Game 31, Orioles at Mariners – The Minor League Season is Here
Justin Dunn vs. Jorge López, 7:10pm
Old heads may remember that the Orioles once had a highly-touted, flame-throwing righty named Daniel Cabrera. At times, he was even compared to the M’s young phenom, Felix Hernandez (or maybe, Felix was at one pointed ineptly comp’d to Cabrera, who debuted a year before the King in 2004). Cabrera threw 96, quite impressive for a starter at the time, and had a big, hard slider that flashed plus. If you saw him on the right day, you understood the hype. But such days were few and far between, as persistent control problems and an inability to hold runners left him a marginal MLB player. He got a lot of chances due to his talent, but struggled until injuries got to him, and then he didn’t even have raw velocity anymore. He was done by 2009.
Was that inevitable? Were player development strategies still in the (relative) dark ages only 15 years ago? What would Cabrera do if he came up now? It’s a weird counterfactual, if only because the number of people for whom the name “Daniel Cabrera” rings familiar is, by this point, pretty small. But in looking at tonight’s starter, Jorge López, I was reminded of Cabrera. So here the O’s are, with yet another starter sitting 95 and a track record of big league mediocrity. Is this another chance to get it right with a talented but underachieving talent? Or is Lopez what the back of his baseball card looks like – a journeyman without a real outpitch? Is this story about the Orioles, or about the fact that the entire league has moved so quickly that you can be a journeyman with a career ERA over 6 and still average 95 with your fastball?
Not every struggling player is a redemption story waiting to happen, and not every struggling player is a microcosm of player development challenges in an org or in a league. I can’t quite tell if López is doomed to be the guy he’s been thus far, but it’s getting a little late for a transformation of his results. Of course, that’s what people said about Brandon McCarthy or, reaching back further, Jamie Moyer.
Lopez pitches off of a 95 mph sinker, but also throws a high four-seamer to give batters a different look. He doesn’t use one or the other based on the handedness of the batter; he’ll throw both to anyone. It’s more about where in the zone he wants the ball to end up – four seamers up, sinkers down. His breaking ball is a curve at 82, and he also has a change-up in the high 80s that’s reserved mostly for lefties. Each of these pitches has, at one point, had decent results. But he’s never been able to have consistent success, undone by an inability to put batters away, HR troubles, and, like Cabrera, real problems stranding runners. His career slash line against with men on base is .319/.381/.506.
Justin Dunn had perhaps the best outing of his young career against this club a few weeks back. Yesterday’s post about the M’s low BABIP is, of course, exemplified in Dunn, the odd BABIP savant. I’m now kind of fascinated to see if he’s able to keep this up, and to see a bit more about *how* he can. Statcast’s expected stats have consistently portended doom for Dunn, but here he is, control-troubled yet effective-ish. That’s a lot of caveats packed into a summary, but I seriously have never seen anyone like this.
One reason I think I’ve been wary of Dunn (and Justus Sheffield, too) has been his lack of a change-up. He toyed with one last year, but seems to have shelved it this year. That leaves him to face lefties with only a fastball, slider, and, increasingly, his slurvy curve ball. A 12-6 curve might have minimal platoon splits, but sliders often graded out (along with sinkers) as extremely platoon-y pitches – this all goes back to the brilliant work of Max Marchi 10-15 years ago or so, and which I’ve talked about a lot in my time here. That’s why people always talk about starters needing a third pitch – if you come up with a fastball and slider and are not named Randy Johnson, opposite-handed hitters may figure you out. Dunn’s curve has little vertical movement, but sweeps across the zone, much like a slider, but he hasn’t been hurt by that, just as Sheffield has fared much better against righties than I would’ve thought.
It seems like that old wisdom about how batters hit sliders may be changing. This shouldn’t be surprising, given how much about pitching we’ve learned in the last decade, and how different batters and pitchers train. In a twitter convo today, Driveline/Cincinatti Reds Kyle Boddy said this:
https://publish.twitter.com/?query=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fdrivelinebases%2Fstatus%2F1389653394420166656&widget=Tweet
Makes me a bit more optimistic about Dunn.
1: Haniger, DH
2: France, 2B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Lewis, CF
5: Torrens, C
6: White, 1B
7: Crawford, SS
8: Moore, RF
9: Haggerty, LF
SP: Dunn
Hope you’re enjoying the great JY’s Minor League Previews. I sure am; it’s an annual tradition, and something I look forward to each year. I’ll write my usual nonsense about the Rainiers for their opening day tomorrow (AAA-West’s scheduled off day is Wednesday, whereas every other league will take Monday off). They’re the perfect intro for today, one of my favorite days of the year: Minor League baseball’s opening night. Except AAA-West. Let’s take a look at the games in the M’s org tonight:
The Modesto Nuts face the Stockton Ports, the low-A affiliate of the Oakland A’s. Noelvi Marte – a young SS prospect – is the big name to watch for on the Nuts, but in this series, he’s got company. A’s #6 prospect and one of the top talents in the 2019-20 J2 signing period Robert Puason will play SS for the Ports. Only 18, Puason is a year younger than Marte, and is slightly taller, though he lacks Marte’s power.
There’s no starting pitcher listed yet, but the game begins at 7:05. The top pitching prospect on the team is Connor Phillips, a righty, but Slovak-Canadian Adam Macko, and former 2nd rounder Sam Carlson looks to finally make an impact in full-season ball now that he’s finally healthy. [EDIT] The pitching probables are up now: it’ll be Josias De Los Santos, a 21-year old righty, for the Nuts, against Osvaldo Berrios of the Ports.
High-A (!) Everett makes their first ever full-season start tonight in Hillsboro, home of the Diamondbacks-affiliated Hops. Matt Brash takes the mound for Everett, the first in an absolutely loaded starting rotation. As JY detailed, there’s George Kirby, Emerson Hancock, Brandon Williamson, Isaiah Campbell, and Juan Then. We may see some piggy-backed starts this year just to get innings for all of these guys. For the position players, Julio Rodriguez all but ensures this will be an affiliate to watch on a regular basis, but 3B Austin Shenton, C Carter Bins, OF Zach deLoach, and IF Kaden Polcovich are worth watching, too. Tonight, Brash faces off with Luis Frias, who was brilliant in what was then the short-season Northwest League in 2019. The contest kicks off at 6:35pm, and is on MiLB.tv, unlike the AquaSox home games :(.
The AA Arkansas Travelers renew their long-simmering civil war with breakaway republic Northwest Arkansas tonight. The Travs aren’t as prospect-laden as some of the other affiliates, but figure to be pretty competitive with some experienced pitchers like Ian McKinney from the left side and Darren McCaughan from the right. Undersized righty Devin Sweet put together a really good 2019 season before the world changed, so it’ll be good to see him again – the same could be said for reliever/swing-man/low-arm-slot guy Penn Murfee, who looked good in a random AAA appearance I got to see. The position players are headed by three guys for whom the prospect sheen has worn off a bit, but still have some talent and have presumably been desperate for an opportunity to play again: IF Joe Rizzo, coming off two years in the Cal League, and OFs Dom Thompson-Williams, part of the James Paxton trade package, and Keegan McGovern, who scuffled in his first taste of High-A ball. Tonight, newcomer Alejandro Requena (who has some AA experience in the Phillies org), takes the mound for Arkansas opposite Royals prospect Jon Heasley. The KC system is really deep on the mound, so Heasley doesn’t get the publicity of an Asa Lacy or Jackson Kowar, but he performed pretty well back in 2019. This game starts at 5:10 Pacifc.
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