throw it too much. I’d say at best right now it’s an average pitch. He’s really done a lot of his damage with two pitches.

        Last night was the first that I had heard of his fastball being at 92-93. And if he can get a little bigger and stronger you’d have to think that he might be able to push 93-95. He has a great feel for pitching, works fast, a simple repeatable delivery. He gets the ball out of his glove quickly and has a delivery that reminds me a lot of Ryan Madson’s.

        There’s some intrigue here with that kind of velocity and pitchability. But it’s the development of the change-up which determines whether he’s a starter or a reliever in the future.

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  2. Is Severino Gonzalez a legitimate prospect? Every time I see his line it impresses me, especially his ability to strike out players. What’s his background?

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    1. Signed on a small fee out of Pananma. Was lights out in the VSL last year so the Phils brought him over to extended spring training likley with the plan of having him pitch in the GCL when that season started. They had a couple of BP injuries in CLW so they gave him a few innings. He was lights out so they kept him there, then sent him to LWD to stretch out as a starter, then moved him back to CLW when he had success.

      Based on reports, bigtime curveball and command. Throws 4 pitches but we really haven’t seen a lot of reports on them. Whether he is a true prospect will depend least partly on the speed of his FB (reports have been sort of all over the place) and whether is frame fills out a bit. He seems to have cuaght the organization completely by suprise and should be in the reading rotation next year.

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      1. There’s no doubt that he IS a prospect. The question then becomes how good of a prospect is he. But his performance thus far has earned him the right to be called a prospect. Reading will be a good test for him and we should learn a lot about him there next season. I think a lot of people still regard him as a show me (at every level) guy before they get too excited about him.

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        1. All of us have our own unique definition of “prospect”, but put me in the “show me at AA camp.” That’s where guys with above average offspeed stuff with average to below average FBs get found out. Not saying he has average to below average velocity as the reports have been all over the place, but I would think we will know pretty early into next season whether he is legit or not. He’s got a lot going for him clearly and would think he’ll end up in most people’s organizational top-15

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            1. Of course not. Biddle is 6’4 with a big frame, sat low 90s with the FB, and though the CB was well known, we had good reports on his other secondary stuff. We just don’t have enough reports on Gonzalez, but we will next year.

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            2. Agreed, I just was curious if your logic is that below AA is useless for evaluating pitchers, but that’s not the problem with SG, it’s the lack and consistency of reports. We’re on the same page.

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        2. The “show-me” status is really about his “coming out of nowhere” stats… If he dominates at reading next year as he’s done the last two years…and his FB sits 91 or better, he’ll profile as a solid #3 starter. IF (big IF here) his FB sits 93/94 we’re looking at a very good #2 easily.

          The above said, if I had to bet, he’s most likely he’s a 4/5 starter with a high floor (the command is why the floor is so high) with an outside shot as a 3.

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            1. The only caveat I would add is that I would like to see reports of some movement on his FB. At his height he isn’t going to have much of a downward plane, and a straight FB, even as 92, is going to get crushed at AA. But he must have some movment to it and/or excellant command of it to have enjoyed the success he has had this year

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  3. I saw the elusive Severino last night. Gregg will be posting my full report later but I came away impressed. There were no pitch speeds posted. I even looked for a player or scout behind the backstop with a gun but no such luck. He did walk 3 in 7 innings but didn’t run a ton of deep counts. His fastball was good but not generally overpowering (though he did seem to dial it up a notch at times). I am sure he threw some curves and changes, not sure what the 4th pitch is. This all seems very reminiscent of Julio Rodriguez which makes me agree with the person who just said show me in AA.

    In other news, I spoke to Roman Quinn who was watching the GC game yesterday. He said he tried to come back too soon and had a setback. He plans to stick around CW and rehab/workout and plans to play winter ball somewhere.

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    1. Looking forward to your report, thanks!

      I agree that it is somewhat reminiscent of Rodriguez but if memory services he only sat 86-88 with his fastball. As stated above, if Gonzalez gets it to 92-93 that would be a major difference.

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    2. You hate to see any prospect lose developmental time, but it will probably hurt Quinn more than most prospects given that he: (a) is trying to master a new position (shortstop); (b) is still learning to switch-hit; (c) is not particularly advanced for his age in any phase of the game; and (d) now has a man who will soon be the best prospect in the system – JP Crawford – breathing down his neck at the same position. Here’s hoping for a very productive off season for Roman Quinn, who still has a very significant upside, but now does not have any years to waste if he is to make it big.

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      1. I will fall back to Spring Training of 2013 where he was playing with the AA level guys and holding his own.
        I think the Phillies will have to make a decision with him through this off season. If scouts are confident he CAN be an above average SS and just needs reps to figure out what plays he can make and which ones he should leave then they should just keep moving him up. Likewise with his bat. If the approach and swing are good and he just needs to see more pitches to understand what he can hit and how teams are going to get him out then move him up.
        The idea is to have him ready for the Majors in 3 years, he does not necessarily need to dominate at AA or AAA before getting promoted. However, if there is some fundamental change needed for his throwing motion or swing then it may make sense to move him to a less demanding defensive position so he has less stress working on too many things.

        Depending on his issues, I might try him at 2B (since it might be easier to move him from 2B to SS if he becomes a utility infielder) rather than CF. The 2B to CF switch would seem to be easier later in his development than the reverse.

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  4. Prob in the wrong page to post this but I thought it would be interesting to see what current (and players who were at some point this year on the 25 man roster) Phillies were regarded as top 100 prospects. Here we go . . .

    Carlos Ruiz – Never in BA top 100.
    Ryan Howard – Pre 2005 rated #27.
    Chase Utley – Pre 2003 rated #81.
    Cody Asche – Never in BA top 100.
    Jimmy Rollins – Pre 2000 rated #95. Pre 2001 rated #31.
    Michael Young – Never in BA top 100.
    Domonic Brown – Pre 2009 rated #48. Pre 2010 rated #14. Pre 2011 rated #4.
    Ben Revere – Pre 2009 rated #59.
    Delmon Young – Pre 2004 rated #3. Pre 2005 rated #3. Pre 2006 rated #1. Pre 2007 rated #3.
    John Mayberry Jr. – Never in BA top 100 (drafted 2x in the 1st round. 28th in 2002. 19th in 2005).
    Erik Kratz – Never in BA top 100.
    Kevin Frandsen – Never in BA top 100.
    Darin Ruf – Never in BA top 100.
    Freddy Galvis – Never in BA top 100.
    Laynce Nix – Pre 2003 rated #85.
    Humberto Quintero – Never in BA top 100.
    Michael Martinez – Never in BA top 100.
    Cesar Hernandez – Never in BA top 100.
    Roger Bernadina – Never in BA top 100.
    John McDonald – Never in BA top 100.
    Casper Wells – Never in BA top 100.
    Ezequiel Carrera – Never in BA top 100.
    Kyle Kendrick – Never in BA top 100.
    Cliff Lee – Pre 2003 rated #30.
    Cole Hamels – Pre 2004 rated #17. Pre 2005 rated #71. Pre 2006 rated #68.
    Jonathan Pettibone – Never in BA top 100.
    John Lannan – Never in BA top 100.
    Tyler Cloyd – Never in BA top 100.
    Roy Halladay – Pre 1997 rated #23. Pre 1998 rated #38. Pre 1999 rated #12.
    Ethan Martin – Pre 2013 rated #80.
    Raul Valdez – Never in BA top 100.
    Zachary Miner – Never in BA top 100.
    Michael Stutes – Never in BA top 100.
    Joe Savery – Pre 2008 rated #90.
    Luis Garcia – Never in BA top 100.
    JC Ramirez – Never in BA top 100.
    Cesar Jimenez – Never in BA top 100.
    Chad Durbin – Never in BA top 100.
    Antonio Bastardo – Never in BA top 100.
    Mike Adams – Never in BA top 100.
    Jake Diekman – Never in BA top 100.
    Justin De Fratus – Never in BA top 100.
    BJ Rosenberg – Never in BA top 100.
    Jeremy Horst- Never in BA top 100.
    Phillippe Aumont – Pre 2008 rated #83. Pre 2009 rated #93. Pre 2010 rated #93.
    Jonathan Papelbon – Pre 2005 #91. Pre 2006 rated #37.

    14 players who played for the Phillies this year were top 100 prospects at one point, 8 were in the top 50, 3 in the top 25 and 2 in the top 10.

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    3. Some pretty big misses in there… Interestingly we’ve got a few potential HOF players on our roster… in no particular order:

      Chase Utley – Pre 2003 rated #81.
      Jimmy Rollins – Pre 2000 rated #95. Pre 2001 rated #31.
      Roy Halladay – Pre 1997 rated #23. Pre 1998 rated #38. Pre 1999 rated #12.
      Cliff Lee – Pre 2003 rated #30.

      You’d have to do this for all 30 teams to have a meaningful sample size, but… you can say based on the phillies, Baseball america completely misses on 25% of future HOF’ers (assuming Utley makes it which is still up-in-the-air IMO).

      What conclusions does that allow one to draw? Hmm not sure, other then to say it’s ok to have high hopes for a player ranked between 50 and 200. They really might some day be a HOFer. Additionally, every baseball player has holes in his swing, or something not quite perfect about his pitching arsenal. It’s impossible with certainty to know which players will step up and which ones fall behind.

      I’d be very curious to read Cliff Lee and Utley’s 2002 scouting reports. I imagine if you asked those scouts today why they were so wrong, they’d probably answer with some variation of …

      “There was no way we could have known he was going to ,,, ”

      And that there lies the beauty of minor league baseball.

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      3. ‘…….it’s ok to have high hopes for a player ranked between 50 and 200’.
        I see Ben Revere, number 59 on the 2009 pop-charts, as out next HoF hopeful.

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      4. According to you this is what a sure-fire hall of famer looks like:
        .269 .327 .426 .753
        And this is a “up-in-the-air” player:
        .286 .373 .498 .872

        If Chase doesn’t make it Jimmy has NO chance.
        Scratch that: Jimmy has NO chance, regardless of what happens. One MVP season doesn’t make a HoF bid.

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    4. It is also worth noting that there are some guys who get no scout love until they prove it all the way to the top of the minors. Ryan Howard is a great example. He didn’t get rated until after his age 24 season in which he hit 46! homers across AA-AAA. 46 friggin homers. and i remember a lot of questions whether the bat would play at the major league level. 2 years later he was the friggin MVP of the league.

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      1. I think this is more indicative of the level of talent on the current roster than anything else. Michael Young is a surprise, but otherwise, fringe-average big leaguers aren’t Top 100 prospects. Should’t come as a surprise.

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        1. I don’t understand your comment. for a second, i thought you were calling ryan howard a fringe-average big leaguer. but then i realized that i must have misunderstood.

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        2. Rich agreed. They seemed to call the productive major leaguers vs. fringe guys pretty well.

          Utley is a horrible comp for any of these situations as he was sort of a 1 in 10,000 example ofsignificantly outperformed his consensus ceiling at the major league level.

          And Asche probbaly would have been top 100 next year if he had finished the season in AAA.

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      2. But how wrong were they, Howard has 19 WAR over about 9 seasons which is right about a major league regular. Howard was an above average major leaguer for 4 years in his career, he had a good peak but he hasn’t been a sustained superstar.

        Not go too off the advanced stat level but Howard was nowhere near the deserving MVP in 2006, he was 11th in the NL in WAR a full 3 wins behind Pujols and 2 wins behind his teammate Chase Utley.

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        1. his production changed dramatically due to two factors that scouts never considered.
          1. the massive defensive shift.
          2. injuries in the past few years.

          he was one of the fastest players in mlb history to 200 homers. his stats from 2005 – 2009 were elite. arguing that he wasn’t the MVP, is a moot point. the point is he was elite whether he finished first, second or 5th in mvp voting. certainly far better than scouts predicted

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          1. The third larger reason is that he had a massive hole in his swing and approach (his walk rate was highly inflated in his first few years beyond his approach by how pitchers pitched to him). He never was able to adjust to the outside breaking ball and make consistent contact with it. The shift is part of contact, his swing limits his hitting ability because he cannot go with a pitch the other way and has to rely on a pitch being in his zone to pull.

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            1. all true. but also all hindsight. in his first 41/2 seasons he has a WAR of 15.7. you think if he had such an obvious hole and an obvious inability to adjust it would have taken MLB pitchers so long to figure it out?

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            2. I actually think that his mechanics got worse during his mlb career. that he got pull happy when he was IN the majors, not before the majors. if you recall, his first two seasons he hit half of his homers the opposite way. it wasn’t until later in his mlb career that he started pulling everything. now his swing mechanics are a complete mess. simply awful.

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            5. Only has back to 2007 but you can look at it year to year. He hits ground balls almost entirely to the right, line drives a little less and fly balls are skewed left. Homeruns are actually pretty evenly distributed across the OF.
              http://www.brooksbaseball.net/h_spray.php?player=429667&time=month&startDate=03/30/2007&endDate=08/28/2013&s_type=13
              and by 2007 pitchers had already adjusted their pitch location http://www.brooksbaseball.net/h_profile.php?player=429667&gFilt=&pFilt=FA|SI|FC|CU|SL|CS|KN|CH|FS|SB&time=month&minmax=ci&var=count&s_type=2&startDate=01/01/2007&endDate=01/01/2008&balls=-1&strikes=-1&b_hand=-1

              On a side not it fun to play we these tools

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            7. Help – prob obvious but why are only ground balls pulled but HR are even.y distributed? Are HRs pitcher mistakes but only fly balls result?

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        2. that being said, i have no expectations to change your mind. you are a true believe weighting in the value of scouting reports over performance, and i am the opposite. we can have this debate 1,000 more times and i don’t think either one of us will be convinced

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            1. depends on the sample size is my counter point. if you include the past 2 years, which he was injured, sure, his career numbers look mlb average. but that is not the right way to analyze his hitting ability IMO.

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            4. reread my comment. i didn’t say small sample size. i said, it depends on the sample size. my point is that it is well documented that he was injured the past 2 years. so including those stats and bringing his WAR down to average mlb player to draw a conclusion is wrong IMO.

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            6. He was pretty league average in 2010 and 2011 as well. If you are going by advanced stats he had 4 clearly above average years as Matt said.

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            7. agreed on 2010 and 2011 if you look at WAR. but if you look at hitting only, he is well above league average those two seasons. his defense is atrocious. worst 1b in baseball IMO. but his bat the first 6.5 seasons was awesome.

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            9. sometimes the point gets lost. my initial point was that many scouts felt that howard’s bat wouldn’t succeed in MLB. that he played himself into a top prospect by crushing the ball. no one argues his defense is good nor his base running. and no one is suggesting that you ignore them. but including them has nothing to do with the point being debated.

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        3. Where did he rank for offense only? MVP until recently cared little about defense.
          On Howard, I would expect scouts would not have expected his outstanding peak but would be able to say they were right given his current performance, now that holes in his swing are being easily exploited.

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          2. During his peak (2006 – 2009) Howard had a 139 wRC+, 13th highest in MLB. He was 8th in batting WAR, 2nd in WPA, and 5th in WPA/LI.

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          3. As ramsey says, Howard was 13th in wRC+ in all of baseball during his four-year peak. He was also 10th in wOBA (.398) during that same period.

            Offensively speaking, Howard was not simply above average during his peak nor was he simply outstanding among first basemen. He was a genuine MLB superstar offensively.

            I would be tickled to death if Howard’s offense had continued at the same level, his base-running and defense at first base be damned.

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            1. Yes, we all would have been tickled. In the 2005-2009 time period, Howard was a dominant power hitter. He missed half of 2005, because the Phillies held him back, when he was clearly ready. He could have had an additional 20 HR in that 5 year period, had he started at 1B in Philly for all of 2005. The decline in 2010 and 2011 was pronounced, then the Achilles injury and he was a shadow of himself. The shift also killed him. I don’t really think we can expect that much from him going forward. Realistically, he is a platoon guy. If he plays just against RHP and puts up an .850, .825, ,800 OPS against them going forward, I really think that is all that we can reasonably expect.

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            1. Ahhh, get over it. Chase Utley didn’t win it, and he never had a year that he deserved to win the award.

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      3. I don’t see how you can complain about Howard’s ranking. He hit .304/.374/.514 in Clearwater as a 23 year old. He was a poor defensive 1B who couldn’t run. It was reasonable for BA to leave him off their top 100 at that point. The next season he went bananas and they moved him up to 27th. It’s not like they missed on him.

        In fact, BA comes out looking pretty good here. All of the current Phillies who had above average major league careers except Ruiz (very late bloomer) and Michael Young made the top 100: Hamels, Halladay, Lee, Utley, Howard, Rollins, and Papelbon. The rest of our roster is fringe major league guys at this point.

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        1. that is the point that i made to start this back and forth. some guys can play themselves into the rankings by killing it at higher levels. we are in agreement

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        2. This last paragraph was my point above, though I see it became a Ryan Howard debate, which, whatever.

          There are plenty of opportunities to ding prospect writers for “getting it wrong”–the current Phillies roster isn’t really one of them.

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    5. So my take on this is that there are two separate questions – the relative value of scouting, and what this data tells us about the value of relative value of scouting. On the first question, Steven below says (I’m paraphrasing), you have your opinion, I have mine, we’re not going to change each other’s minds. Which is fair enough, even if he IMO misstates the positions of the various people on this site in a way relevant to my second question. IMO we have, on the one hand, people rejecting scouting almost entirely, versus people weighing both roughly equally. Or maybe I’m misunderstanding Steven’s view, but that’s beside my (next) point.

      Which is what light this data casts on the argument. Two caveats – sample size and the acknowledgement that of course people are going to see this list through the frame of their own beliefs. Conformation bias. That’s what Steven says below, in different words, and he is right.

      But, trying hard to be objective as possible. Obviously, if there really was a group of people around here who though that the scouts always got it right, then this list would disprove that. But, given the reality of people who have a respect for scouting but realize that it isn’t, can’t be. perfect, I would say this list lends support to that point of view. In the vast majority of the cases, the scouts got it at least approximately right. The two biggest arguable “mistakes” were Utley and Ruf, though even there, Utlely was not ignored, and we still can’t say the extent of the scouts missing on Ruf until we see how their career plays out.

      But, of course Utley and Ruf are pretty extreme outliers. Which gets me back to my original point. If you want to beat up the straw man of the scouts always getting it right, go ahead and use those two guys (though Utlety of course, and Ruf but for 2012, are players where relying on stats would have also gotten it wrong. In Utley’s case, even more wrong.) But in the real world where we all admit that scouting isn’t perfect, those outliers tell us nothing.

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      1. Personally, I think that for the relative weight of scouting vs. stats changes a lot as a player progresses.

        A player in the low minors is almost all projection, and you have very limited data, which is fairly unreliable anyway, so you mostly go on scouting. As a player progresses, you begin to place more weight on their performance (with proper context). For instance, I am relatively high on guys like Watson, Walding, and Lino based mostly on projection, whereas I was relatively high on Ruf.

        Of course, you can never entirely disregard either scouting or stats. K% in the GCL can be quite informative (e.g. Tyler Greene, Anthony Hewitt), and there are guys who perform well in AAA but lack ML stuff (e.g. Tyler Cloyd).

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      2. It is also important to note that often people just put more weight on the information they have access to.

        For instance, my impression is that Matt places more weight on scout’s opinions relative to numbers than I do. But this might simply be a function of his having access to more scouts, whereas I have to make do with published statistics.

        Likewise, people who go to a lot of minor league games often form strong impressions of prospects based on seeing them in person.

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        1. Interesting points here – it’s hard for someone who catches a glimpse of an “unscouted” minor leaguer to form much of an opinion on them if they don’t see them regularly. It’s why I base a “sleeper” pick like Reading’s Edgar Duran almost entirely on stats. I also ask whoever I can for their opinion, (in his case, I asked Mitch Rupert and Jay Floyd for their opinions on him, knowing they’d seen him a lot in recent years), but whatever I heard from those two guys never resonated as much as what I saw in the stats for 2012 – a much improved OPS and some power for a guy at a good age for his league. The stats that made me think he a trend was developing, the stats that made me ask others for their opinions, had become the stats that made me believe he could become a good player, even despite only mild praise from people who had laid eyes on him on a regular basis.

          I hope that as I go along, the lessons learned from the Tyler Greenes and Edgar Durans of the world teach me to not rely as much on what I think I know, or what I think I can glean from a scouting report or a box score or a 10 game or one month or post-ASB sample, but rather to always look out for the next piece of information with which to more accurately form an opinion on a player.

          Now, let’s all get excited about 21-yr-old GCL second baseman Robinson Torres!!!!!!!

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      3. The other thing I would add to this debate – and I readily admit that it’s more suggestive than solid proof – is the evolution of the SABR movement.

        The stereotype of the SABR movement 15 years ago (and still now among people who are not aware of the changes in the movement) was of a bunch of stat geeks in mom’s basement who never watched a game and were opening disdainful of scouting wisdom. Now, that stereotype was never true, but 15 years ago there was a grain of truth to it, especially with regard to views of traditional scouting. But over the past 15 years, there has been a strong movement toward respect for traditional scouting among SABR types.

        So far I don’t think I’ve said anything remotely controversial. But two narratives can be created about that change. In narrative one, evidence-based SABR types are forced to lessen their relative reliance on stats as the value of traditional scouting (especially for kids in the low minors; see Ramsey’s point above) becomes apparent.

        Narrative two is the pristine truth of SABRmetrics being corrupted by traditional scouting beliefs.

        Now, I can’t prove either narrative true. But I believe that the former is true, and I simply don’t think that the latter narrative even makes sense. When people change their opinion in a direction that goes against their biases, there is usually a good reason.

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        1. I also note the continuing irony that the people stepping up to defend traditional scouting on this site are (by and large) people who tend to be SABR types.

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  5. thanks guys, really enjoyed the debate. I can see both points mostly agreeing against v1again. 1 major point i think is Howard was the face of the phillies and put them on the map for probably the greatest 5year run in my phillies lifetime. I know that doesnt show up in WAR and sabermetrics and cant be determined in value. That team would have never been the same with a player of similiar career averages like Howard’s are

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    1. Touche.
      The intangibles go a long way that cannot be measured by numbers and metric analysis alone. I equate intangibles to a 5 game play-off series where the best metric team does not always come out on top. The hot team with mometum seems to rise to the top on a number of occasions.

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    2. Was Howard actually the face of the Phillies though? You could make equally good arguments about Rollins and Utley being the face of the franchise.

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  6. Steve Golden with 3 hits today in the GCL game. He must have read he had no future the other day, and decided get going.

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    1. Yeah but he was thrown out stealing second after the first hit (by such a large margin that he didn’t even bother to slide) and was picked of second by the catcher after his second hit. Catcher was Pirates 1st round pick (#14), Reese McGuire.

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  7. OH? Where, pray tell, may he have read that?
    Sorry if that is what was read. Was it somebody here?
    He is still only 18….and hopefully he can remain uninjured and play. For some (unknown) reason, I’ve tried to follow any progress he would make, but he’s played in only a handful games in pro ball.

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  8. Jesse Biddle’s control is a huge red flag this year. He was pulled in the 4th inning tonight with the following line

    3IP, 1H, 1R, 1ER, 7BB, 4K. 63 pitches(29 strikes), 1 wild pitch.

    This was Biddles 3rd game in the last month with 6 or more walks issued.

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    1. I still say he is hurt. This is his 4th start where he didn’t get beyond the 3rd inning. Two of those he didn’t get out of the first and the final one he didn’t get out of the second. There is something wrong. Sometimes control is the first thing to vanish with an injury.

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      1. Sure hope you’re correct. We can remember that incredible pitching performance early this season when he struck out about 15 (?) batters. Soon thereafter he got some sort of virus or other medical problem that kept him out for several weeks. It seems to me that he never fully recovered and the medical issues weakened him to a point below his former healthy status.
        Thinking about it, it seems that the only “worthy” starting pitcher they’ve developed in their system for some time has been Hamels. What’s wrong with this picture?

        After they had developed the core of Rollins, Utley and Howard the idea was to find pitchers via trades or free agency. Is that the present plan? Will their #1 draft choice in ’14 be “the best college pitcher available”?

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        1. All to the point that the problem is medically fixable, and not some sort of pitcher’s disease like some have completely and unexpectedly completely lost the strike zone…most recently that lefty pitcher for the Cardinals several years back.

          So, with the offseason to regain health, Biddle could re-establish his primacy as our great pitching hope. Pray that it isn’t complete loss of control…

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            2. I watched the game online. He’s clearly rushing a good part of the time and not finishing his delivery. His velocity is fine and his curveball looks pretty good. Rushing and not finishing are matters the coaching staff should be able to address.

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  9. I dont know if its that there is no pressure to win ,but diekman looks a lot different, he really has good stuff. de fratus and rosenberg look more confident under sandberg or maybe its just that they are out of race and no pressure, or just my imaginationr

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    1. without question I think younger players look more comfortable with Sandberg.

      ** did clearwater really do that?? shutout in both games of double header.

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