Tom Brennan - AA Non-Hitters….and Much More

The AA Eastern League is pretty hitter neutral.

About 4.7 runs per game is the norm.

The Rumble Ponies’ pitching of late (excluding Thursday’s 14-0 drubbing) has been best-in-league. 

The Rumblers’ hitting has huge holes, though.

.223 as a team, through Thursday, the Eastern league’s worst. 

Ditto on the .361 slug %, despite a boost from an earlier torrid Luke Ritter HR stretch before he was promoted to AAA.

Not a home park issue: .229 home, .219 away.

No, the problem has been the bottom 6 plus the newbies.

BOTTOM 6:

Agustin Ruiz, Matt O’Neill, Hayden Senger, Jayden Palmer, Mateo Gil, and Tanner Murphy all under .200, totaling .184 in 955 at bats with 374 Ks (39%).  29% of at bats from sub-.200 dudes up 70 to nearly 300 times.

What is that?

A low-talent problem.

My new rule of thumb is when you get promoted from AAA to the majors, your average will drop 100 points. For AA, that would probably be 150 points.  So, these 6, if moved to the big leagues from AA today for the rest of the season, would hit .034 (.184 minus 150 points).

NEWBIES:

Thru Thursday, the hyped Luisangel Acuna, Gilbert, and Jackson are a combined 14 for 80, but the talent is there, time to adjust is the key.

So, there you go. Chew on that, you polo ponies out there who gallop to read these articles.

Let me add that on top of the 14-0 Thursday loss, the Yanks took a little more mercy by only beating them 9-0 last night. 23-0 in two games, from an UPGRADED team? Hmmm…

METS TRAGEDY CONTINUES TO UNFOLD:

The Mets lost to the Braves by a touchdown, 7-0, despite compiling 7 hits and 9 walks, the kind of stuff that bad teams do, 16 on base, no runs. That requires a certain skill set. 

Of course, one hitter in the lineup had none of those 16 trips on base, your very own Daniel V, who went a big, fat 0 for 5. Sit, Daniel, sit.

Nicely, though, Mark Vientos went 2 for 4 to break back into the hit column.

Tie Lore Megill was fine for 3 shutout innings, but downright lousy for his next 2.1 innings. The story of many of his starts. (Hint: Move to Bullpen).

The Braves have scored 154 more runs than the Mets, with an OPS 124 points higher than the Mets.  Had Megill and the opposing pitchers switched teams for the game, Megill would have won 9-2. 

Roger Craig, of course, knew it was easy for very good teams to beat very bad teams who were using a decent caliber starter….such as Roger Craig, who was 15-46 as a Met despite a solid ERA.  Koosman once went 11-35 over 2 consecutive very bad Mets team years despite a solid ERA. It was possible that if Koosman had pitched for baseball’s best scoring team those two seasons, he might have gone 35-11 instead.  

MUCH nicer to pitch for the best hitting team, which these days is the Braves.

 Lindor’s consecutive game streak ended due to a sore side, which will need an MRI, it appears. An occasional day off is a balm to the body, and prevents injury due to wear and tear.  Mr. Arauz played SS in his stead and walked twice while going 0 for 2.

In Syracuse, Ronny reawakened and smacked 2 out, and Baty (.386 in AAA) hit another. Syracuse lost to the Yanks’ team, which rallied for 3 bottom 9 to win 8-7.

As a reminder of the wide chasm between AAA hitting and MLB hitting, due to the wide chasm in pitching, Scranton’s Franchy Cordero is tearing it up at .331 with power, but with the NYY Bronx team, he was a mere 13 for 69 this year (.188).

Lastly, in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Cyclops strangled the opposition, behind a brilliant 3 hit, 6 inning, 11 K outing by Joander Suarez. Beware the mighty Cyclops.

Sayonara. I hope you took great offense with this article, because man, do I love offense.