Braves Sunday Farm Report, 6/3/2018

(OFR writer Matt Chrietzberg also contributed to this article)

Is it still Sunday? Yes it is! Welcome to the Braves Farm Report, where we will take a look at the Braves farm system and look at trends and players that seem interesting, and give first hand accounts of what we’re seeing down on the farm.

This week, Andy Harris posted his review of the performances of the OFR Top 30 Prospects. Check them out!

Rome, If You Want Two

This week I was privileged to have the opportunity to go see the Rome Braves twice, on Tuesday, May 29 and Friday, June 1. Rome won both games, beating Asheville 11-3 on Tuesday and then 7-1 on Friday. Here are some observations from those games.

Open stances have opened up the offense. I’d last seen Rome in early April. Since then, Drew Waters and Jean Carlos Encarnacion have opened up their batting stances considerably, Jeffry Ramos and Drew Lugbauer to a lesser degree. All of them are clearly seeing the ball better and are putting together more competitive plate appearances.

Pitchers can’t make a mistake to William Contreras. Contreras wasn’t with the club in early April, and he was the DH in both games I caught this week, so I can only update my evaluation of Contreras as a hitter. His swing is uncomplicated, but he uses his hands well to get the barrel to the ball. That said, he can be beat upstairs by good heat. Any ball left over the plate he will probably hit, and hit hard somewhere. He also has the best plate discipline of anyone on the squad. On the intangibles side, he’s clearly a leader in the dugout, and was the most vocal in cheering on his teammates.

This is the best fielding team Rome has seen in the last three seasons. The team is making errors at a rate similar to past Rome teams, but part of it is that these athletes simply get to more batted balls. Derian Cruz is a far more controlled defensive player than this time last year. Riley Delgado is at least as steady as Marcus Mooney was last season and while neither are as naturally gifted as Alejandro Salazar was in 2016, both are steadier fielders. Encarnacion is considerably better than Austin Riley was in 2016 or Juan Yepez or Kurt Hoesktra in 2017. The center/rightfield combo of Drew Waters and Isranel Wilson is better than the Cristian Pache/Randy Ventura combo of last season and almost as good as Ronald Acuna/Ray-Patrick Didder. Jefrey Ramos‘s defense in left has also been better-than-advertised. At the A-ball level, defense is a huge differentiator in overall team success.

Drew Lugbauer calls a good game. Of the five games I’ve seen in Rome this season, Lugbauer has caught four of them. While he has a long way to go as far as technique behind the plate, one aspect that he’s ahead of other catchers in the Braves system is game calling. I’ve been impressed on how he gets his pitchers to stay aggressive against hitters and mix their pitches.

Freddy Tarnok is the best Braves pitching prospect no one is talking about. And that may be by design; Tarnok has pitched exclusively out of the bullpen. Tarnok was very raw coming out of high school last June, but the work that he and Braves coaches have him now pitching with purpose and confidence. Even in short stints, Tarnok mixes in three average-to-plus pitches. I’ve seen him three times now, and his command has improved each time; I only counted three times that he seemed to miss his spot on Tuesday.

Mike Soroka is still good. OK, he’s not going to be a regular feature at Rome of course, but on his rehab start on Friday he took an inning to get locked in then was dominant for 45 pitches. I’d obviously seen Soroka a good bit on MiLB.TV and I went to his second start for Atlanta at SunTrust, but seeing him back on the Rome mound where he helped pitch that team to a championship in 2016 made clear the changes he’s made over the last 22 months. He gets so much better leverage with his legs now, and Columbia Firefly hitters couldn’t seem to see his fastball, much less hit it. His breaking ball, a slow, slurvy thing when he was with Rome, is now a crisp, biting curve; Soroka didn’t throw it much, maybe because it was just too unfair.

Two for Tuesday is a great deal. Every seat in the park is $2 on Tuesdays. You won’t find better entertainment for the money in North Georgia outside of a state or national park.

Life on the Farm

ROME: It was a good week for Rome as they went 5-2 on the week behind strong pitching and breakout offensive performances. The team has a whole hit .317/.368/.481 on the week, with third baseman Jean Carlos Encarnacion, catcher Drew Lugbauer, and outfielder Drew Waters all having OPS of over 1.000. Isranel Wilson, who had been gradually coming out of an early season slump, broke out with a .353/.389/.588 week, including a home run.

As he’s done all season, left-hander Bruce Zimmermann was the pitching horse for Rome, and he had two starts totaling 13.1 innings. He only allowed one run and struck out 20. Huascar Ynoa continued the improvement he’d seen over the course of this month, pitching his best start of the season with a 6-innings of shutout ball against Asheville, striking out 9 in the process. The bullpen has been very good all season, and this week was no exception with left-hander Kelvin Rodriguez pitching 3 scoreless outings. Right-handers Cutter Dyals, Hayden Deal, Brandon White, Freddy Tarnok, Walter Borkovich, and Jake Belinda combined for 17.2 innings and only 2 earned runs.

FLORIDA: The Fire Frogs main enemy was mother nature, as two home games against Dunedin had to be cancelled. But opposing teams were no picnic either, and the Frogs went 1-4 on the week, their sole victory thanks to a rare offensive explosion as they posted twp 6-run innings in the 7th and 8th to take a 12-10 win over Clearwater on Friday.

Outfielder Cristian Pache was the primary igniter, and he hit .400/.429/.800 on the week with two home runs. Catcher Brett Cumberland continues to be an on-base machine, getting two hits and five walks for a .538 OBP this week. On the flipside, outfielder Jared James has not gotten back on track since his return from the disabled list earlier this month, hitting .094/.171/.125 in those 9 games.

The constant rain delays and cancellations have played havoc with the pitching staff, with only left-hander Kyle Muller being able to stay more-or-less on schedule. Other than Muller’s 6 inning, three run performance this week, no starter went more than 4 innings. Left-hander Justin Kelly was terrific in two outings out of the bullpen this week, pitching a total of 4.1 scoreless innings and striking out 7.

MISSISSIPPI: Mississippi had another 3-3 week, completing a home series versus Jacksonville before heading south for a five-game set with Biloxi.  The M-Braves scored 35 runs in six games, producing a number of hitting stars for the week.  Third baseman Daniel Lockhart took over the leadoff spot after OF Michael Reed was promoted to Gwinnett and took to it immediately with a .350/.480/.650 line for the week.  C Alex Jackson showed some signs of life with the bat, hitting his second and third home runs of the season en route to a six-RBI week and a .235/.235/.647 line.  LF Travis Demeritte continued his fine work with a .263/.364/.526 week while 1B Tyler Marlette went .348/.444/.522.

On the pitching front, Kyle Wright had the standout start of the week at Biloxi, going seven innings while allowing only three hits and a run while striking out six.  Wright has produced drastic home/road splits this season as shown below:

HOME: 0-4, 9.00 ERA, 5 GS, 17.0 IP, 2.294 WHIP, 11.1 K/9, 6.9 BB/9

ROAD: 3-1, 2.02 ERA, 6 GS, 35.2 IP, 0.953 WHIP, 7.3 K/9, 2.8 BB/9

The good news is that Wright has only allowed two home runs this season (one home, one road) in 52.2 innings and the Braves will certainly hope for the numbers to normalize as the season progresses.   

GWINNETT: The Stripers went 4-2 this week, led by a number of great pitching performances.  Max Fried only allowed one run in five innings while striking out six for his first start back in Gwinnett while Wes Parsons only allowed two runs while striking out nine over six innings of work.  The undisputed pitching star of the week, though, was Kolby Allard, who continues to dominate the International League.  Allard, in two starts, pitched 14 innings, allowing 11 hits and only three runs while striking out four and walking three.  Allard now sports a 4-1 record with a 2.00 ERA and a 1.063 WHIP in eleven starts for Gwinnett.

The position players were led by the recently promoted Michael Reed, who was 6-for-15 and produced at least one walk in each of the five games he played in this week.  This led to a .400/.591/.533 line for the Striper rightfielder.  Austin Riley produced a pedestrian .269/.321/.423 slash line while striking out in an alarming 39% of his plate appearances for the week.  Rio Ruiz also did some good work with a .400/.500/.450 line while having no strikeouts for the week in 24 plate appearances.

POSITION PLAYER of the WEEK:

PITCHER of the WEEK:

Pitch Counts, Part Deux

Way back in the first Sunday Farm Report, we took a look at the early pitch counts for the minor league starters, and how early on they were lower than in previous seasons. We also promised to look again in the future. Folks… the future is NOW.

In pretty much every case, all starters had their pitch counts lower in their first two to three starts before opening them up in subsequent starts. When looking at the pitch counts I disregarded starts that were interrupted by weather, injury, or the pitcher getting so shelled that they were pulled for performance.

20 Year Olds

The Braves have 7 20-year-old pitchers making regular minor league starts. Two are in Rome, Huascar Ynoa and Alan Rangel. Both now seem to have their pitch counts in the 90-100 range with Ynoa peaking at 98 recently and Rangel at 92. This looks to be about the same range as Ian Anderson in Florida, though Anderson was pulled early from his start last night; I have not heard if it was because of injury or they simply wanted to give him an easy night to keep him fresh.

In the upper minors, Bryse Wilson at AA and Kolby Allard at AAA are allowed to go a little longer, and both have made two starts of over 100 pitches. Allard currently has the highest single pitch count of the season, with a 105 pitch start under his belt.

The outlier here is Joey Wentz, who has demonstrated mechanical issues his last several starts and didn’t ramp up like the other pitchers in this age group. He hasn’t made a start since May 11 and his season high is 87 pitches, last done on May 5. Rome’s Jaseel De La Cruz only had four starts before going on the disabled list, his season high was 68 pitches, completed on his second start of the season on April 11.

21 and 22 Year Olds

Rome’s Odalvi Javier (21) topped out at 101 pitches for his May 12 start, but that seems to be an anomaly as otherwise he’s been in the 80-90 range. Tucker Davidson (22) regularly goes over 90 pitches but has yet to touch the century mark; that may have to do more with performance this season than restriction. The twin horses at the top of the Mississippi rotation, Kyle Wright (22) and Touki Toussaint (21) both settle comfortably in the 90-100 range, with Wright once hitting 101.

23 Year Olds

Rome’s Bruce Zimmermann seems also to have a 100 pitch limit, as he’s hit 99 in several starts but not over. Florida’s Jeremy Walker is likely in that same pitch count area, but like Davidson his counts are often affected by performance, with 94 being his top count back on May 9. Rome’s Drew Harrington started the season in the bullpen and only began getting regular starts in May, so he’s still in his ramp-up period, touching 69 pitches twice.

24-25 Year Olds

Max Fried (24), Lucas Sims (24), and Matt Wisler (25) have all been riding that Gwinnett to Atlanta shuttle, so their pitch counts fluctuate wildly as they work out of the rotation, the bullpen, and back again. Fried broke 91 pitches for the first time this season in his last start on June 3. Sims got to 101 on May 10, then 98 on May 16. That however was his last start, and he has been used in the bullpen in Atlanta and Gwinnett since, so this may be a permanent transition. Wisler had been clearly in the 90-100 pitch range, with his highest pitch count on his April 19 start for Atlanta at 102 pitches. He has not had a starting appearance since May 18 though, so he may also be working on a permanent transition to the bullpen.

Wes Parsons (25) started the season in the bullpen and had a lengthy ramp-up period, but had pitched in the 90-100 range for all of his starts in May until his last one, where he bowed out after 6 efficient innings with 79 pitches. Mississippi’s Enderson Franco (25) has been in the 90-100 range as well, hitting 101 in his May 26 spot start for Gwinnett.

So with a few exceptions, all of the regular minor league starters right now seem to have a pitch count limit of ~100, regardless of age or level.

Transaction Round-Up

5/27/2018: RHP Wes Parsons promoted to Gwinnett from Mississippi
5/27/2018: RHP Enderson Franco assigned to Mississippi from Gwinnett

As suspected last week, Parson’s demotion to Mississippi was just a paper move, and he made his next start for the Stripers, an efficient 79 pitch, 6 inning effort.

Franco had a solid spot start for Gwinnett, giving up 1 earned run in 5.2 innings, though he needed 101 pitches in the effort.

5/27/2018: LHP Dan Lietz promoted to Mississippi from Danville

Lietz was signed to a minor league deal on May 3 and gets his first crack at live hitting with the M-Braves. This will be his first time at the AA level after having pitched mostly A-ball since 2014 in the Blue Jays organization.

5/29/2018: OF Michael Reed promoted to Gwinnett from Mississippi
5/29/2018: OF Taylor Murphy promoted to Mississippi from Florida

After Austin Riley was promoted, Reed has been the top offensive performer for Gwinnett. This move back-filled for Dustin Peterson after his promotion. This will be Reed’s third shot at the AAA level; he played for Colorado Springs of the Pacific Coast League in 2015 and ’16. He also got a cup of coffee with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2016.

Murphy was signed by the Braves to a minor league contract on April 30 after playing parts of four seasons in the Cleveland organization. Murphy has spent parts of the last three seasons at the AA level, and was hitting .273/.407/.455 for the Fire Frogs

5/29/2018: RHP Josh Graham assigned to Florida from Mississippi
5/29/2018: RHP Sean McLaughlin promoted from Florida to Mississippi

Graham is a 2015 4th-rounder who got a big league spring training invite and seemed on the fast track to the majors if he could show more control. Unfortunately, his control has taken a big step backwards in 2018 and he’ll head to Kissimmee to try to figure things out.

One man’s misfortune is another’s opportunity, and McLaughlin finally gets his at AA after spending parts of the last three seasons at the advanced-A level despite solid performances.

5/29/2018: LHP Michael Mader promoted to Gwinnett from Mississippi
6/1/2018: LHP Michael Mader assigned to Mississippi from Gwinnett

Mader’s second spot start for Gwinnett didn’t go quite as well as his first, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see Mader back up to Gwinnett early this week for another start.

5/30/2018: Signed LHP Tyler Watson to a minor league contract; assigned to Danville

Watson was a late-round draft pick of the Mariners in 2014, but was cut last month after not getting past the low-A level.

5/30/2018: RHP Servando Hernandez and LHP Jhonny Diaz released from the DSL Braves

The Dominican Summer League kicks off this week. Hernandez has spent the last two seasons with the DSL Braves, and Diaz the last three seasons. The Braves released them to clear roster space for new signees.

5/31/2018: Released RHP Aaron Blair from Gwinnett

Blair is going to miss the season after having shoulder surgery. This was announced in conjunction with the Atlanta Braves selecting the contract of outfielder Peter Bourjos from Gwinnett, but there was an open 40-man roster; it looks like the Braves just wanted to keep a spot free, and didn’t want to put Blair on the major league 60-day DL and pay him a major league salary.

6/1/2018: Assigned IFs Eliezel Stevens, Hector Sierra, Carlos Paraguate; OFs Asmin Bautista, Deivi Estrada, Jonaiker Izaguirre, and Braian Quezada to the DSL Braves

These players were all signed over the course of the 2017/18 signing period that started last July 2. The Braves signed 39 players according to Baseball America, a good-sized class despite being in the penalty box for overspending the signing bonus cap during the 2016/17 period.

6/1/2018: Voided the contracts of OFs Charbel Hadad and Pedro Martinez, 1B Jose Rodriguez.

Er, make that a 36 player signing class. All three of these players were signed on July 2, 2017 by the old front office; the new guys in change apparently didn’t care for what they saw.

6/1/2018: Released RHP Carlos Lopez and OF Gerardo Santana from the DSL Braves.

More clearing of the DSL decks. Lopez was a 3-year DSL veteran, Santana played in 23 games last year and managed only one extra-base hit.