The Week in Bradenton: Marauders off to a rough start in 2024
The Marauders are having a very rough time so far
The Bradenton Marauders spent the first full week of their season getting swept in a six-game series in Lakeland. That brought their overall record to 1-8.
Looking at the numbers, the Marauders may be playing worse than their record. Their hitters are last in the Florida State League in average, OBP, and slugging, mostly by wide margins.
That’s despite the fact that they have the third-oldest group of hitters in the league, almost none of whom are new to the level. The pitchers’ ERA, fittingly 6.66, is last by over a full run.
The scariest part is that nearly everybody on the team is repeating the level. Not only does that mean the Pirates thought most of last year’s Bradenton team needed to return, but it also means they thought few of last year’s Florida Complex League players were ready to move up.
It’s a major indictment of their efforts in Latin America and their heavy focus on college pitchers in the last two drafts.
You can get a good idea of how the Bradenton hitters have looked from Jack Herman’s first and last at-bats in Sunday’s loss, both strikeouts.
He saw seven total pitches. Two were in the strike zone, and he took both. Five were out of the zone, mostly far out of it, and he swung at all five. This wasn’t peculiar to Herman; the whole team looked like that.
On the pitching side, the three to watch are probably Carlson Reed, Michael Kennedy, and Khristian Curtis. None has pitched especially well. Reed hasn’t been able to throw strikes and Kennedy’s been hit hard, with his velocity below 90 mph.
Curtis' outing on Sunday was arguably more encouraging than not, despite the result of five earned runs in three-plus innings. He missed a lot of time in college due to injuries and has now pitched in just two pro games, so you couldn’t reasonably expect his command to be great.
He had trouble throwing strikes his first time out, but not much in this game, at least for three innings. He made one bad pitch that got hit out in the first, but otherwise largely sailed through the first three innings with five strikeouts. In the fourth, though, Curtis’ command evaporated, leading to BB 1B HR BB, and he was out.
Curtis used his fastball and cutter very heavily. The fastball averages 96 mph but doesn’t get many whiffs because it doesn’t seem to have great movement. The cutter misses more bats, but it also gets hit harder when it’s not located well.
For some reason, Curtis threw only a half dozen changeups and three breaking balls, according to Statcast. (Statcast sees a sweeper and curve, but they look like the same pitch to me.) The change and curve seem more effective to me, so I’m not sure why Curtis doesn’t use them more.
Another interesting pitcher in the Sunday game was Ben Heller. He signed a minor league deal with a spring invite but missed spring training with an injury, and he’s now on rehab. Of course, it was just low-level hitters, but Heller looked good.
His fastball averaged 94 and appeared to have some late movement. He also threw a slow-breaking ball with a lot of horizontal movement. Heller could be a depth option for the Pirates in another month or two.
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So, WTM, I am nowhere near as down on the Cherington regime as you are. If you look at the pitching that is close to the majors I think there is real hope for the Pirates’ future. I do not think Ben is a joke.
On the other hand, this Bradenton situation is a real indictment of the regime. This is entirely his handiwork, and as you say, the numbers are scary, especially on offense. The fact that everyone significant is repeating the level, with virtually no promotions from rookie ball, and still doing so poorly is alarming.
I’m not sure that anything will be done about it as long as Cherington is in charge, but their organization approach to hitting instruction isn’t working and they need to change it.
Good article and insightful comments, and yet I’m not concerned with what happens at the complex and single A, I get that they move up, but the lower levels is the easiest to retool by drafting and trades.