10 Observations: Thinking Ahead To Next Year's Potential Bullpen
How the bullpen could be shaping up in 2024, plus updates on Tony Blanco Jr, Lonnie White Jr, and Patrick Reilly.
Murphy 8/29: I know it’s the Dominican League, so I really try to hold out reading too much into any type of numbers or stats that come out of it and I certainly would normally pass over an already first-base only prospect in most cases.
Tony Blanco Jr. is really trying to become the exception. His walk-off home run was an exciting moment, as gathered from video, and shows just how massive a person he is already.
There will be a transition period when he comes stateside, but that raw power is the kind of stuff you pay to watch.
Murphy 8/30: First start I really sat down and watched Jackson Wolf on Wednesday. I really liked the breaking stuff, and maybe Rich Hill paved the way for guys with that kind of velocity to play in the majors, but we also saw how that went for him at times.
When it comes down to it, with the breaking stuff he has, and the arm slot he’s throwing from, it screams reliever and being left-handed I’m not sure there is anything wrong with that.
WTM 8/31: Haven’t seen him there yet due to Thursday wet-grounds postponement, but the Pirates finally moved Esmerlyn Valdez up to Bradenton. He had a solid year in the FCL last year, batting 232/371/394, with a BB:K of 18:29, but didn’t get a late promotion and got sent back to the FCL this year. This year he finished second in OPS to Miguel Sosa among players who reached triple digits in PAs, with a 312/377/518 line. He’s still only 19 and has power (6 HRs, which is good for that league), so it’ll be interesting to see how quickly he adjusts.
WTM 8/31: Another FCL-to-FSL promotion is Javier Rivas. Rivas is going back to Bradenton after getting sent down in the wake of a 188/233/244 showing over 46 games at the start of this season. Rivas has some of the best tools in the system. With Alika Williams in Pittsburgh, he may be the best shortstop the Pirates have in the minors, and he has the ability to hit for power. But he struggles severely with breaking balls and offspeed pitches; a nightmarish K rate of 39% got him demoted. He put up a 285/362/400 line in his second stay in the FCL, with a 22.9% K rate that resulted from him noticeably shortening up his swing. How well the adjustment worked is debatable; he had an .885 OPS in July, then .482 in August. It sure would be nice if he could work it out, because he’s the most entertaining defender to watch in the system.
Murphy 8/31: Jack Brannigan’s arm in person is as advertised. I ended up camped out down the third base line and saw him up close for the Thursday night game. A Hickory batter hit a slow dribbler, Brannigan charged it, collected it and threw it, making it a far closer play than it should have been.
WTM 9/2: Bradenton’s pitching hasn’t always been fun to watch this year, mainly due to a lot of the pitchers having control problems. Friday’s doubleheader sweep of Palm Beach was another matter, with the Marauders allowing just three runs, five hits and four (!!) walks over 14 innings. Starters Hunter Barco and Wilber Dotel were especially strong. Barco, obviously still limited, went four on just 52 pitches. He fanned seven. Dotel gave up two hits and a walk, with six Ks, over five. The only run off him was scored by a guy who beat out a bunt to break up a no-hit bid in the fifth. Hung-Leng Chang and Luigi Hernandez were strong in relief in game one. Hernandez gave up a run on a two-out, strikeout/wild pitch with a runner on third. He looked much better than he did during his FCL rehab, sitting at 95-96 with a slider that got some swings and misses. He also fielded his position well, including an impressive 3-6-1 double play. Michael Kennedy made his full-season debut in game two, giving up a run over an inning and two-thirds. His fastball was 90-92 with good enough arm-side run to miss some bats. He was wild with his change, normally a strong pitch, and that caused him some trouble. He got a couple strikeouts with his slider after a leadoff hit in the seventh, though. Brandan Bidois got the last out.
WTM 9/2: This hasn’t exactly been a season of much accomplishment for the Pirates, especially with the rotation. One thing they may have done, though, is put themselves in a position to build a solid bullpen next year. They’re no longer loaded with low-upside, multi-inning guys, in particular Wil Crowe, Chase De Jong and Duane Underwood, Jr. Instead, they have a bunch of relievers with good arms and some meaningful upside, although very few of them can be considered sure things. Without adding anybody (which obviously they should do in any event), this is what they could be sorting through next spring and beyond:
LHPs: Angel Perdomo, Jose Hernandez, Ryan Borucki, Rob Zastryzny (well, maybe not Zastryzny, but for now he’s on the 40-man)
RHPs: David Bednar, Colin Holderman, Carmen Mlodzinski, Colin Selby, Dauri Moreta, Yerry De Los Santos, Cody Bolton, Thomas Hatch
That’s without accounting for pitchers who could be moved to relief or who aren’t on the 40-man roster, like Max Kranick, Osvaldo Bido and Kyle Nicolas. Of course, it also doesn’t account for the possibility of long-term injuries; we don’t know anything about Perdomo, for instance. They’ve got something to build from, though, and for the first time in memory a chunk of it is coming up through the farm system.
Murphy 9/3: I think everyone has that one prospect that they are willing to hold out on till the very last moment, and for me that would be Hudson Head. The skill set is there, but he’s about to finish up his second straight year in Greensboro where he actually took a step back in terms of wRC+.
Granted he was hurt the majority of the year, but was still a mostly underwhelming season. That being said, maybe the position player to stand out the most during my trip to Greensboro - was Hudson Head. He made some strong contact, and used the entire field as well.
Maybe it clicks for him at some point, odds wouldn’t be in his favor to do so, but there is talent there.
Murphy 9/3: At some point this offseason, I will do my ‘best pitches’ article like I did on P2 last year, where at I look at some of the best fastballs, breaking, and off speed pitches in the system.
Not too much to go on, but man, it may be hard not to include Patrick Reilly in that conversation for best fastball. Just on Sunday alone, he picked up seven whiffs on nine swings with the fastball, and got up to 98.9 mph.
He’s the kind of player I wouldn’t mind leaving in Bradenton next year to see if he could handle a starter workload, and then just toss in the bullpen if not and watch him fly through the system (control pending).
Nola 9/3: He's a known commodity, but Lonnie White Jr. has been something to watch. He's gotten better as the season has gone on, and as he's stayed healthy.
On Saturday, Lonnie hit his seventh home run for the Marauders — eighth when including his one FCL home run — which was the Marauders team record 110th HR on the season. Omar Alfonzo (he's going to deserve some talk as well) added the 111th on Sunday. White Jr. added a double on Sunday to cap a 5-for-15 week with three doubles and the home run.
The A ball leagues have only one more week left, but Lonnie is getting the hype train in motion for the 2024 season.
"He’s the kind of player I wouldn’t mind leaving in Bradenton next year to see if he could handle a starter workload, and then just toss in the bullpen if not and watch him fly through the system (control pending)."
The scouting report on Reilly: "electric stuff but struggles to keep his mechanics in sink with a high effort delivery" seems dead-on accurate. The question about whether he can start or not will depend upon whether he can learn to pitch while keeping his delivery in sync repeatedly. He is mostly a sinker/slider guy, which again would tend to push him to the bullpen. According the reports, his changeup is mediocre at best, which means he will have to rely largely on a cutter/fastball combo against LHB. So... the second variable in whether he can start, to my mind, is whether he can develop either his cutter or his changeup into plus pitches in order to deal effectively with left-handed batters.
I agree completely that he should be given a chance in A-ball for a full season to see if he can sync up his body in his delivery and work on his cutter and/or changeup. The Pirates pitching coaches seem to have learned a lot from Mitch Keller (if their plan for Priester is any indication). After 3 years of having Keller bang his head against a wall trying to throw his garbage changeup to lefties and rely exclusively on a 4-seamer curve, he finally gave up on the changeup, developed a cutter to use in its place, and starting using a 2-seamer/slider to pitch to contact on occasion, which opened up his ability to use his 4-seamer and curve. Hopefully they will not try to railroad Reilly into any particular style or pitch selection and try to discover what works best for him as a starter, rather than taking the easy and obvious road of making him a fastball/slider bullpen guy right away.
Blanco Jr. reminds me of Frank Thomas size wise, absolutely huge with so much raw power. Please develop the hit tool Frank had.