Friday’s News & Notes

16 Commments

1. Oh well, no exciting shake-out from the promotions, at least not yet. It is *very* early to be moving up guys, particularly ones who are new to a level. I must say that VanVossen was not on my radar. Congrats to him for getting the call, and responding well at the next level.

   Wow, Cole got rocked. Not good. Bad starts do happen, though. (Just ask Scherzer.) An average start for Lopez, I guess. It looks like he pitched pretty well aside from the two HRs surrendered. I’m pleased that they’re still giving him a long look as a starter.

   It’s interesting that Hagerstown seems to be stretching out some of its guys who aren’t officially starting games, such as Guilbeau getting four innings. They have done the same with Crownover.

   1. The stadium radar at Bowie clocked Lopez at 101: https://twitter.com/hbgsensradio/status/723300225314594819?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

   2. I noticed the same thing — relievers going multiple innings — last April, too, but I don’t think it resulted too many of them transitioning to starters. Still, I’m all for getting guys to pitch multiple innings as long as they’re not abused (*cough* Drew Van Orden *cough*)

      1. Guilbeau (11 starts) and Crownover (10) were starters at Auburn last year, so maybe this is just the Hagerstown way of stretching them out while the anointed five or six work their way into promotion/demotion/injury. With that much of a backlog, it really does beg the question of why they’re using guys like Whiting at Potomac. (Whiting has been in AAA for the last two years. What’s he got to prove in the Carolina League?!)

2. Oh, well, I guess we can pretend the Nats got something back for Tyler Moore. Nate Freiman certainly didn’t last very long.

   1. Yep, there was some discussion of that on yesterday’s post. I was actually surprised that they got anything for Moore at this point. He would have had more value in the 2014-15 offseason, but still not a lot, as he was already out of options at that point.

      It is interesting that they outright released a guy just a couple of weeks into the season. He was just one of five Chiefs under the Mendoza line!

3. Nats Talk has a minor-league discussion going today: http://www.talknats.com/2016/04/21/7068/#disqus_thread

   I must say, I’m very reserved in my enthusiasm for Goodwin. I’m glad to see him doing well, but his upside now looks pretty similar to den Dekker’s. His power has never developed, as he’s never approached the 14 HRs from his first season. For a guy who was once one of the Nats’ top two or three prospects, universally described as a “five-tool” guy, his MLB ceiling now looks like a 5th OF at best. If den Dekker keeps scuffling, Goodwin may get his first cup of coffee soon, though.

   1. KW, I think your reservations are well founded on Goodwin as I’ve always felt reconstructing a swing is tough. When I saw him in person in the AFL he had some early success with power and then went swinging for 500 foot HRs and found air. It was disappointing seeing a kid who just got lost in swinging for power and as he got to better pitching they exploited the holes in his swing.

      I haven’t seen him this year and we got a nice report from Kevin Brown and one person who was there who said he is showing a shorter swing.

      Good news he only has 1 K in 12 at-bats this season with RISP. Is that a measure of concentration, approach or seeing the ball better with the pitcher coming out of the stretch?

      Small sample sizes and like you and I would probably do it now, swap out Goodwin and den Dekker and let’s see for a couple of weeks what we have before Revere comes back. I love bringing in the hot hand and he might be able to take advantage of a team who has no scouting on him.

      Thanks for linking us and we hope to do more Minors reports and we will have someone at the Giolito game tonight who happens to be friends with him.

      1. I wonder how much Goodwin was told in the early years that he HAD to be a power guy, that he needed to develop his power. (Of course most young studs don’t need much convincing to swing for the fences!) He had 7 HRs his FR year at UNC and 8 his second at Miami-Dade, so he had “projectable” power. I always heard/read that the organization saw him as more of a corner OF, with Taylor as the CF of the future. (I also recall some skepticism of whether Goodwin would be able to handle CF defensively.) In that vein, Goodwin likely was pushed to develop his power, as it’s hard to be a corner OF without it, particularly for a contending team.

         There have been many other roadblocks in the Goodwin trip, including skipping Potomac and the injury that derailed him in 2014 and apparently still plagued him early last season. Were the expectations too high? Was he pushed too far too fast? Here’s hoping that he still figures it out, at least well enough to become a contributor.

4. I had a more generic scouting/evaluation question regarding pitchers: what is thought to be the view of a pitcher with good and developing stuff, yet plagued by the long ball? I made the observation thinking about Lopez’ year so far – Ks are up and the rest of the peripherals are solid, especially once you adjust for the move up to AA. Yet he has given up four HRs, which is a horrible rate (sss) and really damaging some of his other numbers. With mixed results like that, what kind of conclusions do scouts or evaluators usually draw?

   1. My guess is that teams/scouts are more willing to forgive HRs with high-90s guys, sort of excusing it as the price of doing high-powered business (see Strasburg, Stephen). Of course most teams/scouts are willing to forgive a lot if you’re a high-90s guy, as they’re enamored with velo. You’ve still got to have movement with it, though (Treinen has struggled for years with his straight 98), and another pitch or two can help get guys off sitting on your heater (see Stras 2016).

      The Nats apparently have really worked a lot with Lopez trying to get him to develop his secondary pitches (the key to keeping him a starter). Luke has talked about how they seemed to not let him throw his heater that much at Potomac last year, to try to work out of jams with his other stuff.

      1. Seconded. If a guy is throwing heat and just gets beat, they can live with it. Personally, I feel like it depends on the situation — if a soft-tosser throws one down the middle on a 2-0 count and gets taken deep more than once or twice, then he’s either stupid or stubborn. Likewise, If Lopez were to throw a 87 mph “warmer” down the middle in he hopes of getting the mercy strike against a no. 9 hitter who hardly ever walks and tees off…

         1. Do you think there is anything to the theory of a guy just sitting on a fastball from a really hard thrower and ambush him? Occasionally, you’ll hear even a major leaguer on rehab, or maybe ST, complain that its hard to pitch to minor leaguers sometimes because of things like that, and I could never really figure it out. I mean, if that works why wouldn’t everyone do it, right?

            1. Like a lot of baseball axioms, there’s a small kernel of truth to it, but mostly, I think it’s a copout. In rehab starts, everybody knows the first or second time out it’ll be fastball only. That the minor leaguers can and do tee off only proves that any professional batter can hit a fastball if he knows it’s coming. If, in the majors, an unhurt pitcher claims that they’re ambushing him and he doesn’t start throwing his other pitches and/or pitching backwards, whose fault is that?

5. Ugh–the Golden Sombrero goes to Orange immediately after I praised him for his plate discipline. Of course, for the Nats that feat should be renamed the “Desmond Sombrero” in honor of the player who wore it repeatedly.

6. Just wanted to say that this is the only site on the internet I go to where responses are consistently intelligent and not confrontational. I imagine there must be others. I just haven’t seen any. Thanks Luke and the rest of you.
   Doesn’t mean I agree with all the comments. But that should go without saying.

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