34 thoughts on “Clearwater Threshers Recap – 8/16/2018”

1. Parkinson just keeps putting up zeroes, he’s had an amazing season.
   Lots of wins last night, always great to see.
   Duran has really put together a good 2nd half with his 16th homer. He had none last year! He won’t catch Grullon though.

   1. Went to Lakewood last night and I’m officially on the Rondolpho Duran bandwagon. I really wanted to see him behind the plate. 4 quality ab’s. 5th one, just missed a pitch in the bottom of the 9th, mile high pop up in the infield. Very quiet load with little or no movement and the bat head explodes through the hitting zone. Bat speed reminds me of Nick Williams and the first time I saw him at Reading.
      1. Hard line drive right at the CF.
      2. Bomb up onto the lawn seats in LF
      3. Hit a rocket down the LF line that kicked up chalk. Ump called it foul. K on the next pitch.
      4. Line drive missile between 3rd n SS.
      He’s really aggressive n looking to attack. Another young catcher to the stable
      I’m also a Nick Maton fan now. Not sure how far he’ll go, but he’s everything Johnny A has talked about, a baseball player.

   2. You sure about that Murray? More yard work tonight from Duran

2. I think that it is ok to talk about Ranger Suarez on this thread because he pitched last night and is still a prospect.

   Watching him was both depressing and enlightening. It was depressing not because he was shelled. It was depressing to me because his stuff looked awful. Doesn’t look like a major league caliber pitcher to me. Sat around 90. No movement on fastball. Breaking stuff looked very mundane.

   It was enlightening because it was yet another example of how big of a jump it is from AAA to the majors. Here is a guy who had a great era in both AA and AAA this year. But mediocre K rates. He goes up to the show and gets lit up. Even the outs were hard hit. What is also enlightening is that his k rates in low A and A+ were good. 9+. That is probably why he had so much hype. Top 10 prospect.

   IMO he is a AAAA pitcher.

   1. I need to go back and watch the game, but you are entirely right – the jump from AAA to the majors is huge for hitters and pitchers.

      I think you can survive and even thrive as a pitcher in AAA if your stuff is average-ish and you can throw breaking balls for strikes. In the majors, the good hitters will hit or foul off okay breaking pitches and will nail mediocre stuff that is thrown in the zone without excellent command. That’s why you need to know not just about how the player has performed but his stuff. Is it the type of stuff that can get out big league hitters even when they are looking for the pitch? Also, you need to know if the player can command his pitches. Obviously, the better the stuff, the less command is an issue.

      With hitters, the jump can be equally difficult. Some guys can do well in AAA laying off a lot of breaking pitches and hitting balls left in the middle of the plate. You can have a hole in your swing and pretty much get away with it in AAA. In the majors, if you have a weakness in your hitting game, advance scouts will discover it and pitchers will exploit that weakness again and again until the hitter makes an adjustment. If you have trouble hitting quality breaking pitches low and away, you’ll get a steady diet of those until you show you can hit it in the zone or lay off when it’s out of the zone. Likewise, if you can’t hit a good FB at the letters – that’s pretty much all you’ll see and major league pitchers usually hit their spots consistently. Also, if you chase borderline pitches, you’ll see those until you adjust. It sure as heck isn’t easy hitting in the big leagues and it’s a very large jump indeed from AAA.

   2. Didn’t see his start yesterday but I did see his debut. To me it looked like major league stuff but not impressive stuff. Fifth starter stuff, assuming good command. I thought his slider needed some work and with improvement there I could see a number 4. Which is pretty much what was expected.

      1. By the way, not to depress everyone further, but I saw a JoJo Romero start in Reading a month or so ago and his FB sat 87-90 all game, touching 93 and 94 for just one inning (in the middle of the game oddly enough). I don’t know if he was working on things and intentionally not trying to throw hard or just had an off day, but it seriously altered my view of him as a prospect until I see proof that he can throw harder.

         1. I basically saw the same thing, except he hit 96-97 in the fourth inning. Other than that he was 87-90 the entire time. I didn’t know what to make of it either

            1. You probably saw one of the last games before he went on the DL in mid-July.
               Last game was vs Bowie. Perhaps he tweaked something.

            2. Romero was placed on the DL on July 20 due to a sprained oblique,
               There goes your answer what was going on with his velo.
               Obliques take a long while to heal..

               1. My look was in May so the question remains

               2. Thanks – I must have lost track of the fact that he went on the DL – but, by the way, this is another reason you can’t put too much stock in one time observations. Apparently, one of the scouting services sort of roasted Adam Haseley for a bad game that he had. But I’ve watched Haseley a lot and I think he’s just trying to put it all together now – marrying the hit tool with attempts for power. He needs time – he’s just a year out of college.

   3. Each year I watch/follow minor league pitching the more premium I put on strike outs. It’s almost the only thing I look at now for SP just as look as they aren’t getting lit up in process.

      1. I have been saying that on this blog for years. Strike outs are by far the biggest indicator of future success. Then followed by low walk rates. Then followed by ground ball rates. If you have all three of those, the rest takes care of itself.

3. Dalton Guthrie is coming on a little bit. I liked him where we drafted him kind of a poor mans Dansby Swanson.

   https://www.perfectgame.org/Players/Playerprofile.aspx?ID=275645

4. Kind of a random thought, but while watching the latter innings of yesterday’s atrocity of a first game, and thinking about general trend toward position players pitching in baseball this year, I wondered: how long before teams start trying to develop two-way utility players? Maybe the position-player-pitcher thing will just be a fad, or maybe it will become a standard part of the playbook, like the infield shift. But I was thinking back to guys like Anthony Gose and Joe Savery, and wondering if maybe they could have found a role in today’s game, basically serving as both a last bat off the bench and an emergency mop-up man. I wonder if maybe you’ll start to see some guys like Savery, who played both ways in college, doing it in the minors once it becomes clear that’s the only way they’ll find a role in the majors, in the same way that a failed starter might get moved to the bullpen.

   1. it’s already hard to develop as an everyday MLB player so a two-way type will be harder to do. it will be nice, but it might do harm than good in the long run since players cannot concentrate on the best skills that they can do. there will be some exceptions to the rule, but they will be the exception not the rule.

      1. True, but I do wonder if in certain situations–like Savery’s a few years ago–the two-way approach might offer a last-chance route to having a major league career. It might be the sort of thing where it would make sense for teams, if they have a pitcher who used to be a two-way player, to use them occasionally as DH, a la Otani, just to see how they do. Or on the other hand, if you’ve got an outfielder who used to be a pitcher, like Gose, maybe it would make sense to have them throw in the bullpen every once in a while. If the team feels like it’s detracting from their development they can always put an end to the experiment.

         1. Rays are trying it with Brendan McKay.
            He has started 15 games and batted 225 PAs so far this season.
            Will see what happens when he gets double AA and above.

            1. Interesting, I did not know that. No surprise that the Rays are at the forefront, given their willingness to try anything.

               1. I guess when you are in a division with the high-spenders like the Yankees and Red Sox…you will try anything to gain an advantage.

         2. The question becomes is that player good enough at both spots to justify not carrying two players, one who’s a better hitter and one who’s a better pitcher.

            Ohtani is the best test case for that although he’s not pitching right now.

5. Much has been said about the GCL prospects both hitting and pitching. There one’s prospect that I think nobody mentioned yet —- CF Yerwin Trejo. Trejo is already 21 yo, so probably old for ROK league, but in 568 AB, his slash is 0.271/0.377/0.339 with 83:81 BB:K ratio and 63 SBs — profile of a very good lead off hitter.

   Trejo needs to be challenged in higher level so we can see if he is legit prospect to watch.

6. DSL Phillies White “No-Hit” the DSL Rangers but lost 2-3. DSL Phillies White throw 8BBs with 2 Errors that gave the 3 runs.

7. As if we haven’t had great opportunity discuss enough catching talent on this site, there is one that doesn’t get mention … Abrahan Gutierrez. He was one of the Braves bigger signings ($3.5 million) that was set free. The Phillies signed him for 550k.

   He is a solid built 6’2″ 214 lbs. His performance this year has been solid (.322/.376/.404). His strikeout rate (158 plate appearances) is under 10%. Doesn’t walk a lot, though he had 2 today to bring season total to 9 (vs 15k).

   It’s impressive the catching potential in this organization

   Off the top of my head, these are the guys discussed … sure I’m missing someone.

   Grullon
   Duran
   Marchan
   O’Hoppe

   Another with solid performance in the GCL, Juan Aparicio (.368/.406/.579) in only 95 ABs – he received a 475k bonus and turned 18 in May.

   1. Abrahan Gutierrez. …has been mentioned before, especially in June after the GCL started up, and he got off to a robust start.
      He has all the tools…..except he is a slow runner.

8. KLaw saw Hasely in person and was not impressed

   5 ABs, 7 swings and misses, 6 on fastballs. 3 balls in play, 2 weak contact
   was behind average fastballs all night

   Says he is swinging entirely with his hands, not using lower half at all

   I’ve never seen Hasely personally, just reporting what was written!

   1. Keith Law is no better than you or I would be if we sat around at minor league parks (or just watched them on TV) and made predictions about minor leaguers. Why anyone cares what he thinks is beyond me.

9. More from KLaw … think it’s a bit premature to make this statement …

   Brian: Is there a major league future for Mickey Moniak?

   Keith Law: I don’t see much of one right now.

   1. He is not the Pope of Baseball…..far from infallible.
      https://philly.sbnation.com/2010/6/29/1543362/espn-domonic-brown-is-the-1

   2. Well he hedged it by adding “right now” as a qualifier so he has reserved the right to change his mind later…

10. Eric Longenhagen on Adonis Medina’s last performance:
    “This is the best single-game line Adonis Medina has posted this year. His home/road splits are pretty disparate, and I spoke with a source recently who thinks Medina has trouble bouncing back from longer outings. But when his stuff his crisp he has three plus pitches — a fastball in the 92-96 range with tail, a plus slider, and plus, power changeup — and generates that kind of stuff with effortless grace. His fastball command is below average and one could argue Medina would benefit from a longer, more direct stride to the plate given his modest size (a longer stride means better extension) and plus athleticism (which means he could probably maintain such a stride), but his performance to this point has been excellent (112 Ks against 31 walks in 98 innings) and hard to quibble with.”

11. Regarding Keith Law, you guys are both right and wrong.

    You’re right that he is not infallible. He makes a fairly sizable number of misjudgments on prospects. However, you’re wrong that he’s not better at this than we are. Not only does he have more practice, he has way more information than we do (he talks to area/local scouts about prospects he doesn’t see regularly, for example). His opinion on prospects is worth WAY more than ours is.

    You don’t have to put too much stock into what he sees in a single night, but it’s also kind of foolish to completely discount anything he says that doesn’t agree with your own opinion.

    By the way, if you’re using Dom Brown as an example that he’s not great at evaluating prospects, then literally everybody in baseball at the time is also bad. He was the consensus number 1 prospect.

    All that said, I find I like Longenhagen the best of the “vocal” scouts.

    1. I will give him credit…he will admit oversights he may have made, i e Paul Goldey for one.
       And on almost all prospect projected listings….he will have that one head scratching ranking of a prospect…either rated abnormally higher, or abnormally lower, than all the rest of the nationals had that prospect rated.
       That is his way of not following the crowd I assume

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