Minor League Players of The Night - Three gentlemen: Steve Matz, brilliant on the mound and with the bat. Also, red hot Brad Wieck and Jeff McNeil brought joy in Gnat and Lucie Land. Wieck is a strikeout machine and McNeil has hit over .400 for the last 4 or 5 weeks.
Honorable Mention - Josh Smoker, for a dominating relief outing for St Lucie.
AAA - Las Vegas - (29-17) 9. Colo. Springs (16-28) 1
LHSP Steven Matz - 7 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 7 K, 2-3, 2 RBI
A five run first leads the 51s to victory. Steve Matz was the pitching ang hittins star for LV. He also volunteered to take out the trash if it would get him to Queens sooner.
Wilfredo Tovar drove in 3, Brandon Allen scored 3. A dominating performance.
AA - Portland (20-26) 8 - Binghamton (24-21) 5
RHSP Gabriel Ynoa - 6.1-IP, 7-H, 5-R, 0-K, 0-BB, 4.72
2B Josh Rodriguez - 3-5, 1-R, 1-HR (9), 1-RBI, .309
RHSP Bobby Parnell - 1.0-IP, 0-H, 0-R, 1-K, 1-BB, 0.00
RHRP - Vic Black - 1.0-IP, 0-H, 0-R, 0-K, 0-BB, 0.00
Mack - This was the first time this season that Black threw back-to-back games...
Ynoa is looking a little suspect as a prospect, when he strikes out none in 6.1 innings. He gives up lots of hits, low Ks. Aderlin Rodriguez also had 3 hits and homered for the B Mets. Eudy Pina's 4 hits boost him to .319.
A+ - St. Lucie (22-23) 6 - Lakeland (21-23) 3
RHSP Miller Diaz - 5.2-IP, 5-H, 3-R, 4-K, 3-BB, 3.32
3B Jeff McNeil - 4-5, 1-R, 1-RBI, .348
1B Dominic Smith - 1-4, double, 3-RBI, .234
Jeff McNeil is having a fabulous year after a slow start.
Soon we may be able to say that about Dominic Smith, who has knocked in a lot of runners the past 3 weeks.
Josh Smoker was smoking in relief tonight, with 5 Ks in 2 innings of 1 hit excellence.
A - Savannah (19-25) 5 - Asheville (19-25) 1
LHSP Brad Wieck - 6.2-IP, 4-H, 1-R, 9-K, 1-BB, 3.09
RF Wuilmer Beccera - 2-4, double, 1-RBI, .259
LHRP David Roseboom - 1.0-IP, 1-H, 0-R, 1-K, 1-BB, 1.57
Brad Wieck is becoming dominant. An amazing 52 Ks in his last 34 innings as a starter. Future big league starter?
GOAT: After a string of excellent relief appearances, Adam Kolarek was bad again tonight, allowing 3 earned runs that prvoved to be the margin of defeat for Binghamtob.
Has anyone seen Wieck Pitch? He's a little "old" for the Sally League, but the guy is a Low Hit/High K guy.... 6'9" lefty.... he has some BB to deal with. Any thoughts on this guy?
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ReplyDeleteThis was my write up on Weick this off-season.
Wieck is a interesting, albeit, relatively unknown commodity. Wieck is the largest prospect in the Mets system right now besting fellow 2014 draftee and 6' 8" monster himself, Josh Prevost. Wieck had a tumultuous college journey which took him from the University New Mexico to Frank Phillips College, then to Cisco College, and finally to NAIA participant OCU. That's right....NAIA....not NCAA Division I or II or even III.....NAIA. Facing inferior talent, Wieck racked up 118 K's in only 69.2 IP while only walking 23 both as OCU's closer and as a starter down towards the end of the 2014 season.
Weick signed immediately after being drafted and was sent to Brooklyn to build on his 69 IP this season and to prove that he's capable of sticking with NCAA caliber talent. Not only did he prove himself, but he flat out dominated the New York-Pennsylvania League. As a reliever for the Cyclones, Wieck struck out nearly 40% of the batters he faced and held batters to a .181 Batting Average Against including only 1 HR against him thanks to a ground-ball rate of 32.7% vs. a fly-ball rate of 21.8%.
Wieck's size combined with his stuff is what makes him so intriguing. His fastball clocks in between 92 - 94 mph, which is plus velocity from a left handed pitcher, and his size and release point generate a ton of downward movement on it which generates ground-balls. His primary secondary pitch is a curveball that clocks in between 74-76 mph. The pitch has pretty solid two-plane movement break and he has the ability to throw it for a strike or bury it low in the zone to get batters to chance. He also has a change-up in his arsenal, however, the pitch is viewed as poor to below average at best. While the speed differential is pretty good (92mph fastball vs. 78 mph change), he tips the pitch at times slowing his arm speed and the movement on it is a pretty flat downward motion that most batters can pick up on.
His size and two pitch arsenal could make for an excellent MLB LOOGY and maybe even a late inning, double play specialist MLB reliever. His dominance in Short Season A tells me that, if the team decides that RP is the route to go, he could move quickly like Josh Edgin did when he was drafted. In that scenario he would start 2015 in St. Lucie, but, if the Mets think they can work with him on his change-up and develop a 3rd pitch so that he can start, then he'll be in Savannah come April 1st.
Good write up, Chris. My take on Wieck is he is rapidly improving. Might be a bad nite to use the analogy, but Robles struggled as a starter (higher ERA, lower Ks) and then clicked as a reliever. It is harder to start and go thru line ups multiple times. The fact that wieck has averaged nearly 14 Ks per game over his last 6 starts is a great indicator.
ReplyDeleteMy lone reservation with Gsellman's great start in 2015 is his 6.5 per 9 inning K rate. wieck is more than double that over the past several weeks.
Gabe Ynoa's 22nd birthday was not kind yesterday, and he has a 1.47 WHIP and a low K rate of 5 per 9 innings.
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