Mack’s Apples - Riley Greene, Missing Fans, Peter Alonso, Bad Baseball, Kelvin Herrera

         Top 2019 Prospects - Riley Greene     OF       Hagerty   
    

           PG Grade: 10 - Riley Greene is a 2019 OF/LHP with a 6-2 180 lb. frame from Oviedo, FL who attends Hagerty HS. Large, athletic frame with square shoulders and long limbs, lean and projectable build with quick-twitch muscle and plenty of physical projection remaining. Ran a 6.81 60-yard dash. Lefthanded hitter, begins with an upright stance and shows nice balance through load and into point of contact. Gets the barrel extended out front with an easy path and generates lots of natural leverage off the bat. Loose hands help drive the ball with ease to all fields, shows present jump and strength but still projects very well moving forward with additional physicality. Named to Junior National Top Prospect List. Very good student. Verbal commitment to Florida.

          Two Million Baseball Fans Are Missing –

           Rob Manfred, MLB owners, players: we have a problem. Some of your ticket buyers are missing. In fact, nearly two million of them.

As we approach the official beginning of summer and the midpoint of the baseball season, attendance is down by about 2,000 per game, or 6.7%, relative to a year ago.

MLB attendance has generally and gradually been declining since its peak of 79.48 million fans in 2007. That was 32,696 per contest. The average per-game figure fell below 30,000 last year for the first time since 2003.

John Sickles on Peter Alonso -

       

    As noted, his error rates have been very high for a first baseman. This issue is a little better this year but not by much, his fielding percentage this year standing at .986.

While you can live with a few extra errors from a player who has good range, Alonso isn’t that type of first baseman; Baseball America for example describing him in their 2018 report as an “uncoordinated, slow-bodied defender” who needs to make significant improvements to be playable. Too many errors combined with poor range won’t cut it.

It should be noted that spring training reports on his glove were positive, one source telling BA that Alonso’s “footwork has improved, and his recognition off the bat has gotten better. . .he has improved on popups and is working on glove-side grounders. His throwing is solid.”

So far those reported improvements are only showing up in a marginal way within the regular season boxscores. Still, all agree that Alonso has worked quite hard at improving his glove and even if the results are not everything hoped yet, he still has a chance to be acceptable down the line.

Bottom line: his defense still needs more work but the offense is definitely real. I’d move him up to a straight Grade B prospect now with more possible depending on how his glove progresses and assuming he continues mashing once he arrives in AAA.

MLB has a bad baseball problem that's only getting worse –

        

   In an era when athletes are bigger, stronger and faster, something has gone dreadfully wrong with our glorious pastime.

Players are striking out more than at any time, an alarming 22.5 percent of all plate appearances. We are on pace for more strikeouts than hits –  18,613 strikeouts compared to 18,136 hits entering Wednesday's non-action.

Grading The Deal: Nationals Nab Kelvin Herrera To Improve Bullpen –

       

    Grade for Nationals: A - The Nationals had the desire to improve the bullpen and they did so. They paid what seems to be an extremely fair cost for said upgrade and they now have him quite a bit earlier than normal. That means Herrera will be around for more innings and provide more value to his team in their attempt to make it back to the postseason in a surprisingly challenging season. If I'm Washington GM Mike Rizzo, I do this deal every time.