Forum
Forum Navigation
Minor League Discussion
#3131 · August 15, 2024, 5:32 pm
Total innings pitched definitely catching up to Isaiah Lowe. Watched his game today and he doesn't have the same sharpness or command he had at LE although his velocity was pretty close. Lowe wanted to get in 100 IP this year, but might be better off to call it a season instead of taking a chance his shoulder might start bothering him again. He also was facing much tougher competition but Lowe, at his best, could have handled this line-up. Likely will start 2025 in Ft. Wayne and, if he handles the weather well, could be a mid-season promotion to AA at the latest.
#3132 · August 15, 2024, 6:55 pm
Isn’t Cruz only 17? Pitching in low-A would be quite the feat!
#3133 · August 15, 2024, 8:21 pm
Ryan Bergert, Bradgley Rodriguez and Ryan Och tossed a combined no-hitter for the Missions.
Randy Manese has reacted to this post.
Randy Manese
#3134 · August 15, 2024, 8:59 pm
With 2 outs, Braedon Karpathios hits a 3 run walk off HR in the bottom of the 10th inning! I'm going to head up the 15 and see this revitalized LE team soon. They should be very good in the playoffs.
By the way, this is the second combined no-hitter in the Padres minor league system this year. Back on July 12, Henry Baez, Will Geerdes and Jose Geraldo threw a no-hitter for Ft. Wayne.
#3135 · August 16, 2024, 6:20 am
How concerned should we be with Randy Vasquez’s horrible performance yesterday in AAA? Brito has also pitched horribly down there but did well at the big league level, so who knows?
#3136 · August 16, 2024, 9:29 am
Vasquez had not pitched for over a week and made one big mistake in the 1st; he escaped the 2nd and 3rd without any damage before getting hit hard in the 4th. Although his overall stats are not that great in San Diego, they are far worse in EP - H/9 are 13 in EP, 11/9 in SD; HR/9 are 2.0 in EP and 1.2 in SD. The biggest difference is that he walks about a batter less in SD than EP, so there is a lot of traffic wherever he pitches but his mistakes are amplified by the altitude and probably a lack of confidence in his stuff at EP.
At this point, he is an emergency or spot starter/long RP option we hope we don't have to use but we have so many games in a row starting today that we might have to slot him in the rotation during the next homestand to give our regular SP's some additional rest - maybe at the 3rd game of the Twins series or opening up against the 4 game series with the Mets. After the Mets, Padres face a tough 4 game series in St. Louis and a 3 game weekend set with Tampa Bay - both in very hot, humid weather. It will be a grind for everyone - a brief 6 man rotation seems not out of the question but Shildt and Niebla have done a great job so far juggling the pitching staff and this will yet be another challenge as we hit September.
#3137 · August 18, 2024, 7:43 am
Went back to watch Omar Cruz' loss yesterday at EP to see how bad was it. Actually, pitched quite well until the second time around in the batting order. FB ranged from 89-93 and spotted it well, getting swinging K's at the top of the zone and inside corners. Sweeper (I'm not sure if that's really the breaking ball he is throwing) had a range from 72-81 and got lot of swings and misses through the first 3 innings on that and the well-placed FB. Only hit in the first 3 innings was a slow roller just to the left of the mound that the 2b man couldn't get to in time.
In his last inning, less swing and miss (lot of foul balls) and less command. Gave up his only walk in between two singles - first one was a dunker over the infield but the second one was struck fairly well into RF. With the bases loaded got squeezed on a third strike then gave up a single past 1st base (I think a more agile 1b man would have gotten to it) that scored the 2 runs. Cruz threw strikes at a 72.5% rate, which is very good but again these are minor league hitters and still not sure whether the lack of premium velocity and sweeper will play in the majors. However, doing a very effective job at a place where it is very tough to pitch in, so got to give him credit for his efforts so far this year.
#3138 · August 18, 2024, 9:09 am
Thanks for both posts Randy.
I get the feeling that many major league pitchers would struggle in AAA due to the factors you mentioned above, mainly the altitude and the mediocre defence. If in fact a major league 1st baseman would have made the play in the ground ball to RF off of Cruz, it becomes a different ballgame and Cruz’s line in the box score goes from a being poor to very good.
That’s why I don’t get too disappointed when Brito or Vasquez get lit up in AAA. They have pitched much better in the bigs. It’s also why a .900 ops down in El Paso just doesn’t impress me.
Your thoughts?
#3139 · August 19, 2024, 9:29 am
The older I get, the more I appreciate how hard a game baseball is to play and how skilled are the players that make it to the majors and are consistently good. The factors you mentioned certainly come into play in the minor leagues and so you really have to watch the games and take things into proper context. If a player has a .900 OPS but the league average is .850 then he is only a little above average and not having as phenomenal year as it appears.
One other thing I want to mention is the quality or lack thereof of umpiring in the minor leagues, especially when they have only 2 umps on the field. They are particularly bad at calling runners out while stealing bases and infield hits. They are also not very good when a pitcher has great movement on his pitches and because of that doesn't get the strike called. This is what happened yesterday in the TinCaps game when the ump missed so many great pitches by Nett. The TinCaps manager was tossed and also Jagger Haynes, fellow pitcher, was tossed for arguing balls and strikes - that is something unusual but I guess Jagger couldn't contain himself on the unfairness of those calls.
Wanted to make a correction on Omar Cruz. I earlier thought it was the change-up he was having so much success with but it had so much movement I thought it might have been a sweeper. Fangraphs labels Cruz' change-up at 60 out of 60, which is bordering on exceptional. Because Cruz has very good command of it and because his FB, curve and slider most of the time appear to be thrown from the same arm angle and same arm speed to the batter is what probably has led to his success this year - lots of swing and miss. If he maintains his command, I think he has a chance to move up next year and maybe even this year, if needed as a LH long man out of the pen.
brent wolff and Stergios have reacted to this post.
brent wolffStergios
#3140 · August 22, 2024, 7:39 am
Some more late season good news from the minors, friends.
Lowe with a very nice start, Karpathios has been on a tear and has increased his ops to over .760 and Sanabria in AA is tearing the cover off the ball. Perhaps our system is deeper than we thought?