The Official 2019 Minor League Statline and Prospect Discussion Thread

[Angelsjunky]

Wilson was a bit of a strange pick. I suppose he fits the Thaiss mold--very high floor (useful major league platoon type or fringe regular, but pretty low chance of busting out before the majors)--but I thought Eppler preferred higher risk/reward. Here's his two picks each year:

2019: Wilson, Paris

2018: Adams, Jackson

2017: Adell, Canning

2016: Thaiss, Marsh

Marsh, Adell, Jackson, Adams, and Paris were all very young, with high upside and risk. Canning had questions around his health and higher upside than a 2nd rounder. So that's six of eight with the high risk/reward profile. Wilson harkens back to Thaiss. But at #15 I'm not sure what the alternative was.

[totdprods]

2 hours ago, Angelsjunky said:

Wilson was a bit of a strange pick. I suppose he fits the Thaiss mold--very high floor (useful major league platoon type or fringe regular, but pretty low chance of busting out before the majors)--but I thought Eppler preferred higher risk/reward. Here's his two picks each year:

2019: Wilson, Paris

2018: Adams, Jackson

2017: Adell, Canning

2016: Thaiss, Marsh

Marsh, Adell, Jackson, Adams, and Paris were all very young, with high upside and risk. Canning had questions around his health and higher upside than a 2nd rounder. So that's six of eight with the high risk/reward profile. Wilson harkens back to Thaiss. But at #15 I'm not sure what the alternative was.

My guess is they either felt they’d have a need for money on later picks and went with someone safe, and/or a realization that they’d be dealing from or losing via waivers guys from the Ward/Thaiss/Jones/Fletcher/Rengifo/Walsh/Rojas contingent in a couple years and Wilson would be a great quick-moving replacement.

[TroutField]

Adell went 1-3 with a double and a walk yesterday. Baby steps. 

[TroutField]

Greg Mahle threw a CGSO for Mobile. Also 2 hits a piece for Marsh and Jones. Couple of RBI from Marsh out of the leadoff spot. Some positives...

[Angel Oracle]

In the past two months, Jones has raised his BA by 49 pts (.175 to .224) and his OPS by 112 pts (.479 to .591). 

Are we now again seeing the Jones we thought we saw two years ago?

[Docwaukee]

6 hours ago, Angelsjunky said:

Wilson was a bit of a strange pick. I suppose he fits the Thaiss mold--very high floor (useful major league platoon type or fringe regular, but pretty low chance of busting out before the majors)--but I thought Eppler preferred higher risk/reward. Here's his two picks each year:

2019: Wilson, Paris

2018: Adams, Jackson

2017: Adell, Canning

2016: Thaiss, Marsh

Marsh, Adell, Jackson, Adams, and Paris were all very young, with high upside and risk. Canning had questions around his health and higher upside than a 2nd rounder. So that's six of eight with the high risk/reward profile. Wilson harkens back to Thaiss. But at #15 I'm not sure what the alternative was.

I think this is the key.  While the Wilson pick didn't excite me and he hasn't been overly impressive as an 'advanced' college bat, the other option was a high floor college pitcher or a high ceiling high school pitcher.  

We need to think of the first three (and up to 5) picks as kind of one if you will.  Both Paris and Kochanowicz had some momentum in the draft to the point that no one would have batted an eyelash had they gone in the last first or early second round.  We went over slot on the next three picks after Wilson which was only made possible by the near 500k in slot money saved on Wilson.  

We could have gone George Kirby or Zack Thompson instead so we'll see how that plays out.  

[Vlad27Trout27]

Wilson has been a disappointment. he's spotty a obp of .315 against highschoolers.

[Second Base]

Jordyn Adams went 4-5 with 2 SB on rehab in Arizona tonight. It's crazy, the talent gap between rookie ball and A Ball.

And right on cue, because we're talking about him, Will Wilson went 2-4 with a double. 

Bradish pitched 7 innings of one run ball tonight.

[Docwaukee]

Adams 4-5 for the AZL in rehab start.  2 SB.  

Bradish 7.1ip, 5h, 1er, 1bb, 8k for A+.  Started out strong but went through a rough stretch for about a month.  105k in 87 ip.  Walks have been his biggest problem.  

Wilson 2-4

Jackson 1-3, bb, no K's, double.  

Aquino with a bit of a rough outing.  4.1ip, 6h, 5er, 2bb, 7k, 2hrs.  Second start in Orem after being promoted.  

[Docwaukee]

3 minutes ago, Second Base said:

Jordyn Adams went 4-5 with 2 SB on rehab in Arizona tonight. It's crazy, the talent gap between rookie ball and A Ball.

And right on cue, because we're talking about him, Will Wilson went 2-4 with a double. 

Bradish pitched 7 innings of one run ball tonight.

dammit!!

[Vlad27Trout27]

I really do believe that Bradish really does have a bit of upside. Not asce like but someone of a inning eater 3 if he can command his pitches. 

A little nice write-up of him by fangraph

A 2018 fourth-round pick, Bradish’s prospect value is increasing in his first full season. He has an excellent pitcher’s frame and throws with good deception, which makes his low-to-mid-90s heater play up. He also flashes two average-or-better breaking balls. Bradish has used his repertoire to flummox batters in a league that favors hitters. The right-hander has 92 strikeouts in 72 innings. On the downside, he struggles to repeat his delivery at times and has walked 35 batters. He could settle in as a No. 3 or 4 starter if he continues along this current development path. ETA: 2021

[popo85]

Jackson 3 homers 5 rbis tonight, my lawd

[Stradling]

It seems like most of his home runs are opposite field.  At least two of the three tonight are oppo shots.  

[Angelsjunky]

Meanwhile Jo Adell 0-4, 3 Ks. Typical AAA night for him. He's really overmatched.

[Second Base]

Maitan went 3-5, Rondon 2-5. Jerryell Rivera's line looked pretty solid. I'd love to see him make good on that potential. Obviously Jackson has reached a level of play where it isn't really fair to him or the opposition for him to keep playing in the pioneer league. Michael Hermosillo went yard again, which he's been doing a lot of lately. And Trent Deveaux hit 2 HR's tonight. 

[SoWhat]

@mobrosko: Jeremiah Jackson is now three home runs shy of tying the Pioneer League record. Greg Morrison holds the record by hitting 23 home runs for the Medicine Hat Blue Jays in 1997

[TroutField]

2 hours ago, Angelsjunky said:

Meanwhile Jo Adell 0-4, 3 Ks. Typical AAA night for him. He's really overmatched.

They promoted him from AA mid slump, and now he’s adjusting to a new team, league, talent level, experience level of the opposition, etc. most of the AAA players have some big league experience whereas AA is more of the polished top prospects. He will figure it out, give it some time. He had a double and walk Tuesday evening. 

[Scott34]

Don't sleep on little Leo Rivas. 

[Angelsjunky]

4 hours ago, TroutField said:

They promoted him from AA mid slump, and now he’s adjusting to a new team, league, talent level, experience level of the opposition, etc. most of the AAA players have some big league experience whereas AA is more of the polished top prospects. He will figure it out, give it some time. He had a double and walk Tuesday evening. 

I know - I'm not worried at all. Hopefully he adjusts in the next couple weeks, but even if he doesn't I have no doubt that he'll figure it out early next year.

2 hours ago, Scott34 said:

Don't sleep on little Leo Rivas. 

I haven't forgotten him. I think he still projects as a solid major league utility player. 

[totdprods]

You know, I wasn’t really buying into Jeremiah Jackson yet...too many HR in a very HR-friendly environment, and not enough other positives in terms of contact, walk rate, discipline, pretty funky swing mechanics....

...but six multi-homer games and reaching 20 in 233 PA is crazy. Crazy!

Hope the kid gets a chance to compete at Burlington soon, preferably this year, to see if this momentum can sustain. I’m still going to temper my excitement until I see him put up a good line with Burlington, but this is absolutely encouraging.

[Docwaukee]

7 hours ago, TroutField said:

They promoted him from AA mid slump, and now he’s adjusting to a new team, league, talent level, experience level of the opposition, etc. most of the AAA players have some big league experience whereas AA is more of the polished top prospects. He will figure it out, give it some time. He had a double and walk Tuesday evening. 

he had actually just come out of a slump in mobile before they promoted him.   He had be 5/15 with 2hr, 2 dbl, 4bb and 2k in his final 5 AA games.  

I, too, agree that he'll adjust.  Something he's done very well.  When he got promoted to AA last year, he had a similar stretch over 8 games or so and then have a few good games to make up for it as he finished strong.  

the current tough run he's on has only been 7 games.   The thing that Adell needs to try and figure out is how to walk his way through a slump and no swing his way through it.  He's doing the latter right now.  

this could actually be construed as a good thing.  However they're pitching him right now in AAA is obviously a soft spot for him that he needs to adjust for. So it's good that it got exposed at AAA because it was certainly going to get exposed in the majors at some point.  Now he can work on it before it truly matters and the halos have a reason to keep him down and get an extra year of control.  

I just went back through the game logs and it appears he's really struggling vs. LHed pitching.  

Overall during this tough stretch, he's 3/32 with 16k and 2bb.   he's 1/14 with 8k vs. lefties with 5 ground outs.  

he's actually had some reverse splits vs. lefties his entire minor league career so far.  Not tremendously so in his first couple years but more pronounced this year for sure.  Probably accentuated by this recent tough stretch.  He's got an .881 ops vs. RHers this year vs. .757 vs. lefties.  



 

[Docwaukee]

1 hour ago, totdprods said:

You know, I wasn’t really buying into Jeremiah Jackson yet...too many HR in a very HR-friendly environment, and not enough other positives in terms of contact, walk rate, discipline, pretty funky swing mechanics....

...but six multi-homer games and reaching 20 in 233 PA is crazy. Crazy!

Hope the kid gets a chance to compete at Burlington soon, preferably this year, to see if this momentum can sustain. I’m still going to temper my excitement until I see him put up a good line with Burlington, but this is absolutely encouraging.

yeah.  I agree with all of your concerns as well as the fact that the power is nuts.  His walk rate is actually pretty good.  It's the contact rate that's a little scary.  That swing is all or nothing.  When I've watched him it's been the lack of recognition of the breaking ball that make him look bad.  Hopefully that develops.  At the plate he kinda reminds me of Glenallen Hill who actually had a decent career as a hitter but lost a lot of value as a defender.  If he can be that at the dish and play solid defense at an IF position, he'll be a really good player.  

I looked up Greg Morrison and he was 21 when he set the record for hrs in rookie ball.  He was a 71st round pick from Canada and then released by the Dogs.  He then signed with the Jays whom he broke the record for.  As an FYI, the previous rookie ball record for hrs was 20 set by Steve Garvey and Cecil Fielder.  

[totdprods]

27 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

yeah.  I agree with all of your concerns as well as the fact that the power is nuts.  His walk rate is actually pretty good.  It's the contact rate that's a little scary.  That swing is all or nothing.  When I've watched him it's been the lack of recognition of the breaking ball that make him look bad. 

I haven't been able to watch many games or footage of him, so I just couldn't give him much credit yet for the walk rate, as I wasn't sure if he was actually drawing walks and working counts, or was being unintentionally intentionally walked by Pioneer League pitchers aware of his crazy HR rate. The strikeouts led me to think it was more the latter...can't wait to see how he progresses either way. The three true-outcome thing could still lead to a productive player in this current baseball climate. 

Thinking on Jackson this morning also made me think more broadly about the prospects Eppler drafts as a whole...Eppler came from NYY, where the Yankees system was always known for being pretty well-stocked, but also, often over-hyped, and the Yankees seemingly took advantage of this in dozens of trades over the years. Numerous Yankees prospects would be dealt for impact, only to flame out or fail to really be anything special at the big league level. And, it also seems like a tremendous number of MLB players, even relatively no-name guys, at some point crossed through the Yankees system. It blows my mind how often I research a young player or a new player breaking into the league and notice they were originally NYY farmhands. 

All of this makes me wonder if a secondary reason Eppler has put so much focus on really young talent  (Holmes, Paris, Jackson, Deveaux, Knowles, Soto, Adams) and his aggressive promotions (Adams at Burlington, Jones and Marsh at Mobile, etc. etc.) is because he's trying to inflate the trade value. 
He buys in on extremely gifted athletes who might dominate at lower-levels and then hit a bit of a wall as they move up, but they land in this sweet spot where they put up big numbers in Orem, Burlington, and Inland Empire, producing big numbers, or even simply big impressions, purely on their athleticism rather than baseball skill.

D'Shawn Knowles is a really good example, as is Jordyn Adams, and I think Jeremiah Jackson is now too. Deveaux may be by the end of the year. When Knowles was drafted, no one really know what the Angels were getting, and he promptly raked in AZL/Orem. He played so well as an 18-yr old, some publications started counting him as a potential Top 100 guy within a year. Adams was similarly touted. Jackson will almost definitely be seen as a fringe Top 100 guy going into 2020 - maybe not someone who is Top 100, but could be by the end of 2020. A lot of this seems a bit premature for players so young, but it also has a very Yankee feel to it. Get some dynamic, young players producing gaudy numbers that are perhaps unsustainable or not reflective of their ceiling in the bigs or upper minors, and take advantage of that peak value once they reach A/A+ ball. Kyren Paris has played really well, and William Holmes (English) has looked pretty impressive as a two-way guy for his age in AZL. By cultivating these talents and driving their trade value to a point where it reaches a boiling point early in their careers could be a great way to leverage them in 2020-2022 trade talks.

[Inside Pitch]

I'm gonna try to avoid over thinking things, but I don't think future trades are part of their thought process when it comes to high risk high reward, I think that happens as a byproduct of drafting successfully.

IMO, the reason Eppler/Swanson target high end tools is because for the most part those things can't be taught.  You get enough of those guys in the system eventually you start finding guys that translate those tools into actual production.  When those guys start to pile up then you have trade assets.  I don't believe they would target guys in hopes of front loading the system (to facilitate trades), simply because it's a premise that puts too much out of the teams control....

Speaking to someone in the Red Sox system, it's his belief the reason the Angels have been as aggressive as they have with some of their promotions was to attempt to create waves/layers of talent because they simply didn't have anything three years ago. He says it looks like a strategic effort to initiate a constant flow of players and simultaneously avoid having too many players clustered together undermining their value both to the team and prospective trade partners...

It's an interesting take that may or may not have legs...

[totdprods]

13 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

I'm gonna try to avoid over thinking things, but I don't think future trades are part of their thought process when it comes to high risk high reward, I think that happens as a byproduct of drafting successfully.

IMO, the reason Eppler/Swanson target high end tools is because for the most part those things can't be taught.  You get enough of those guys in the system eventually you start finding guys that translate those tools into actual production.  When those guys start to pile up then you have trade assets.  I don't believe they would target guys in hopes of front loading the system (to facilitate trades), simply because it's a premise that puts too much out of the teams control....

Speaking to someone in the Red Sox system, it's his belief the reason the Angels have been as aggressive as they have with some of their promotions was to attempt to create waves/layers of talent because they simply didn't have anything three years ago. He says it looks like a strategic effort to initiate a constant flow of players and simultaneously avoid having too many players clustered together undermining their value both to the team and prospective trade partners...

It's an interesting take that may or may not have legs...

Well, to be fair I did say the trade value inflation was only part of the reasoning. I imagine it's a number of reasons - minor league development, creating waves of talent, challenging players appropriately, influencing trade value, creating a voluminous stash of safe pitching and a pool of high-risk/high-impact potential stars to curtail FA spending on those players, etc. 

The trade value inflation is more of a byproduct of the overall draft/development process, but I do believe it is a bit of an intentional byproduct. The Yankees relied heavily on trading prospects - as much as they did signing star FAs, developing their own stars, and nabbing low-risk/high-reward rebounds and waiver claims. All of that feels very much like what Eppler is building towards here, with the FA superstar signings and trading of prospects the final phases to step into.