The minor league playoffs begin today and the top two clubs made some last minute roster moves. Zack Dodson was promoted to Indianapolis, while Altoona added Felipe Gonzalez and Hunter Morris. To make room for Morris, reliever Robert Stock was assigned to the GCL Pirates.
Indianapolis announced their rotation for the first four games, so Dodson might be used in long relief. He last pitched on Saturday, so he should be available tomorrow if needed. The other option is having him start game five, though that isn’t a given since it’s a best-of-five series. With Altoona this year, he led the Pirates’ minor league system in innings pitched(162), while posting a 3.67 ERA and a 1.23 WHIP. Dodson threw seven shutout innings in his last start and has allowed two earned runs or less in each of his last five starts.
Gonzalez pitched all season for Bradenton, seeing time in long relief and as a starter. He had a 3.28 ERA in 107 innings. He was much better as a reliever, with a 2.09 ERA in that role, as opposed to 4.08 as a starter. Gonzalez did however make four starts to end the season in which he gave up five runs over 23.1 innings, so he finished strong.
Stock was a disaster with Altoona, giving up nine runs and ten walks in 4.1 innings. He has a great arm, but his control is non-existent. Morris couldn’t hit with Indianapolis or Altoona this year, but he did pitch twice and looked better than Stock, so if they need someone for a blowout, Morris might actually be the better option. He had a .364 OPS in 50 games, so Stock(a former catcher) might actually be the better hitter.
Down Goes Frazier
In other news, we were following the Adam Frazier batting title watch and thought he won the title. So did Frazier, so did the Curve and so did everyone else until today. If you followed my scenario for Harold Ramirez winning the batting title, you would know it’s possible to win without having enough plate appearances to qualify and that’s what happened to Frazier. He lost to Trey Mancini of Bowie, who fell 30 plate appearances short of qualifying, but he hit .359, so adding an 0-for-30 to his average dropped him down to .329, which was enough to beat Frazier. Mancini went 9-for-13 in his last three games to win it.
