Cleveland Sports Forum

all the games:

http://www.milb.com/scoreboard/index.js ... d=20150826

Lots of runs scored. Some other highlights:

Holt 4 hits; Aguillar 3, one a double; Michael single and double; Naquin is out of the lineup again--if he's not hurt I'd like to see him in Cleveland in Sept. Erik Gonzalez 2b and 3b and 4 rbi. In AAA he's hitting 218 557 OPS

Zimmer 0-4 avg is only 252, ops still 808. 2 hits in his last 20, with 2 walks

Frazier 0-5 but 2 rbi. 280 826 ops. Turns 21 on Sept 6
Paulino single, double and walk, 311 935 ops in Lynchburg Turns 21 in in Dec
Papi double and 2 walks, 3 rbi. 234 709 ops

in the 2nd game, Bradley singled and walked. For the 2 games Silento Sayles had two hits a walk; 6-19 with 3 walks and 2 doubles since his promotion. Santander singled and hit his 8th HR for LC. Change 3 hits included a double, 3 rbi.

Ka'ai Tom his 11th and 12th double; 3 rbi.

PITCHING:

Mitch Brown 5 1/3 6 4 4 5 5 4.84
Kevin Lovergrove 2 2/3 7 9 5 4 2 5.98 3rd round pick is in his 4th season in short season ball, career ERA 5.33

Thursday:

Erik Gonzalez AAA HR3, 4 game hitting streak

Ronnie Rodriguez 2 hits and 2 rare walks
name I can't read in my notes single, double, walk looks like Monsalve but he isn't on the team. I'll check later

Levon Washington 3 hits, 2 doubles
Frazier 2 singles
Paulino single, walk, steal

Allen 2 hits, steal 41, caught #16
Bradley single and 3K

Tom single, double
Mathias single, double, walk

Pitching:

Plutko 5 2/3 6 2 1 0 6
Kime 6 1/3 5 2 2 3 3
Linares 1 3 4 4 3 1 terrible Cuban import

the 2 hits and walk were by Diaz. He's finishing up the season on a high note, although the homer surge has ended. [

[Perhaps he could be a challenger to Urshela if he succeeds in Columbus. Gio's as good a defender as you can find; whether they'll accept him as a long term solution probably depends as much on the rest of the lineup as on his development as a hitter. Doesn't help him that he remains an unselective hitter.]

Article from BA on pitching prospects who've improved their control over the course of the year. Makes an interesting point. None of the 9 who are highlighted were ours.

The best control pitchers in baseball are not necessarily the most effective pitchers. Furthermore, issuing a walk typically is the least harmful outcome for a pitcher in the event he fails to retire the batter. That’s because walks, unlike hits, do not advance other baserunners, so the base on balls tends to yield fewer runs than other undesired pitching outcomes.

At the same time, most successful starting pitchers possess at least average control, as measured by walk rate, because an overall ability to throw strikes keeps the pitcher in advantage counts more frequently and, by extension, helps him even the count in the event he does fall behind early. So while good control may not be everything, it is an important ingredient.

For that reason, we like to see young starters improve their control as they progress through the season. In this piece, we’ll take a look at nine such prospects who improved their walk rates from the first half to the second. For this exercise, the first half runs through June 23, the true midpoint of the season, and the second encompasses all games from June 24 to present. Several pitchers we highlighted last year have taken nice steps forward in 2015, including the Cardinals’ Alex Reyes, the Rays’ Nathan Karns, the Pirates’ Tyler Glasnow and the Blue Jays’ Aaron Sanchez.

Fielding-independent pitching (FIP) expresses strikeout rate, walk rate and home run rate on an ERA scale and indicates the quality of a pitcher’s peripheral statistics, which in turn indicates where his ERA should settle.

For a change there's not an Indians prospect at the top of the Hot Sheet this week. But Bradley was pretty decent again this week, albeit with fewer homers and more singles, and edges onto the lower rungs;

18. Bobby Bradley, 1b, Indians

Age: 19
Why He’s Here: .357/.438/.536 (10-for-28), 3 R, 1 3B, 1 HR, 5 RBIs, 4 BB, 13 SO

The Scoop: A third-rounder out of high school in 2014, Bradley has power to spare. He’s hitting .344 with 17 extra-base hits—including 11 homers—and 36 RBIs through 25 games this month in the Midwest League. What’s more, Bradley, with 27 homers and 88 RBIs, is closing in on his second straight minor league home runs and RBI crowns after he led the Rookie-level Arizona League in those categories last season.

The home run lead is unsurmountable. He's up by about 5 in RBI.

I was looking at the likely MVP candidates in the Midwest League and it appears that there's one only guy who has a claim any better than Bobby, but this guy: Ryan McBroom is 23 years old. So as a prospect he can't compare to Bradley. In fact the only other two with OPS over 800 are 23 and 24. So if MVP is based on season stats only, McBroom could win. On prospect quality it's Bradley in a walk.

McBroom 320/392/491/883
Bradley 271/356/536/892

2 more games for the Arizona League and they wrap up. Others go on about a week. We will get some teams in the playoffs. Lynchburg for one, is in first place for the second half in their division.

Gabriel Mejia rapped out three hits on Friday, including a double, and a single yesterday. So he's now hitting .316 for the Scrappers in his first week.

After joining his third organization this season, Jayson Aquino got some much-needed advice from Hillcats pitching coach Rigo Beltran. On Saturday, the coach left his pitcher alone.

The Indians left-hander carried a no-hitter into the eighth inning as Class A Advanced Lynchburg blanked Carolina, 2-0, at Five County Stadium.

Before finding himself five outs from history, Aquino (1-2) began the year in the Blue Jays system. But after five starts with Class A Advanced Dunedin, he was traded to the Pirates and moved to Bradenton. The 22-year-old southpaw appeared in 13 games with the Marauders before he was on the move again, this time to the Indians.

"He was a little confused of why he keeps going from one organization to the other, and just sharing from my experience because I had been traded three times as well," Beltran said. "So I was telling him, 'All it means is that other organizations want you more than the previous organization and there's a reason why we end up in certain places and maybe there's a reason why you need to be here; there's a lesson you need to learn with this organization that you're not learning anywhere else.'"

In his fifth start for the Hillcats, Aquino faced the minimum through 7 1/3 innings. In the second, Carlos Franco walked but was promptly erased on a double play.

"Just a great outing. He had everything working, he was commanding his fastball, his slider and his changeup," Beltran said. "He did a great job of throwing strikes, I think he had 86 percent first-pitch strikes, so he was really commanding the pitch count and just attacking the zone."

As the no-hit bid unfolded, Beltran and the rest of the bench kept with tradition and left Aquino alone. The pitching coach didn't speak to his hurler until the native of the Dominican Republic found himself in a hole in the eighth.

With one out, Franco and Joey Meneses singled. Beltran made his way to the mound to settle Aquino down. Although Reed Harper singled to load the bases, the talk paid off as Aquino got Jose Briceno to ground into an inning-ending double play.

"[Franco] ended up finding a hole for a base hit, next guy came up and got another base hit. They were three singles that got through holes," the coach said. "He looked like he was in a good place, he looked calm and like he knew what he wanted to do. He ended up coming up with the bases loaded and made a quality pitch to produce a ground-ball double play."

Aquino got two quick outs in the ninth, but after allowing a single to Connor Lien, he was four pitches beyond his limit of 90, so he exited with three strikeouts and his first scoreless outing since May. Robbie Aviles secured the final out for his third save and Aquino's first win in his new organization.

Saturday marked a successful bounce-back performance by the 6-foot-1 hurler, who allowed four runs on 12 hits over 5 2/3 innings at Salem in his last outing on Monday.

"[He did] a better job of keeping the ball down in the zone; he was up in the zone and behind in the count the last previous outing," Beltran said. "Him and I worked on some things during the bullpen [session] and he really did a good job of turning that into the game, and the great start was the result."

As the season comes to a close, Aquino has settled in with likely his final organization. Many of the southpaw's teammates played for the Class A Lake County squad that reached the Midwest League Championship Series last season, creating a postseason spirit this year.

"He kind of blended in really well with this team. He seems like a really good teammate. I see him laughing and joking around with all the guys," Beltran said. "He's really got caught up in the playoff atmosphere, he wants to win, he wants to be a part of it and he's already talking about pitching in the playoffs."

For all of Low A, Bradley laps the field. [of course some kids get promoted mid-year so that goes him some advantage]

2015 Class A Leaders

HR

1 B. Bradley LC 27
2 R. O'Hearn LEX 19
3 A. Rodriguez GBO 18
4 K. Woods GBO 18
5 C. Gillaspie BG 16

RBI

1 B. Bradley LC 89
2 R. McBroom LAN 83
3 J. Marmolejos-Diaz HAG 79
4 M. Herum KC 76
5 M. Suchy WV 73

Francona they're not going to call up a lot of players since "most of the young guys we want to see are here already". A reliever coming up Sept 1 and a few others later. I would expect the reliever to be Armstrong. I'd like to see them promote some RH bats to fill in OF and DH gaps: Aguillar, Holt and Choice. And I suppose CC Lee comes up; he's been OKish. Conceivably Carlos Marmol if there's someone they're reading to DFA, like Moncrief.

Saturday the above mentioned were the best in the Clipper lineup:

2 hits each for Holt and Aguilar.
Armstrong faced 5, struck out 4 no hits nor walks. 80 K in 49 2/3 innings
Marmol 1 inning 1 hit 2 walks. 1.61 ERA

for Akron:

Mike Clevinger continues to make a case for our top pitcher above Low A: 6 3-hit no-walk shutout innings; fanned 7. ERA 2.80. WHIP 1.07

Zimmer two singles and his 10th Akron steal. Diaz two singles and a walk.
Nellie Rod single and walk, impressed that he's being more selective.

Nice to know that neither Brad nor Yandy will need to be added to the 40-man roster this winter. Clevinger will.

Clint Frazier went hitless; only 2 hits in last 17.

Greg Allen singled twice and stole his 42nd. I think he's one ahead of Zimmer.
Bradley singled and walked twice. the 53 walks put him in the league top 10.
Santander nailed two runs.

and in Mah Valley:

we don't have to mention Sam Hentges' debut: 2 2/3 5 6 6 5 0. Let's rack it up to nerves pitching his first professional game in front of an actual crowd.
Ka'ai Tom singled, doubled [#15] hitting 290.
Daniel Salters singled twice, doubled, batted in 3.