The Week in Bradenton: Marauders Suddenly the Terror of the FSL
The Week in Bradenton: Marauders Suddenly the Terror of the FSL
FCL Pirates feature interesting pitchers
For most of April, the Bradenton Marauders looked like the saddest team anywhere in the minors. Now they’re riding a franchise-record ten-game winning streak. The offense, which languished at the bottom by wide margins in just about everything, is quickly moving upward.
The reason for the offensive turnaround is simple, although it’s a solution that seems to be lost on Ben Cherington at the major league level: The Marauders have had substantial personnel changes. A handful of players struggling to hit .100 have been released, gone on the injured list, or, in one case, been promoted to fill a vacancy. The replacements have been a different story entirely.
The most prominent change was the recent trade acquisition of Keiner Delgado. In his first five games with the Marauders, he’s put up a .909 OPS, including two doubles and two home runs. He also hit a grand slam in a one-game FCL tuneup.
It’s a very incomplete look at Delgado. Oddly, he came in as a guy who piles up walks and stolen bases, but he has no walks so far, and just one steal in his tiny sample size with Bradenton, mainly because he’s only been on first a few times. But the reports that he has no power are . . . puzzling.
He hit eight long balls in 49 FCL games last year and now has three in six games since the trade. He’s also been putting up good exit velocities. Yes, Delgado is short, but he’s strongly built. It’s extremely early, but I wouldn’t take the prospect reports on Delgado as gospel yet. So far, they just look . . . wrong.
The other additions were outfielders Eddy Rodriguez and Solomon Maguire, both coming off the injured list. Rodriguez started hitting right away. He’s currently batting .333, with a good BB:K ratio of 8:12. He’s not elevating the ball much yet, but that could change.
Maguire’s a guy I’d largely written off. He’s been hurt so much since the Pirates signed him back in 2020 that he still has only about 250 plate appearances as a pro. The Pirates thought when they signed him that he had good upside with the bat, including some power potential. It’s starting to show now, as he’s hitting .267/.298/.511. He’s had a double, triple, and two home runs in his last four games. He’s still only 21.
Apart from the additions, Omar Alfonzo and Esmerlyn Valdez resumed hitting this past week. They were providing about the only offense the team got early on, then both hit slumps. In the past week, Valdez is only 4-for-18, but that includes a three-run home run, a grand slam, and a walk-off single.
In May, so far, he’s hitting .276/.432/.586. Alfonzo, following a really brutal stretch, is 9-for-18 in the past week. Garret Forrester, who’s also been hitting well, just went on the 7-day IL, unfortunately.
The FCL Pirates got in their first full week and now stand at 3-3. It’s hard to see a lot of trends in six games, especially with most players seeing action in only 4-5 and most pitchers appearing only once (if at all), but there are a bunch of interesting players. “Interesting” is definitely the right word, especially for pitchers. There are few players on this team I’d definitively label a “prospect” just yet, maybe only Zander Mueth, but there are plenty of guys worth watching.
One wrinkle this year is the early start. The FCL will be done around the time of the draft, so no 2024 draftees will be joining the rosters. Maybe out of concern over having fewer pitchers, they’re playing seven-inning games exclusively. The previous couple of years, they usually went nine except on Saturdays. So the FCL Bucs are playing only 35 innings a week.
The only hitter I feel comfortable saying much about so far is infielder Carlos Caro. He signed late in the 2022 signing period and was almost 18 by then, so you have to take into account the fact that he’s (in theory) physically ahead of other guys who signed around then.
But he put up a .944 OPS last year in the DSL and is by far the FCL team’s best hitter this season, with a .385/.467/.692 line, and he’s making a lot of hard contact. He’s also looked good at second. He played once at short.
The team does have three interesting catchers in Richard Ramirez, Axiel Plaz, and Luke Scherrer. Ramirez had a strong season in the DSL last year; a couple of catchers who got much bigger bonuses are still there, while Ramirez isn’t.
He’s been the team’s second-best hitter in the early going, which has gotten him moved to the cleanup spot. He and Plaz both look solid on defense. Scherrer signed as a non-drafted free agent out of prep school, which isn’t very common. He and Plaz have been making some good contact, although they don’t have much to show for it yet.
The Pirates have been dividing the catching duties among the three, which means limited catching duty for all of them when they’re divvying up 35 innings a week. Whether that’s a good thing is debatable, but it shows at least that the team has three guys they like. They’re all getting at-bats by playing first or DHing.
The pitching staff is heavily made up of guys with good stuff who at least have the potential to step forward. On most days, at least a couple of guys worth following will pitch. So far, I’d say this includes Mueth, Carlos Castillo, David Matoma, Pitterson Rosa, Carlos Mateo, and Jose Regalado.
Anthony has already covered Mueth, Castillo, and Matoma, so I’ll briefly focus on the others.
Mateo will almost certainly be the most volatile. He was the Pirates’ big mound signing out of Latin America a year ago, at $800K, largely on the strength of a fastball that’s hit triple digits. The DSL was a huge struggle for him last year, as in a dozen innings, he walked 30, hit three, and uncorked 16 wild pitches.
At Sarasota on Friday, Mateo got into the third inning, which already represents meaningful progress. There are no velocity figures from Ed Smith Stadium that I’m aware of, but at a guess I’d say his velocity was at least as good as Matoma’s. The ball seemed to explode out of his hand, and the pitch was harder to hit than Matoma’s was. He got one strikeout looking on a sharp breaking ball. The control is another matter. Mateo would look fine for a few pitches, then uncork a couple into uncharted space.
Mateo got through two innings, helped by a pickoff of one of the two guys he walked. (More on pickoffs in a moment.) In the third, a walk, single, and hit batsman loaded the bases, followed by a grand slam.
The batter after the slam pretty much illustrated Mateo’s outing. The first pitch went over everybody’s heads. That prompted a private chat with the pitching coach, who waved the catcher and infielders away. It seemed to work; Mateo got ahead on the next two pitches.
Then another one went way wild and hit the batter, and that was it for Mateo. I don’t know whether he loses focus, overthrows sometimes, or just has erratic mechanics, but there’s clearly still a project ahead.
On pickoffs: It’s early, and I don’t have any numbers, but it seems to me that the younger pitchers with Bradenton and the FCL Bucs have some very good pickoff moves. In fact, somebody told Anthony that the Marauders lead their league in pickoffs.
The Friday game was typical. Mateo got one guy and seemed to have another picked off second, although the call was safe. One of the later pitchers that day narrowly missed a pickoff as well. This is something the Pirates consciously downplayed in the minors under Neal Huntington. It’s possible the new rules have them more concerned about holding runners.
Another big signing for the Pirates at $700K, Rosa is a converted outfielder who throws 94-95 mph with a curve and change. He spent two years in the DSL and had trouble with walks the second year. He’s gotten into only one game so far, throwing two scoreless and hitless innings, needing just 20 pitches. I also saw him in an exhibition game, and again, his stuff looked good, and his command wasn’t bad compared to what you tend to see at this level.
The only lefty mentioned here, Regalado is already almost 22. He signed several years ago, but for some reason, it fell through and he signed again less than a year ago. He throws in the mid-90s with a high-effort delivery, as you can see. He had a rough time in the DSL last year, walking 26 in 22.1 IP. He’s thrown three and a third innings so far in the FCL, with one hit and two walks allowed, and four strikeouts. Like Rosa’s, Regalado’s command, to me, didn’t look any worse than what you typically get with a pitcher at this stage.
Rosa was a starter in the DSL and Regalado started some of the time last year, so it’ll be interesting to see whether the Pirates start getting them stretched out.
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I wrote off Maguire largely due to his poor results in Winter ball too. He should’ve been dominating or at least had above average results but he performed badly both times he played in the Australian Winter league.
Now he might not have been fully healthy but that that league isn’t very good. The pitching is probably equivalent to the Complex or Low A ball now with the MiLB roster cutdowns.
"Yes, Delgado is short, but he’s strongly built. It’s extremely early, but I wouldn’t take the prospect reports on Delgado as gospel yet. So far, they just look . . . wrong."
The problem is obvious: he's being rated on the eye test way too much even in 2024.
Just pulling up his Fangraphs page, there's nothing there that sells the 'no power' argument. What he's shaping up as is one of those dudes who's posting HRs and a positive wRC+ every level he goes up. Those often become dependable MLB ballplayers. Will be interesting to see if the trend holds as he gets to AA. If so, that's a guy to be excited about.
Regardless of how you slice, this is already a great return for Brubaker.