Minors Radar Scan
==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).