Game 60, Mariners at Tigers
Marco Gonzales vs. Matthew Boyd, 4:10pm
Another day, another set of roster moves. The M’s purchased the contract of Dillon Thomas, the minor league free agent who’s off to a great start in Tacoma. To make room, they’ve DFA’d Jacob Nottingham, who’s now been DFA’d by the Brewers twice, claimed by the M’s twice, traded, and DFA’d by the M’s. Since May 1. Goodness.
Thomas is a great story, a former Rockies farmhand who never quite clicked in parts of seven seasons in the system. He spent most of 2018 with the Texas Air Hogs in Independent ball and went nuts, chasing a triple crown and hitting for power, something he’d never really done in affiliated ball. The Brewers picked him up for the end of 2018 and then 2019, and while he was better, he was still an old-for-the-league OF. The M’s picked him up this off-season, and he’s hit .338/.459/.625 in 80 at-bats. He’ll make his big league debut almost exactly 10 years after he was drafted out of a Houston high school.
Hopefully he can fare a bit better than most of the players the M’s have brought in from Tacoma, and that he can figure out whatever’s bedeviling players who’ve played in both Tacoma and Seattle. Yesterday’s post was all about this, and while there are multiple things going on, including the different MLB baseball in AAA and MLB, it seems to me like there’s something going on with how the M’s prepare hitters for MLB. Is it a pervasive thing? I don’t know how to define it, and it clearly didn’t stop Kyle Lewis from winning Rookie of the Year, but between Kelenic’s long slump, Taylor Trammell’s initial struggles, and Evan White’s…ordeal, I worry that there’s something amiss. Could it be development, advance scouting, coaching, mental skills? Yes, all of the above, or none of the above. But they better be examining their practices, just to be clear.
Had some very good discussions on twitter on this, with several folks gently pushing back on the theory that there’s something systematically wrong, but I’m just not sure how else to interpret the numbers that I shared last night. I’d still say that while many players have thrived – Tom Murphy and Austin Nola, for example – many of their highly regarded hitters have had results that no one could’ve seen coming. If that happens once or twice, that’s one thing, but if it happens repeatedly, an audit may be worth doing.
Today, the M’s face Detroit, the team who swept them in humiliating fashion in Seattle. The M’s couldn’t really figure out Tigers pitching then, and to be fair, Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal have been better since the M’s gave them a confidence boost. The M’s picked themselves off the floor, though, and have been a very good team since then. I still see them as wildly more entertaining than their true talent would suggest, and that’s true even after Kelenic’s struggles. As we saw in the Angels system, they can look overmatched, and then pounce if a team/bullpen offers them an opportunity.
Matthew Boyd, the Washington native left-hander, starts for the Tigers tonight. With sky-high K totals despite average velocity, he looked like a prime trade target after a good 2018 for a go-nowhere Tigers club. His four-seam fastball’s about 92 mph, and he’s confident enough to throw it up and out of the zone to try and miss bats *despite* the fact that it’s actually a sinking FB, and doesn’t have the kind of ride/rise you’d pair with that kind of approach. To righties, he throws an 80 mph change-up with plenty of armside run, and he’ll mix in his slider (his primary breaking ball) with a rarer curve. To lefties, he really pitches off of the slider, mixing in fastballs and curves.
His willingness to pitch up got him high K totals, but it also led to his biggest problem: home runs. He had a sub-30% ground ball rate in 2018, so while his HR/FB ratio wasn’t too bad, he still gave up 27 dingers, for a 1.43 HR/9 mark. With the livelier ball in 2019, things were even worse. His K rate spiked to 30%, but he gave up 39 home runs, for a HR/9 of 1.85. Last year, everything sort of collapsed for him, as his HR/9 flew past 2, and his strikeouts disappeared. His trade value was essentially gone.
His strikeout rate’s now below 20%, but instead of fading into irrelevance, he’s thriving. For many years, the root of his big HR problem has been platoon issues: righties simply demolished the two primary pitches he threw to them. Righties hit 32 of 39 HRs in 2019, and 14 of the 15 he gave up last year. Sure, he sees righties more often, but that’s kind of insane. Those splits are just *gone* this year. There’s nothing really different about his pitches or pitch mix, though he’s throwing a few more cambios to righties. It *seems* more like he’s just given up trying to chase strikeouts, even if it meant giving up the occasional homer. He’s always done well by targeting the edge of the strikezone, and he’s doing even better this season. But he’s also been a bit better in the heart of the zone. This could be dumb luck, something reinforced by his HR/FB ratio, which is a fraction of last year’s. But it may also be because he’s disguising his pitches a bit better, allowing him to sneak a fastball or change there when batters are looking for something else.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: France, 1B
4: Seager, DH
5: Murphy, C
6: Long, 2B
7: Trammell, CF
8: Mayfield, 3B
9: Walton, LF
SP: Gonzales
Kind of a short-handed line-up; certainly hope Thomas can get there and spell Walton if need be. Glad to see the M’s get Seager a night off defensively, though.
Salt Lake beat Tacoma 9-2 yesterday, as Matt Thaiss hit two dingers and a triple off of R’s starter Logan Verrett. A Jantzen Witte two-run shot accounted for the Tacoma scoring. Cal Raleigh extended his hitting streak to 17 games. The R’s should get Eric Filia and Luis Liberato back soon after they clear Covid intake protocols; both were playing in the Olympic qualifying tournament, won by Filia’s US team, who qualify for the Olympics. Liberato’s Dominican Republic team (also Julio Rodriguez’s team) have another chance to qualify later on in a tournament in Mexico. David Huff starts today’s game for Tacoma, and then they’ll travel on Wednesday.
Arkansas faces the Springfield Cardinals today, with Alejandro Requena facing off against Dalton Roach of the Cards.
Juan Then starts for Everett, who’ll host the Eugene Emeralds at Funko Field tonight.
Modesto hosts the Fresno Grizzlies, an organization essentially demoted from the old Pacific Coast League to low-A’s version of what was once the California League. Fresno’s departure made room for Sugar Land to move from the Independent leagues into the top rung of the affiliated minors and kind of balance out the West/East divisions in AAA-West. Fresno’s now a Rockies affiliate, and they’ll have Dominican prospect Breiling Eusebio on the hill. No word on Modesto’s starter at this point.
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Even Lewis has some lingering questions with his bat. He had the explosive first half last season, followed by an underwhelming second half; started this season on the IL, then got off to a slow start before finally hitting well over the last 3-4 weeks, albeit with less power.
Point is, I think there is plenty of reason to wonder if there’s a flaw in the developmental process.