Braves Intrasquad Scrimmage Notes (8/15/20)

On August 15th, Fox Sports South televised a Braves player pool intrasquad scrimmage that took place at Truist Park. Ostensibly, this event was designed to give viewers a way to see top prospects in action. However, it also served as a pre-trade deadline advertisement to MLB general managers. The only way this could have been more of an infomercial is if Larry King was hosting it.

Unfortunately, only the first 30 minutes was televised prior to the Braves pregame show but it was enough to make a few quick observations.

• LHP Kyle Muller is showing improvement. He has a lot of similarities to Sean Newcomb (big lefties, command/control issues) but when his control is off, it’s REALLY off, as in walking four hitters in an inning, dotting multiple hitters or launching a ball towards the backstop screen. He doesn’t appear to have as many moving parts (arms/legs) as I’ve observed from him in past Mississippi starts. Calming his motion down should assist in improving his command/control issues. Muller continues to throw at a high velocity, maintaining 97-98 on his fastball although he can ramp it up to 100. He also showed control of a changeup that was hitting 89.
• It remains to be seen if lanky 6’4″, 190 lb shortstop Braden Shewmake can stick at shortstop but he made solid contact in a lefty-lefty matchup with Muller although it was a lineout to 3B Logan Brown.
• It’s good to see 2020 draftee and recent player pool addition OF Jesse Franklin in action. He showed no ill effects from a broken collarbone he suffered in January which likely hurt his draft stock during a diving catch in RF to rob Drew Waters of an extra-base hit.
• In a clash of big men, 6’6″ rising first-base prospect Bryce Ball showed a good eye in drawing a walk against fellow lefty Muller.
• RHP Ian Anderson showed off some nice pitches during the inning of work that was televised, He had some success in getting hitters to chase high fastballs, including a strikeout of Pete Kozma, who couldn’t catch up to a 94 mph rising FB. Anderson also showed off nice work with the changeup and curveball. He did give up a home run to Peter O’Brien but getting tagged by an MLB veteran like that isn’t an embarrassment. While Anderson had some ugly stats at the end of 2019 for Gwinnett, not much should be read into those due to having to adjust to a new type of baseball after his promotion from Double-A.
• It appears that player pools could be expanded by fifteen players in the near future. Doing so could allow the Braves to fill out the roster with remaining 2020 draftees Bryce Elder and Spencer Strider as well as some players that REALLY needed the year of development like Greyson Jenista, CJ Alexander, and AJ Graffanino. Expanding the roster in this manner also allows more players to play their natural position so that Logan Brown and Jonathan Morales don’t have to play infield due to lack of other options.
• Pete Kozma (the inspiration of this blog’s name) has Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” as his walkup music. That’s cool.