10 Observations: New guys hit the ground running, Ercolani continued success, Cy Nielson promotion

Billy Cook and Nick Yorke get off to great starts in organization

Photo Credit: WTM

Murphy 7/30—It’s hard to trust low-level relievers, but Cy Nielson has been as intriguing a guy to watch during his time in Greensboro as a college-level pitcher repeating High-A could be. He finally got the bump to Altoona this past week and struck out eight over four innings.

Jaden Woods has either been completely hit or miss so far in Altoona, so Nielson could be in a position to be the de facto ‘top lefty’ in the Curve bullpen.

Murphy 7/31—Po-Yu Chen had his first ‘bad start’ in quite some time, but even then, he closed out fairly strongly. He’s been really good as of late, and he still reminds me of someone in the Quinn Priester mold. His fastball isn’t overpowering and can get hit around, but the secondary stuff is really good.

For Chen, like Priester, it will come down to the command of the fastball in the zone. When it’s on, he’s good, when it’s not, we get what we did early in his start against Richmond.

Murphy 7/31—Tres Gonzalez put up some fantastic contact numbers last year in Bradenton and Greensboro. The question was going to be how much he could impact the ball once he got to Altoona.

It’s been a rough season, but he’s had a solid month of July, picking up 22 hits and batting .357. He only had two extra-base hits—doubles—but he’s starting to make that consistent contact he was known for.

WTM 8/1—Through nearly all of their just-concluded season, the FCL Pirates continuously rotated their infielders around. Starting about a week before the end of the regular season, with a tight playoff race, and on into the playoffs, they stuck with the alignment that was clearly their best: Carlos Caro, Yordany De Los Santos and Jhonny Severino, second to third. De Los Santos, in particular, played strong defense during that time.

WTM 8/1—With Garret Forrester gone, the Pirates still have a bunch of interesting catchers at the lower levels: Omar Alfonzo and Axiel Plaz at Bradenton, and Richard Ramirez and Luke Scherrer in the now-completed FCL. One thing especially interesting about them is that they all share the same basic set of potential skills, with some wide variations of course.

All four have at least potential power. With Plaz it’s beyond potential now, and it’s emerging with Alfonzo, who puts up outstanding exit velocities, and Ramirez. Scherrer hasn’t shown much yet, but the scouting reports on him when he signed a year ago referred to power potential. His swing looks good enough if he starts elevating the ball more. And all four have strong arms, very much so in Ramirez’ case.

I don’t know whether a focus on power and throwing was a conscious strategy, but it tracks with the expected takeover of robo umps throughout pro ball. All of these catchers need work on receiving, but that’s an area that figures to be de-emphasized as framing becomes a futile exercise. Blocking, of course, will still be important and it’s a definite area of focus for these four catchers as they move on in their careers.

Murphy 8/1—I never like to judge a player’s defensive ability by the highlight reel plays they make, but for someone who was graded below average with the glove, Nick Yorke has quickly stood out in the dirt.

He made a couple of rangy diving stops. One of them he got an out, and the other was impressive, as he just got to it and kept it in the infield.

Murphy 8/1—Yorke has come about as advertised with the bat in the first couple of games he’s played. Through the first series with the Indians, he’s picked up a hit in each game he played.

He’s shown the ability to go the other way, which I highlighted late last week in a video breakdown. It’ll be interesting if the Pirates try to bring him up at some point, especially if Nick Gonzales is out for a longer period of time.

Murphy 8/1—Alessandro Ercolani continues to look fantastic coming out of the bullpen. He’s still a very young 20-year-old, so I don’t think they have completely pulled the plug on him starting, but I do wonder if at least starting in Bradenton would have been a better route to take with him.

I love how aggressive they’ve been with some of their pitchers, and this shows how highly they regard Ercolani with the push. He’s done well since simplifying things and put together another strong game against Winston Salem, allowing just a walk and a hit in 3.2 innings pitched.

That’s coming off allowing just one earned run over 13 innings in the month of July.

Murphy 8/3—It was hard to imagine Billy Cook upstaging the steady performance that Yorke has given the Pirates since the trades, but yet here we are.

Cook didn’t play until the weekend, but it was worth the wait. He hit three doubles and a home run. He doesn’t have the biggest frame, but he did display some nice opposite-field power with the home run, taking a pitch on the outer half to right center.

He also played a ball off the wall fairly well in left field. He hasn’t played much center field in his minor league career, but I’d like to see if that’s a possibility at all.

Murphy 8/4—The five earned runs weren’t pretty, but Thomas Harrington's Triple-A debut was strong overall. When it comes to an introduction to a new level, it’s hard to beat an 1-2-3 of Akil Baddoo, Spencer Torkelson, and Jace Jung.

Harrington struck out Baddoo on three pitches, then got the next two out. He need just nine pitches to get through that first. His fastball maxed out at 93 mph, but he still got eight total whiffs with it.

He got in trouble in the second inning a bit after a lead off walk and it looked like a lot of the pitches were finding too much of the plate.

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