We have a hybrid article for you this morning, as the Mississippi Braves decided they wanted to play on Memorial Day so we’re going to start off with a quick recap of that loss. Then it’s on to the weekly report, where once again the system was dominated by the fates of the top pitching prospects.
(22-24) Mississippi Braves 3, (26-20) Montgomery Biscuits 6
Box Score
- Nacho Alvarez, SS: 0-4, .271/.379/.323
- Drake Baldwin, C: 0-3, 2 RBI, .243/.314/.336
- Cody Milligan, CF: 2-3, BB, .224/.287/.303
- Hurston Waldrep, SP: 5 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, 2.92 ERA
- Hayden Harris, RP: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 0.55 ERA
There has been plenty to love about what Hurston Waldrep has done on the mound this season, as outside of a poor first start he has been absolutely fantastic especially in the month of May. After a stretch where the limitations to his pitch usage were affecting his ability to miss bats he has now had the reins loosened and over his last few starts has taken off and started to strike out batters at an impressive rate. Waldrep had 17 whiffs in last night’s game and with his seven strikeouts has put up a 29.9% strikeout rate to 3.9% walk rate over his last three outings. Unfortunately for Waldrep leadoff man Chandler Simpson was a menace to him and the entire team by reaching base in all five plate appearances. A hot liner from Jalen Battles and a bunt single from Simpson was what put Waldrep in trouble in the fifth inning, the first time in the game he had really seen any sort of adversity. Drue Baker then split the gap just past a diving Justin Dean, and while Waldrep was able to settle in he allowed two runs which left him with a loss.
It was a pretty rough day for the Mississippi bullpen as Montgomery would pull away late, but it wasn’t a struggle for Hayden Harris who struck out two batters in a scoreless inning of relief. It wasn’t necessarily Harris’s best outing either as he didn’t really have a great feel for the upper edges of the strike zone with his fastball and thus the Biscuits were able to make some contact against him. Still, he made it work and has now gone 14 1⁄3 innings scoreless with 27 strikeouts in that span. Offensively for the Braves it was the same old story. They just aren’t hitting the ball hard and they also went 1-9 with runners in scoring position in the game. Most of their offense was a product of their two speedy players doing damage on the basepaths, as on two occasions Justin Dean reached and then stole bases to put himself in position for Drake Baldwin sacrifice flies. The same would go for Cody Milligan in the ninth inning, although at least his was scored when Tyler Tolve smoked a ball into the gap for a double.
(4-13) FCL Braves 3, (9-8) FCL Red Sox 4
Box Score
- John Estevez, DH: 2-4, 2B, .226/.358/.453
- Alexander Martinez, C: 2-4, 2B, RBI, .267/.353/.333
- Jeremy Reyes, SP: 5 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, 1.53 ERA
Jeremy Reyes is really the only pitcher consistently giving the FCL Braves a chance to win, and he put up yet another good start. In four starts this season Reyes has given up either one or zero earned runs, and continues to strike out batters as a high rate as well. The FCL has not been a place for stars to be found in recent seasons, but Reyes seems a rare exception as he is now tied for fourth in the league with 19 strikeouts on the season and is fifth among qualified starters with a 1.53 ERA. The Braves did briefly hold a lead in this one, and it was Alexander Martinez providing a double in the third inning that gave them their first run. Martinez was impressive as a defender for Augusta this season, and yesterday he picked off one guy and threw another one out stealing, but he simply wasn’t ready for full season ball offensively. It’s certainly a small sample but he seems much more well-equipped to handle rookie level pitching, and hopefully he can progress with steady reps down there and be ready for a second half call back to the GreenJackets.
Gwinnett Stripers
Record: 23-28, 7th in IL West (11.5 GB)
Gwinnett’s rotation was thrown into pure chaos last week, with AJ Smith-Shawver getting called up (then getting hurt), Allan Winans missing a start with no explanation, and Ian Mejia getting called up for one game and then shelled. As you might expect the Stripers got smacked by the Jumbo Shrimp to the tune of a series loss, and it’s gotten to the point that the Stripers used David Fletcher for 2 2⁄3 innings in a reasonably close game just to preserve arms. It’s just been a struggle, and the only one who seems to be consistently putting together good starts is Taylor Widener. Widener is really just organizational depth who was signed as a minor league free agent this past offseason, but the Braves (somewhat out of necessity) moved him back into the rotation after he started the year in long relief and he has a 2.41 ERA as a starter.
There is frankly not a ton good to talk about with this team when the pitching staff struggles. Bryce Elder just hasn’t been right this entire season and had a terrible outing with seven walks, and certainly you wouldn’t expect this Stripers offense to step up and help out much with that. However the Stripers are getting some production from their veterans, with Yuli Gurriel having his best week on the team. Gurriel has at least shown that he is some sort of depth in the event that Matt Olson goes down with an injury, and after a rough start he is hitting .306/.367/.431 in May. Of course the most notable player to play for the team last week is Sean Murphy, whose rehab made this series watchable. Murphy was fantastic and is desperately needed next week for the Braves lineup, and it seems that is going to be the case and he won’t play any more games in a Gwinnett uniform. Murphy hit a towering home run in his first swing of rehab, and totaled five hits with two home runs in his four games.
Series Preview
Gwinnett heads out to Norfolk for a massive series with the Tides, where they’ll face a strong team with two top 100 prospects and five of Baltimore’s top eight prospects. Leading this is of course the #1 overall prospect in baseball Jackson Holliday, and although Holliday has been fairly quiet since his demotion from the Major Leagues he still represents an intimidating bat in that lineup. Then comes Baseball America’s #31 prospect Heston Kjerstad, who has been the best hitter in the International League all season. Kjerstad leads the IL with 13 home runs and a 1.166 OPS. Orioles #5 prospect Connor Norby is another dangerous bat in the lineup as he has a .902 OPS on the season, though he has struggled with strikeouts and is leading the Tides with 65 of those.
On the pitching side of things the Tides are led by Orioles #8 prospect Cade Povich, who has been one of the most efficient arms at generating strikeouts in minor league baseball this season. Povich has 71 strikeouts in 53 ⅔ innings this season, and is currently the International League’s qualifying leader in ERA at 2.35. In Povich’s April 25th matchup with the Stripers he allowed one run over 4 ⅔ innings while striking out seven batters. Povich is scheduled to pitch in Friday’s game, and frankly I don’t know who is pitching when for the Stripers at this point so it’s anyone’s guess who that matchup will be. Also pitching for the Tides is old friend Tucker Davidson, who started the season out in Norfolk’s bullpen but after a strong couple of months has made his past two appearances as starts. Davidson hasn’t allowed an earned run in seven innings as a starter this season.
Mississippi Braves
Record: 22-23, 3rd in SL South (3 GB)
When I said the Chattanooga Lookouts were bad last week I didn’t quite realize how right I would be. The series was actually very close, every single game coming down to four runs or less, but in the end Mississippi always made the right plays and went into the Lookouts’s house to pull off a six game sweep. Even without Ian Mejia, who was promoted for a spot start in Gwinnett, it was the dominance of the Mississippi rotation that really drove the point home. I talked about Waldrep earlier, and his start last Tuesday was an absolute class showing. Waldrep threw his first scoreless outing of the season, going 6 1⁄3 innings and striking out eight in what was the best showing I’ve seen out of him in a Braves uniform. Waldrep didn’t show signs of slowing even as he got deep into the game, missing bats with all three pitches and looking like the player the Braves hoped he would be when they drafted him last season. Waldrep has already seemed to make some progress with his command, and while I wouldn’t put him anywhere near close to pinpoint he has been more consistent with sticking towards the edges and avoiding missing well out of the zone and running up walks.
Then there is Spencer Schwellenbach, who has come up from High-A and somehow only gotten better. Schwellenbach hasn’t gotten as many whiffs as Waldrep despite the similar strikeout numbers, but it’s been dominance nonetheless. Schwellenbach is putting every single pitch where he wants it, and the more he throws his slider the more he is giving hitters fits handling him. Schwellenbach’s location on his fastball and slider have him working ahead in counts more often than not, and it took him only 76 pitches to get through his seven innings on Wednesday. When talking dominance we can’t go without mentioning Hayden Harris, who struck out seven batters of his ten batters faced last week. As impressive as pure numbers is what we saw from Harris’s fastball, as he clocked in a couple pitches above 95 and averaged 94.2 mph in his final outing of the week. Harris struggled to hold velocity even through that inning, but an uptick like that would be a huge boost to such a fastball heavy approach. He is also apparently tinkering with a split finger fastball, which would certainly help him against right handed batters, but I haven’t seen it enough to really have a conclusion on the pitch just yet.
It’s almost felt odd to be a bit disappointed by Nacho Alvarez, as even though the power hasn’t come from him at all this season he still is just consistently the guy in the lineup who is producing. Last week he led the team with ten hits, putting up three multi-hit nights and a double in the first game of the week. Really the rest of the roster outside of Alvarez wasn’t hitting all that great. Tyler Tolve had three doubles last week and had a .766 OPS – just ahead of Alvarez – but it was Nacho’s consistent presence on the bases that made a huge difference. The good news was that many of Nacho’s hits were pull side line drives, an occurrence that has been rather infrequent most of the season. I don’t think we’re going to see power from Nacho all season, partially because of the run environment he plays in, but if he is hitting the ball a bit harder and pulling it a bit more we can chalk that up as progress and hope things change a bit as he moves forwards.
Series Preview
No team in the Southern League has scored more runs this season than the Montgomery Biscuits, and Mississippi’s strong rotation will head home this week to face their breaded rivals in a series that could have great importance to the season’s postseason race. Mississippi is on a seven game winning streak, and this run of fantastic play has brought them within three games of surpassing the Biscuits for first place in the division standings.
Montgomery’s high-powered offense is led by their best prospect – Baseball America’s #29 prospect Carson Williams. The 20 year old Williams has been a force for Montgomery’s lineup this season, hitting .305/.392/.571 with eight home runs – the second-most in the league. Williams will also be joined in the lineup by Chandler Simpson, who Baseball America rates as the 11th-best prospect in the Rays organization. Simpson was promoted last week from High-A Bowling Green where he had a .431 on base percentage and stole 31 bases in 32 games. He has already stolen six in five Double-A games, and will likely test Drake Baldwin any chance he is given. Still Simpson has a weakness, as he had an isolated power of .008 in High-A. Not a typo. In 32 games Simpson’s lone extra base hit was a double on May 7th.
On the pitching side of things the top arm going for the Biscuits is Ian Seymour, Baseball America’s #16 Rays prospect. Seymour has a 2.45 ERA in nine starts, with an impressive 33.9% strikeout rate and 5.5% walk rate in 47 ⅔ innings. Seymour is scheduled to pitch in Thursday’s game, and it’s not clear who the matchup will be though it is likely to be either JJ Niekro or Ian Mejia. Cole Wilcox (BA #18) has also had a solid season with a 3.56 ERA, though he doesn’t strike out many batters which may play into the hands of the contact-centric Mississippi offense.
Rome Emperors
Record: 23-20, t-1st in SAL South
To start with the bad, it just has not been a great season for Jhancarlos Lara as after the injury set him back to start the season he just hasn’t been able to find the zone with any consistency. His two outings last week were both poor, though it felt like in his Tuesday appearance he was fine once he settled in after some early struggles. It’s hard to judge Lara knowing he isn’t fully ramped up at the moment, and the velocity and movement on his pitches are promising. The biggest negative however is Owen Murphy not making a start, and it seems likely he is going to be placed on the injured list soon. I’ll get information to you as soon as we have it confirmed 100%, but unfortunately while I knew Murphy was dealing with an injury I had some hope he could avoid being shut down and that does not seem to be the case.
Putting that behind us the rest of the starting rotation was absolutely dominant, combining for 26 innings pitched and zero earned runs in the other four games of the week. Drue Hackenberg and Lucas Braun are really turning out to be worth their draft investments, though they’re showing out for fairly different reasons. Braun has just been an all-around solid pitcher, with his command forefront and everything else good enough that A-level hitters aren’t exposing any weaknesses with him. Hackenberg on the other hand has had hitters beating his sinker into the ground all season, but last week showed out with his slider to notch his career-high with eight strikeouts. Hackenberg I wouldn’t be surprised to see spend a bit more time in Rome. While he has been fantastic I think refining the edges of his location and getting more consistent success from his slider and curveball are pivotal and it wouldn’t hurt him to spend a couple of months working on those things in Rome. Braun on the other hand is one of those guys that has made the Braves depth glaring, as it’s hard to really find him a spot in Double-A at the moment. Certainly there are some guys who I don’t consider premium prospects who Braun could take the place of soon, and he needs the challenge, but no one at Mississippi seems like a guy who is ready to give up a spot at the moment.
Series Preview
The Rome Braves are in a battle for first place in their division, and they have a nice assignment for this upcoming week against a pretty weak Greenville Drive team. Over the past couple of weeks Greenville’s pitching staff has gotten torched, allowing a 5.09 ERA in the past two series. This could benefit a Rome offense that is coming off of one of their worst weeks all season. Greenville’s roster features only four of Baseball America’s top 30 Red Sox prospects, and of those four the top guy – #11 David Sandlin – is injured.
Baseball America’s #30 Red Sox prospect has been by far the Drive’s best performer this year, and that is second baseman Kristian Campbell. Campbell leads the team with a .931 OPS and is second with seven home runs, and he has taken that to another level in May. In 20 games this month Campbell has 20 home runs and a 1.067 OPS. The Drive also got some recent help with shortstop Mikey Romero coming off of the injured list a couple of weeks ago, and he is currently the best healthy prospect on the roster at #15 by Baseball America. Romero has only played sparingly with six games in the past two weeks, but has done fairly well with a .481 slugging percentage despite uncharacteristically high strikeout rates in a small sample. Outfielder Allan Castro is Baseball America’s #16 Red Sox prospect, and he has had a tough season. Castro draws a ton of walks – 32 in 40 games this season – and because of this has a .358 on base percentage. However Castro hasn’t hit the ball particularly well and only had a .317 slugging percentage.
Augusta GreenJackets
Record: 18-26, 6th in CAR South (8 GB)
Pick out your favorite prospect on the GreenJackets, and if you’re not a Robert Gonzalez fan like myself I have some devastating news for you. It was an awful week in Augusta, the offense was just pitiful and managed as a team a sub-.500 OPS. They were also terrible on defense, and on their behalf I would like to apologize to Adam Maier for the atrocity that was his start. Maier made it through one inning, and I reiterate my statement from the recap that it was the most-well pitched six run inning I’ve ever seen. Maier gave up no hard contact, but yet everything found a hole or a bad defender and Maier was chased due to pitch count early on. But back to Gonzalez, I’ve been annoyingly concerned with his plate discipline and last week was as much a shock to me as anyone else. In the final four games not only did Gonzalez hit his first home run of the year, and not a cheap shot either, he also drew six walks and only struck out twice. He managed a .926 OPS with only a .182 batting average, and if Gonzalez can make any semblance of good swing decisions he’s going to rocket up prospect lists.
Pitching-wise it wasn’t Maier or Garrett Baumann (1 IP, 1 R) who stood out. It was Didier Fuentes (somewhat expected) and Luis Vargas (not at all expected) who put up career-best outings for the GreenJackets. Fuentes has looked steadily better all season, and as his fastball velocity and location have stabilized so too have his numbers. Fuentes struck out a career-high eleven batters, and he is slowly looking like the breakout prospect for the lower levels this season. His command is not as good as 7.4% walk rate might indicate, but it’s better than it was last year and to be 18 years old and able to handle full season ball like he has is incredibly impressive. Fuentes seems to be learning to slow the game down on the mound and not let innings get away from him so much.
Luis Vargas has been in the system for awhile now — he’s an international signee from 2018 — but has never really done anything all that impressive. He’s shown off a major league quality slider in past outings, but with a low 90’s fastball, poor command, and no third pitch he really was just an organizational guy. After moving to relief he did show off better velocity, but I was not expecting him to come out sitting 96-97 through four innings for Augusta. Vargas shoved, striking out twelve batters in five innings, and while he did see his velocity plummet in his final inning it was still a breakout performance. Vargas is a relief prospect with his command and pitch mix, but there is definitely major league potential especially if that velocity can continue to tick up. Yes he has been in the system awhile, but he is still only 22 years old.
Series Preview
Augusta is looking for a bounce back week after going 1-5, and Fayetteville could be the team for them to do that against. Both teams are at the bottom of the league going 3-9 over the past two weeks, and both have been bottom two in both offense and pitching in that span. Fayetteville’s pitching staff has been allowing an absurd number of walks, 84 in the past 99 innings to be exact, and I’m not exactly expecting beautiful baseball to be played next week.
Fayetteville is the Single-A affiliate of the Astros, and with that in mind you can imagine the talent level on the team isn’t particularly great. 2023 second round pick Alonzo Tredwell is the top pitching prospect on the team, but he has struggled to find the strike zone in eight starts this season. Due to this Tredwell is running a 7.24 ERA and is coming off an atrocious six run, five walk start across 1 ⅔ innings. Their top arm this season has been Ethan Pecko, a sixth round pick out of Towson last summer who has a 3.13 ERA and 38 strikeouts in 31 ⅔ innings this year but has also allowed 16 walks.
The team leader in OPS is Oliver Carillo, a 22 year old who was traded from the Padres last offseason and has a .791 OPS with six home runs. Still though Carillo strikes out a lot, with 53 in 152 plate appearances this season. Between the three top 30 prospects on the offense only #25 Nehomar Ochoa has had a decent season, with a .733 OPS in 39 games but also a strikeout rate hovering around 28%. #16 Cesar Hernandez and #27 Waner Luciano have been awful, though I guess better than Augusta’s top 30 hitters. Luciano has a .601 OPS this year with 44 strikeouts in 40 games, while Hernandez was a mid-April call up who has a .598 OPS so far.
FCL Braves
Record: 4-13, 6th in FCL South (8 GB)
This has been a long one and I pretty much covered most of the things worth saying in the FCL recap. This team has been rough and it boils down to there just not being enough pitching depth at the rookie levels. The international sanctions and the focus on college talent in the draft have made it so anyone good spends little time in the rookie levels, with only a handful of meaningful outings going on. One of those is Luis Arestigueta, who walked four in his start this week but also struck out six batters. He along with Reyes are the guys really worth keying in on as the season goes on.
On the offensive side John Gil has really been fantastic. I mentioned in my last start that he is a guy we were told to keep an eye on this season, and he had a fantastic week last week with eight hits and four doubles in five games. The hitters on this team are starting to show some life and make these games interesting, and Gil along with Mario Baez (7-21, .820 OPS) and Douglas Glod (2 HR, 1.081 OPS) had solid weeks for the FCL team. Glod I had hope for after his strikeout rate dropped towards the end of last season, but unfortunately that is seeming more like a common case where good players are promoted out of the complex leagues towards the end of the season only to not be replaced, and some of the worse players can feast on worse pitching and hitting.
