minor lines, 5/23/11

…a Giants leadoff hitter leading the league in ribeyes!!

yeah, I missed a lot of good stuff, and I was really hoping to see Hembreee. Hopefully next time they come through Modesto/Stockton (if he isn’t in Richmond by then). I only saw Cavan really tested on one play at 2B, Gilmartin’s infield single in the 3rd was a broken bat grounder deep into the hole that Cavan made a nice diving play to get to, other than that he got some routine chances and handled them well. I only saw 2 ABs from Parker, the first one was a weakly hit ground ball up the middle in the 4th that should have been a double play, but he did well to beat out the back end of it, and showed some decent speed scoring from first on Tommy Joseph’s double. His single in the fifth was a nice clean swing, he took it right back up the middle. I don’t remember much about the number of pitches of he saw or impressions of his plate discipline. He is skinnier than I thought, especially in the lower half, probably some room for growth. Probably the best at bat I saw (forgot to mention this in the first post) was a great inside out swing from Brown in the 6th inning, taking an inside pitch and lining it the other way for a double down the line, very quick bat.

Gobroks was at the game as well, and he stayed through the end. He’d be able to give you a first hand impression of Hembree, albeit a brief one, since Heath wasn’t out there long.

It really has only been a problem in his last 3 starts. In his first 5 starts of the year he put up a very nice BB/9 of only 3. In his last 3 starts it has ballooned up to 9.2, although in one of those 3 starts (in which he walked 4 during a televised game) it was widely reported that he was being squeezed the entire night by the plate umpire.

my amateur impression of Wheeler after seeing two starts is that the raw stuff is certainly there but he has a long way to go in refining it (not surprising for a H.S. kid in the Cal League). He needs to be able to locate the fastball better and work with the great natural downward movement that he puts on it. I didn’t see him throw many effective breaking balls over the two starts, he threw a couple of very nice curves in Modesto but didn’t use it as much as one would think for what is supposed to be his most effective offspeed pitch. His slider seems like it could have potential but he has a long way to go in commanding it. I think he will spend the whole year in San Jose, that would seem to be the most prudent approach.

THERE IS NO WAY I CLICK THAT LINK.

Inman was sitting right behind me and the whole time I was doing one of those “God, I know that guy from somewhere!” things

What did you think of Crawford’s bat and defense?

BTW, I voted for Rendon.

Reportedly, he has all of the tools to be an above-average defensive catcher. He has quick feet, soft hands, and the cannon arm, but he just needs to put in the work to get all 3 working at the same consistently good level. He has some of the Panda-disease in that he has the tendency to let himself go physically, get soft through the middle, and gain weight even during the season (which is hard to do for a catcher). The one thing that I’ve never seen reported on for him is how he calls a game and handles his pitching staff, but I imagine that he still needs a lot of work in that area. I believe that the fact that he’s been platooning with Tommy Boy behind the plate the last 2 seasons (and getting the lesser percentages of the starts between the 2) has hindered his development defensively.

His declining BB-rate in the last 2 seasons is quite worrisome, expecially when patience at the plate was one of his better attributes during his first 3 seasons in the minors. He’s hitting .313 this season, but his OBP is only .333 due to his paltry BB-rate of just over 3% – a number that looks especially bad when paired with his alarmingly high K-rate of almost 22% this season. On the plus side, he’s still on 21 years old and won’t turn 22 until November, so he has time to work things out.

Noonaned up?

Although they tried that last year and it didn’t work. In general, I’d agree that Affeldt was a tradeable commodity, but his contract makes that less likely I think. He’s paid an awful lot for an ineffective middle reliever. However, I still think the assumption that Marc Kroon would be some kind of major league wunderkind is founded more on a wish and a prayer than it is solid fact.

Affeldt has not looked good for almost an entire year at this point. Yes, he is left handed so you may be right that he’s tradeable for something if they’re willing to eat some contract, however I don’t think sending him down with an invented injury is the right thing to do. If he gets shelled down there his trade value will be zero, but at the end of the day I think it mainly comes down to the fact that he’s just not needed. With Runzler and Lopez you already have one more LOOGY than most other teams have, and Runzler really is more than a LOOGY.

Last year Affeldt’s ERA+ for the season was a replacement level 99 and this year it’s at 66. He also was extremely lucky in 2009 in that even though he had a BB/9 of 4.5, a strand rate of 86.4% mixed with a .250 BABiP helped him to post a 1.73 ERA. He’s not necessarily a bad LOOGY, just an unnecessary one and not much more than a LOOGY at this point, and unfortunately a LOOGY that’s not too tough on left-handed hitters. I think it boils down to a basic question though: from this point of the season on who would you rather have, Affeldt or Kroon? For me that’s an obvious no-brainer, it’s Kroon.

He needs innings to regain his form – send him to Fresno on a rehab assignment.

But if they don’t plan on re-signing him—which they shouldn’t—it basically boils down to who would you rather have from now until the end of the season: Kroon or Affeldt? Given that they already have Runzler and Lopez and could lose Kroon in about a week, they should let Affeldt go and/or trade him.

His normally scheduled start would be today. If they backed him off 1 day to allow him to pitch 1 inning last night then that would make sense of the strange scenario. I wonder who they found to go today?

That also doesn’t solve the problem, because Reichard is already sitting in at Mike Main’s spot (which comes the day after Dunning’s). What he must have been saying last night is that they’ll skip Dunning’s spot due to the day off today and continue on with their normal rotation for their next 6 games. However, since their next off day is June 8th, come next Tuesday they are gong to have to find a replacement for Dunning’s spot that’s not Reichard, or they’re going to have to go to a 5 man rotation. I’m guessing that last night was Kickham’s last start in Augusta and they’ll promote him to SJ to take over Dunning’s spot. The only other explanation that I can come up with is that Bucardo or Main are ready to come off the DL to take Dunning’s spot.

Actually, both of the 2 lower-level affiliates have been keeping the rotation intact even with the off days and the injuries- just like the big league has done.

…He may be ramping it down a little, knowing he has to survive 100 pitches. This may have led to some better command. I wonder if Giant Torture has made it to a Verdugo start yet?