Riley Ferrell threw 3ip and 40 pitches in the midland game that Laureano walked off. Seems really weird for a career reliever who missed most of last year to throw such an extended outing. I don't even know what to make of it. I can't hardly believe that the best option for a taxed bullpen (if that was the case) was to throw a guy making his way back from an injury 3 innings.
Prepping/converting him to a multi-inning fireman? He last pitched 5 days prior (which was a 2 inning outing, for what it's worth)? He only threw 40 pitches, which isn't terrible for a 3 inning outing. Dean Deetz also had another stellar outing -- 5 innings, 2 hits, 1 BB, 3 Ks, 0 runs. He's allowed 8 baserunners and 1 run in 13 innings this year.
In about 30 minutes, Buies Creek will play the first game of a doubleheader in Winston-Salem. Justin Ferrell is starting that one. Alex Winkelman will be on the mound in game 2.
When was the last time he pitched? They could have just wanted him to get some extra work in, build up his arm. I dunno, but it's interesting. I was really high on him when drafted, so I'm hopeful he continues to get back into form. He could help this team (or another) sometime soonish eta: They let him ramp up to 2 IP (24 pitches) on 3 days rest in his last game; he went 3 IP/40 on 4 days rest in this one. Not sure if that's a plan or an anomaly, we'll see.
^^^Kyle Tucker is currently 2-3 with a double and an RBI in the first game of Buies Creek's doubleheader in Winston-Salem.
Quad Cities OF Ronnie Dawson just extended his hitting streak to 11 games with a homer, his 4th of the year. Also his 2nd straight game with a home run.
Jake Rogers hit his 4th homer of the year in Quad Cities' 6-1 win over Peoria. Randy Cesar hit his 3rd, and as I mentioned before, Ronnie Dawson (4) also homered.
Rogers' OPS is up to .995. That's good for 10th in his league, and best on the team. Him becoming a competent hitter would certainly be noteworthy. Unfortunately, Daz Cameron is hitting below the Mendoza line. 8 of his 13 hits are for extra bases, if you're looking for a silver lining.
Cameron is running into some bad luck. He has only k'ed 21% of the time, which isn't great but isn't bad. He has a double digit walk rate. He has 3 HR and 5 SB, which if he keeps that pace would be 20+ HR and 40+ SB over the full season. He has a .188 BABIP, which for a player with his power/speed combo points to bad luck (unless he is really easy to force into weak contact). Even after all that, he has only been a slightly below average hitter in that league, with a wRC+ of 93, which for a 20 year old isn't all that bad. In addition to the bad luck and lofty expectations due to being a 1st round pick (and former candidate for 1st overall pick), he also has the unfortunate circumstances of being constantly compared to Kyle Tucker, once of the best prospects in the game, and his father, a perennial star player in his day. I'm still very hopeful that Daz will have a very good season in QC.
I was interested in how Mike Cameron's minor league career compared to Daz's. BBRef is really the only source that goes back that far, and I am pretty lazy, so I just compared age, league, and OPS. Here's what I found: Daz has followed the same development track as Mike. Both were in Rookie league at 18, low A at 19, and A ball at 20; here's their comparative OPS for each step: Age/League/MikeOPS/DazOPS 18/Rk/567/661 19/A-/717/608 20/A/589/699(so far) Mike went on to hit ok in high A and AA the next 2 seasons (734 and 784 ops respectively), then had a massive breakout in AA at age 23 (1002 OPS), followed by another great season in AAA (911) then a solid MLB debut (789) and great long big league career. So even though Daz's career so far seems like a disappointment, his production has been pretty much on par with what his father (a guy who put up 50 WAR in the big leagues) did at the same stages.
http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/minor-to-the-majors-minor-league-plate-discipline/ Interesting article on minor league data becoming available on Fangraphs. Hope they add the table to player stats.
Eh for Daz, there's no need to sugarcoat it. For a guy who got a $4m bonus he's been somewhere between bad and terrible. The end of the story isn't written but his performance to date hasn't been good.
The only time he has been "terrible" was in Quad Cities last season. He was average-to-very good in GCL/Rk league in 2015, he was excellent in Tri-City before he got hurt, and he's been average so far this season.
To whom are you comparing him? Guys with decent chance at majors or guys at his level? For under AA, I look at BABIP, Age, ISO, and K%. I'll look at BB% to see if it is out of the ordinary (BB% matters more for AA and above). BABIP fluccuates a lot, but dudes in A Ball should be well above 0.300. Currently, he's probably outside the Top 60 in age for A Ball (50+ 17-19). For A Ball out of 50 20-year olds, he's 42nd in BABIP, 19th in K%, and 6th in ISO.
