Tiger Cubs (notes on the minors)

[Edman85]

7 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Dombrowski didn't seem to care about service time much either.  Personally, I'd rather they bring up players when they are ready.  Holding somebody back who is ready in order to manipulate service time is smart in theory but could do more harm in terms of good will and might even lose games in some cases.   

We need to make sure we don't forget the rule changes last year. The PPI picks are no joke and why Tork was on the opening day roster, and why Greene would have been, so Avila not being into manipulation isn't why Tork got the call.

Those PPI picks, ironically, may keep some players who emerged this year down until September so teams can potentially cash in on their prospect eligibility. The only reason to hold Malloy down is to keep him from Super 2 in 2026, and I'm not sure he is of the caliber that you need to worry about that. I just think he legitimately needs to work on his defense, and that is something box score scouting is not going to be able to suss out.

Edited May 15, 2023 by Edman85

[Jim Cowan]

Hey guess which hitter leads the entire Tigers' minor league organization in strikeouts.  Give up?  It's JHC Malloy!  He has 40!  Of course, he leads in just about everything else too.

Dingler's rehab is going well.  Project his current pace for 620 AB's and he would have 70 homers, 250 hits, 190 RBI, 50 stolen bases.  Here's the problem...none of the catchers at Toledo are particularly awful, they are all sort of decent although none has the prospect pedigree of Dingler.  So, what to do?  Leave him at Erie for now I guess.  If Rogers or Haase gets hurt, Donny Sands gets the call and Dingler goes to Toledo.

[Tenacious D]

7 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

Hey guess which hitter leads the entire Tigers' minor league organization in strikeouts.  Give up?  It's JHC Malloy!  He has 40!  Of course, he leads in just about everything else too.

Dingler's rehab is going well.  Project his current pace for 620 AB's and he would have 70 homers, 250 hits, 190 RBI, 50 stolen bases.  Here's the problem...none of the catchers at Toledo are particularly awful, they are all sort of decent although none has the prospect pedigree of Dingler.  So, what to do?  Leave him at Erie for now I guess.  If Rogers or Haase gets hurt, Donny Sands gets the call and Dingler goes to Toledo.

Dingler is a prospect—you can easily flip him with Papierski or Knapp when it’s time. Those two are organizational depth.

[LongLiveMaroth]

Toledo W 6-2
Malloy 1/2 HR 3BB
Meadows 0/5 2K
Nevin 3/5
Lipcius 1/4 BB K
Olson 4.1 IP 4BB 3K 5H ER

Erie L 7-3
Cruz 1/3 2BB SB
Perez 0/5 2K
Dingler 1/4 3K
Workman 0/3 BB 2K
Montero 3.2IP 8H 5ER 4K

WM W 6-2
Campos 1/4 RBI BB
Jung 1/3 2BB RBI 
Serretti 0/4 BB K
Pacheco 1/4 RBI K HR
O'Loughlin 5IP 8H 7K 0ER
 

Lakeland L 8-3
Sequera 0/2
Johnson 1/4 BB SB
Stephenson 2/5 SB (16th of the year) CS

[LongLiveMaroth]

An interesting note on Flores from Garko:

“His change-up, he’s still trying to find it,” Garko said. “We all want him to throw it. In this case, we’re maybe putting development over results, getting him to find that fourth pitch.”

 

[gehringer_2]

31 minutes ago, LongLiveMaroth said:

An interesting note on Flores from Garko:

“His change-up, he’s still trying to find it,” Garko said. “We all want him to throw it. In this case, we’re maybe putting development over results, getting him to find that fourth pitch.”

 

LOL, you don’t even need to be old enough to have grey hair to remember when the Tigers brain trust used to spend their time trying to persuade young pitchers to stick to three pitches. 

[Shinzaki]

I remember way back in the 70's when John Grodzicki taught all of our SP how to throw a change up and pretty much all of the good ones wound up with arm problems.

Is Trei Cruz finally establishing himself as a prospect?

[Tiger337]

51 minutes ago, Shinzaki said:

I remember way back in the 70's when John Grodzicki taught all of our SP how to throw a change up and pretty much all of the good ones wound up with arm problems.

Is Trei Cruz finally establishing himself as a prospect?

The majority of pitchers wind up with arm problems no matter what they do in any era.  I think pitching is just an unnatural activity which takes a toll on most arms.  

[RatkoVarda]

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/detroit-tigers-top-34-prospects/

The Tigers have struggled to fill their system with above-average hit tools. Be it their big international signees or the large conference college performers who they tend to take in the draft, there is only one above-average hit tool projected in this entire system (Danny Serretti). It’s strange because a mechanical through line in the system is the ultra-short, shallow load that usually prevents hitters from being long into the hitting zone. Yet even though many of the hitters above use a short load, they have issues making contact. Hit tool issues threaten huge swaths of this system, including most of the high-upside hitters. Even Jace Jung’s in-zone contact rates are pretty pedestrian. It’s been a big enough issue that a change to the club’s approach to drafting and signing hitters should probably occur under the new regime.

[casimir]

21 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

Malloy seems to be cured again.  Coaching?  Did he figure it out himself?

Maybe just the ebbs and flows of baseball?

[LongLiveMaroth]

3 hours ago, RatkoVarda said:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/detroit-tigers-top-34-prospects/

The Tigers have struggled to fill their system with above-average hit tools. Be it their big international signees or the large conference college performers who they tend to take in the draft, there is only one above-average hit tool projected in this entire system (Danny Serretti). It’s strange because a mechanical through line in the system is the ultra-short, shallow load that usually prevents hitters from being long into the hitting zone. Yet even though many of the hitters above use a short load, they have issues making contact. Hit tool issues threaten huge swaths of this system, including most of the high-upside hitters. Even Jace Jung’s in-zone contact rates are pretty pedestrian. It’s been a big enough issue that a change to the club’s approach to drafting and signing hitters should probably occur under the new regime.

Biggest Surprise: Wenceel Perez not even listed
Higher than I would expect: Ty Madden (also getting a 50FV)
Most Intriguing: Reylin Perez if not only for this comment right here. "Purely on upside, Perez belongs up near Jackson Jobe on this list." unfortunately it is followed by this: "But Perez’s contact issues are about as severe as Gage Workman’s and Ryan Kreidler’s, and Perez is several levels behind those guys."

Edited May 15, 2023 by LongLiveMaroth

[casimir]

3 hours ago, Shinzaki said:

 

Is Trei Cruz finally establishing himself as a prospect?

Interesting that his bat comes around when some time as an OF.

[casimir]

On 5/14/2023 at 11:43 AM, Jim Cowan said:

"Chess piece" was the expression used in that ridiculous article about Hinch's obsession with using people in "clever" ways, the way he always did with Willi and Harold.  The dumbass who wrote the article actually listed Greene as a chess piece because he was on the bench for the infamous Ibanez-in-right-field game, even though Greene is almost never absent from the starting lineup.

This year's versions of Willi and Harold are Maton, McKinstry and Vierling who fortunately can play some defense, unlike Willi and Harold.

Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something about the phrase that seems too smarmy (chess vs checkers) and too impersonal to the players (pawns).  I like utility players better.  Heck, just refer to them as baseball players.

[gehringer_2]

3 hours ago, RatkoVarda said:

It’s strange because a mechanical through line in the system is the ultra-short, shallow load that usually prevents hitters from being long into the hitting zone. Yet even though many of the hitters above use a short load, they have issues making contact.

Ha! You can almost see exactly how there could be an irony at work here. If you only look for guys who are already short to the ball, they are already at the level of pitch recognition and contact they can reach by being short. But if you look at guys who are succeeding to the same degree at the lower levels without being short - maybe those are the guys with the potential to hit much better pitching when if and when they learn how to get shorter. Or another way to put it, maybe a hitter succeeding with bad mechanics must actually have better vision and reflexes, so if you improve *his* mechanics, you maybe get a major leaguer. With hitting its the vision and reflex which are the irreducibles. You can't do much of anything to change or augment those, while mechanics can be fixed -at least in theory. So a system that only looks for guys that already have good mechanics is excluding a lot of guys that could have a lot more upside potential while bringing in guys who are already doing the one thing they would coach them to if they weren't already doing it.

Edited May 15, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Tigeraholic1]

Org has had a number of these recently. 
 

 

[mtutiger]

1 hour ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Org has had a number of these recently. 
 

 

Goodness, what a bender....

[LongLiveMaroth]

Pacheco with a BIG fly 450+ feet

 

[LongLiveMaroth]

Campos with a 2B earlier adds an HR to his day. 

 

[LongLiveMaroth]

1 hour ago, LongLiveMaroth said:

Campos with a 2B earlier adds an HR to his day. 

 

 

[Shinzaki]

Campos better watch that standing at the plate and watching stuff.  Someone is going to stick a fastball in his ear

[RandyMarsh]

Not a bad 1st inning for Colt! I'd imagine there haven't been many players in baseball history that have hit a HR and a triple in the 1st inning.

 

[RandyMarsh]

One time presumed tanking prize Kumar Rocker set to have TJ surgery, announced the day he moved into MLB's top 100. 

Edited May 16, 2023 by RandyMarsh

[RandyMarsh]

Keith adds another HR, so he is now 3-3 with 2HRs and a triple!

[bsc3165]

Holy Toledo!!  Or soon he might be there...Colt Keith with a 2B, a 3B and 2 HR and 8 RBI.  That will lift OPS+ 

[mtutiger]

19 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

Keith adds another HR, so he is now 3-3 with 2HRs and a triple!

And now a double... single away from the cycle with two homers!