10 Observations: Javier Rivas puts together career game on Sunday
10 observations looks at Javier Rivas' career game, what role Carlson Reed will fit at, and others.
Murphy (4/16)—Two starts into the season, and we are already in peak Carlos Jimenez form. In his first start, he lasted just 1.2 innings, didn’t allow a hit, but walked four and surrendered two earned runs.
Fast forward to this week, he was still nearly unhittable, just two in three innings, but just walked one and struck out five.
Jimenez has three really quality pitches; the concern is that we are dealing with this kind of variance in what is basically his third year in Bradenton (he missed most of last year with an injury, but it was more of the same the little he played).
Murphy (4/17)—I know it was against Single-A hitting, but Ben Heller has been racking up the whiffs during his rehab assignment. On 17 swings, Heller picked up whiffs on 12, mainly with the sweeper and cutter.
That sweeper is a really, really good pitch, regardless of the level of the hitters he’s facing.
It will be interesting if Heller can force his way into the bullpen picture at some point this year.
Murphy (4/18)—The stat line certainly looks a step down from his previous time out, but I thought it was another solid outing for Bubba Chandler. The broadcast said he hit triple-digits three times, which may or may not be accurate, but regardless, he was bringing the heat.
He won’t face too many 1-3 in a lineup better than Bowie this year, which featured Dylan Beavers, Jud Fabian, and Samuel Basallo. Towards the end of his outing, he got the latter to ground into a double play.
From the broadcast angle, you can see some cut to Chandler’s fastball, which I’ve seen some scouting reports credit him with a cutter, so it’s not surprising.
Chandler is still super young for the level, and there will still be some growing pains, but he answered the bell against a formidable lineup.
Murphy (4/18)—I'm not sure there is much more to say about Paul Skenes. The stuff has been as advertised, and more importantly, the command as well.
This was probably the best lineup he’d faced so far, and they made him work for it, but eight of the 10 outs he recorded were by strikeout.
We saw the change-up a little more on Thursday, which worked perfectly off the fastball. As they gradually built his arm up, he got up to 65 pitches this time.
Murphy (4/18)—It was one hit, and he had one earlier in the season, but seeing Termarr Johnson go the other way for a double was good. We saw him hit a couple of home runs in Spring Training, but that played into his struggles.
He had sometimes become a little too pull-happy, so seeing him focus on going the other way was good.
Murphy (4/19)—I’m still so torn on how I feel about Carlson Reed and what his future is. He has two really good secondary pitches and a fastball that could play up thanks to an elite shape/movement.
I just think the fastball would play a lot better coming in faster out of the bullpen due to the lack of command in the zone. The slider and change-up are good; the former is perhaps one of the better in the system right now, so I’m ok with keeping this experiment going.
It’ll just be interesting if the control starts to come around and how much velocity he has to sacrifice to get there.
Murphy (4/19)—I was really hoping that Friday would be different for Quinn Priester. The velocity has been better, and he was getting more whiffs with the secondary stuff in Triple-A to start the year.
As with so many pitchers, it comes down to their command in the strike zone. Priester is throwing harder, but major league hitters are going to punish stuff down the plate. Or if you are falling behind, hitters will be ready for the fastball.
We saw a little more of that with Jack Leiter in his major league debut. The stuff was fantastic, he just couldn’t locate it, fell behind, and was punished for it.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Skenes’s ability to command his insane stuff inside the zone potentially makes him so special.
WTM (4/20)—The sudden conversion of the Pirates’ hit-tool-oriented draft picks to whiff machines has been something to behold. Leaving aside Termarr Johnson, there’s Mitch Jebb and Garret Forrester. Last year’s second and third-round picks were supposed to be all about pitch selection and making contact. Not anymore. Last year at Bradenton, Forrester had a 34.4% walk rate and 24.1% strikeout rate.
This year through Saturday, at the same level, those numbers are 16.0% and 34.0%. Jebb last year had an 11.1% walk rate and a 7.2% strikeout rate. This year, 8.9% and 37.5%. No, that second number isn’t a typo. He’s literally striking out over five times more often than he did last year. And he has no extra-base hits, so it’s not like the staggering increase in swing-and-miss has an upside.
Murphy (4/20)—That was easily the best I’ve seen from Michael Kennedy in the still super small sample size going back to last year. His fastball/slider played so well off of each other and he commanded the strike zone so well.
Despite only averaging right at 90 mph with his fastball, it showed great life up in the zone that allowed him to get 10 whiffs on 20 swings. The slider didn’t pick up as many whiffs, but he threw it for strikes consistently in the zone.
The Pirates have had a lot of success with the soft-tossing lefties in the majors but haven’t had one work up through the system. Kennedy could be that guy.
Murphy (4/21)—Javier Rivas’ offensive outburst seems like it was something that has been brewing over most of the season. Statistically speaking, he entered Sunday as the worst hitter in the minors (by wRC+), but just watching him he’s always felt so close to having a game like this.
He’s been hitting the ball fairly hard, consistent contact and getting a little lift has been his downfall.
Rivas flashed some impressive opposite field power on his double to right center, hit a home run and then ripped another two-bagger down the third-base line in the ninth to tie the game.
It was impressive to see, you just need to see more of it now.
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Those Mitch Jebb numbers reek of the current day minor league mindset of hoping contact players can find game power, instead of letting them do their thing. Jesus Castillo won the FCL batting title at 18 years old two years ago and them the Pirates sent him to Australia specifically to learn to hit for more power. Why not just let him be a high contact/high average hitter with some doubles and triples, who runs well and plays sold defense?
His batting average dropped 143 points and he hit one homer. Great work there, Pirates. You identified that he's not a typical caveman/swing hard and hope for the best hitter and you made sure he conformed to the way everyone else plays.
Does anyone else find it odd that the minors all over preaches launch angles and bat speed over anything, yet they also want their pitchers to just throw it hard to make that type of hitting much harder? It's like they are setting batters up for failure. I've shared this story, but in my mind it is worth repeating.
I went to the batting cages when I was around 12-13 years old. I crushed the ball in the 60 MPH medium for 30 minutes, then decided to try fast pitch at 80 MPH. I think it was 12 balls. I swung and missed at the first ten, just swinging hard, trying to match power with power. My dad said to me, at least make contact once, so I instinctively cut down my swing, fouled the next pitch off, then hit a line drive on the last pitch (possibly would have been a foul ball, but I hit it hard).
At 12-13 years old, it took me about a minute to figure out that I needed to make a change to hit that type of velocity and it worked. It's insane to me to see these guys swinging out of their cleats with an uppercut swing trying to hit chest-high 100 MPH and failing over and over. They are gearing up to swing as hard as they can.
If I said to some normal person, you have to hit this baseball coming at you at 60 MPH or you owe me $1,000, who is swinging for the fences? No one. I'm going to do the complete opposite (probably bunt the ball if we are being honest) and that's because you lose some contact ability when you swing like a caveman. It's like with Termarr Johnson improving mid-season last year. The kid was trying to hit the ball 500 feet every time, falling down often, sometimes just to one knee. I didn't see him that out of control when he was hitting well last year.
Rant summary: If someone like Mitch Jebb, Jesus Castillo, Nick Gonzales (remember him being unable to hit at Altoona?) and even how they handled Ke'Bryan Hayes! If they can hit already for average and doubles power without your interference, let them be that hitter. You got enough guys who strikeout often, there's no reward for having the most.
My one observation is Ana's cafe in Key West has amazing sandwiches