Minor League Games - Wednesday, July 12, 2017

[baseballoldie]

Sixto just hit 103 on the gun - nice.

[teabag259]

Wow! Fast gun?

[baseballoldie]

Maybe a mile or two - but still awfully impressive.

[Austinfan]

I'm not sure it's a good thing for Sixto to be throwing that hard.
There's a study that shows the injury rate goes up very quickly as pitchers throw near their maximum velocity.
Both effectiveness and longevity can be improved by throwing at less than max on most pitches.
So for example, a pitcher like Halladay would throw 92-93 all game, and save max effort for a half dozen pitches where he'd hit 95-96.
And because the hitters had timed off his 92 MPH FB, when he turned it up a notch it became an "out" pitch.
If they can teach Sixto that, well, 95-97 for most of a game, touching 100 a half dozen times would still be highly effective.

[baseballoldie]

Sixto into the 5th with no hits and 1 walk. Retired 11 in a row

[schooldoc]

A couple tweets, including one from Keith Law, reported that Sixto was 101 mph on that called third strike to end the 2nd; Greg G on the radio said it was 103 mph on the stadium gun. So, the stadium gun is perhaps 2-3 mph hot.

I live close to the park in Lakewood and have seen Sixto pitch two or three times. He doesn't throw 100 mph fastballs every other pitch. He tends to work at 95-98 mph and top out at 100 or 101. Also, Joe Jordan said in his Q&A with Mitch Rupert the other day that they are working on having him use his offspeed more. In addition to developing the offspeed stuff, I'm sure it's to make sure he doesn't max effort every pitch also.

While I'm no scout or sport science type expert on deliveries, Sixto looks very free and easy out there.
It's an athletic, smooth delivery. When he's on, he can buzz through lineups with very low pitch counts, because of his command and because guys look for the heat and swing early. Case in point tonight, he's under 40 pitches in 4 innings of work.

He's special and it sure seems like the Phils are doing all they can to keep him healthy.

[Austinfan]

Yeah, it looks like they're being careful, the Mets are exhibit A on how to ruin great young arms.
Hopefully the Phillies are monitoring the sports science on pitchers.

[Philsmania]

Interesting blurb on CSN about Crawford yesterday in which Salisbury spoke with BA's editor John Manuel regarding Crawford's tumble in the rankings. Some on BA's staff wanted to drop Crawford altogether while he thought Crawford would be an average everyday ML shortstop but not an impact player or a foundation player. Crawford is saying it is "motivation". If it is true that Crawford read his ratings too much (as some scouts have suggested) and got complacent, that might be a good thing if the wakeup call gets him focused on working to improve his game.

J.P. Crawford 'not an impact player anymore,' says Baseball America editor

[Austinfan]

"Theo Epstein told me 10 years ago, 'The higher in the minor leagues you go, the more performance matters.' And the higher he's gone, the worse his performance has gotten," Manuel said.

Yep. Keep telling you guys that, scouting reports become irrelevant once there's a body of work at higher levels. Potential just becomes a dirty word.
Darrick Hall may be a 14th rd pick, but if he hits in Reading (adjusted for ballpark effects) like he is in Lakewood, he's more like a 4th rd pick.
Appel was the #1 pick, how's that excite you these days?

[bigegypt0417]

"Theo Epstein told me 10 years ago, 'The higher in the minor leagues you go, the more performance matters.' And the higher he's gone, the worse his performance has gotten," Manuel said.

Yep. Keep telling you guys that, scouting reports become irrelevant once there's a body of work at higher levels. Potential just becomes a dirty word.
Darrick Hall may be a 14th rd pick, but if he hits in Reading (adjusted for ballpark effects) like he is in Lakewood, he's more like a 4th rd pick.
Appel was the #1 pick, how's that excite you these days?

who ever said you were wrong?

it seems that isn't really groundbreaking information...

[andyb]

If Hall is doing this next year in Reading he'll look like a good prospect. If it takes him 2 years then he'll be a bit old for the level and (like Hoskins) will still need to prove himself to be considered a good prospect. He was a college junior draftee and normally the good college prospects get to Clearwater in their first full season.

Appel is like any pitcher whose stuff is suddenly 80% of what it was in college. It happens. Some of that has also happened to Thompson this year. It does not mean that both were not good prospects at one time. It just means they are not any more.

On Crawford the opinions on him are very divided so he'll have to prove one side wrong. I will say that even the Manuel statement of high floor/average regular might be better than Galvis though.

[Austinfan]

A lot of people. "He's a high draft pick, he's got great scouting reports, he's young for this level and so on."

Now some of that has value, even at higher levels, but only in context of actual performance.
I'm not writing Crawford off because he's young enough to turn it around, heck, maybe Walding at 24 has turned it around (though I won't believe it until he repeats it in Lehigh). But at this point he needs to show progress, and he's better off in AAA until he figures out a swing that will make him a decent hitter.

Once a player gets to A ball, I want to see performance (rookie leagues are getting your feet wet). Moniak is young for Lakewood, but I'd like him better if he was hitting .300 with a .370 OBP, he'll grow into power, but the contact and plate discipline should be there now.

Tocci has improved, he's hitting well in AA, just don't expect even average gap power from him, but his walk rate has risen so he may be able to put up a decent OBP at the top of the order. He's an example why being young matters, not because it made him a better prospect per se, but because it gave him time to develop into a better prospect, he could have flatlined just as easily.

Conversely if an older player is slugging it out in AAA over an extended period (i.e. they've seen him enough to adjust) he's worth a look, it may be he's just taking advantage of lower velocity FBs, but it also may mean he's made adjustments and figured out how to hit (that's why you pay scouts, to verify the stasticis, it's not enough to use numbers, you need to investigate the causality behind the numbers).

[bigegypt0417]

"Theo Epstein told me 10 years ago, 'The higher in the minor leagues you go, the more performance matters.' And the higher he's gone, the worse his performance has gotten," Manuel said.

This is your quote...I am pretty sure it's obvious to everyone that this is true.

Again...you seem to like to tell us things we all know.

[allentown]

Appel was the #1 pick, how's that excite you these days?

Pitchers get injured. Today's report is he's (Appel) likely going on DL for sore shoulder. A first rounder or a 10th rounder are equally likely to be injured. It doesn't mean he wasn't a good pick at the time. Shoulders are tough and have ended many a pitching career.

[Austinfan]

Appel sucked in Houston and he sucked here before he was injured.
To be fair, I think Houston ruined him by trying to turn him into a 4 seam power pitcher when his college success came from his 2 seamer (similar to Nola).
Could be they screwed up his mechanics and he's never been able to recover.

[California_Dreamin]

Every time I hear the name Appel, I think of Arauz and Fisher. Both would look awfully good in the Philadelphia organization right now and Fisher might already be in Philadelphia.

[Austinfan]

Arauz isn't much of a loss, we have beaucoup LA IFs as good, some with higher upsides, and our Arauz is pitching just fine.
Fisher is a solid player (though PCL stats should be treated with skepticism), but we're loaded with LH OFs with promise.
Appel was a gamble that we lost.

So it comes down to Velasquez and Eshelman.
Velasquez isn't a disappointment to me, I thought he should have spent a full year in AAA ball given his lack of innings, so if he doesn't get it together until next season, no big deal
And if he can't get it together as a starter, he probably has an upside as a RP similar to Giles.

So in a sense, Eshelman will make/break this deal. Not because he'll be a top pitcher, but if he's a AAAA pitcher we basically traded a proven RP for a potential RP/SP.
If Eshelman can be a solid back of the rotation guy (30 starts, 180 IP, 4.00 or less FIP/ERA), then we got what we needed, pitching depth.

[zambonir]

Given his hamate injury early on the absence of Fisher doesn't bother me that much, but it's certainly ironic, and also shows how where you were drafted can still trump performance at the trade table, at least in terms of perceived value. I mean, which would be worse, if the Phillies had a scouting report that made them feel good about Appel and they were totally wrong, or if they didn't but still wanted him more based on pedigree/ceiling?

[allentown]

I doubt they cared about pedigree. Perhaps they saw him as PR eyewash. Perhaps they thought he was mishandled by Astros and saw something they believed they could fix. He had enough pro experience, that pedigree shouldn't matter much at that point. I could have been as simple as the 4-seam/2-seam change.

[zambonir]

Well, it's kind of chicken/egg. He had pedigree because nearly everyone in baseball once ranked him high enough to go 1-1. So you have to look at that and decide, does he still have what made him that, or is it gone. Same Q people are asking about Crawford right now.

I suppose it was also about position. It wasn't just, "we are worried about Velasquez and therefore demand you improve your offer by giving us Appel instead of Fisher," it was, "we are worried about Velasquez and therefore want more pitchers." Which is hard to argue with. Because, y'know, TINSTAAPP. I'm not more bummed about Appel than I am about Thompson, even if there's more reason to retain optimism about the latter.