Between Martes, Riley Ferrell, and Bukauskas all being on the DL, that's 3 arms that were thought to potentially be depth for the big league team this year that started poorly and got injured. Overall the pitching in the minors has been outstanding, and the club has been healthy, so it hasn't mattered yet. James' emergence has been huge for depth, as it almost completely offset Deetz's suspension, imo.
Top end pitching has been pretty bad out of the gate: Whitley and Deetz suspended Paulino, Bukauskas, Martes, Ferrell hurt Hector Perez, Jorge Alcala control issues Luckily it’s been offset by a host of 2nd and 3rd tier guys making jumps: Corbin Martin, Josh James, Brandon Bailey, Brandon Bielak, Tyler Ivey, Brett Adcock, Patrick Sandoval, Parker Mushinski. On the position player side, Kyle Tucker and Ronnie Dawson are the only two “important” guys I consider to be disappointing so far. And it’s somewhat offset by a few 3rd tier guys making a jump: Rojas, Jones, Ferguson, McCormick, and Sieber.
Has bailey made a jump? He seems like he's more or less the same guy he was for the A's last year, maybe even worse if you consider the HR issue he's had moving to a more pitcher friendly league.
Ronnie Dawson is not very good, I have never considered him important. Tucker hasn't been amazing but he has been solid, OPS hovering around the 800 mark and thats with only 2 homeruns. He gonna be fine.
This. Tucker will hit home runs. Home runs tend to come in spurts. As soon as he hits a couple more, he'll be well above 0.800 OPS for the rest of his time in AAA. That said, I do think Alvarez is making a case as the best hitting prospect in the system. AA has not even been a speed bump for him. Not showing any signs of having contact issues.
Dawson had a pretty high upside and when I saw that he was playing CF he became one of the top 5 OF prospects in the system in my eyes (behind Tucker, Alvarez, Straw, and Matijevic, just in front of Ferguson). Tucker’s underlying numbers are fine except his .142 iso isn’t in line with what he needs to be productive, especially considering he’s in the pcl.
Nothing Dawson has done has really impressed me. Just screams mediocrity. I guess the walk rates are encouraging but I was expecting much more power from him.
His K%-BB% has gone up .2 in a repeat of high A. The strikeouts are nothing new, that's why he was acquired. The fact that his bb% has increased, his HR rate has increased, and he hasn't shown enough to make it to AA is disappointing to me.
Sometimes raw toolsy college OFers come to together (e.g. Springer Dinger) and sometimes they don't. Definitely disappointing though.
Matijevic to Buies Creek, and Jonathan LaCroix will make his pro debut. Intriguing. I'm a little surprised Celestino wasn't ahead of him on the OF pecking order.
Or maybe they don't feel the urge to rush Celestino just yet. I still think he'll move relatively quickly, and for all I know, he'll be in QC in a couple of weeks, but the organization probably thinks they have leeway with him in terms of patience.
I know virtually nothing about LaCroix. He will be the 3rd youngest player on the roster (behind Arauz and Javier). Losing Matijevic will hurt an already lacking offense, so hopefully LaCroix is a good player for them right away. I would have expected Kyle Davis, MiguelAngel Sierra, Andy Pineda, Enmanuel Valdez, Gilberto Celestino, or Carlos Machado to be promoted ahead of him.
Peter Solomon is currently facing off against Mackenzie Gore, the 3rd overall pick from last year's draft. Tanner Duncan may get a chance to appear as well; I've mentioned it maybe once or twice in the thread that he and Gore are cousins.
