Weekend (and one game against the Padres) Up!: The Jays beat the Diamondbacks, Manoah stumbles, prospect stuff, and more!
On the playoff race, Vlad, Gausman, Romero, Bassitt, the bullpen, Kikuchi, White, a Stroman rumour, Manoah misery, Arjun, Orelvis, Barriera, Layin' Down the Law, and more!
The Blue Jays continued their winning ways from before the All-Star break into the second half, sweeping the Arizona Diamondbacks over the weekend, and thwarting attempts by Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Gabriel Moreno to come back and haunt their former team in the process. They then went out and laid an egg on Tuesday night against the Padres.
Even so, things feel pretty good here at the moment. Before Tuesday’s loss, the Jays had gone 8-1 since that ugly sweep at the hands of the Boston Red Sox over the Canada Day long weekend. Meanwhile, maybe just as important vibes-wise, the Yankees and Rays are tumbling. The Yankees entered play on Tuesday at 5-9 here in July, and for the moment have slipped behind the Astros and Red Sox and out of the wild card picture, three games behind the Jays. The Rays, meanwhile, won their series in Kansas City over the weekend, but lost Sunday’s game, and again on Monday and Tuesday in Texas. Couple that with the seven-game losing streak they were on prior to the break and it’s a 3-10 month for them so far.
Heading into Tuesday the Rays were just 23-22 since May 25th, when they sat at 37-15 and on pace for 115 wins. Also heading into Tuesday, the Jays, at 27-16 over that same span, had been the best team in the American League by three games.
HASN'T ALWAYS FELT LIKE IT, HAS IT? Perhaps next year more folks will remember that teams don’t show us exactly who they are and will always be over the course of a couple of hot, or not-so-hot, months. But I’m not going to hold my breath on that.
Anyway, here's Weekend (plus one game against the Padres) Up!…
I’ll be honest here, friends. This site keeps the lights on for me, but it isn’t a cash cow. And I could live a lot more comfortably than I do right now if I was willing to put some of my work behind a paywall and push a bunch readers who are on the fence into becoming paid subscribers. But, the thing is, I know that times are tough for a lot of people and I really don’t want to become inaccessible to anyone. So, if you can afford it, and you value what I do and aren’t already a paid subscriber, I’d ask that you consider upgrading your free membership to a paid one. Thanks. — Stoeten
Up: Friday: Blue Jays 7 - Diamondbacks 2
The weekend didn't necessarily start out feeling as though the good, pre-break vibes would continue for this Blue Jays team. Stop me if you’ve heard this kind of thing before: in the opener against the Diamondbacks, the Jays picked up hits in every single inning, but by the start of the seventh had only managed to score two lonely runs.
I can’t turn up my nose too much about this, of course, as one of those runs came courtesy a big fly from Home Run Derby champion Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who hopefully can continue the uptick in power production we’ve seen from him over the last few weeks. As we all know, his first half left a lot to be desired, which we can see all too plainly in the chart of his home runs below, via Props.cash — player prop research made easy!
Anyway! It was in the top of the seventh when Moreno — who at 81 wRC+ actually came out of the weekend hitting better than Daulton Varsho (ugh: 78), the player he and Gurriel were traded for last winter — crushed a home run into the visiting bullpen, his third of the season, tying the game.
It would be much too simplistic to suggest that, were this a few weeks ago, the Jays might have folded at this point in the game, but the ingredients for a disastrous start to the weekend were prevalent enough that one could be forgiven for feeling those familiar frustrations. Particularly with closer Jordan Romano unavailable due to back tightness that flared up during the All-Star game, and staff ace Kevin Gausman, who opted to rest instead of taking part in last week’s festivities in Seattle, a day away from missing his first start of the second half.
Fortunately — slight emphasis on fortunate! — a Kevin Kiermaier double to lead off the bottom of the frame would come around to score on a Brandon Belt fielder’s choice/unturned double play, and the team would then manage to string a few hits together (plus an HBP and a throwing error), putting the game out of reach with a five-run inning.
(Clips via Sportsnet/MLB Film Room)
It was good! Vlad’s homer? Also good! Whit Merrifield? Still weirdly good despite not doing anything differently than the previous two years when he was not! José Berríos? Good enough, even if maybe a little inefficient and not quite as dominant as when he’s at his best — like in his start against the White Sox prior to the break.
A fine platform from which to begin a fine weekend, I suppose.
Saturday: Blue Jays 5 - Diamondbacks 2
Here on Tuesday we’ve learned that Kevin Gausman will throw a bullpen session this week, and that the Blue Jays are hopeful he’ll be able to return to his spot in the rotation when they travel to Seattle for their home series against the Mariners on the weekend. Back on Saturday morning, though, many Jays fans were surprised when the club’s best pitcher was a relatively late scratch from his scheduled start due to “left side discomfort.”
Gasuman was sent for an MRI, which came back clean, and remains considered day-to-day. The whole affair seems like an exercise in extreme caution for a pitcher who is on course for uncharted territory in terms of the number of innings he’s expected to throw this season, particularly if the Blue Jays can retain their good form and end up making a deep playoff run — a possibility that seems less absurd by the day, especially as the march of time starts to give us some perspective on what actually was so bad about this team in the first half.
As for the game, Chris Bassitt was called upon to take Gausman’s place and did an outstanding job — his only blemish coming in the form of two runs via a funky near-out at first base in the fourth inning.
(Clip via Sportsnet/MLB Film Room)
Bassitt gave the club six innings of seven-hit, no-walk ball — enough to get the win after the still-surprising Merrifield put the Jays ahead for good with a home run in the sixth (though only his sixth of the season, he's riding his best BABIP since 2019 to a 111 wRC+ currently), and the club added a couple of all-too-rare insurance runs in the eighth.
Bassitt has also done some pretty incredible things off the field lately, it should be noted. Here on Tuesday it was announced that a new program in support of Jays Care Foundation called Bassits Pitch In has been started by Chris and his wife Jessica. The Bassitts have "pledged to donate $10,000 (USD) each game the Blue Jays win when Chris pitches this season, retroactive to Opening Day," which will go toward Jays Care's R.B.I. Summer Edition Program, that "provides free afternoon baseball programming to complement and enhance the Toronto District School Board's half day summer school curriculum," particularly in under-resourced communities.
Cool move!
Also a cool move? (See what I just did there?) Manager John Schneider choosing, with the aforementioned Romano unavailable (though he likely would have been good to go here on Tuesday if needed), to Nate Pearson, Erik Swanson, and Yimi Garcia to close this one out. Pearson worked around a lead-off walk in large part because of an excellent pick-off. Swanson surrendered a lead-off single that he kept from scoring despite facing the most dangerous part of the D-Backs' lineup. And Garcia, who had more margin for error because of the insurance runs, continued a nice rebound of late by keeping Arizona off the board despite a pair of singles.
It was nice work from a relief corps. that has been pleasantly a non-issue for most of the season. Even the weirdly maligned All-Star closer has been a lot better than I think a lot of people realize.
Up: Sunday: Blue Jays 7 - Diamondbacks 5
And here we have the finale of the weekend set, which was not quite as close as the box score makes it look — at least not after Danny Jansen's bases-clearing double in the eighth put the Jays up 6-2 — yet did end up leaving us with more questions than answers on some fronts. Particularly, what to do about Yusei Kikuchi and Mitch White.
Kikuchi struggled to locate early in this one, cost himself runs with a throwing error and wild pitch, and ultimately lasted only 4 2/3 innings. It wasn't the kind of performance that ought to cost him his job, but with Hyun Jin Ryu getting closer to a return — he'll pitch for Buffalo on Friday with the hope being that he'll get to 80 pitches, which means it may be his final tune-up if all goes well — and the trade deadline approaching, there's certainly a chance that the Jays actually find themselves a little too deep in pitching in the near future, which could force Kikuchi into the bullpen. We're not there just yet, and obviously may never be. For one thing, on the trade front, it's not easy to see the team parting with the kinds of prospects required to play at the top of the pitching market, because they just don't have enough of those. But given the way that Manoah pitched on Tuesday, maybe they’ll feel forced to rethink that.
There is an argument to be made for them really going for it, given the dwindling amount of time that remains on the contracts for Vlad and Bo and the way that the team has been playing of late, so I wouldn't rule that out. But I tend to think that another reliever and some extra right-handed thump — provided Orelvis can’t provide that! — are the clearer priorities here.
Still, there was a rumour over the weekend about there interest in a reunion with pending free agent Marcus Stroman of the Cubs, and while I have my doubts about them going after him specifically — though I wouldn't necessarily rule out because, despite the hard feelings (to put it mildly) when he was traded back in 2019, my sense has always been that his departure was more about the front office not wanting to give him the kind of big-money extension that would have made him the focal point in a very young room, and less about not appreciating what he can bring to a team — I certainly don’t hate the idea.
Whatever happens, at the moment the possibility very much exists that Kikuchi will be looking at another role at some point — and, if so, it may well be the one currently occupied by White.
The only one of six Jays relievers to surrender a run on Sunday, White gave up three in the ninth, requiring Erik Swanson to come in and clean up his mess. That left him with a 7.43 ERA in 53 1/3 innings since joining the Jays last summer, which ballooned even more after another rough go on Tuesday. It’s been ugly (though, fortunately, Nick Frasso has an 8.31 ERA since the start of June, so we’ve had to hear less about that of late).
The Jays are certainly not quick to give up on struggling pitchers who they see clear value in, as has been the case with Trevor Richards, or in the many lives of Trent Thornton. Because of that I absolutely wouldn't rule out them finding a way to get White through the year on the roster and trying to get him some off-season fine-tuning and a fresh — and hopefully healthy — start next year, but the fact that he can’t be sent to the minor leagues without clearing waivers first is going to make doing so difficult.
Because of that, perhaps he's ends up a trade chip himself? A club with less of a roster crunch could certainly take him on more comfortable. But, of course, this mystery team would probably want to see some better performances first. (Personally, I’m about done watching him attempt to perform.)
Moving on!
Down: Tuesday: Blue Jays 1 - Padres 9
Alek Manoah can rightly feel a little bit aggrieved by how things turned out against the Padres on Tuesday. Home plate umpire Malachi Moore certainly made some pretty egregious mistakes throughout this one. In fairness, those calls went both ways, and against both teams, but none was bigger than the would-be strike three called a ball for Juan Soto on the sixth pitch of his first-inning at-bat against Manoah.
Three pitches later, Soto would smack a 93.5 mph fastball over the wall in left-centre, cashing in Fernando Tatis Jr. in the process, giving the Padres a 2-0 lead they ultimately wouldn’t relinquish.
An inning later, Tatis smacked a ball off of third base, which took an unfortunate bounce over Matt Chapman and ended up a double. Soto would then cash him on a double to right that looked like a play George Springer would normally make — or at least make closer than this! — and likely would have here if not for the fact that he seemed to lose it a little bit in the lights.
(Clip via MLB Film Room)
So, yes, Manoah was undeniably hard done by at times. And pitching coach Pete Walker certainly made sure we’d be talking about that by getting himself ejected by very clearly badmouthing the umpire during a mound visit in the second! (Alek would later say that he didn’t think anything Walker had said would have gotten someone kicked out of a 10-year-old’s game).
After the game, manager John Schneider did his best to lean into that notion and give credit to his pitcher for doing a better job than the line — four runs over just three innings on four hits and five walks — indicated. But, frankly, it was pretty hard to take seriously.
Manoah's velocity was down compared to his season averages. His spin rates were much closer to normal than those weird outliers he produced in Detroit. His slider's horizontal break was three inches less than average in this already below-average year for it. He threw just 43% of his pitches in the zone, compared to 56% in Detroit, and just 36% for the slider, down from 60%.
Yes, he threw more pitches than he should have had to in the first inning, but that was also because he simply couldn’t put anybody away. Manoah threw 23 two-strike pitches in that frame, and as you can see below, none of them was either a called or a swinging strike.
I think Joe Siddall had it right on Sportsnet’s broadcast when he noted that he wasn’t seeing those uncomfortable swings from Padres hitters that were such hallmarks of Manoah’s success last season.
It just… it wasn’t good. Manoah threw 92 pitches and came away with just six swinging strikes and nine called strikes, giving him a 16.3 CSW% for the evening. That is staggeringly low. Of 2,678 starting pitcher appearances of more than 50 pitches this season, just 21 have seen a pitcher induce a lower rate of called+swinging strikes than Manoah did in this one.
That’s just one stat, sure. And Manoah showed last season that he can find ways to succeed by limiting quality contact, meaning he doesn’t necessarily need big swing-and-miss totals. But his stuff has not been capable of doing that to anywhere near the same degree this year, and it certainly wasn’t against the Padres on Tuesday. This was just the second time in his entire career when he failed to register a single strikeout, and the other one was that game against the Astros right before he was sent all the way down to Single-A. I have to believe that it can and will be better, though after this I worry to what degree. And while I know the manager and the pitching coach are going to defend their guy, there’s no way to spin this one as good, or as progress, or as a game undone by luck or poor umpiring. It was bad. He was bad.
Quickly…
• I’ve given a few injury updates above, but also worth noting is that Chad Green is set to make his season debut in a rehab outing for Single-A Dunedin in the Florida State League on Saturday. Green, of course, is another arm that could make life complicated if the Jays are hellbent on keeping White in the organization, and it might not take a ton of time for him to get built back up if all goes well, and he could certainly be a huge addition to the bullpen if he returns looking anything like the guy he’s been throughout his career. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves just a little bit at this point.
• It was a few days ago, but I think it's still worth noting that the Jays' schedule for the 2024 season has very recently been released, and somehow they've managed to be given an even more difficult road trip to start the season than in 2023. Because of the infield renovations that will be taking place at Rogers Centre over the winter, starting on the road is obviously a necessity, but the schedule-makers sure could have been kinder: they'll start with four at the Trop, followed by three in Houston, then (after an off-day) three in the Bronx. Oof.
• Other schedule highlights include the home opener against Seattle on Monday, April 8th; four against the Yankees over the last weekend of June, with the first of four against the Astros coming on Canada Day, Monday, July 1; unlike this season, the Jays won't see a ton of the AL East in September, with just six games that month being against divisional opponents.
• I think Ben’s got this one right:
Layin’ Down the Law…
Lastly, a bit of a throwback. The draft took place last week, while the baseball world was gathered in Seattle for the All-Star game, and already we’ve been seeing players signing for their various new organizations and getting a head start on the long road ahead. Among these have been several new Jays prospects, including first rounder, and 20th overall pick, Arjun Nimmala. Somewhat surprisingly, given both how much higher than 20th he was on most draft boards, and the rumours about how high his bonus demands were, it was announced on Monday that Nimmala has signed for $3 million — well below the slot value of the 20th pick.
To answer the question of why Nimmala slipped, and offer thoughts on several other Jays draftees, plus last year’s class, and the newly Triple-A-bound Orelvis Martinez, the Athletic’s Keith Law joined my pal Blake Murphy on Tuesday’s edition of Sportsnet 590’s Jays Talk Plus. Here are some highlights!
On Arjun Nimmala…
The Jays can feel excited that they managed to land a player with their first pick in this year’s draft who was projected to be long off the board by the time their pick came around, but it is somewhat curious that he fell. Klaw offered some answers:
I don't know exactly why he slipped that far. I do know that there was a lot of talk leading up to the draft that he was sliding. That whatever his asking price was, in terms of a signing bonus — and whether this was the actual asking price or just the perception of his signability — was high enough that some teams were backing off.
He may have been originally asking for a top 10 bonus, and teams decided they would rather not go that direction. He ended up taking under slot at pick 20, so maybe that's not true — that's not what he was asking for — I don't know for sure. I just know that there was a lot of chatter that he was one of a couple of names who were pretty clearly sliding as we were getting close to the draft.
The first thing that Jays fans will be thinking about here is likely the way the club landed Bo Bichette back in 2016. Bo was a high school player from the Tampa area, near the Jays’ home base in Dunedin and, as the story goes, chose the Blue Jays as much as they chose him. In reality, that’s not quite accurate. Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet would write in 2017 that Bo initially turned the Jays down when they called to select him, as he’d done with four other organizations on draft night, and expected that he’d simply end up going to play at Arizona State. It was only when the Jays upped their offer from $978K to $1.1 million that he accepted.
Still, Bo stated then that he didn’t want to be selected by an organization that was going to try to force him to change his swing — something the Jays were clear they would not. His commitment to ASU gave him the leverage to turn teams down until he found a situation that was favourable to him.
Like Bo, Nimmala is from the Tampa area, meaning the Jays’ state-of-the-art player development complex in Dunedin is very close to home. The fact that, at 17, he’s an especially young prospect could potentially make closeness to home a bigger-than-usual factor. Plus, KLaw tweeted on Monday that it “seemed” like Nimmala “left a lot of money on the table” to sign with the Jays.
Did he scare teams off with big bonus demands until he found the place he wanted to be? It’s certainly nicer to think so than to believe that he slid for any kind of negative reason. But for now we have no idea.
The reverse of this is kind of interesting, too. When writing about his selection post-draft, Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi explained that Nimmala’s proximity to the Jays’ base in Dunedin “meant the team’s scouts could gather a deep volume of looks at his at-bats.”
Keith went on to describe some of Nimmala’s most notable attributes.
He is a 17-year-old shortstop, don't think he'll turn 18 until October. He already shows pretty impressive power for someone his age, with a body that's going to allow him to put on quite a bit of strength as he gets older. And I think he's going to hit for power and for some average. There's been some swing-and-miss — I'm willing to tolerate a little bit more of that in a 17-year-old.
For me, he's a shortstop. We'll see how big he gets when he's 23, 24, but I like his actions, I like his hands. He's got a great arm. Right now it's a shortstop's body. And if he doesn't outgrow the position — I think he'll stay there and actually be a reasonably good one — at worst he ends up at third base. You're hoping for a power-hitting third baseman. It's all going to come down to the bat. What kind of contact, how much contact — especially — is he making as he gets older. But the fact that he's only 17 also does add that extra year of development time.
Nimmala’s youth is certainly an interesting element here, and being able to get him access to the club’s player development apparatus so young is a plus. It’s just one that means, even more than usual, that fans are going to have to remain patient on this one.
On the rest of the draft…
Getting Nimmala signed for less than slot obviously means that the Jays ended up with extra bonus pool money to play with later on in the draft, which led to some talk about how that would have played out in the draft room — and the player they essentially used it on, fourth-rounder Landen Maroudis, a high school RHP who signed for almost $1 million above slot.
I'm assuming the Blue Jays valued [Nimmala] as more than the 20th-best prospect in the draft. So, one, I'm sure they were ecstatic when it seemed like he might be available, because of the way that the draft board was shaping up. And two, when you realize you're going to get a player that you do like at a number that's under slot, you can start to think about what player or players you might want to take in later rounds. For the Blue Jays that was waiting until day two, because they didn't have a second-round pick.
What player or players you might target to go over slot? Because this was such a strong college draft, especially in college position players, there was quite a bit of high school talent available to teams even as we entered day two — even after about 70 players were off the board already, there was still quite a bit of talent to spend money on. And when you have about three-quarters of a million dollars to potentially go over slot for later players, that gives you a lot of flexibility, and you can essentially start shopping. You can talk to agents, and/or players and say, "If we offer you $750,000 over slot at our next pick, does that get it done? Is that enough to entice you to sign rather than, say, going to college?"
Maroudis, however, didn’t move the needle a ton for Law.
He wasn't the guy that I would have picked, necessarily. But, that said, he is a projectionable high school right-hander. First of all, there's a lot in the eye of the beholder. And, second, a lot of those guys — you get a high school pitcher with a lot of projection, and keep him healthy — a lot of those guys just tend to surprise. He was outside of my top 100, but that's not to say that he's a bad prospect, for example. He maybe isn't exactly the name I would have picked at that spot. Also, bear in mind, I don't know everyone's signability. There may be prospects — I'll say "I would taken so-and-so instead," turns out he wanted $6 million, so that's not really very realistic.
My concern with Maroudis is his curveball right now is below average. He might have to switch to a slider. We don't really see a lot of evidence that he can spin the ball right now — which isn't to say that he never will be able to, but you'd like to see a little bit more in a high school projection guy. I think there were some others on the board who I did like more. But I will be very curious to see what he looks like, say, next spring. Once the Blue Jays get into him — get to work with him a little bit this summer — I assume he'll do some work in instructs, maybe over the winter — let's see next spring how hard he's throwing, what the breaking ball looks like, maybe even if they change the delivery a little bit, because he did have one of the shortest arm actions I saw on anybody in the draft class.
Keith did feel better about what the Jays did with some of their later picks — particularly in the sixth and seventh round.
They had some college guys who were just really good picks for those spots. Jace Bohrofen, I actually had somebody text me, "What the heck happened to him? How did he end up in the sixth round?" And actually don't have a good answer for that, because it seemed like he had a solid spring. And he ended up signing for slot in the sixth round, too, which I thought was — he's an outfielder from the University of Arkansas and he can really hit a fastball, and there's quite a bit of power there — if the Blue Jays can work with him on better picking up pitch types, which is not an easy thing, but there's a chance for an above average regular there. And I thought he was going to go probably in the third round, maybe a little bit higher because college position players with any kind of performance do tend to get run up the board a little bit.
And then they took Nick Goodwin out of Kansas State in the seventh round — another guy who I thought was probably more of a fourth rounder-ish, give or take. And, again, a guy who I thought was going to go a lot higher, and I think the industry thought he was going to go a lot higher. A decent amount of it was that — he actually was OK on the Cape a year ago, which generally is thing that can help a college hitter quite a bit, because they're using wood bats there. I don't think he's necessarily a regular, I think he's probably — because he's never hit. That's the one thing, even though he's got pretty good bat speed and he seems to have an idea of the strike zone, and it's not weak contact necessarily, but he's just never hit for high average anywhere. In one year you say, "Well, that might be bad luck." In three years you say, "OK something's definitely up here."
To take that guy, with that profile, in the seventh round, I'd do that all day long, and I think that ended up helping the fact that they didn't have that second-round pick. They took two guys in the sixth and seventh round who were also much better than their position in the draft, in terms of how I think the industry perceived them, and certainly how I perceived them, and I think that elevates the draft class to one that's probably more middle of the pack — which is hard to do, because they had fewer picks than most teams.
I’ll take that!
On last year’s class…
From a draft class that is currently trending up to one that’s trending a bit down. Law talked about the high-profile players that the Jays brought into their system last season, and how things aren’t going especially well with them this year — starting with 2022 top pick Brandon Barriera, who Law caused a bit of a stir over in recent weeks, reporting that the Jays weren’t thrilled with his weight when he came to camp in the spring.
They invested so heavily in him. He got a higher bonus, about $600,000 higher than Nimmala got this year, and he was picked actually three slots later. I think he was over slot. And him showing up "heavy" this year, and not the good way? Yeah, that's pretty concerning, especially for a 19-year-old. You'd really like to see the conditioning — you know, conditioning can become a problem for guys, certainly later in their career — you don't like to see that happening to guys quite so early in their careers. So that does colour it.
It hasn't been a world-beating first pro season for Barriera, as he's only just managed to throw 15 1/3 innings due to injury, but that added context makes it all seem quite a bit worse, huh?
He continued…
Tucker Toman, who was there other kind of big over-slot guy — he was their third overall pick, right after the second round — has not gotten off to a great start. I'm not overly concerned, but he's punching out quite a bit more than I would have hoped to have seen just in his first year of pro ball. You try to bear in mind with a lot of these high school hitters now — in the past they might have gone to short season — short season doesn't exist anymore — like maybe that would have been the better spot for him.
That's come up with Elijah Green, who was the fifth overall pick last year and has punched out well over 100 times, I think, already, in Low-A as a 19-year-old. Those are guys who wouldn't be in Low-A, they wouldn't be in full season ball, they'd be in short season, so I do think we have to adjust our expectations a little bit and maybe give them a little bit more slack before saying, "Oh, there might be a real concern here."
Toman will play the entire season as a 19-year-old, as his birthday isn’t until Novemeber, so that’s something. But his strikeout rate in Dunedin currently sits at 28.5%, and he’s slashing just .225/.336/.350 for the season so far. Not great.
Cade Doughty, who was taken one pick after Toman in what MLB calls round 2C, does not have nearly the same advantage of youth — and is also struggling.
For Cade Doughty to be 22, with [major NCAA] experience, in High-A, and striking out 30% of the time, and not even hitting for a ton of power? That's pretty concerning to me, actually. Not giving up on the guy entirely, but that is absolutely below what I would have expected for a guy who played at LSU. They just won the national championship, they play in the SEC, they face the best pitching. High-A really shouldn't have been this much of a problem for him, and it is a concern. He's far from the only high draft pick out of college last year who has gone on to struggle in High-A this year, but I don't love to see it, and that strikeout rate really needs to come down in the second half.
You take a guy like that out of an LSU, you're hoping he starts the year in High-A, and by this point in the year you're talking about promoting him to Double-A. They won't all get there, but you're hoping that's the track that player is on.
Also not great!
And then there’s John Kasevich…
Kasevich has been pretty much what I would have expected him to be, but he was the lowest side of those four guys. There's a high-contact, low-power guy with a good chance to stay at shortstop. If he ever developed more power he'd be a very different player, but that was not that likely. Doughty is the one I'm more concerned about. I would say, yeah, their draft was basically about those big four picks, and none of them is off to a great start — and only one of them, I'd say, is off to a start is in line with expectations.
A lack of power is an understatement for Kasevich, as his ISO for Vancouver so far is just .046, as just seven of his 57 hits so far have gone for extra bases.
On Orelvis Martinez…
Lastly we have the former prospect who appears to be a prospect once again. Orelvis Martinez largely dropped off the prospecting map last season as he struggled to a .203/.286/.446 slash line, with a 28.5% strikeout rate, for Double-A New Hampshire. He also was awful out of the gate in this campaign, slashing .089/.169/.266 through his first 90 plate appearances. But since he's rebounded in a big way — and, in fact, here on Tuesday made his Triple-A debut, and smashed a home run for Buffalo in his second at-bat.
(Clip via MiLB/Twitter)
Keith could probably have been kinder with his arbitrary endpoint — it's not just over the last month, but since May 10th that Orelvis has been much better, slashing .294/.416/.594 since then — but nevertheless provided some good perspective on the situation here…
Yeah, his last month or so has been quite a bit better, although he did punch out six times total in his last two starts, so that's obviously less than ideal. But the last 30-odd games, just since June 1st, he's got a .424 on-base, he's walked almost as much as he's struck out, he's only struck out about 1/5th of the time in that period. And he's young. I feel like we talked about this at the end of last year — toward the end of last year — and said, this guy was really young to be in Double-A — to be starting the year in Double-A.
He's 21 this entire season. He won't turn 22 until November, right? We're talking about a 22-year-old kid, Doughty, who is struggling in High-A. So, yes, Orelvis is repeating the level. That is a concern. That is a factor to take into account when trying to evaluate the performance. That said, he's also doing exactly what you need to do when you repeat the level. He's showing substantial improvement in some of the most fundamental ways, like improving the contact rate and improving his walk rate. And I believe in the underlying batted ball stats that that all checks out.
We'll see what happens when they bump him to Triple-A, which I'm sure they will before the season is out. But this is good to see, because we always knew he had the power, it's just, is he going to hit enough for the power to play? And the last month or so should have at least changed the evaluation of him a little bit to say, "Oh, maybe it's still there. Maybe he was just young, pushed too quickly to Double-A last year, and we need to be patient."
Baseball America believes, too. He’s moved up from 99th and almost off of their pre-season top 100 prospects list, and now sits at number 68 on their just-released post-draft top 100. Progress!
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7-1, 9-1, whatever
Couple of thoughts:
1. It’s been a very strange season for us.
2. Maybe this Front Office is not good at drafting.
3. Give Merrifield some love.