Are you under the impression it’s 1968. There is literally nobody in todays game that regularly goes 7 or 8 innings and it certainly doesn’t happen on 85 or 90 pitches. Those things don’t exist. Alcantara led the league last year at 7.1 innings pitched per game. He threw 101.5 pitches per start. The next closest guy was like 6.4 innings. There’s like 8 guys in the league that threw 200 innings.
Jacob Melton hit his first HR just now. Any of Asheville’s 4 OF (Gilbert, Melton, Cerny, Corona) will likely be in Top 100 conversations if they earn a promotion and have success in AA. All four very high ceiling players.
I maintain that guys like Ruth, Williams, Young, etc would all dominate in the modern MLB, but the worst players from that era would languish in the minors. It's not so much that the best players got better, but the worst players did. Especially for pitchers, you have to remember that a torn UCL was a 100% career ender until Tommy John.
Zach Daniels should probably be a top 30 prospect but he was just put on the Injured List. Only had 1 strikeout in 13 at bats so far this year, hoping he can come back soon
Yeah- this intuitively seems right. I mean- if you dropped Babe Ruth into a time machine and gave him his 42 OZ bat and conditioning methods he’d likely get clowned today, but that’s not how it’d go down if you gave modern methods of training and the like in a reassemble comparison. But, the lack of minority players and foreign players means there is no way the talent pool at the shallower end is as good as today.
I'd add that baseball has gotten a lot better at identifying baseball talent that would translate to the modern game. Guys that dominated with pitchers throwing sub-90s without the spin in today's game would not necessarily translatre perfectly with better training and conditioning. Tyler White had the conditioning of bygone eras and would likely have dominated back then like he did in AAA.
It’s not just talent that will succeed in todays game (though that’s true) it’s all talent period. I truly believe if you are a pro level athlete in any sport in the US there’s a roughly 99% chance you get discovered. I don’t believe I’d say the same about 1922 America.
Will Wagner with his 2nd home run of the year: Shay Whitcomb hit two, giving him 3 on the season. Also, Luis Encarnacion got pulled up to Corpus as a temporary fill-in and he went 2-5 with a double. He hit five home runs in the FCL last summer and he's demonstrated that he can handle complex-league pitching. Encarnacion has seen time everywhere on the infield except shortstop.
France could make a nice addition to the bullpen if he can figure out how to throw strikes. Could be an upgrade from Martinez or Blanco. Also, Quincy Hamilton is off to a fast start in CC - drawing walks, minimizing Ks, and hitting the **** out of the ball. He had some very interesting underlying numbers when he was drafted and perhaps he can break out this season.
2021 17th round pick Justin Williams has more triples (2) than swings and misses (1). Not strikeouts, he hasn't struck out yet, but the number of times he decided to swing and didn't make contact. It wouldn't have surprised me at all if the Astros cut him before the season and 4 games is a tiny sample size, but that's a fun stat.
Only 19 pa but Williams is off to a dominant start. Of course with his age and defensive limitations he will have to hit in AA before anybody should get excited about him.
Hamilton’s increased early power is a good sign but that 26% k rate is a sign he could be just making a trade off. Still I agree he’s an underrated prospect and could jump up the list this season. Any player who posts a wRC+ >130 in AA at 25 or younger has a decent chance of being a good big league hitter.
I don't recall an organization giving up on a guy by releasing him after 1 full season of minor league ball unless he simply crapped the bed. His season last year was pretty standard for his situation/ expectations. IMO I would have been surprised to see them cut him this soon, but there are nearly a dozen outfielders currently ahead of him in the pecking order.
Most of the everyday AAA hitters crossed the 50 pa threshold this weekend. 50 pa is where k rates start to stabilize; still too small of a sample to draw any conclusions about, but worth noting. Grae Kessinger’s stock is going up. He has walked almost as much as he’s struck out, and so far his IFFB rate is half of what it was in his previous seasons. If that change is sticky then he is likely to have a floor as a fringey regular/solid utility guy. Joe Perez, Korey Lee, and Pedro Leon have all opened the season with high strikeout rates (29%+), and haven’t shown the power needed to offset that. Their stock is flat or dropping. Justin Dirden opened the first 2 weeks of the season with a really low k rate but no power then reversed that trend so after 55 pa his k rate sits at 24%. That would be ok except he only has 1 Hr and generally has not hit for much power. Really not much to get excited about outside of Kessinger. It’s a bummer Matijevic and Costes got hurt. Bryan Arias has great numbers but has hardly played (9 pa). Bannon and Madris have been middling and project as AAAA players as expected. Ross Adolph and Luke Berryhill have been overmatched in AAA so far.
I have been watching him as a potential 3rd baseman for the past year and think he fits there nicely. I was expecting to see him in high A to start the season and look for an early move there.
Interesting that Ross Adolph is "overmatched" while having a similar OPS to Kessinger, who still does not really move me. (Both look like AAAA guys to me, so whatever) Adolph somehow has a .385 OBP despite striking out in 44% of his plate appearances.
