2021 Modesto Nuts Preview
Despite being out of posting-shape, the impulse to get reacquainted with the system after a year off drove me to start working these up and see how far I could manage to go. The Year 2021 in Minor League Baseball looks a heck of a lot different than the Year 2019: The Cal League has been demoted to low-A in the classifications, short-season ball outside team facilities has been eliminated entirely, and rosters at the lower levels have been expanded to thirty, taking some of the edge off of contracting an entire level of competition. Oh yeah, and the Mariners are also officially the owner of the Modesto franchise, something they should have done a decade or more ago but better late than never?
My general sense of the team here is that the rotation will consistently provide something to watch, but the bullpen may be erratic and lacks a clear shape at present. I expect the majority of the team’s offense to come from Marte plus the outfielders. Below, I will talk about one unconventional background and far more baseball bloodlines, Mustangs and Aggies, PNW connections, players who are proximate to but not the big prospects from their respective states, and will have one more opportunity to use the word “Marlovian” in a baseball column.
Rotation:
LHP Jorge Benitez, RHP Sam Carlson, RHP Damon Casetta-Stubbs, RHP Taylor Dollard, LHP Adam Macko, LHP Bryan Perez, RHP Connor Phillips, LHP Max Roberts
I’m making an executive call here and suggesting that, as Everett has been rumored, so too is Modesto going with a piggyback starter situation as there are a lot of younger, inexperienced, or formerly injured fellows on staff.
Intriguing on the potential and the background of being born in Slovakia and drafted as a Canadian (with Ireland in between), Macko has emerged as one of the organization’s more interesting arms from the ’19 class. He lacks the size and experience of some of his warmer climate peers, but is both a hard-worker and a cerebral pitcher who modeled his work on MLB pitchers from a young age. Reports from Peoria had him gaining a tick or two on his fastball and he now tops out around 94, with a plus curveball as his go-to secondary offering.
The higher ceiling however goes to Phillips, who got a million-dollar check in exchange for one shortened community college season. If Macko has a surprising amount of polish and poise, Phillips is his toolsier and rawer counterpart despite working his way through the Texas prep ranks. His heater tops out at 97 and his slider is the superior breaking pitch, though like Macko, he has four pitches in all to work with. Speculation was that his inconsistencies in spotting the ball would hold him back, but the organization wanted him in full-season ball.
Dollard was another draftee coming from the abbreviated 2020 affair, coming in the 5th round out of Cal Poly. After spending two years in the bullpen for the Mustangs with solid results, Dollard got a stint in the rotation where he hovered around 90 mph. It doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but Dollard is bigger than Macko or Phillips at a listed 6’3” and 195 lbs, and he could be the beneficiary of the Mariners assorted programs. He already had the label of “analytics guy’s dream” for how his pitches played up compared to the raw numbers.
Carlson has the odd role of being an elder stateman on the roster, having trials and elbow-related tribulations taking him out of games for three seasons. He would have been ready had there been a season last year and instead devoted the time to conditioning and streamlining his mechanics. As I followed the spring training boxes, he seemed to be in the 90-94 mph range with his fastball, lower than he previously topped out, but the year is young yet. The change-up and slider give him enough to work with to start if his arm holds together.
Like Carlson, Roberts is a veteran of Tommy John surgery and, I noted, among those players to wish Sam Delaplane well after his surgery. Roberts is the tallest guy on the roster at 6’6” and would have been an interesting candidate to add velocity had he not been sidelined. His background is the cold weather, Midwest version of Phillips’ in that he was a 19-year-old picked up out of community college, though his stuff was not in the same tier and he was, in his defense, considered a superior strike-thrower.
Local interest would have us latch on to Vancouver, WA native Damon Casetta-Stubbs, who has been a good value for an 11th round pick in 2018. One could also admire his commitment to the long, hyphenated name. Though generally closer to 90 mph, he’s flashed in the mid-90s and some think that between the height and thicker build, he could sustain such velocity on a more regular basis. He otherwise has the same FB, curve, slider, change combo as much of the projected roster does.
Rounding out the group are two Latin left-handers, both six-figure, 2017 signings just now debuting in full-season ball. Benitez was the 9th round pick out of Puerto Rico. He was looked at as projectable but also a project, and that’s been true enough as his walk numbers have been well-above one’s comfort zone as a pro. Perez, a Venezuelan and one of the bigger signings his year, has impressed with a plus curve and good command, but also got lost a little on prospect lists thanks to the pandemic year. Both sat in the upper 80s in the past and I’m hoping that they’re more regularly around 90+ these days.
Bullpen:
RHP Josias De Los Santos, RHP Luis Curvelo, RHP Nolan Hoffman, RHP Leon Hunter, RHP Travis Kuhn, RHP Stevie Kolek, RHP Juan Mercedes, RHP Kelvin Nunez, RHP Matthew Willrodt, RHP Robert Winslow
It’s hard to know who will get work and when on such a big pitching staff (will there be a six-man rotation? Is there such thing as a swing man?), but I’d pencil De Los Santos as a candidate having made 17 of 22 appearances in the rotation for West Virginia a couple years back. Despite being almost three years younger than average for the South Atlantic League, he maintained and was rather consistent if still prone to dingers and wild pitches. An interesting blip in his stats is that he ever so slightly better against left-handers, which suggests a starter’s arsenal. If they’re going beyond the four pairings above, I’d pencil him in.
Hunter and Kolek both arrived via minor trades in the past week from the Rangers (35th round) and the Dodgers (11th round), respectively. Hunter was a four-year bullpen guy for the North Carolina A&T Aggies. His early tenure with the team was characterized by yips, but in his senior year back in 2019, he got down to a 33/7 K/BB through 30.2 innings. Kolek is the same age but was drafted a year earlier out of Texas A&M, also the Aggies. Are Aggies the new inefficiency? Kolek started his sophomore and junior year with better numbers in the earlier campaign, as his K/BB ratio was more than halved from one year to the next. Since he has a background starting, he’s another option there.
Hoffman is curious in that his media guide profile notes the UCL injury that limited him to 8,1 innings in 2019, but no follow-up surgery is mentioned. The summer prior, he had a 23/8 K/BB in 25.0 innings across the two short-season levels and proved himself quite adept at getting groundballs when needed, with almost four worm-burners for every fly. He took a turn as the Aquasox closer and could take over in a similar capacity.
Kuhn would be another candidate, having also saved four games in 2019. He served as University of San Diego’s relief ace in his college career, attacking hitters mostly with a fastball-slider combo, but had an ugly, brutal month+ to end the season. To lay out the splits, in June and July, he had a sub-.200 average against, six earned runs allowed, and a 16/2 K/BB in 13.1 innings. Thereafter, .300+ average against, eleven earnies, 9/9 K/BB in 8.2 innings.
Occasionally, my brain betrays me, and I desperately want a pitcher to throw with a different hand than he does. Curvelo is the latest instance as he is not a southpaw. Does he have a curveball? God, I hope so. The young Venezuelan accumulated 37.1 innings in 2019 across the same affiliates as Hoffman, with a 37/8 K/BB. Everett roughed him up considerably more, however, so Modesto would be a logical next step if he’s been improving. He’s a clear flyball pitcher.
The other two summer league products are both Dominicans in Mercedes and Nunez. Mercedes got a rare mid-season promotion to the states in 2018 after dominating in his second DSL year. Most recently, he was under fifty innings between Everett and two quick appearances in Modesto, looking more to be a “pitch to bad contact” type of pitcher. Nunez saw the same affiliates plus one more appearance in Peoria. He started nine of twelve games for the Aquasox but lacked the command that rendered Mercedes more interesting. He’s likely down on the starting depth chart.
We’ll close with some rare W-names. After leaving The Master’s University (mascot: Mustangs, not Masters), Winslow logged thirty innings in Peoria before getting a six-inning showing in West Virginia. In the complex league, he quite plainly outpitched the hitters and was racking up nearly 13 Ks per nine innings. Willrodt was a 2018 draftee out of a Texas community college and saw the spread of the Southern, California, and South Atlantic Leagues in 2019. He proved more settled at the then-higher Cal League than he was in the South Atlantic and it looks like command might be an issue for him.
Catchers:
Ty Duvall, Matt Scheffler
More intriguing thus far for his adjacency to higher-profile players, Duvall was a top prep backstop in Ohio overlapping with Evan White. He picked up college ball at Vandy and served as backstop to two of the top college pitchers in the 2021 class. Probably for the thrill of catching both Leiter and Rocker, he spurned a 25th round pick by Oakland in 2019 only to go undrafted in the pandemic year and have his slugging backslide. He remained, however, a patient lefty OBP bat and one who could have a nice little career for himself in a system that doesn’t have incredible depth at the position.
Scheffler is a local guy, of Kirkland, Lake Washington High School, and Pierce Community College (winning Tacoma Athletic Commission Player of the Year!) before finishing up his collegiate career at Auburn. He tore it up for the Tigers in the shortened season and had an OPS over 1.000 through sixty-five plate appearances. It was a heck of a run for him, but in a much larger sample in 2019, he only managed a .665 OPS. He mirrors Duvall in that he’s a disciplined bat who signed as a UDFA, this time from the right side.
Infielders:
1B Dariel Gomez, MIF Cesar Izturis, 3B Justin Lavey, SS Noelvi Marte, MIF Juan Querecuto
Usually, you don’t see dudes that have only played in the Dominican pop up on Top 100 Prospects lists, but Noelvi Marte is doing just that coming into the season. Evaluators tend to believe in his bat after he hit .300 and slugged .500 in his one year, and some think he could be a middle of the order presence even as a middle infielder. More of a wildcard is the speed, which has graded as high as 70 but appears to have settled into 50+ of late, with some thinking he’ll be better off at third. A concern for me on review was his fielding percentage was below .900 in the DSL and he had almost as many errors as DPs, but given the state of other fields and defenders, it’s hard to make much of that data. He could be the system’s top prospect going into 2023 assuming life and baseball proceed accordingly.
I don’t have a clear sense of who Marte’s double play partner would be on a daily basis, but Izturis and Querecuto both have the bloodlines and the skillset for it. It’s unfair to talk about them both as if interchangeable, and yet there are considerable similarities in that they both are more skills than tools in their orientation, having grown up on the diamond, both have minor league OPSs in the low-.600s, and both have lost some of their early career seasoning to injury. Of the two, Querecuto has the advantage of being younger and possessing a cannon for an arm, so I see him more as the one backing up Marte and potentially taking over should he be promoted to Everett.
Lavey’s background reads like Duvall’s if you shuffle some names. Instead of Ohio, Wisconsin, instead of Evan White, Jarred Kelenic, and instead of being drafted out of the prep ranks as Kelenic was, Lavey went to Louisville for four years. Though regarded as a solid prep prospect, his collegiate showings were less impressive after OPSing above 1.000 as a part-timer his freshman year. The athleticism is nevertheless above-average for the hot corner and he could have more potential to unlock.
Gomez figures to be at least one of the dudes manning first on a semi-regular basis. He was a minor league Rule 5 selection from St. Louis, whom the lost season rendered a more permanent Mariner. Like many others on the roster, this will be his first taste of full-season ball and one would be interested to see where his power is at now. He’s been in the neighborhood of a .260/.355/.410 hitter since coming stateside from the Dominican Republic.
Outfielders:
LF Cade Marlowe, 1B/RF Robert Perez, RF Alberto Rodriguez, UT Brett Rodriguez, LF/RF Trent Tingelstad
Perez is surely an enigma even on this squad. He had a .200 ISO as an 18-year-old in the DSL, unusual for the league, and then in 2019 he got a call to Tacoma as an injury replacement and posted a .219 ISO over 69 nice plate appearances. The slugging mostly did not follow him once he was demoted to Everett, but neither was he totally healthy until August when he hit .326/.420/.505 through 95 at-bats. He’s got bloodlines, as the son of 17-game Mariner Robert Perez Sr., whose legacy is greater in the LVBP than the MLB. Some have had Junior as a fringe prospect list guy, others have not. He’s been sometimes a right fielder, which is exciting, and sometimes a first baseman, which is less so. WHAT WILL HE BE?
Alberto Rodriguez was a childhood pal of Marte and so there was a bit of a reunion fanfare when he was acquired from the Jays for Taijuan Walker last summer. One hopes that the positive influence rubs off, because his player profile has been up-and-down with some swing and conditioning variability. The high-end projection would be his arm plays in right and he scrapes twenty home runs now and then, the low, his footspeed isn’t enough and neither is his power production. This year will mark his full-season debut after hitting .301/.364/.422 for Toronto’s complex league team.
For centerfield, I have no idea what the Nuts are scheming, so my guess is that Rodriguez might land there despite his college career being predominantly second, short, and third. He’s seen time in center in both summer and winter ball in the New England Collegiate and Puerto Rican Leagues respectively. Being Wofford College’s all-time stolen base leader doesn’t hurt speculation either. Rodriguez comes from the same small-but-still-DI conference that yielded Kyle Lewis, so they probably have a better read on what exactly his .324/.435/.469 line in 2019 means exactly or how he didn’t get drafted even with that. He profiles as a leadoff guy.
Tingelstad preceded Scheffler with the route of being a Northwest prep (Marysville-Pilchuk!) and community college product (Everett CC!) who transferred down south to finish out his career, Louisiana at Monroe in this case. He hit .353/.471/.585 in his one trip around the Sun Belt Conference, but the results were more modest in Everett, albeit with high OBP production still at .370 with a 56/51 K/BB. As a pro, he’s been mostly a right fielder, but Alberto Rodriguez’ arm strength might push him to the other corner.
To my disappointment, Cade Marlowe has yet to do anything that I would ascribe the word “Marlovian” though in research I did discover a Christopher Marlowe pitching in the Giants system almost a decade ago, lucky them. He hit quite well for his career in the D-II Gulf South Conference with three seasons of a .900+ OPS, and had an .800+ OPS for the Aquasox two years ago, but he nevertheless returns to man left field for the Mariners low-A team. The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike.
Nice! I’ve been irrationally excited to see JY’s MiLB previews!
I had no idea Marte’s speed had taken such a drop so fast, but he’ll be fun to follow this year.
It happens. My daughter’s speed dropped from 40 to 30 (25) from age 15 to 17. Fortunately, she still swings a power stick.,.
“The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike.”
Speaking of deals with the devil, the college where I worked had a first baseman named Joe Hardy.