James Gillheeney and Chris Sorce. Both are battling it out in the California League, which makes their numbers so far just that much more impressive. Both have had 6 starts with High Desert, and they are 1 and 2 on the team with WHIP's of 1.13 (Gillheeney) and 1.16 (Sorce).
Gillheeney may prove to be the more impressive of the two in the long-run. So far in 30.0 IP he has struckout 38 while walking just 8. Amazingly, he has been much better at home than on the road (but the small sample size caveat probably applies). Gillheeney leans just a touch to the "groundballer" side of things.
Sorce doesn't strikeout near as many batters, but he is decidedly a groundball pitcher, and he tends to get deeper into games than Gillheeney.
I really like these two!
Lonnie
==Back on the Radar==
Carlos Triunfel -- Left in Nick Franklin's dust by pretty much everyone, here comes Triunfel -- still only 21 -- showing the bat that we'd always hoped for and playing SS everyday. Only Rich Poythress and Kyle Seager have more doubles in the org and he added his 3rd dinger last night (13 XBH in 27 G). He'll never walk a ton, but he keeps his K rate in the teens. He has 7 errors at short, but reports are that he is not showing the laziness on routine plays that concerned folks in the past.
Offensive line: .292/.330/.481, or an OPS about 300 points higher than Brendan Ryan's.
Josh Lueke -- Don't know what his velocity is, but he's at least stopped the free fall. Allowed only 7 baserunners in 8.2 AAA innings and 1 ER. With bad news for Aardsma today (http://mynorthwest.com/?nid=374&sid=478611), and bad news for Shawn Kelley yesterday (http://mynorthwest.com/?nid=374&sid=477257), Lueke could get another shot at being the bullpen cog we were thinking he could be.
==Hoping to Find Some Radar, Any Radar (Other than the great commenter whose sons played wiffle ball with him)==
Scott Patterson is 31 and scratched and clawed his way up from West Virginia State through the independent leagues and finally got a shot at the majors in 2008 -- and muffed it (though he struck out 7 of the 22 batters he faced).
Scuffled around some more, ended up back in the indy leagues before signing with Tacoma last year. This year, he got shipped down to AA to make room for Manny Delcarmen and the other non-roster invitees.
That shipped down to AA thing sound familiar? That's what happend to Mike Wilson last year, and his Cinderella story turned out OK.
Patterson is 6-foot-7 and comes over the top with a fastball that "looks like it's coming out of the sky." And this year he has walked precisely no one. As in: K/BB ratio of infinity.
2011 line: 18.1 IP, 13 H (his only baserunners), 4 ER, 1 HR, 0 BB, 20 K -- 6.4 H/9, 0.5 HR/9, 0.0 BB/9, 9.8 K/9
Patterson and Lueke have the only WHIP ratios under 1.0 in the org.
The wiffle ball battle cry continues: Remove Ray, Promote Patterson!
== Appearing on the Radar ==
Brandon Maurer was drafted at the tender age of 17 out of California, so even though he's only 20, he's in his fourth professional season. Not clear why, but he only pitched 15 innings last year, but they were good ones (struck out 20, walked just 2). He got a spot in Clinton's rotation this year -- where he's been joined by James Paxton and Taijuan Walker, and, apparently soon, will be joined by Jose Vicente Campos. That's a heckuva a collection of arms, right there. Maurer is showing he might belong with them. He had two wobbly starts, but the other four have been brilliant, and on May 7 he fanned 11 in 6.0 IP. Don't know much more about him, but he's 6-5, 200 and has been projected as a potential #3 starter.
2011 line: 30.0 IP, 20 H, 10 ER (3.00 ERA), 1 HR, 12 BB, 36 K -- 6.0 H/9, 0.3 HR/9, 3.6 BB/9, 10.8 K/9
Jabari Blash -- just for the name alone, how can you not follow him and hope for a "Blash Splash"? Anyway, 8th-round pick and a big dude at 6-4, 195 (apparently slimmed down from 210 when he was drafted). Numbers don't look too hot, until you realize (1) he already has more walks in 14 G than he did in 32 G all last season (at Pulaski); and (2) his BABIP is .222. In other words, he has a .418 OBP with a .222 BABIP. That's because he has 16 BB in his first 55 plate appearances. Last year's eye ratio was 0.29 (13 BB:44 K); this year it's completely reversed to 1.6 (16 BB:10 K). That's just freaky. He also has a double and a homer, and last year he had an .839 OPS despite the ugly K rate. Supposedly he was considered 3rd-round talent, but dropped to the 8th due to disciplinary questions. If he's in shape, maintains his improved eye (doesn't have to be freaky) and his luck turns, he could be interesting.
== Signal Fading a Bit ==
"I served with Nick Franklin. Nick Franklin was a friend of mine. Marcus Littlewood, you're no Nick Franklin." Ah, semi-obscure political references for us oldsters. Anyway, Franklin made a huge splash in the Midwest League at 19. Started red-hot in April and just kept going. The org tried to go 2-for-2 with teen shortstops, but no such luck. Littlewood didn't catch any breaks (BABIP of .194), but wasn't showing much either, and got pulled from Clinton and presumably will hit the reset button at Everett. Same thing they did with Steven Baron in his age-19 season.
The High Desert-to-AA jump is the trickiest one, as we know, and you're never sure who's going to survive it. So far, Poythress and Seager are doing all right, but the third major prospect making that jump -- Johermyn Chavez -- is struggling. His eye ratio has slipped back to where it was when he was a middling prospect in the Blue Jay org (0.18, after getting up to a respectable 0.4 last year). He hasn't been unlucky (.352 BABIP), he's just been striking out 32% of the time without showing nearly enough power or patience to make up for it. Hope he can pull out of it, but he may have been a missed opportunity to "sell high" coming off a High Desert season (see Liddi, Alex).
Comments
In his last 11 games, he's batted .333/.467/.667 with 3 doubles 3 home runs and 9 walks to only 4 strike outs, it makes his previous line of .127/.213/.164 with 6 walks to 19 strike outs a bit confusing. It's hard to say if he's figured it out or if he's just on an incredible tear.
Nice to come to my own site for 10 credits worth of M's Minors Hot List 121, 122 and get educated on the whole deal-io...
Spec you da man fo sho...
.........
It *is* interesting to muse on Blast's reversal from 0.29 to 1-and-plenty EYE. Going to watch that.
Poythress' adaptation to high-minors ball has been interesting. He's kept a great eye while treading cautiously about the power swing. Like the headiness that shows.
.
Triunfel warming up with the bat is one of my favorite things to see. He's my #1 piece of desired trade bait. I want to see what I can get for the former top hitting prospect in the org at a glove position who is "now finally healthy and with good attitude."
Because I don't want Triunfel. I've heard enough horror stories about his attitude, and suffered enough with Jose Lopez and his fear of walking.
Seager (2B/3B), Poythress (1B/LF) and especially Triunfel (SS/2B) are all upping their trade value. Us promoting Peguero (LF) a couple of times might help his too. Danny Carroll (CF) probably won't have enough trade value yet but his ridiculous start to the season has been great too. Now if only he can cut down on the Ks...
We don't have a lot of arms that are helping their cases, especially starters, but we're scraping together some trade bait even as many of our players struggle in the minors (Franklin's last 10 games...ouch. And he's missed a few games nicked up with injuries already on 2 different occasions. Tenbrink's swing changes? Disastrous).
We still have a lot of work to do overhauling this team, so every piece we're not gonna use on the big club but still has value needs to be leveraged.
Blash, btw, is one of my eagerly anticipated bats. For a US college bat he's very raw, with a ton of potential. I'm glad to see his batting eye starting out so well. We'll see how he does over the season, but I'm really glad to see it.
When Everett's season starts and Choi shows up as their catcher (fingers-crossed) that'll be another bat working his way up. Though not one I want to trade!
~G
I hadn't realized until your comment how much Poythress, Seager and Triunfel line up with Smoak, Ackley and Franklin. The three latter will always have the inside track, but the better the three former perform, the better trade bait they become. Good point.
Obviously, I think, the biggest need is an outfielder who can rake. Looking at the numbers for Johermyn Chavez and James Jones, it certainly doesn't look like it will come internally (maybe not until Pimentel in 2015 or so?), so packaging up these guys for trade value is important.
Just to reiterate for the less-initiated, the best arms are just getting started at low-A: Paxton, Walker and Campos. And all three could be MLB stars.
As for the starters in between A-ball and the Majors, the ones that I had hope for have mostly disappointed: Hensley, Kasparek, Hill. Robles is injured. When Aardsma and Kelley looked close, I figured they would send down Wilhelmsen and stretch him out, precisely because they don't have much in that bracket. Now that Aardmsa may not come back at all, TW may be stuck in the pen. But maybe that's where he would end up anyway.
Lonnie is probably right that Gilheeney may be the best bet right now, but I've never sensed much enthusiasm for him.
And it's good to see Lueke pitching effectively, because the other relief specialists that looked like they could move up fast are troubled. Stephen Pryor was hurt and has been ineffective on his return. Brian Moran has just been awful. Don't know what the deal is there.
Though he claims to be an "associate scout" for a "National League organization." [If so, why is he putting his reports on the net for everyone to see?] Says he's seen Rendon in person 7 times. [But, he also appears to be a lawyer at a big national firm -- so, how's he got time to run around the country watching baseball games? Curious.]
Anyway, he has very detailed reports on most of the top guys (but not Bauer) : http://www.diamondscapescouting.com/scoutingreports_2011_index.html
I think he reflects what seems to be the "scout" consensus that Rendon and Cole are still the top 2. The "internet" consensus seems to be emerging that they are not the top 2.
When the Pirates take Rendon on draft day and spike my celebration. Just sayin. ;) I do love his swing very much.
The internet just likes to be contrarian as a "look at me" reflex, while scouts tend to go with the groupthink so they can't be fired for going out on a limb that others think could be a bad idea.
I would expect the internet to want to go Bubba Starling at #1 or something while the scouts are sticking by their early assessments.
Us going with Clement at #3 was a shocking move against groupthink, and helped get some people fired. I might like Bauer as an arm but given my choice I'll take the groupthink #1 hitter in this draft, thanks.
Please give me that choice. ;)
~G
Or maybe a battlefield would be more accurate. The corpses of the many who have tried and failed to hold that piece of outfield turf are numerous. The casualties keep mounting, too. I was just hoping for Jose Guillen style production at some point, nothing crazy...
But it looks like it's gonna be a while. I'm not a believer in Mike Wilson or Carlos Peguero, Tenbrink has fallen off a cliff, we're trying to keep Liddi at 3B, Mangini's injuries and hatred of the walk make him hard to project as a plus hitter, Raben has plateaued and his injuries make him basically a DH...
The next LF hope might well be Pimentel as you say, or Castillo who is also a 2 million dollar bonus baby. In the meantime, that's where I'd be looking to plug in a vet for a few years.
As for the AA bats, you're right that I'm thinking of those guys as trade bait because I have better options ahead of them. Richie Sexson got traded because he was stuck behind some dude named Thome. Poythress isn't gonna dethrone Smoak, so either he moves to LF or he moves on. Seager is performing beautifully, and could be a super-sub for us on the cheap in a year or two...but I would think someone willing to give him a starting spot might have a decent hitter at a glove position. He won't be dethroning Ackley, though, even if with Gutierrez's status up in the air it might be nice to have Ackley in CF and Seager at 2B in 2013.
And Triunfel is ahead of Franklin in both level and production to start this year, so he should have the inside track...but I don't think he does. They are positions we could afford to give up a decent player at because we have some redundancy.
Arm-wise, Robles being injured really hurts us. Hensley is still a pen arm IMO, Hill's injury sucked, and I think Moran is hurt. Pryor has NOTHING right now as he tries to shake off the rust. We have a few pen arms like Kesler, Burgoon and Bischoff who are trying to impress but they're a couple years off.
Fields can't stop walking everyone. After Lueke I don't see a lot immediately for the pen, and after Wilhelmsen I don't see much for starters til Robles gets back...and his injury may be the excuse they need to move him to the pen and try to make him a closer-type.
Erasmo is interesting, but he's a BOR type. It's very hard to be Mark Buehrle.
Paxton is getting a little work, Walker doesn't even know how to pitch yet, and Campos throws HARD but not well...not yet.
Shipers is another guy I really wanna see, but should start off in Everett. Taylor too. But they're on the 4-5 year plan. Immediate help? Not a lot more right now. Gilheeney has impressed me by not getting killed in his first month in the desert, but it's hard to judge pitchers there. He should be in AA before year end if he can keep from getting shelled though, and give us a better idea if some extra arms are getting closer to the bigs.
Luckily for us Fister and Vargas are still throwing well, and rotation spots aren't open by the handful. We need a better pen, but a couple of arms would help a lot and pen arms aren't as hard to come by.
~G
I'm in the beginning stages of a piece that takes a look at what might be the underlying cause of the poor performance we are seeing from the Mariners minor league affiliates. I did a wide spread poll of my "contacts" and some of the responses that I have received has been interesting to say the least.
I have learned, without giving too much away, that the problems vary with each affiliate. One though is troubling. Let me just say that there is a reason why Tenbrink and Poythress aren't performing up to what we expet them to do, and it is partially out of their hands.
I hope to have my piece written up and posted at Mariner Central within the next few weeks.
Lonnie
... scouting report, he has actually been in attendence at 2 of the games that Rendon has played in and has viewed his play 6 times via video.
I'm just sayin'...
For Tacoma, Guti had a double and a single and played CF for 7 innings (replaced by Langerhans, who must have cleared waivers). 3 XBH in his 24 rehab ABs so far. He's not far off.
Ackley also had a double and a single, and 3 more walks. That's 30 BB in 35 games. Ackley's last 10 games: .316/.449/.632. Anyone notice he has 6 stolen bases? He's not far off either.
Nick Franklin busted out with a HR and 2 singles for High Desert, his first big game in awhile.
Brandon Maurer (now that he's officially added to "the radar") had 8 K in 7.0 IP for Clinton, but was done in by a 3-run homer.
On May 31 of last year, Guti was at .294/.388/.439. What would we give to have that again in CF? (Or any position on the diamond, for that matter?)
For the final 4 months, he was .221/.268/.327.
Gutierrez, when his stomache wasn't bothering him last year...was essentually the same hitter as Gutierrez when his stomach wasn't bothering him in 2009. If he can find any sort of balanced state...he will DRAMATICALLY improve our offense and our defense over the crap-bucket it is now. Saunders will then have to fight with Mike Wilson for playing time. That's a much better arrangement.
Briefly, it looked like we'd have 4 impact players arriving June-ish: Guti, Ackley, Aardsma and Kelley. That would have been a nice cavalry to have riding over the ridge. Now I guess it'll just be Guti and Ackley.
"Sick Guti" had an OPS of .595, which would be 6th best on this year's team. Better than Figgins, Olivo, Ryan, Wilson (pick a Wilson, any Wilson) and Saunders.
That'd be 3. Lueke has recovered his unhittability even if the Ks and velocity aren't quite back yet. Once he's 95 again I expect him back. Fingers crossed that he goes back to being the pitcher he's been in the minors.
~G
Taijaun Walker pitched for the third time this year and was on fire. He struck out 11 men in 6.1 innings while allowing only two singles and walking nobody. He is only 18 and facing off against a lineup with an average age 22 yet was completely overwhelming, striking out over half the guys he faced. He's looking like the real deal.
Churchill on Erasmo Ramirez:
I heard Ramirez was 90-93 this year. He's turning into Mauricio Robles with command.
It's so...odd to see players developing and getting better in the org.
My observation also, Grizzly. For the first time in all my years of Mariner prospect watching, it seems like we are beginning to see true development and growth.
Both guys who made their mark by -- Not. Walking. Anyone. EV-er. And now they both get a velocity boost on top of things.[It BETTER be the conditioning program.]Like Taro sez -- WOW.Ramirez is just 21 and climbed to AA (skipping High Desert) based on microscopic WHIP and BB/9. If he can hit 93 and keep that up, we've got a mini-Fister (5-11, 180) on our hands. http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=ramire002era (note that 44/4 K/BB ratio).
Rockin' the Midwest League.Walker:5/31: 7.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 6 KSeason: 30.0 IP, 3.00 ERA, 7.8 H/9, 0.3 HR/9, 3.3 BB/9, 10.8 K/9Who was it who predicted a bust out for Jabari Blash?Last 10 games:9-for-28, 2 dbl, 1 tpl, 1 HR, 6 BB, 7 K, .321/.441/.571/1.013
That Walker kid's all right too. ;)
But seriously, Blash spent his first couple weeks in A-ball not swinging at anything and walking like a crazy person, but being unable to make contact. Now he's walking slightly less (though still a lot) and is making serious contact, for power.
He's a raw kid who had to leave Miami and basically tripped and fell to us in the draft. Thanks to Davey Johnson for convincing him to not worry about the signing bonus and get his butt to camp so he can outwork some people.
He's second in the league in walks - and he's played at least 17 fewer games than everybody around him! He didn't walk like this last year, or strike out this little. He has 3 times as many walks and half as many Ks as last season, in about the same number of plate appearances. If the average starts to climb as well now that he's getting the hang of this...
Look out. He's incredibly raw, and one of those 4 or 5-tool talents that make us cringe in Seattle because they never work out for us. But he's huge, with good bat speed, a great arm, good speed in the field, power...tools-wise he's got a lot working for him. He was comped to Jermaine Dye on draft day, and he sure seems to be soaking up instruction like a sponge. Love it.
And Walker...jeez man, I remember when he was supposed to be so totally raw and unable to get his breaking stuff over. How far away is March? Sheesh.
At this rate I can't wait to see the million dollar international bonus babies hit short-season, or the rest our our high-school pitching contingent for that matter. We could be crawling in high-upside, high-performance youngsters shortly if some things continue to fall our way.
~G
cpoints :- )
The Blash Splash seating section at Safeco, I guess...Whattaya mean March, G? You mean like so you can go see Walker in camp?
Blash was always an interesting attempt at a ball-player. He had a transcript issue that cost him his scholarship, moved to a Juco then he got drafted by the Rangers (ha! Another hitter stolen from the Rangers) but didn't like the offer, then got kicked off his Juco team.
Which is how he fell to the 8th round - maturity concerns. But the kid runs like a thoroughbred, has a great arm, easy athleticism, and a decent Cammy-like swing with good batspeed. The questions were whether he could stop hitting so many dang groundballs (hasn't yet) and if he could develop a batting eye (seems to have exploded on the scene doing so early in the year).
Nobody's gonna want to hear a Halman comp stylistically, but Halman had a high GB% too and didn't up his LD% til a few years into his career while being a raw, athletic player. The difference is in batting eye. If I could give you a Greg Halman prospect with 120 Ks a year and 80 walks, would you take it? Considering he was the #1 prospect in our system a while back without that sort of eye...
I would run screaming to the bank to cash that in. Right now he's on pace (I know, I said a bad word) for 101 Ks and 135 (!!) walks in 550 plate appearances. Blash hasn't shown that kind of power yet, but he's got the frame for some thump. Jabari's an infant at the game of baseball who's had just a touch of pro instruction and looks to be absorbing it well. He is doing more than I could have possibly hoped for at this point. I just wanted him to do a Michael Saunders/Alex Liddi climb into the system, take some time to assimilate.
He's got two dozen more hurdles to clear on his way up the minor league ladder, but he put an asterisk next to his name in a hurry. Maybe it's just a Peguero-like great month, but it'd be an awfully weird way to luck into a good month. Most guys don't post a 1.3 batting eye and then forget how to take a walk later. We'll see. He's definitely made me curious.
And the comment about March was that Walker was "interesting, control issues, far away from the bigs" in March. It is now June 1 and we've got to consider whether they want to push him to the next league at the All-Star break already. That's some handful of starts. I hope they don't rush him - but I also hope he makes a big push for it with performance.
~G
Hard to watch Jones, Choo and Cabrera succeed while Lopez, Wlad, Clement and Tui fade into oblivion.
A Blash Splash would make up for some of it.
4-for-5 with 2 doubles. It's just fun, fun, fun up and down the entire organization this year. Paxton and Blash look like a couple of big-time "steals" in the 4th and 8th rounds, respectively.
FWIW....
Ackley's hitting .407/.568/.741 in his 27 June AB's.
His overall numbers are up to .305/.421/.504. His stats against LHP (.324/.447/.603) are now better than against RHP.
The Super Two risk has almost certainly passed. M's have lost 3 of their last 4 against teams that probably miss the playoffs. They're on day 13 of a 20 games in 20 day stretch.
If now is not the right time to call him up, when will it come??
http://saberscouting.wordpress.com/2008/04/15/the-deception-of-scott-pat...
Something interesting from a few years ago - go Scott -keep the love of the game and the dream alive.