8/29/16

MINOR LEAGUER PROFILES - AUGUST 28

MINOR LEAGUE PROFILES - AUGUST 28 by Tom Brennan

On the LIRR heading to the office, everyone else is sleeping, but I am thinking about a few minor leaguers. I'm weird that way.

Cespedes....no, Yoenis is not rehabbing down under, but I'll bet not many of you wished young Ricardo Cespedes a happy 19th birthday the other day.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RICARDO! The Bronx native is toiling for Kingsport in the Appalachian League, and has been Kingsport's hot stick lately, going .405 over his last 10 games and .311 overall on the season.  Not much power yet, but he has decent size and speed.  Keep up the good work, Ricardo....and again, happy birthday.

Knapp - I will definitely be looking to catch a nap on the LIRR way home, but that is not the Knapp I am focusing on.  Ricky Knapp has quietly gone 13-6 between St Lucie and Binghamton this year...should have been 14-5 had Binghamton scored a few more runs in a loss that Ricky pitched very well in yesterday.  He has an impressive 1.13 WHIP and a respectable 110 K in 158 IP, a quite high number of innings pitched in this day and age.  Future middle-or-end-of- rotation guy? Why the heck not?

Thompson- David Thompson's numbers have slipped a little since his promo to St Lucie, but his knack for RBIs has not, as he broke a late scoreless game with a 3 run shot, giving him 92 ribbie as in 111 games.  He'd probably have 100 RBI were it not for a DL stint this year.  Sweet.  Looking forward to seeing what he does in 2017.

Lindsay and Alonso - the former injured earlier this season, and the latter injured now, but the two have combined for the Cyclones to hit .313 with a great OBP and 9 homers.  The rest of the team?  Hitting an amazingly bad .194 in about 2,100 at bats, AND they use a DH.  The team's other hitters hope to someday hit like Bartolo Colon.

Zanghi - through some glitch, this Cyclones reliever's stats are not being shown by MILB.  They need to fix that fast, because Joe Zanghi has done some mighty fine relieving for Brooklyn post-draft: 1-0, 8 saves, 1.27 in 28.1 IP, with 43 strikeouts. Very nice, Joe.

Dunn - After Justin Dunn, I'm Dunn....ere...done here.  Our first round selection has been on an innings restriction, and hence has thrown three 2 inning outings and six 3 inning outings, nothing longer  He has been impressive, with a 1.50 ERA and 28 K in those 24 IP.  Three of his 4 earned runs came in one outing, so he has been mostly dominant. The flamethrowing craftsman is likely to move up very quickly in 2016.

Have a great day, folks.  Before I go, though, I sure liked what I saw of Robert Gsellman yesterday, but unfortunately, the Mets proved again that if you remove Cespedes, Walker and Cabrera from the lineup, the runs will be scarce.

4 comments:

Tom Brennan said...

I should have included Catcher Pat Mazelka in my article.

Pat has hit .329 with a .465 on base % in 24 August games for Columbia. Despite a slow, injury filled start to the season, his on base % for the year (64 games) is .411, and he is (for his career) .324/.432/.467 in 126 games. Nice bat. Only 30 of 114 base stealers nabbed, though, so not sure he'd be any better than TDA defensively.

That Adam Smith said...

Excited about Lindsay and Alonso. Very excited about Rosario. Have hopes for Thompson. Getting intrigued by Nido and Evans. Can't wait to see Dunn with a full workload next year.

Tom Brennan said...

Adam - yep on Dunn. Dunn, Szapucki, Gonzalez (Harol) should be an intriguing trio next year. Throw in Marcos Molina, who hopefully will be repaired and ready to resume by OD 2017 and Knapp and Conlon, and although we dumped a ton of pitchers in trades last year, we appear to have a fine stock going forward.

I hope Alonzo and Lindsay show they are high average power hitters next year. We need that sort of hitter.

Tom Brennan said...

Cespedes Night. Yoenis hits a walk off bomb, Ricardo stays red hot by going 4 for 4 for Kingsport.