PITCHERS ARE HAVING A WICKED CASE OF “THE RUNS”
IN THE DSL (DIARRHEA SUMMER LEAGUE)
Sorry for the visual image, but if the shoe fits, wipe off the sole.
When pitchers in the DSL are not getting rocked, they are walking the park.
The Mets DSL Blue team’s pitchers incredibly allowed 478 runs in 423 IP.
Good Golly, Miss Molly.
They were downright stingy, though, compared to the DSL Padres Brown team, which allowed 527 runs in 402 innings, 11.8 runs per 9 innings, and the Miami DSL squad that allowed 506 runs in 392 innings.
Teams that allowed more than, or barely less than, a run per inning, which I arbitrarily defined as 10 or fewer less runs than innings pitched, plus any teams allowing more than a run per inning?
13 TEAMS. EQUALLING 26% OF THE LEAGUE’S TEAMS.
The DSL’ stingiest team still allowed 5 runs per 9 innings. They were rare.
Why? Only 5 of the 51 teams allowed fewer than 6 runs per 9 innings.
THE DSL is mistakenly thought to be the Dominican Summer League.
It is more aptly entitled:
DSL = Diarrhea Scoring League
My brother Steve asked me how that much poor DSL pitching could be possible.
I thought about it, and said to him that my best guess is that you are likely pulling about 1,400 to 1,500 pitchers in the 16-19 age range mostly from the little Dominican Republic, to cover the entire 51 team league.
You will have to use a lot of truly bad pitchers to do that, hence the huge amount of runs, walks, and hit batsmen in the DSL. There are 100s of pitchers with mind-boggling poor DSL stats.
For instance, the worst hurling team, the Padres Brown, had 13 pitchers with ERAs above 10. The poor-pitching Mets Blue team had 10 pitchers with ERAs above 10.
And probably, most of the strong-armed players want to be shortstops.
THE DSL’S HIGH A BALL COUNTERPART?
The DSL highly hurting hurlers are not alone.
DSL hurlers have “explosive diarrhea” company: Asheville, in High A ball.
The Ashevillian pitchers have allowed a staggering 580 runs at home in just 534 innings, with opposing hitters batting .319 in their home park and allowing a staggering 132 HRs in 60 games.
No surprise, since their teeny tiny park is 373 feet to dead center, 320 feet to right center, and 296 down the right field line.
When I was a 130 pound, 16 year old lefty hitting slugger-kid with pimples, I could hit a ball about 350 or so feet max, and thus could easily have cleared that Asheville fence in right field and right center.
Sign me up! I was a more muscled 160 pounds by age 18, and I too could have been an Asheville power hitter.
Those crazy short dimensions at least partially explain why Brooklyn scored a huge 43 runs in their last 3 games there last week.
And 64 runs in the entire 6 game weekly series there.
Remarkably, that STILL left Brooklyn with a league-worst .215 average this year. Why?
The Cyclones (both road and home) hit (wrong word) .184 in April and .191 in May, which is an awfully tough hole to dig out of.
Brooklyn pitchers meanwhile incredibly have allowed just 244 runs in 59 home games in Stingy Field, or 336 fewer runs than Asheville pitchers allowed at home.
Meaning that Brooklyn pitchers have allowed a staggering 5.6 runs per game fewer in Brooklyn this season than Asheville chuckers have projectile-vomited out in Asheville, NC.
Asheville hitters, on the other hand?
They love their home park, of course, scoring 7.3 runs per game there this season. And 144 fewer runs on the road, so I hear that they hate to travel.
Don’t tell me park dimensions and wind/chill conditions don’t matter.
They matter bigly.
The SAL league’s Greensboro park is quite cozy, too, and the proof is that their team has scored over 7 runs per home game. Why is that relevant?
Sammy Stafura hit 19 HRs and drove in 51 runs in 47 games for Greensboro before heading to Brooklyn in “the Luke Weaver trade”.
Since joining Brooklyn, where chunks of strength-sapping kryptonite are reportedly strewn throughout the clubhouse, Sammy has 0 HRs and 2 RBIs in 14 Cyclones games through Sunday.
Surprised? Not me.
So, remember this…
Mitch Voit struggled in Brooklyn in April and May, as did Corey Collins.
Gold Glove, hyper speed Mitch gets promoted to AA and out of Cyclones gulag in Siberia, and is it any surprise that Mitch was torching it at a stunning .437/.529/.648 in 18 AA games?
REMINDER TO READERS:
COMPLETELY IGNORE BROOKLYN STATS WHEN EVALUATING ANY HITTERS.
ALSO, ON THE TOPIC OF RUNS ALLOWED…
The 1962 Mets, in large part due to atrocious defense, allowed 948 runs in 160 games. Had they played all 162 at that pace, they would have allowed 960 runs.
In only one other season, 2017, did the Mets even allow more than 800 runs (863) to score.
Pretty remarkable: all the other Mets seasons were below 800 runs allowed.
The Mets top 4 minor league teams in 2026 have allowed LOTS of runs.
Here are the totals through August 24 for each of those teams, and the projected runs they’d allow if their seasons extended over 162 games:
St Lucie - A: 713 runs in 119 games. 162 game projection: 1,004 runs!
Syracuse - AAA: 626 runs in 125 games. 162 game projection: 812 runs!
Binghamton - AA: 603 runs in 121 games. 162 game projection: 807 runs!
Brooklyn - Hi A: 543 runs in 118 games. 162 game projection: 745 runs!
So, the first 3 minors teams, based on 162 game projections, would have ranked #1, #4, and #5 in the Mets’ 60+ seasons of most runs allowed in a season.
Brooklyn would have been in the top third of all Mets seasons in runs allowed.
So…all I can conclude is…don’t really expect sufficient useful major league caliber pitching to come out of the minors in 2027.
The top 4 teams collectively, based on the above data, have terrible pitching.
LAST NIGHT
Mets loss…we need to sell Stock short…Bichette leaves game hurt…
Vientos homers in Syracuse, as Syracuse scores 11…bashing Brooklyn also scores 11 runs, 7 of them in the 10th inning. Love those extras.
Trey Snyder and Billy Amick had their slugging shoes on last night, especially Amick, who cracked 2 homers and added another hit.
Billy has 33 HRs and 99 RBIs in just 385 at bats. Billy Kingman.
I’d give Kaopectate to all DSL and Asheville pitchers, to stop the runs.
ReplyDeleteI like to stay targeted on the good pitching at all levels, ever the Distinguished Summer League... especially Abner Mesa who dominated there this season and will make a splash in Florida next season.
ReplyDeleteLastly, there is a bunch of good starter outings going on this past week.
I will outline them tomorrow at 6am
Go for it. Mesa was quite good.
DeleteLooking forward to that post Mack. I think a lot of pitchers are bound to be fillers throughout the minors. It can't be otherwise really. You've got pitchers for more than 1/3 of even the biggest rosters in the minors. So it makes sense that the major league FO has to keep its eyes on very few of their minor league pitchers, and also have to discount the hitting performance of all their hitters with lofty batting averages. They are all hitting against pitchers most of the time who are there primarily to enjoy a period as a professional baseball player and to eat innings and save arms
ReplyDeleteKeith Law went to the Rumble Ponies game on Tuesday:
ReplyDelete“ Hill, acquired from Tampa Bay in the Freddy Peralta deal, was a projection pick out of high school. He was still 17 when the Rays took him in the sixth round in 2022, but his success in the minors to date is largely about his command and feel for pitching because his stuff hasn’t really ticked up yet. He pitched well twice through Reading’s lineup on Tuesday, but the third time through, hitters were all over his dead-straight 91-94-mph fastball, and he doesn’t have an average second pitch to keep them off it. He’s throwing a sweeper now as well as a true slider; the latter pitch is 85-89 but short like a cutter, while the sweeper has better shape and about 10 miles an hour less in velocity.
There’s a lot more in the tank here, especially because his delivery is really inefficient — he doesn’t take much of a stride, straightens his front leg really early, lands hard and doesn’t finish the breaking stuff out front. He should be able to throw harder than this, especially on that sweeper, and he has to get his breaking pitches down more than he is right now. He doesn’t walk many — zero in this outing in 22 batters faced — and other than throwing a few sliders to lefties when he should be going changeup, he showed pretty good feel for what he was doing. Right now, I wouldn’t have him as a big-league starter, but I also think he has mid-rotation upside if the Mets are really aggressive about changing things up.
Rojas, acquired from the Cubs for Clay Holmes and Tyrone Taylor, was the DH in this game, so I didn’t get to see him field, because that’s how the DH works. He has outstanding bat speed, using it once to homer on a pitch he caught way out in front and still managed to drive out the other way, but he also went after some pitches well out of the zone and struck out in his other three plate appearances. There were five homers in this game, all by Binghamton hitters, as Reading is a launching pad, so keep that in mind when looking at this box score.
Mitch Voit, the Mets’ 2025 first-round pick, led off for Binghamton and had his first hitless game since August 13, and just his third since he was promoted to Double A at the start of the month. He looked great at second base, but at the plate his bat looked a little slow — it doesn’t help when Rojas is batting two spots after you — which became an issue later in the game when Reading brought in a little velocity.”
Your point about Reading is well founded. Philly has launching pad minor league parks. The Mets do not.
DeleteGus, thanks. I know Voit missed some games with an HBP, which could have affected his bat speed, but agree on Rojas. Lightning quick bat.
ReplyDelete