A look at how the current top 30 prospects did today. If a player is in the majors and loses his prospect eligibility, he will be removed. Everyone below him will be shifted up a spot, and a new player will be added to the bottom of the list. If a player is out for the season, he will be removed and everyone below him will move up a spot. Removing these guys doesn’t mean they have lost prospect status. It is just an attempt to get 30 active prospects on the list. Rankings are from the 2016 mid-season update, and links on each name go to their Pirates Prospects player pages.
We’re working on a solution for the PHP stat codes not working in the app.
1. Tyler Glasnow, RHP, Pirates -[insert_php]
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2. Austin Meadows, CF, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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3. Josh Bell, 1B, Pirates – [insert_php]
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4. Kevin Newman, SS, Altoona – [insert_php]
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5. Mitch Keller, RHP, Bradenton -[insert_php]
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6. Nick Kingham, RHP, Altoona – [insert_php]
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7.Cole Tucker, SS, Bradenton – [insert_php]
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8. Chad Kuhl, RHP, Pirates – [insert_php]
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9. Will Craig, 3B, Morgantown – [insert_php]
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10. Steven Brault, LHP, Pirates – [insert_php]
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11. Ke’Bryan Hayes, 3B, West Virginia -[insert_php]
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12. Elias Diaz, C, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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13. Clay Holmes, RHP, Altoona – [insert_php]
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14. Yeudy Garcia, RHP, Bradenton -[insert_php]
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15. Gage Hinsz, RHP, West Virginia – [insert_php]
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16. Trevor Williams, RHP, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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17. Alen Hanson, 2B, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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18. Brandon Waddell, LHP, Altoona – [insert_php]
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19. Tyler Eppler, RHP, Altoona -[insert_php]
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20. Max Moroff, 2B, Indianapolis -[insert_php]
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21. Taylor Hearn, LHP, West Virginia – [insert_php]
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22. Adrian Valerio, SS – Bristol – [insert_php]
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23. Braeden Ogle, LHP, GCL Pirates – [insert_php]
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24. Kevin Kramer, 2B, Bradenton -[insert_php]
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25. Travis MacGregor, RHP, GCL Pirates – [insert_php]
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26. Max Kranick, RHP, GCL Pirates – [insert_php]
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27. Frank Duncan, RHP, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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28. Dovydas Neverauskas, RHP, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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29. Connor Joe, 3B, Bradenton – [insert_php]
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30. Erich Weiss, 2B, Altoona – [insert_php]
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Indianapolis won 7-5 on Tuesday night, as Toledo made things interesting in the ninth with a grand slam. Through eight innings, this game was one-sided and Austin Meadows was responsible for most of the damage. I mentioned last night that he went four straight games without a hit. He made up for that in this game, driving in a total of five runs. Meadows drove in a run with a sacrifice fly in the first inning. That was followed by a two-run single in the third, then a two-run homer in the fifth inning.
Max Moroff helped out Meadows all three times he drove in runs. In the first, he singled Pedro Florimon over to third base in front of the sacrifice fly. In the third, his walk loaded the bases, moving both runners up who scored on the single. In the fifth, Moroff walked and scored on the homer.
Jason Rogers, Elias Diaz, Dan Gamache and Willy Garcia each had two hits in this game. Garcia and Gamache each scored a run and drove in a run, while Garcia also picked up his 17th outfield assist.
Justin Masterson and Jhondaniel Medina each tossed three scoreless innings. Jason Creasy followed with two shutout innings in his Triple-A debut. Edgar Santana then saw his Triple-A ERA skyrocket with five earned runs in the ninth. To show how crazy that is for him, he came into this game having allowed three earned runs over his last 17 appearances. Prior to tonight, he had given up more than two runs in a game just once this season in 40 appearances.
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ALTOONA, PA – The first inning looked very strong tonight for the Altoona Curve, but everything just seemed to go downhill afterwards, as they fell to the Binghamton B-Mets by a score of 3-1.
Brandon Waddell took the mound and looked very sharp in the first inning, recording three quick outs on seven pitches. After the first inning, Waddell never really let the game get away from him, but he did not look as sharp as he did early.
He allowed a walk to begin the second inning then a wild pitch (which looked more like a passed ball on Jin-De Jhang). After an infield single, Waddell was able to induce a double play and another ground out to get out of the inning. The third wasn’t as clean for Waddell, as he left a 90 MPH two-seamer a little up in the zone and Binghamton’s lead-off hitter drove it out of the park to left-center field.
Waddell worked through the next few innings without much excitement, not necessarily looking his sharpest but still getting decent results. He got two quick outs in the sixth, but then allowed a line drive single and walk, resulting in a visit to the mound by his pitching coach. Whatever was said didn’t necessarily work, as Waddell allowed a deep line drive hit to right-center field, scoring two runs.
Altogether, Waddell allowed three earned runs in six innings of work, giving up seven hits. He struck out four batters and walked two. He wasn’t the most efficient tonight, throwing 93 pitches in his six innings of work with 59 of them for strikes. He did have an 8-2 groundout-to-flyout ratio; however, many of the hits were line drives or hard hit balls instead of seeing-eye singles.
The Curve offense manufactured their first inning run after a single, walk, and a Jin-De Jhang single into right-center field, giving them the early lead. Unfortunately, Curve hitters couldn’t do much more, only hitting three more singles after the first. After an Edwin Espinal single in the third, the Curve failed to record another hit until Jin-De Jhang led off the ninth with a single.
Barrett Barnes’ career best 13-game hitting streak ended tonight, as he went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. This was only the fourth time in 48 games since July 5th that Barnes failed to reach base. He did line a hit right at the second baseman in the fourth inning, but the Binghamton player made the grab.
Eric Wood flew out to deep center field twice in the game, chased down by Binghamton center fielder Chase Stuart. Erich Weiss was another victim of their speedy outfield, as he flew out to the right field wall in the eighth inning.
Defensively, Erich Weiss continues to play a strong second base, making a few nice plays on balls that were hit his way. More specifically, he went hard to his right and down on a knee to make a nice stop in the third inning, quickly firing towards first for the out. Barrett Barnes made a diving play in right field for the final out in the top of the ninth to preserve a two-run deficit.
With the Curve loss and wins by both Harrisburg and Akron, their division lead is cut in half to only one game over Akron and 3.5 games over Harrisburg. Their magic number is still four, as it was when they entered the evening. – Sean McCool
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BRADENTON, Fla. – Mitch Keller had a strong debut in High-A. Keller threw six shutout innings, allowing five hits and a walk, and fanning seven. He threw almost all fastballs for two innings and the pitch continues to show increased velocity. It was 96-98 MPH in the first and sat 94-97 throughout the rest of the start.
Keller was an interesting contrast to Braeden Ogle and Max Kranick, who pitched earlier today. Keller naturally is much more advanced and it showed, as apart from a few brief stretches, he kept on top of the fastball and drove it down. While Ogle and Kranick sometimes got the fastball up (and were able to get swings and misses from over-anxious, rookie-level hitters), Keller consistently kept the pitch down. It’s a measure of how far he’s come, as I saw Keller twice shortly after he was drafted, and Ogle and Kranick today had better command than Keller did then.
Keller did get hit a bit more early than he often did with West Virginia, which you’d expect from more advanced hitters facing a steady diet of fastballs. Once Keller started mixing in his curve in the third inning, though, he had little trouble. The first few curves weren’t close to the strike zone, but later on he commanded the pitch very well. Keller didn’t use his change much, probably in part because he didn’t face many left-handed hitters. Tim will have more on Keller tonight, but has this video now. – Wilbur Miller
https://youtu.be/1KYDmtXXKz4
UPDATE 11:37 PM: Cole Tucker continued doing what he’s done most of the time when I’ve seen him this year, which is hit weak grounders. He went 1-5 today, with a hard single and four weak grounders. In the field, he took part in three 6-4-3 double plays, and also whiffed on a backhand attempt at a liner he would have had to short-hop.
Kevin Kramer went 0-4 today, but looked good on the double play pivot. On one play, the runner was nearly on top of him when he got the flip from Tucker, but he stood in and got the ball to first in time.
Wyatt Mathisen was hitting the ball hard, going 3-4 with a double.
Pablo Reyes played center in place of Tito Polo and had a couple hard-hit balls that went for singles. He looked tentative in the field, which is understandable for an infielder moving to the outfield. That included letting a catchable liner drop in front of him. – Wilbur Miller
UPDATE 12:27 AM: Mitch Keller was anxious all day on Tuesday, hoping that the forecast that was calling for rain would hold off long enough for him to make his High-A debut. He said he was amped up for the game once the start looked like it would take place. But he showed none of this on the mound.
Keller started off throwing mostly fastballs the first two innings. If you’ve been reading my articles on him recently, this isn’t a surprise. The last time I saw him, he worked off the fastball pretty much the first four innings. One start this year saw him throw 48 straight fastballs, until throwing his first curveball in the fourth inning. He would work off the fastball until opposing hitters could do something with it, and they never did in Low-A. That meant he had to force himself to use the secondary stuff.
Tonight, he learned that High-A hitters are more advanced, and that approach only works for a few innings. By the end of the second inning, he had to start relying on the off-speed stuff.
“More advanced hitters, obviously,” Keller said. “So they were ready to hit the fastball. I think they knew what I was trying to do. We had to change it up a little bit earlier, and I think that worked.”
Keller shows advanced command of the pitch. He was pounding it down in the zone, then elevating it and blowing it by hitters. Wilbur pointed out the velocity above, and when you can move the fastball all around the zone like Keller can, opposing hitters have no chance. The few hits allowed weren’t hard hit balls, with a few of them possibly being outs with better defensive plays.
By the fourth inning, Keller was relying heavily on the curveball, going from throwing it for strikeouts where he could just unleash the pitch and get swings, to throwing it for strikes early in the count. The pitch got better and better as the outing went on, getting some hard bite as he drove it down in the zone.
“We kind of noticed they were hunting fastball there in the second, so we decided to start changing it up and it really affected them,” Keller said.
The changeup wasn’t as effective tonight, but he still was comfortable throwing the pitch, and mixed that in a lot in the later innings, relying on his three pitch mix. He’s not to the point where he’s consistent enough with the curveball to make it a plus pitch, but it flashes plus at times, and flashed a lot of that in the fifth and sixth innings. The changeup still has a ways to go, but has come a long way in the last year or two already. For the stage he’s at, he’s doing well, and is very advanced. That showed tonight as he carved up a High-A lineup in his debut at the level. – Tim Williams
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Taylor Hearn started for West Virginia and threw four shutout innings, allowing three hits, one walk and he struck out six batters. Hearn threw 65 pitches, with 45 going for strikes. This start included a lot of fastballs from Hearn and according to the announcers, he was sitting between 93-97 MPH, hitting that top end often. He was up in the zone a lot and it produced a ton of swinging strikes. Overall his control was strong, with many of those pitches outside the zone coming in the second inning when he issued his lone walk.
Two of the hits were weakly struck infield hits, with one slowly hit towards third base and the other was a bloop just over the mound that took a strange hop away from shortstop Stephen Alemais, who was charging the ball. The other hit was a liner into right field from a lefty batter. Part of the high pitch count was just due to the high number of swinging strikes, which was probably in the 15-20 range, though as I mentioned, many were up in the zone and it’s easier to get by with that when you have his velocity in the low minors.
Not a bad outing from him. The velocity was solid, but you’d like to see more off-speed pitches and the ball lower in the zone. The times he got the ball down, Columbia had no chance against him. A patient team may have knocked him out in the second inning though, due to a high pitch count that frame. He was efficient with his pitches in the other three innings.
The Power led this game 6-0 through the top of the fifth, then ended up winning 7-6 in ten innings. They had a total of 13 hits, getting two hits apiece from Logan Hill, Danny Arribas, Jordan George, John Bormann and Logan Ratledge. Hill hit a monster two-run homer early, swinging one handed on a pitch low and inside, showing massive power. He also had a single and two walks in this game. Arribas hit two doubles, to give him 19 on the season. Carlos Munoz hit his 26th double and Stephen Alemais hit his first double since being promoted. Mitchell Tolman drew two walks to give him 66 on the season, second most in the system behind Max Moroff.
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Morgantown won 3-2 over Batavia, getting excellent pitching from Stephan Meyer. In the second inning, Meyer allowed two runs on two doubles and a single. He ended up going seven innings on the day and faced the minimum over the last five innings, allowing an infield single which was immediately erased on a double play. Meyer lowered his ERA to 4.56 over 75 innings, though he came into August with a 6.20 ERA. Neil Kozikowski got the win by throwing two scoreless innings.
Will Craig reached on a walk and hit-by-pitch, extended his on base streak to 31 games. He now has a .411 OBP, and a .775 OPS which is well above league average. Kevin Krause had a walk, a single, score two runs and stole two bases. Chris Harvey drove in two runs on two hits, including his ninth double. Ty Moore went 1-for-3 with a single, HBP, run scored and stolen base.
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Bristol couldn’t do anything on offense for most of this game, then once they put up two runs in the eighth inning to tie the score, reliever John Pomeroy gave it right back for the 3-2 loss. Ike Schlabach made his final start of the season (unless he moves up to Morgantown for one more) and he allowed two runs over five innings. He gave up too many runners in this game with seven hits and three walks, but there was something impressive on his part. Schlabach had an 11:0 GO/AO ratio. He’s been solid at keeping the ball on the ground this season, posting a 1.50 GO/AO ratio coming into this game. The 19-year-old Schlabach finishes with a 5.22 ERA in 60.1 innings.
The offense didn’t pick up their first hit until a Victor Fernandez double with one out in the fourth inning. That was followed by an infield single off the bat of Jhoan Herrera, but the next two batters couldn’t bring home a run. The next hit didn’t come until a reliever came in for the eighth inning. Huascar Fuentes singled, then was replaced on the bases by Raul Siri after a force out. Fernandez followed with his second home run of the season. In the ninth, Adrian Valerio and Garrett Brown hit back-to-back singles to start the inning. That was followed by a pop up on a bunt and a double play to end the game.
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BRADENTON, Fla. – We’ll have a lot more from the first game when it is over. Ogle had a great outing today, just blowing it past the GCL hitters. I got video of him in the third inning, striking out the side in order. I’ll have a full recap after I talk with him. For now, here is that video. – Tim Williams
https://youtu.be/J774xoRBLIk
UPDATE 1:12 PM: Ogle looked very good in his five innings. His fastball was mostly sitting 92-93 MPH, reaching 94 (some radar guns had him hitting 95), but dropped to 90-92 in his last inning. He got a lot of swings and misses with it as it showed good life. His change was 81-84 and slider 83-85. At this point, the fastball is carrying most of the load, accounting for 52 of 67 pitches. He’s just started throwing the slider and the change still needs work, which is typical at this level.
Ogle’s command wandered at times in his first couple innings, but by the third inning he was very sharp with it and carved up the opposing lineup, striking out the side. He seemed to lose a little steam in the fourth and especially the fifth, and had more trouble locating the fastball. Still, there were no hard-hit balls in the game. The only hits were of the infield variety, and one bloop on a check swing. Ogle allowed one run, which was unearned as it scored when he hurried a throw on an infield hit and the first baseman couldn’t scoop it. Ogle walked two and fanned six. He also showed good athleticism in the field, with a better pickoff move than you usually see at this level and a couple good defensive plays (notwithstanding the error). One was on a bunt that he got off the mound quickly and threw accurately to second for a force (for reference, think how many times you’ve seen even major league pitchers air mail that throw). He also made a leaping grab on a chopper. – Wilbur Miller
UPDATE 7:00 PM: As you can expect, today kind of got away from us. Here is a video of Kranick, followed by Wilbur’s recap of his performance. I’ll have more later from talking with Kranick and Ogle. This is Tim, BTdubs.
https://youtu.be/mFCllN0AKvo
Kranick’s outing was similar in part to Ogle’s. The Tigers couldn’t get good wood on his fastball, which was 91-94. His command of it was inconsistent, but no more so than you’d expect from a prep draftee. He missed some bats with it, sometimes when hitters chased high ones. Unlike Ogle, Kranick had a secondary pitch, a 73 MPH curve, that looks good now and that he threw for strikes. Kranick had three long at-bats to start the third and exited with one on and two out. He didn’t seem to be laboring or anything; he probably just had a low pitch limit. He allowed no runs, one hit and two walks, with four strikeouts. There were no balls hit hard. – Wilbur Miller
UPDATE 11:37 PM: Of the “other” pitchers who appeared in the GCL doubleheader, arguably the most interesting were Ronny Agustin and Claudio Scotti. Agustin is a stocky pitcher who has pretty good velocity for a lefty. He also signed on the old side, as he’s in his second pro season and will be 22 in September. He threw 89-92 today and mixed in a curve with good break. Agustin’s command is erratic, but he’s struck out 39 hitters in 28.2 IP so far this year. He relieved Kranick and got the last out of the third, then threw a perfect fourth. In the fifth, though, his command disappeared. He allowed two hits and two walks, while recording only one out before being relieved.
Scotti was signed out of Italy and only turned 18 in July. This was only his fifth pro appearance and first in nearly a month. He quickly put himself in a second-and-third, no-outs situation by walking his first hitter on four pitches and then throwing away a routine comebacker. He mostly settled down and pitched reasonably well after that, throwing mainly fastballs at 89-90 MPH. Scotti was hurt, though, by a pair of bloop hits and wasn’t able to finish the inning. He obviously needs more experience and could add some velocity as he gets older.
The position players on the GCL team aren’t an imposing group. Of the 13 players who were in one lineup or the other today, five are hitting below the Mendoza Line, some of them well below. Of the others, only two are hitting .260 or higher. One, Edison Lantigua, is hitting .261 in his second GCL season. The other, Nelson Jorge, is in his third season in the league.
The most interesting position players arguably are outfielders Yondry Contreras and Jeremias Portorreal, and catcher Gabriel Brito. The first two played both games, while Brito caught the first game. Brito made contact in all three at-bats, but hit the ball fairly hard only once, for a moderately long fly out to center. Contreras, with the exception of one time up in the second game, when he drew a walk, swung at nearly every pitch he saw. He did manage, though, to hit two singles in the first game. Portorreal, by contrast, seemed to make an effort to work the count in game one and made contact all three times, but didn’t hit anything hard. In game two, he chased some pitches off the plate and struck out in his first two at-bats, but finished 1-4. – Wilbur Miller
UPDATE 12:11 AM: Normally, seeing Braeden Ogle and Max Kranick on the same day would be the highlight of any day, and easily the biggest thing on my plate. You can imagine why that wasn’t the case today, with all of the arrests and trades and transactions and whatnot. But Ogle and Kranick did impress.
They both kind of went against their trends this year for command, which was good for Ogle and bad for Kranick. Ogle has had some command problems this year, walking six in nine innings in his previous two starts. He walked two in five innings today, showing good command the first three, and then falling off a bit late with two walks. He was sitting an easy 92-93 early, touching 94. I talked with a scout who also saw him at this velocity in another recent start.
“I felt good,” Ogle said of his start. “I thought I commanded pretty well. Used all of my pitches today to get them off-balance.”
Kranick, meanwhile, struggled with command. He hit his single inning pitch count early, and went too deep in too many counts. The stuff was good, sitting 91-93 and touching 94, but he ran into problems in the third. The inning I got on video (the first inning) was easily his best one.
“I thought my pitches were pretty good today,” Kranick said. “A couple changeups were buried. I think they just fouled a lot of pitches off and I got too deep in the counts.”
The surprising thing for both players was the quality of their breaking pitches. I reported earlier in the year that Ogle added a new slider this year, modeling it after Noah Syndergaard in order to get more velocity. He used to be throwing in the low-70s with his old breaking pitch, but was up to 83-85 MPH consistently with the slider today, and it was getting a lot of good results. It still has some work to do, although Ogle said that it has been his best out pitch this year. He said he was choking the changeup a bit today, but he still had the feel for it, with all of the off-speed stuff in the video above being the changeup.
Meanwhile, Kranick switched to a curveball this year, and got some good results with the pitch today, including a strikeout in the video above. Both pitches still have some work to do, but they both look like they could be at least average in the future, and they’re showing some good potential for pitches that they didn’t have at the start of the year. – Tim Williams
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The DSL Pirates finished their season on Saturday.
