10 Observations: Omar Alfonzo first week in Altoona, Termarr upside, Zander Mueth
A look around the system from the previous week
Murphy 7/1: I feel like Levi Sterling could use the Carlson Reed treatment, and split the fastball into two, if it hasn’t been done already. Lots of the metrics have come back ‘meh’ and add in the fact he’s throwing low-90s, it’s gotten beat up quite a bit in the FCL.
Haven’t lost confidence in him as a prospect, more realigned the fact that he’s probably more of a project than originally thought. That being said, the second pitches have all looked good.
Murphy 7/2: Richard Ramirez has, overall, looked good in the early goings of his time with Bradenton. One thing I have noticed is that he has struggled with elevated fastballs. A good amount of his misses early on have been from the fastball.
He’s made a couple of good swings at breaking pitches early on, so everything seems sort of backwards so far.
Murphy 7/3: It hasn’t translated to hits, just yet, but I’ve liked the swings that Esmerlyn Valdez has put together. Yes, he has a double, but outside of that (three games in), he hasn’t finished with many hits.
He did put on a good swing against a breaking ball and hit it into the outfield. More importantly, he has just one strikeout in the first three games he’s played at the Double-A level.
Again, I’ll buy the power all day, but it’s seeing the contact that’s going to continue his rise.
Murphy 7/3: With Altoona getting velocity readings back on the broadcast, we’ve been able to get an idea of how hard the pitchers are throwing right now. One interesting name that’s new to the team, Brandan Bidois, I was especially interested to see how hard he’s throwing.
He’s been off to a good start with Altoona, and he hit 97 mph with his fastball during his outing on Thursday. It has some outlier traits to it (going back to his Bradenton days), so dialing it up that high is an even bigger plus.
Bidois and Ryan Harbin have been off to a strong start with their new club.
Murphy 7/3: Carlos Castillo has been up and down this year, there’s some there to work with, he’s just a young and raw prospect that is learning how to pitch at the pro level. The slider has particularly shown promise, and it was at the top of its game in his start on Thursday. Castillo threw it 19 times and got whiffs on four of seven swings.
He’ll need at least one pitch that can miss bats if he wants to keep moving up, and I had always expected it to be the slider, and that was probably the best I’ve seen it.
Murphy 7/4: With Omar Alfonzo and Esmerlyn Valdez in Altoona, I took a little deeper of look at Termarr Johnson as well, and I still feel like he’s just going to be fine. That fourth overall pick tag that he comes with will probably make people expect more, but I feel like he could settle in as a ‘league average’ type of second baseman.
I looked at Jake Cronenworth’s numbers from a year ago, and he finished right around 2.0 fWAR. Those numbers seem like a fair expectation from Johnson (perhaps with more stolen bases). It’s just a matter of what Nick Gonzales is going to be able to provide.
WTM 7/5: In case you’re wondering about Zander Mueth’s arm angle . . .
Murphy 7/5: The excitement about the recent promotions centered around Esmerlyn Valdez due to the home runs, but Omar Alfonzo got off to a quicker start. I’ve mentioned somewhere on here that I believe that Alfonzo had the second-best combination of ‘hit’ and ‘power’ in the system, behind Konnor Griffin, and he showed that this past week.
A pair of home runs, and flashed some solid bat-to-ball skills throughout.
Just plenty of talent, and becoming more of a leader in the locker room (I’ll have a feature on him coming out soon after talking to Blake Butler about him in Greensboro).
Murphy 7/5: After missing a couple of weeks, David Matoma is back and has started to get back into his routine. It hasn’t always been pretty, but his recent commitment to throwing the slider has been something I have wanted to see all season.
Makes him feel like an actual pitcher as opposed to just someone with a heavy fastball throwing. He’s starting to feel more comfortable placing it, too.
Murphy 7/6: Edward Florentino has perhaps one of the sweetest, smoothest swings I have ever seen. It’s just so easy, and for being 18, it packs a punch behind it. He homered twice on Sunday, and while they weren’t towering shots, he was able to get enough to put them in position to leave the park.
Going to be crazy to see what he can do when he actually fills out some of that frame.
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BA just put out new top 30s. They added a list of guys rising or falling a lot. Rising: Adonis, Dotel, Kelly. Falling: Yorke.
My observation, is for formerly Pirates prospect, Charles McAdoo, cause I like to be angry.
He was placed on the Developmental List on May 20th, after slashing .193/.273./.261 in 33 games for a 62 wRC+. He came off on May 27th, and has since slashed: .295/.331/.574 with a 158 wRC+.
Can't wait to get a DSL lottery ticket or IFA slot money for IKF.