10 Observations: Charles McAdoo vs Jackson Jobe, Carlos Castillo, Dominic Perachi

A look at the previous week around the minors

Photo Credit: WTM

Murphy 7/23—With the FCL season ending, I will be interested in seeing Carlos Castillo's progress into 2025. The arm slot creates a lot of horizontal movement, making it hard for hitters to make solid contact.

The slider shows promise, as does the change-up, although the latter could do better if he could take some extra spin off it.

Right now, none seem to be true putaway pitches, although the slider appears the closest. He is a pitching prospect to watch in 2025, and he finished pretty strong in his last game of 2024.

Edit: On Sunday, he pitched six innings of one-run baseball in game one of the FCL Championship. Castillo struck out four and induced 12 ground balls.

Murphy 7/23—I usually like to keep these observations from what I see in games, but I feel Dariel Francia is worth mentioning. He’s now 5-0 with a 0.43 ERA in 21 innings pitched down in the DSL, with eight walks to 27 strikeouts.

He’s also just 17 years old.

We got a small glimpse of him in a game between the two Pirates’ DSL teams earlier in the month, and he struggled with his control, with three walks in two innings.

Since then, he hasn’t walked a batter in his last two games, which lasted 8.2 innings, while striking out 12. Looking at numbers doesn’t lead to much success in the DSL, but seeing a pitcher do that well at that age is worth keeping an eye on.

Murphy 7/24—Sometimes, it can be so fun watching Charles McAdoo hit. He picked up three hits on the day, including a double and home run. His first hit, an RBI single, came on a breaking ball on the outer half of the plate. He waited and slapped the other way.

The home run was impressive; it was in, maybe even off the plate some, and he was able to get his hands in and drive out of the park. He had a little bit of a rough stretch, and he’s chasing more than he did in Greensboro, but when it’s in the zone, he’s been money.

Murphy 7/24—Javier Rivas could be moved to Greensboro out of necessity. His OPS in the .650s is impressive, considering his bad start. Between the FCL and the recent draft picks, many infielders could move to Bradenton.

Rivas' defense makes him an interesting prospect, and now that the offense has picked up a bit, it may be time to give him a push.

Murphy 7/24—Weekly reminder that Ryan Harbin has some of the most disgusting stuff in the system, it’s just a coin toss whether he will be anywhere close to the strike zone. Sometimes, that coin toss takes place on a pitch-to-pitch basis.

Murphy 7/25—Mike Burrows took a nice little step forward in his first start with Indianapolis this week. Five strikeouts over four innings pitched. He still ran into some issues in the last half of the start, but he’s spreading his pitches out a bit more and was consistently 93/94 with the fastball.

He also heavily featured the slider, the newest of his pitches. The next step will be to start to get some added misses, especially with the fastball.

Murphy 7/25—I'm not sure there is much more to say, but Dominic Perachi is having a fantastic season with Greensboro. Injuries are piling up in the system, which could be part of the hesitation in moving him up. Even if he isn’t a ‘legitimate’ prospect, there may not be a player in the system who is in need of a promotion more.

Murphy 7/26—You always like these big matchups in the minors, giving you a glimpse of where a prospect is in a head-to-head matchup.

Charles McAdoo is one of the system's breakout prospects this year, and he faced Jackson Jobe, the best pitching prospect in minor league baseball.

He picked up a walk and a hit in his first two plate appearances, again showing that strong approach that has allowed for his success. McAdoo had a solid week after maybe cooling off just slightly recently.

Murphy 7/26—I will always give some velocity shoutout for Greensboro and Altoona since their home broadcasts don’t feature them.

In his relief outing on Friday, Jaden Woods hit 96 on multiple occasions. It was also one of his better appearances since getting to Double-A, and he picked up the win.

Murphy 7/28—Omar Alfonzo has a lot of raw power. It seems like the upper and lower bodies work against each other at times, or at least the top half gets out in front of the lower on certain swings.

That really didn’t matter for him on Sunday; he still launched one over the seats for another home run and then ripped a double down the line later in the game.

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