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August 11, 2017

Weekly Wrap

August 11, 2017

by Javier Barragan

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To The DL
Marlins OF Stone Garrett was placed on the DL with a left oblique strain. I Eyewitness’d him here. I might definitely was a bit generous on the bat and power. A guess hitter, he has shown the skills to fit a fourth outfielder role more and more.

Dodgers LHP Devin Smeltzer was placed on the DL for an undisclosed reason. Wilson Karaman Ten Packed him about a month ago, with video. A cancer survivor, he aims to be an inspiration to others.

Rays RHP Jose De Leon has again experienced a setback, and was reportedly not throwing anything above 84 mph. He experienced forearm tightness.

Phillies RHP Edgar Garcia was placed on the DL. I Ten Packed him a few months ago, liking what I saw.

Rockies’ stud SS Brendan Rodgers was placed on the DL after injuring his quad on Sunday. No clear timetable yet.

The Reds placed 2B Shed Long on the DL. I Ten Packed him in late June, highlighting his bat and fielding abilities, which you can find here. Also, if you find his bat, please give it to him. He has lost it somewhere on his promotion to Double-A.

The Braves placed 2B Travis Demeritte on the DL. He is slashing .216/.295/.398 for the Mississippi Braves, Double-A.

The Blue Jays promoted C Danny Jansen to Triple-A Buffalo.

The Orioles placed LHP Keegan Akin on the DL, retroactive to August 7th.

Off the DL
Blue Jays RHP TJ Zeuch was assigned to the Dunedin Blue Jays. His injury was not disclosed.

Yankees RHP Albert Abreu began his rehab stint with the GCL Yankees today. His stat line: 1 1/3 IP 1 H 2 R 1 ER 0 BB 2 SO

The Orioles moved RHP Hunter Harvey’s rehab assignment to Short-Season Aberdeen. He is working back from TJS.

The Pirates moved OF Austin Meadows rehab assignment to Short-Season West Virginia. He is working back from a hamstring strain.

White Sox RHP AJ Puckett was activated from the DL. He was the second-round pick in the 2016 Draft out of Pepperdine for the Royals. He is pitching for the High-A affiliate, and was Ten Packed earlier this season here.

Up the Ladder
The Phillies promoted RHP Sixto Sanchez from Low-A to High-A. Well adorned here on Baseball Prospectus (here, Eyewitness Report, and Top 50’d in the Midseason Rankings) I caught his first appearance in High-A. Sixto’s first three pitches were sinking fastballs at 99 mph. Though never cracked 100 ☹, sitting 97-99, he showed athleticism, above-average control, a feel for a slider and changeup—he has shown curveballs, splitters and cutters in other outings—and a knack for mixing them. The results were not his best performance, but he just turned 19 and is in High-A. A scouting story scripted for Hollywood, Sanchez is a special talent.

The Phillies promoted RHP Franklyn Kilome to Double-A to make way for Sixto. I caught Kilome on the 11th of June, liking him as a bullpen arm. His release point and stuff was inconsistent, the delivery was rigid and the control was poor. Still, there is major-league value. He showed cut, sinking, and four-seam variations of a fastball that was between 92-96, generating a fair number of groundballs. He relied on a slider that projects to be solid-average with 10-5 depth that broke late, sporadically getting slurvey and loose. He puts away hitters glove-side down with this pitch to both lefties and righties, mitigating some splits concerns. He occasionally showed a splitter that tumbled late and at times cut in the 78-83 mph range. It is a work in progress, and was rarely thrown. Still, he is a lanky 6-foot-6, 22-year-old, so there is reason to believe he beats the bullpen role. He made his Double-A debut last night.

Elniery Garcia was activated from his suspension. He was suspended earlier this season for PED.

The Royals promoted their 2017 fourth-rounder OF Michael Gigliotti. He was tearing up the Appy League, with a slash line of 429/.442/.477 in 42 games.

The Cubs promoted CF Chris Singleton from AZL to Short-Season. Aside from being the son of a Charleston shooting victim, he is an athletic plus defender and plus runner. He was selected in the 19th round.

The A’s promoted LHP Jesus Luzardo to Short-Season Vermont. Recently Ten Packed by Matt Pullman here, and distantly Ten Packed by me earlier this season, Luzardo has the tools of a mid-rotation piece.

The Yankees promoted RHP Dillon Tate to Double-A and C Donny Sands to High-A. Tate, acquired in the Carlos Beltran trade in 2016 trade deadline, has a live arm. Cashman had to say this about the lottery pick. Per Greg Goldstein, Sands, a 2015 draft pick, projects to be a back-up catcher with some pop, barrel control and solid arm. The legs are slow and the receiving is fringe. He has experienced a more difficult upbringing than most, which you can read about here. Into videos instead? Watch a clip here.

The Tigers group promoted a few of their arms. RHP Artie Lewicki from Double-A to Triple-A, LHP Matt Hall from High-A to Double-A, LHP Gregory Soto from Low-A to High-A, and RHP Matt Manning from Short Season to Low-A. Lewicki, though armed with a 70 fastball, does not overpower hitters, recording a solid 7.36 K/P in Double-A. Instead, he avoids giving up free passes, a BB/9 of 2. DRA likes him to a 2.75.

Hall, 24 this past July, pitched to a 3.26 DRA in High-A. He recorded a career high in groundball rate 56 percent to 110 strikeouts and 38 walks over 103.1 innings.

Soto struck out 116 to 54 walks over 404 Low-A batters faced. Not excellent numbers, but certainly good things to work with there. In his first High-A appearance, he went six innings, striking out and walking three, allowing two hits. He also gave up two runs. You can see a video of him here, provided by our Nathan Graham.

As for Manning, the Tigers 2016 ninth-overall pick, pitched decent in Connecticut, and was roughed up in his first Low-A start, going 1 2/3 innings pitched to three hits, three walks, and three strike outs as well as four earned runs. Thankfully, there is projection left for the 19-year-old. You can read Paternosto’s scouting report on Manning here.

Twins promoted LHP Stephen Gonsalves to Triple-A. Having missed nearly two months of the season on the DL with a shoulder issue, Gonsalves, without a major-league quality breaker, has managed to strikeout a Double-A batter per nine due to his above-average/plus change-up with better than average control combination. He walked 2.4 batters per nine to a 3.34 DRA in Double-A.

Brewers promoted 1B/3B Jake Gatewood from High-A to Double-A. Greg Goldstein caught him in Potomac, oozing over his 70-raw power while showing concern for his poor contact ability. Like Goldstein mentioned, he will need to improve his alarming 28.1 percent strikeout rate.

Indians RHP Zach Plesac, nephew to MLB Network Analyst Dan Plesac, was promoted to Low-A from Short-Season. Having gone under reconstructive elbow surgery last season, he is making his first professional appearances this season, and is off to a promising start, to a 2.47 DRA while in Short-Season.

Dodgers assigned Ike Davis to the AZL Dodgers as a left-handed pitcher. He made his debut against the AZL Padres, striking out each batter he faced. Reportedly, his fastball is between 88-92.

Dodgers promoted RHP Jordan Sheffield from Low-A to High-A. Emmett Rosenbaum recently discussed the difficulties with scouting Sheffield’s three different sliders, which you can read about here.

Astros promoted their 2017 first rounder RHP JB Bukauskas to Short-Season.

Rangers RHP Kyle Cody was promoted from Low-A to High-A. Cody was recently Ten Packed, and Paternostro had to say this about him:

We will work backwards and start with the comp, because it's an interesting intellectual exercise to me. If I told you a pitcher reminded me of Mike Pelfrey would you take that as a good thing or a bad thing? Big Pelf has made 250 starts in the majors. He’s made over $40 million playing baseball. But he's seen as a bit of a disappointment relative to his draft status. Cody meanwhile was a sixth-round priority senior sign for the Rangers in 2016. At Cody’s age, Pelfrey already had a year of MLB service time under his belt. But like the former ninth-overall pick, he is a tall, strapping righty, with a bowling ball of a mid-90s fastball that features late arm-side run and some feel for a hard, sinking change. He’s far too good for this level, even considering that Texas tends to be more conservative with arms than they are with bats. There are some warts here; he will lose the fastball arm-side and up, despite a simple, compact delivery (sometimes badly—he went straight to the screen a few times as he tired), although the overall command profile is okay. His breaking ball is a little bit of a rolling 11-5 thing, but that doesn't really hurt the Pelfrey comp. Cody will be 23 soon, but you don't need to allow for much projection here, he's already most of the way to a back-end major league starter. Given that, you’d take Mike Pelfrey’s career, no?

Trade Assignments

Acquired in the Jay Bruce trade, Mets RHP Ryder Ryan was assigned to Low-A, Columbia.

The Braves assigned 1B Connor Joe to the Mississippi Braves, Double-A. Joe was acquired in the Sean Rodriguez trade.

Down the Chutes

Eeek, Pirates LHP Jake Brentz, whom I reported on a few months ago, was demoted from Double-A to High-A. The strike out numbers were good, 12 in 9 1/3 innings. What was not good? The 12 walks. He did not give up much hits, five in 47 batters faced (maybe because they simply took the walks that he was sure to give up) so I am hopeful there is still good in here.

Javier Barragan is an author of Baseball Prospectus. 
Click here to see Javier's other articles. You can contact Javier by clicking here

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