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Monday’s News & Notes

Team Yesterday Today Pitching Probables
Rochester Lost, 5-1 END OF SEASON N/A

Indianapolis 5 Rochester 1
• Parker 4IP, 4H, 0R, 0BB, 8K
• Knowles (L, 0-2) 3+ IP, 6H, 5R, 5ER, 0BB, 4K, HR
• Witt 1IP, 0H, 0R, 1BB, 0K
• Dunn 1-3, R, 2SB(15)
• Adams 1-4, RBI

The rains that have plagued the East Coast since Saturday didn’t go far enough inland to spare Rochester its 80th loss, 5-1 courtesy of Indianapolis. Mitchell Parker tossed four scoreless innings in his organization-leading 26th start without issuing a walk (keeping him tied with Tommy Romero for the most free passes) and striking out four to get him to 150 in 124IP (10.89/9IP).

The loss went to Lucas Knowles, who gave up three in his first inning of work and two in the 8th on his tenth big fly allowed. The 25-y.o. southpaw walked none and struck out four while giving up six hit total over three-plus innings. Paul Witt mopped up in the 8th, retiring three of four batters faced.

Matt Adams drove in Jack Dunn with an RBI single in the 4th to keep the Red Wings 2023 shutout tally at two, which is pretty impressive for a team that was 19th on offense in the 20-team I.L. Jordy Barley singled twice while Darren Baker singled once to round out the six-single hit column. Rochester was 1-for-6 with RISP and left on six baserunners.



27 Commments

  1. Thanks to Luke for the faithful daily coverage!

    Great to see Mitchell Parker have a strong AAA start to end the season. He’ll definitely be one of th interesting 40-man decisions ahead of the Rule 5 draft.

    2. Luke boss Man and the entire
      Bleacher crew here :
      How could we see things in six months ?
      New ownership in place ? ( I’m guessing a NO.
      New coaching staff replacements for Davey ? Definately a new hitting coach @ Harrisburg
      Just hopefully a whole bunch of healing restoration on a slew of young talent .

  2. Mitchell “Jekyll” Parker again on display.

    He’s definitely got the “stuff”. He struck out 18 AAA batters over 10 IP. But it’s always been whether he can locate that “stuff” with any consistency. Next season is going to be a critical one for Parker.

  3. did LeCroy mail it in yesterday or what? yanks Parker after less than 60 pitches then sends Knowles out to pitch a fourth inning in a 3-1 game. after he gives up a two run homer (following a foul pop that Vega should have caught) he replaces him with Paul Witt??

    1. That would be ironic, given LeCroy’s past inclination towards benching players he perceived to not be giving their all.

  4. Luke you’ve had the force since Spring Training
    Now for the AFL magic with Lee upcoming
    Kudos

  5. Back to Rodney Theiphile file : does he receive a winter ball assignment to get work in before ST?

  6. FWIW, they may have had an innings limit for the year in mind for Parker. He threw 100 in 2022 and now 124 in 2023. I suspected that he likely wouldn’t go to the AFL with him inching up like that. He’s 23 years old. I have no problem with protecting that elbow. It’s much more intelligent usage than that of many college pitchers.

      1. Out of curiosity, I looked up the management of Jake Bennett. In 2021, he threw 83.1 competitive innings, including in summer league, at age 20. At age 21, U of OK used him for 117 innings at an average of six innings a start. The Nats shut him down after drafting him. But he still broke after what seemed like 63 carefully managed innings this summer at age 22. So you look back at the significant increase between 2021 and 2022 and wonder.

        There was some skepticism about drafting Skenes for similar reasons. He went from 85.2 IP at age 20 to 122.2 this year, with many starts well over 100 pitches. For reasons unknown, the Pirates have had him make five more short appearances. Yes, Skenes is a hoss, but so is Bennett — same height and listed as one pound different.

      2. I’d love to see if there’s a correlation between arm injuries and league velocity. That to me seems the likeliest explanation for the increase in arm injuries.

        What I would love to better understand, though, is how guys like Randy Johnson, Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens managed to be some of the most durable arms in the league, while also throwing the ball faster than everyone else. Is it genetics or something? Because all three of them had VERY different physiques.

        Also, I wonder if some smart team will figure out a way to exploit some sort of market inefficiency with soft-throwing pitchers? Surely there’s some point at which a mediocre SP who can reliably give you around 200 IP is more valuable than a flame-thrower who’s injured more often than not (e.g. Miles Mikolas, who doesn’t even strike out 6 K/9, has been more valuable than Jacob deGrom over each of the past two seasons).

        1. Well, Clemens was better living through chemistry ; ) Seriously, although he did have one strong-but-not dominant season before leaving for Toronto, many Bostonians will tell you that he was “done” when he left Beantown. They think he would have had a similar regression to Pedro Martinez without the juice (although very different body types).

          Ryan got lucky for a couple of reasons early in his career. Due to the draft/military service, he was shut down for his age-20 season. For ages 21-24, the Mets had fabulous starting pitching, so he was only used as a swingman and didn’t throw a lot of innings. Only after being traded to the Angels for his age-25 season did he start amassing high innings totals.

          Johnson also had limited usage when young and didn’t top 200 IP until he was 26.

          1. “One strong-but-not-dominant season” is a pretty big understatement. He had 3 Cy Youngs, 1 MVP, and a 80 WAR (7 of 13 seasons with WAR >7.0) under his belt in Boston. He could’ve retired in 1996 and been a first ballot HOFer.

            Maybe you’re on to something with usage before age 26, but Randy was racking up pretty high innings in the minors (418 IP), and Clemens had an insane 1284 IP through his age 26 season.

            I dunno, some guys just seem to be freaks of nature. Jim Palmer tore his rotator cuff, missed two seasons, then took some pills and then threw another 15 seasons and 3500 IP.

          2. The magic age seems to be 25. Warren Spahn spent his ages 21-25 fighting in World War 2. After the war he had one of the greatest careers ever, pitching effectively well in to his 40’s.

            That reminds me. There’s a great book called ‘The greatest game ever pitched’. Highly recommended.

          3. Re Clemens, my “strong but not dominant” reference was specifically to 1996, his 10-13 last season in Boston at age 33. That was his first time in four seasons topping 200 IP.

          4. I once met the third basemen
            Ken Rose when he was a lawyer in his post baseball career
            He was in the Nolan Ryan – Jim Fregosi deal Halos and Mets

      3. For all the nostalgia about outliers who threw 250 innings or more in the majors back then, how many young pitchers were lost to a baseball world without any workload governors?

        A lot. When was the last time you heard the term “dead arm” used without a trace of irony? Used to be thrown about quite a bit by baseball men 50-60 years ago. Perhaps we now know that those dead arms were blown out elbows or torn labrums; perhaps some TOS’s in there too.

        I’ve written it before and I’ll write it again. Baseball needs to start taking Mike Marshall’s ideas more seriously. The problem is that most people don’t turn to them until *after* they’ve suffered an injury.

        About the only thing that everyone can agree on is that throwing a baseball is an unnatural act. Some guys can hit 95 and look like they’re playing catch (Joan Baez), others look (or sound) like they’re giving birth (Josh Smoker). Part of what makes this so difficult is that no one’s figured out exactly what is the right mechanics, prolly because it varies with each pitcher.

        1. I think a lot of the older guys also mastered the art of pitching at 85%. Neither Spahn nor Palmer ever struck out 200 hitters in a season despite topping 300 IP many times.

          As I mentioned the other day, nine of the top 12 all-time leaders in strikeouts per nine innings are active* (counting Stras). If we count the recently retired/sidelined Trevor Bauer and Chris Archer, it’s 13 of the top 16. (Nolan Ryan is #17.) Of the three not-immediately recent, we’ve been discussing Randy Johnson. The other two are Kerry Wood, who famously flamed out, and Pedro Martinez, who was done for most practical purposes by 34. My point is that the whole thing of throwing ridiculously hard all the time is a recent/current trend. Clemens, despite his dominance, is #50. He ranks behind guys like Scott Kazmir and Drew Smyly.

        2. I remember him as the screwball pitcher with the Expos! Dr Marshall was an outspoken kinesiology guy. Smart guy.

          1. Marshall Michigan State Spartan .
            Funny thing . Out of the box versus screwball – as Robin Williams would say – you be the judge !
            Marshall , Bill Spaceman Lee ( spike lees dad was jazz bassist Bill Lee .. and Jackson state alum Oil Can Boyd … the air of Quebec is enlightening ..

  7. Thank you Luke for this years excellent reporting and snark. Your site and Todd’s really make my life better.

    1. Concur! Toss my kudos onto the pile. I stop through here nearly every day, and my internet is better for it.

  10. I don’t want to throw bad vibes out but Colr Henry reminds me of in the Expo years when high draft pick expectations fell short in Big College program arms like BJ Wallace , Stan Spencer and Justin Wayne out of the usual pitching cradle called Stanford and good ole Josh Karp out of UCLA …

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