When it comes to MINOR LEAGUE Guppies (what other kind is there?), I love the good, the bad, and the unusual.
Here’s some:
Syracuse used not 12 pitchers, not 20 pitchers, not 30 not 40, but 49 pitchers this year!
"I got promotes to pitch in Syracuse!"
"Hasn't everybody, what's the big deal?"
27 of those pitchers had ERAs above 5.00, 35 had ERAs above 4.00.
Bryce Montes de Oca fanned the 6th most of any AAA Mets pitcher, 56, despite throwing only 34 AAA innings. Oca fanned 86 in 54 innings at all levels in 2022. While he is reputed to be wild, walking 24 in those 34 AAA innings, Mack's guy, Michael Otanez, walked 35 in just 29.2 AAA innings. So, by comparison, de Oca is precision-guided. Moving on…
Only Connor Grey cleared 76 innings, booking 104 IP.
40 hitters, too, for the S-Mets.
Last year's OBP leader, Khalil Lee, fanned a way-too-high 139 times in 100 games and hit .215. Head scratcher. Fixable? Dunno.
They did hustle - 132 steals in 168 attempts (Jankowski 15 of 16 in 36 games - he was so fast, he is the new spokesman for Fleet enemas, very lucrative endorsement).
And Bryce Montes de Oca fanned 81 in 50 innings while allowing ZERO HRs. I infinitely love 81:0 ratios.
AA Binghamton (53-83, ERA of 5.13), while hitters did OK (132 HRs in 136 games and 627 runs scored)).
"Just" 27 hitters. But 45 pitchers!
Luke Ritter also hit .215 with a way high 133 Ks in 100 AA games. And 165 in 126 overall games.
James McCann went 10 for 38 in his AA rehabs - not too bad - but fanned a highly troubling 17 times. No wonder…
Ronny Mauricio tied for the second most HRs (26) and had the most RBIs (89) of any Mets minor leaguer, and stole 20 bases besides. Flaws to eradicate remain, and hopefully he fixes them all very quickly.
9 of the top 10 BINGO pitchers, in terms of innings, had ERAs of 5.40 or higher. In other words, pitching was THE weak link for the Ponies. 30 games under .500 despite strong years in AA from Alvarez, Baty, Mauricio, and Young amplifies that “bad to the bone pitching” point.
BROOKLYN:
After starting the season with miserable team offense, hitters who could were transferred in, and scoring, and winning, spiked. Rudick, Peroza and Schwartz demonstrated that when viable bats are added,the likelihood of everybody hitting better increases.
Prior to Ramirez, Lugo, and Consuegra showing up, the line up had lots of Newton, Palmer, O’Neill and Saunders. Those 4 were up 954 times (23% of Brooklyn’s 2022 at bats) for Brooklyn, had just 179 hits (.188), and fanned 394 times. I wonder if any of the 4 will be back. To rally and make the majors, their Ks need to be cut in half.
The park was once again a hitting hindrance, as the Cyclones scored 307 runs on the road but just 248 on the road. Fences in, anyone?
The 70-62 Clones had the second best team ERA (3.67, just .05 less than the league leader). To the pitchers’ credit, the road ERA was only 0.16 worse than the home ERA. They also followed the deGrom School-of Non-violence by hitting just 54 batters, 64 fewer than the most violent team’s 118 HBP.
ST LUCIE:
Won the title! Yessiree!
Omar De Los Santos and Carlos Dominguez combined for 36 HRs and 92 steals - WOW - but fanned 324 times in a combined 222 games…PHEW! Justin Guerrera joined the Fan Parade with 120 Ks in 82 Lucie games. Those 3 pushed the team to 1,355 Ks, just 1 K below the worst team, averaging 10.5 Ks per game average, and one every 3 at bats. As noted above, drastically cut the Ks or the majors will not be achieved.
1B Raul Beracierta hit .300 in 93 games with 13 dingers - nice! No one rants about Raul. So allow me to. Way to go, Raul. And Junior Tilien had a good season one day when he drilled 3 HRs in a single contest.
The 17 over .500 Lucite pitchers remarkably fanned almost as many (1,345), the league’s highest, and had a 4th best 3.96 ERA. Maybe it’s the lights.
Just a few noteworthy points. Have a noteworthy day, and pleas pass along any comments, noteworthy or not.
CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY: Edwin Diaz inks 5 year deal with the Mets. Yeah!
15 comments:
Morning Tom
De Oca has to learn how to throw more strikes.
More strikes means less pitches thrown and he could become a very effective late inning reliever.
Stay the way he is and you can throw him on the pile of failed speedballers that never learned to hit the barn.
True, Mack. But one career HR in 85 innings and 17 of 20 saves? Both impressive. I think he’s had 2 pro seasons, 3rd is the charm.
BMDO also had about 3 so-so outings in AAA over his last 3 months, out of 21 outings and fanned 47 in 24 innings. His MLB debut was shaky, but that is behind him now. I’m expecting success from him with the Mets in his 3rd pro season, but not expecting him to be Edwin Diaz II…only one of those currently exists on this planet.
I expect the Mets to resign Ottavino and build a rotation without either Peterson or Megill.
If that happens, there may not be any room for Oca.
Every team has pitchers that throw 100. If he can’t find the plate, how can you expect him to hit the corners. And, if he can’t hit the corners, you know what MLB hitters do with fastballs down the pipe? Nogosek is way better and he barely gets a chance. Let’s move on.
How Omar de los Santos didn’t get promoted is beyond me. That was wrong what the Mets did to that kid.
It is very difficult to look at minor league stats and draw reasonable conclusions. The minors are for development, so there will necessarily be a great amount of flux - people moving up and moving down as the staff tries to find the diamond in the rough and improve the weaknesses of players with great potential. Generally, players moving up a level take some time to adjust to the new level of play, and that adjustment period can skew statistics. This is where the development system needs lots of trained eyes to recognize immeasurable things like pitch recognition and baseball IQ. In theory, when you get really good at that, then your club can reap the benefits like ATL did this year with bringing up guys like Harris and Grissom.
Minor league pitching stats are highly affected when coaches demand pitchers to practice throwing pitches they have less command of and to spots they have had difficulty hitting.
Thus higher ERAs
I’m still of the opinion that BMDO is improving. We all once thought Nolan Ryan was way too wild. Then he improved to moderately wild. BMDO started out in A ball in 2021. By the end of 2022 he was wildly dominating AAA hitters. I think the upward progression continues. Bryce better spend his whole off season doing one thing…honing control.
As far as what major leaguer will do to him? He has allowed 1 pro homer in 85 career innings, none in 2022. I don’t expect he’ll suddenly start coughing up a lot of gopher balls in the big leagues.
For every Ryan there are 100 Oca's
Oca won't be a Ryan. But he could be a valuable pen piece in 2023. If he is working hard this offseason to tweak the control more. We could live with 5 walks and 7 hits and 14 Ks per 9 innings, with a low HR pitch. What drove Robles out of town was BOOM BOOM BOOM. In the upper minors, Robles gave up a HR about once every 10 innings, and later against MLB hitters that got worse. I don't know how to project how much BMDO's HR rate will go from zero allowed in 50 innings.
Wish upon a star, Vientos,Mangum,de Oca! Who knows?
Last thought on Bryce....he had some issues with the Mets in Sept and then went on IL - but how did he do his last 2 AAA outings as the season closed? 3 scoreless innings, 1 hit, 7 Ks - and yeah, 2 walks. I like finishing on a very high note.
Woodrow, we stop wishing and see what unfolds come 2023, unless one or more are traded this offseason
As for Hansel Robles, I have some memories from him like walking in the winning run against Colorado when he threw eight straight balls to end the game, the last one five feet over the catcher, and another time after a homerun allowed Josh Lewin wryly remarked that he has the correct initials…
Funny about the initials, Gus. Let's face it, if BMDO were to walk in a winning run with 8 straight balls, I'd be more than displeased.
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