10 Observations: Charles McAdoo starts week off quickly, hitting prospect making waves
10 Observations: Charles McAdoo starts week off quickly, hitting prospect making waves
Charles McAdoo jumps on the first pitch he sees this week plus other observations from this past week.
Murphy (6/11)—Charles McAdoo only needed one pitch to get things going this week, sending a ball over the left-field fence for a home run. He’s having a great season, and that swing shows why he’s doing so well. His ability to wait on the breaking pitch, adjust mid-swing, and turn on it to send it over the fence was beautiful.
Murphy (6/11)—One of the things that stood out during my time in Bradenton was sitting in front of a scout that, as the game was ending and we were all leaving, said, ‘That is some of the worst outfield defense I have ever seen, by both sides’
Since then, that has really stuck with me, and I have noticed a lot of, well, bad defense throughout the system.
There are some standouts—Javier Rivas and Jack Brannigan come to mind—but with the latter out, two-second basemen (Termarr Johnson and Mitch Jebb) have been left in Greensboro to split time at shortstop. Thomas Harrington got blasted on Tuesday, but only one of six runs allowed were earned.
I remember Esmerlyn Valdez having to make a difficult catch solely based on his route in Bradenton. McAdoo struggled a bit in right field on Tuesday, playing a ball and with the throw back in.
It gets rough out there at times, and it’s starting to become even more noticeable. The bad defense, in turn, causes the pitching to work that much harder.
Edit: I wrote this up on Tuesday, and there was almost a nightly occurrence of very noticeable bad defensive play. Too much to list here, but it got really bad throughout the system, and it wasn’t always noted with an error, so the pitchers ended up taking more of a beating than it should have been.
Murphy 6/13—John Lopez made a rare appearance in a game on Thursday and an even rarer plate appearance. He was on the Bradenton Marauders roster a bit, was a defensive substitution for Jason Delay, and eventually pinch-hit.
I'm not sure why, at this point, he picked up three hits—including a double—batting out of the leadoff spot as the DH. He turned on a pitch and ripped it down the line for the double, and slapped a ball the other way for a single.
It didn’t look like a player that needed to be hidden from professional pitching, and I wonder if this might be a springboard for more playing time.
Oh, and where his player page says 5’5”, that might be a bit generous.
Murphy 6/13—Another week, another Richard Ramirez observation. Not only did he have a couple of hard-hit balls, but he also made three outs on the bases defensively. Yordany De Los Santos and Jhonny Severino (and Estuar Suero, who is on the injured list) are well-known names, and ones you could make a case shouldn’t be in the Complex still.
Ramirez is probably the best-hitting prospect on the team. That’s right where he needs to be, at least depending on where your thoughts are on Suero right now.
Murphy 6/13—One of the things that I personally wanted to see from Braxton Ashcraft before he headed to the majors was a little more change-up usage. It was his third most used pitch behind the fastball and slider in his Triple-A debut. It needed some work, and honestly, with two above-average/near-plus breaking pitches, he may not need it, but it was nice to see regardless.
Murphy 6/13—It looked like Carlson Reed was attacking the top of the zone with the fastball a little bit more than usual in his last start. He’s also walked two over his last 10 innings (two starts) while striking out 17. I’m still wondering how the fastball will play moving up, but the secondary stuff is legit, and he’s throwing more strikes now.
Murphy 6/13—After a bit of a rough start, Jaden Woods has put together a solid stretch of games. He’s put together shutout appearances in 10 of his last 11 games on the mound. He put together a 0.79 ERA in May and has just one earned run among two hits in four innings this June. It wasn’t a save opportunity, but he strung together the final three outs of their Thursday win. He’s someone that you feel could move quickly if things work out well in Double-A.
Murphy 6/15—A sequence really stood out to me from Bubba Chandler in the first inning of his start on Saturday. He started it off with two change-ups, both getting whiffs. The second one really faded away from the left-handed hitter. He then climbed the ladder with the fastball, hitting 98 mph, which was fouled off.
He then dropped a backfoot slider in for a swing and missed strikeout to end the inning.
Beautiful job of sequencing and changing eye levels. Exactly the kind of stuff you want to see.
Murphy 6/15—That was a brilliant start from Khristian Curtis. Throw strikes, and good things happen, right? He was in the strike zone most of the night with his fastball, which set up the rest of his pitches.
Curtis threw 75 pitches on Saturday, with 44% of them either being a whiff or called strike. He’s completed at least five innings in each of his last four starts now, allowing two earned runs or less in each. He’s also walked just six batters in 17 innings pitched during the month of June.
Nola Jeffy 6/16 — Sometimes it's the little things, and Lonnie White Jr. struck out only four times in a six-game series. He went 5-for-22 with two home runs and four RBI. He hit the ball hard a handful of other times, with one being a liner up the middle the second baseman was able to snag and turn a double play. He currently has a K-rate of over 30% and a sub-.200 BABIP. Time will tell, but it'd be nice to see the young CF turn a corner.
Extra note on White—Three of the four strikeouts came in one game. So, that means he struck out once in the other five games. A notable stretch for him.
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AM: Defense is not emphasized as highly in today's game - HR's, Hitting are what gets you promoted. When we talk about Draft Prospects, how often do you see a mention of a player's defensive ability?
A good example is Jared Triolo who the Pirates are thrilled to have as the Utility Infielder playing 3B, 2B, and SS in multiple games so far this season. But, a team only needs one guy like that, and he better be able to also post some decent offensive numbers if he wants to stay at the MLB level. The Pirates have many MI's, but few who can step into that Hot Corner and play D near as well as the Best Defensive 3B in the game!
Great to see a little relief coming for Lonnie, kid was really wearing it.
The Pontes piece in BA a week back speaks to Murphy's point on defense, IMO. At this point it's pretty hard to ignore the terrible quality of baseball in the minor leagues. Shocasification of development is not working.