The Rome Braves won the first-half South Atlantic League South Division and are set to face the Lexington Legends of the Kansas City Royals organization in the best-of-3 first round of the SAL playoffs starting tonight. All games will be broadcast via video streaming on MiLB.TV ($) and on radio at 99.5 The Jock FM/WGJK-AM in the Rome area, or streaming for free on the TuneIn app.
Lexington won the regular season series with Rome 6 to 3. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising considering that Royals GM Dayton Moore has deep connections to Atlanta after a long career in the Braves front office, but the Lexington coaching staff has a distinct Braves tinge to it, with former Atlanta first baseman Scott Thorman managing the club and long-time Braves second baseman Glenn Hubbard serving as bench coach.
SCHEDULE:
Game 1:
Wednesday, September 5, 7:05 PM
Whitaker Bank Ballpark, Lexington, KY
Starting pitchers:
LEX RHP Jackson Kowar
3.42 ERA, 9 GS, 26.1 IP, 22 SO, 12 BB
ROM RHP Alan Rangel
4.09 ERA, 24 G (22 GS), 125.1 IP, 105 SO, 31 BB
Game 2:
Friday, September 7, 7:00 PM
State Mutual Stadium, Rome, GA
Starting pitchers:
ROM RHP Walter Borkovich
1.47 ERA, 34 G (6 GS), 85.2 IP, 56 SO, 16 BB
LEX LHP Daniel Lynch
1.58 ERA, 12 GS, 51.4 IP, 61 SO, 8 BB
Game 3 (if necessary):
Saturday, September 8, 6:00 PM
State Mutual Stadium, Rome, GA
Starting pitchers:
ROM RHP Odalvi Javier
4.14 ERA, 26 G (25 GS), 126.0 IP, 133 SO, 58 BB
LEX RHP Yefri Del Rosario
3.19 ERA, 15 GS, 79.0 IP, 72 SO, 29 BB
LEXINGTON POSITION PLAYERS
The Legends had the second best overall record in the SAL this season at 76-60 behind only the Lakewood Blue Claws. They finished 2.5 games behind Rome in the first half, but ahead of Rome by 7.5 games in the second half.
Lexington’s offense has been lead all season by 19-year-old first baseman Nick Pratto. Taken with the 16th overall draft pick in 2017, Pratto has hit a solid .280/.343/.443 with 14 homers, though the expected elite hit tool hasn’t quite manifested itself consistently. Pratto is however one of the best defensive first baseman in minor league ball.
Pratto is joined in the line-up by catcher MJ Melendez and outfielder Kyle Isbel. Melendez was the Royals 2nd round pick in 2017, and at age 19 is already a plus defender and hit .251/.322/.492 with 19 home runs. The 21-year-old Isbel is a relatively recent addition in the Legends line-up, joining the team in mid-July after being drafted in the 3rd round of the 2018 draft and playing 25 games of rookie ball. Since joining Lexington, Isbel has hit .289/.345/.434 with 3 homers and 12 stolen bases out of the lead-off spot.
Batting clean-up is outfielder Brewer Hicklen, a 22-year-old 7th-rounder in 2017 out of UAB. Hicklen started the season with Lexington and was promoted to advanced-A Wilmington for 22 games in mid-season before returning to Lexington for the stretch run. Despite the interruption, Hicklen swatted 17 homers to go with his .307/.378/.552 batting line.
The rest of the line-up contains solid if unspectacular hitters that also won’t hurt on defense. Rome will avoid the biggest hitter in the Lexington line-up, 20-year-old outfielder Seuly Matias, who swatted 31 home runs for the Legends but suffered a lacerated thumb on the cargo door of the team bus while loading on his suitcase in mid-August. The injury ended the young slugger’s season.
LEXINGTON PITCHERS
The Royals had three first-round picks in the 2018 draft, and they used two of them on the first two pitchers slated to start for Lexington in this series.
Right-hander Jackson Kower was a stand-out for Florida and was sent to Lexington immediately after signing. Kower has been solid in his pro debut and features a mid-90s fastball and potential plus curveball and change-up. His bugaboo so far has been control, and he’s given up 12 walks in 26.1 innings this season.
Lefty Daniel Lynch dominated in three starts for Burlington in the Appalachian League before being promoted to Lexington and dominating in 9 starts there. Lynch was a process-over-performance pick out of Virginia, taken exactly one spot after Kower. After being a primarily two-seam/curveball pitcher for UVA, Lynch has discovered a four-seam fastball that maintains mid-90s velocity and a hard slider with bite. One thing that has remained consistent from college has been a sinking change-up that has devastated SAL hitters to date.
If the series goes to 3 games, Rome will face one of the biggest What Could Have Beens. Right-hander Yefri Del Rosario likely would have starred in the Rome rotation in 2018 after signing with Atlanta in the 2016 international mega-class. Of course it was 10 members of that class, including Del Rosario, that were declared free agents as a result of an MLB investigation into rules violations made by the former Braves front office. Del Rosario chose the Royals, a team that heavily courted him while he was an amateur before signing with the Braves.
Del Rosario started the season in extended spring training, but was inserted into the Lexington rotation by early June. His first 8 starts of the year were rough, but his final 7 were excellent as he pitched to a 1.10 ERA in 41 innings. Still only 18 years old, Del Rosario is primarily as fastball/slider pitcher with a developing change-up.
One of the team’s Achilles’ heals in the first half was the bullpen, but that group has been better down the stretch. The best reliever is 22-year-old right-handed Tad Ratliff, an undrafted amateur free agent out of Lenoir-Rhyne College who has pitched to a 1.68 ERA in 27 games this season with 10 saves.
ROME POSITION PLAYERS
The main thing about Rome is that the team that won the first-half SAL South championship has mostly left. Team stars like shortstop Riley Delgado, catcher William Contreras, and outfielders Drew Waters and Isranel Wilson were all promoted to advanced-A Florida after the team clinched the playoff berth, while third baseman Jean Carlos Encarnacion was included in the trade with Baltimore that brought pitcher Kevin Gausman to Atlanta.
The top holdovers from the first half are outfielder Jefrey Ramos, catcher Drew Lugbauer, and second baseman Derian Cruz. Ramos slugged 16 home runs to lead the team as a 19-year-old, but also has only a .290 OBP. However he seems to be heating up at the right time and was the OFR Position Player of the Week in the last Farm Report.
Speaking of getting hot at the right time, Cruz has struggled for most of the year at the plate, but has hit .343/.395/.400 in his last 10 games. After a disastrous season in the field as a shortstop in 2017, Cruz has found himself as a solid second baseman.
Lugbauer seems to be showing the effects of being a primary catcher for the first time. He has caught 20 of the team’s 28 games since Contreras’s promotion, and has only hit .221/.314/.365 during that stretch. Lugbauer has 12 home runs on the season, behind only Ramos for the team lead.
When players move out, new players have to back-fill, and the second-half position players have been solid, if not quite up to the heights of their predecessors. Outfielders Justin Dean and Trey Harris replaced Waters and Wilson and have more-or-less held their own. Dean has hit .257/.333/.363 with 9 stolen bases out of the lead-off spot and has played a strong defensive centerfield. Harris moved up straight from the GCL Braves in August and has lead the team in runs created since his arrival.
Shortstop AJ Graffanino, the Braves 8th round pick in 2018, was promoted to replace Delgado and did his best Delgado impersonation, spraying the field with well-timed hits and playing excellent defensive shortstop. Graffanino was hitting over .400 as late as August 13, but has cooled off considerably and has hit only .188/.227/.232 since then.
First base has been a revolving door for Rome all season, but converted catcher Hagen Owenby has played well enough down the stretch to stop that door for now. Former Auburn infielder Brendan Venter and minor league free agent acquisition Marcos Almonte have been holding down third base since the departure of Encarnacion.
ROME PITCHERS
Like the position players, the top pitchers for Rome have mostly departed since the team clinching in June. Starting pitchers Kyle Muller, Bruce Zimmermann, and Huascar Ynoa each could have at one point correctly claimed to be the “ace” of the Rome staff, but all have moved on. In their place are three lesser regarded pitchers who nonetheless have absolutely deserved the right to start this series based on their second-half play.
Game 1 starter Alan Rangel has been a favorite sleeper prospect by many Braves watchers, and he has put together an solid second half of season, pitching to a 2.79 ERA with 54 strikeouts against only 17 walks in 12 starts.
Game 2 starter Walter Borkovich has had a fascinating pro career trajectory. A non-drafted amateur free agent out of Michigan State last season, Borkovich opened the season in the Rome bullpen, where he pitched brilliantly. At the beginning of August, Borkovich got a well-deserved promotion to advanced-A Florida. What was unexpected was that his role would change with the Fire Frogs, and he threw 3 starts with his new team. What’s most amazing is that he did not surrender a run in any of those starts, a total of 17 shut-out innings with 0 walks. Typically a reliever is sent down a level to get stretched out to start, but the reverse was true for Borkovich, and he returned to Rome on August 23 to get in 3 starts in which he allowed only 3 runs total in 21 innings.
Game 3 stater Odalvi Javier has been in the Braves organization since 2014, and doesn’t wow anyone with great stuff. What he does have is tenacity and competitive spirit and solid command that allows his fastball and change-up to play up.
Perhaps the biggest disparity between Rome and Lexington is the strength of their bullpens. Left-hander Hayden Deal has been a workhorse all season long, throwing long relief and spot starting and sporting a sparkling 4.84:1 strikeout to walk ratio. The playoff bullpen will also get boosted by 2017 3rd-rounder Freddy Tarnok returning to the bullpen, where he pitched to a 1.26 ERA and held batters to a .164/.310/.234 batting line before joining the rotation in July. Late-season additions Troy Bacon, Zach Daniels, and Brooks Wilson have been excellent down the stretch, complimenting lefties Kelvin Rodriguez and John Curtis and right-hander Cutter Dyals.
Update: Rome’s bullpen will also be supplemented by re-habbing major leaguers Arodys Vizcaino and Jose Martinez.
THE MATCH-UP
On paper, the Legends would seem to have an edge over Rome. In general, the second-half winners tend to perform better in the post-season for obvious reasons, but the talent drain that Rome has endured since August 1 leaves them with an offense that could have a hard time against a star-studded Lexington rotation.
Lexington has also out-slugged Rome over the course of the season by almost 30 points, and they still have that advantage even without Matias in the line-up.
The best chance for Rome may be to keep the game close and try to get into the Lexington bullpen where the team is most vulnerable, while leveraging their own bullpen to maximum effect. If the Rome starters don’t look like they’re going to be competitive, look for quick hooks and liberal uses of Hayden Deal and Freddy Tarnok to try to shorten the games.
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