The Week in Bradenton: Getting Underway

Well, the weekend, at least

Khristian Curtis Photo Credit: WTM

This will (hopefully) be a regular piece this season. Bradenton having two teams — the Marauders and the FCL Pirates — is certainly convenient. Before long, they’ll both be in action because the FCL season is moving up about two months to late April. This means that 2024 draftees will not be playing in complex ball because the season will be over.

The Marauders opened their season with three games against Clearwater. The most striking thing about this Bradenton team is the fact that almost nobody got promoted from the FCL. This is not a feather in the cap of the Pirates’ scouting and development efforts, to put it mildly.

There are some pitchers on the roster who were drafted out of college last year who either didn’t pitch or pitched only briefly in the FCL, but apart from them, the only player on the opening-day roster who hadn’t played in full-season ball before (and he still hasn’t) is utility infielder Jeral Toledo.

Despite being relatively experienced for this level, the offense didn’t exactly show well during the opening series — 17 hits (two of them by a rehabbing Ji Hwan Bae) and a .189 average.

They’re the only team in the league that has yet to go deep. My initial impression is that the team may not get much offense from anybody besides Shalin Polanco and Esmerlyn Valdez.

The pitching is a little more interesting, mainly due to the three starters in this opening series: Carlson Reed, Michael Kennedy, and Khristian Curtis. Reed and Curtis threw shutout ball for four and three innings, respectively. Kennedy had a rougher outing.

Last year’s fourth-rounder, Reed, went heavily with a sinker that averaged a little under 93 mph, below where the scouting reports had him in college. He also threw a slider that had a good spin rate of 2719 rpm and a change. He didn’t throw an overabundance of strikes, just 33 in 67 pitches. Despite that, he allowed only two hits and two walks in his four innings while fanning six. What Reed did do was make big pitches when he had to, usually in the form of throwing the slider or change for strikes. He got two whiffs and four called strikes on nine pitches with the change.

Curtis resembles Reed in some ways, including his weak control. His three innings took 61 pitches, only 31 for strikes. Curtis allowed three hits and two walks, with two strikeouts. He helped himself by picking a runner off second. With the fastball, Curtis sat at 95-97 mph in his first two innings, then dropped a tick in his third. He threw three secondary pitches: curve, cutter, and change.

The fastball didn’t miss bats, producing just one whiff in 15 swings. What Curtis may have going for him, though, is the fact that his secondary pitches don’t look very easy to distinguish from the fastball. The cutter got put in play twice, the other secondaries not at all. Getting ahead more in the count would let him mix the four pitches better.

Kennedy was going well through three innings, allowing just a hit and a walk, but he suddenly started getting pummeled in the fourth. Three hits and a walk produced three runs, and it would have been worse if not for a line-drive double play. Kennedy threw mostly fastballs, and the pitch averaged just under 90 mph, down from last year. The hitters didn’t have trouble making contact with the pitch. The concern with Kennedy when he was drafted was that he didn’t offer a lot of projection.

Several relievers from last year’s draft had good outings. Peyton Stumbo, a 20th-rounder last year, threw two scoreless innings, fanning four. He threw his curve nearly half the time and got a whiff or called strike on eight of 14. Magdiel Cotto, a lefty drafted in round 11, threw two perfect innings on Sunday with just 18 total pitches.

Cotto sat 94-95 with his fastball and mixed in a slider and change. He got eight whiffs or called strikes on those 18 pitches. Landon Tomkins, a tenth-rounder, finished the Sunday game with two perfect innings, fanning four. He did it by throwing a lot of curves, getting whiffs, or called strikes on eight of 11.