Tue. 6/17 - Gold vs. Blue on the Island, So Six Games in All

[Joseph Zarr]

1 minute ago, Ro Mueller said:

Sad that we made Griffin Tobias repeat his June 10th experience, once again pushing into a 6th inning of relief and once again wearing the loss in a 3-2 finish.

Man, the ACL Crew are losing a lot of one runners lately. Tough stretch.

[Joseph Zarr]

Sac fly from Pratt to mid CF scores Adams standing up. It is a 9-8 Shuckers lead. Let's go!

[biedergb]

It's a 9-8 lead on the deep sac fly by Pratt. Productive out. Good job of hitting. And Pratt's OPS is now > .700

 

Happy Birthday Brock, now go hit the ball hard

[LouisEly]

Just about a perfect outcome for Nashville.

Myers with 6 scoreless and only 4 hits, Mitchell with a hit and a walk and no K's, Vaughn with a salami a walk and no K's, Quero 3 for 4.  

[Joseph Zarr]

1 minute ago, biedergb said:

It's a 9-8 lead on the deep sac fly by Pratt. Productive out. Good job of hitting. And Pratt's OPS is now > .700

 

Happy Birthday Brock, now go hit the ball hard

OR, take a stroll to 1B Brock. No soup for you!

[Joseph Zarr]

6 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

Just about a perfect outcome for Nashville.

Myers with 6 scoreless and only 4 hits, Mitchell with a hit and a walk and no K's, Vaughn with a salami a walk and no K's, Quero 3 for 4.  

Honestly, more importantly for Quero: he showed decent Pop and a solid plus throw to 2B on a 79 mph change-up that was a bang-bang play. THAT stood out. He didn't hit anything particularly impressive though he found holes. I mean, sure, he had a 98 mph double. BUT, his single was like a 78 mph snort. His other hit? Lower exit velo? The pick and pop (tho failed) was the take away. My main point here is: Box scores only sometimes tell the actual story.

[Joseph Zarr]

Vaughn's HR was seriously impressive. Myers' outing? I mean the results were good but I personally didn't find it all that impressive as a whole. Unfortunately. I say this purely from a: Will he help the Brewers perspective. Purely. I continue to have no idea if he can. Replacement level at this juncture - pains me to say it. I saw him touching 94 mph. I may have missed some higher touches. 

[biedergb]

OK. Yeager struggles with the first batter but gets the fly out, then a grounder and fly out.

It's a W for SHuckers. Woo hoo  9-8.

A win and a first half division clinch tomorrow. So close. And so far from a 1-7 start. Incredible.

[Joseph Zarr]

1 minute ago, biedergb said:

OK. Yeager struggles with the first batter but gets the fly out, then a grounder and fly out.

It's a W for SHuckers. Woo hoo  9-8.

A win and a first half division clinch tomorrow. So close. And so far from a 1-7 start. Incredible.

Incredible indeed. What a run! 

[wiguy94]

20 minutes ago, Joseph Zarr said:

Vaughn's HR was seriously impressive. Myers' outing? I mean the results were good but I personally didn't find it all that impressive as a whole. Unfortunately. I say this purely from a: Will he help the Brewers perspective. Purely. I continue to have no idea if he can. Replacement level at this juncture - pains me to say it. I saw him touching 94 mph. I may have missed some higher touches. 

He was up to 96.6 tonight.

[markedman5]

Black just continues to tumble down the prospect list………can’t see keeping him on the 40 man if things don’t change……

[Joseph Zarr]

Just now, wiguy94 said:

He was up to 96.6 tonight.

Thank you. I wondered. I saw 94 a couple of times. Admittedly, I was focused on the Shuckers. Were you impressed? I'll defer. I still saw Caissie (a MLB hitter by my eyes) getting knocks - nothing hard. I saw him hanging in that 91-94 mph range. What were your thoughts? I haven't dug into any data as of yet. 

[Joseph Zarr]

1 minute ago, markedman5 said:

Black just continues to tumble down the prospect list………can’t see keeping him on the 40 man if things don’t change……

Hard to disagree. As I opined just last week: the defense is what it is (and it isn't good). The bat concerns me quite a bit more. I haven't personally liked his contact all that much for over a year. I think the data would back that up, honestly.

[Terry]

From three ACL games with statcast, ranked by age. It is nice to see that there's already a handful of kids(or specifically Handelful?) with gaudy max exit velo for their age.

[Jake McKibbin]

4 hours ago, Joseph Zarr said:

Vaughn's HR was seriously impressive. Myers' outing? I mean the results were good but I personally didn't find it all that impressive as a whole. Unfortunately. I say this purely from a: Will he help the Brewers perspective. Purely. I continue to have no idea if he can. Replacement level at this juncture - pains me to say it. I saw him touching 94 mph. I may have missed some higher touches. 

I'm really wondering if Myers is working on some mechanical tweaks in Nashville. Even more so than usual his fastball velocity is swinging around from 88.9 to 96.6 last night.

The slider and changeup both showed some significant disparity with the slider ranging from 82.1 to 87.4 and the changeup 76.4 to 82.9 mph

A side-by-side of the two pitches could be fascinating

[wiguy94]

3 minutes ago, Jake McKibbin said:

I'm really wondering if Myers is working on some mechanical tweaks in Nashville. Even more so than usual his fastball velocity is swinging around from 88.9 to 96.6 last night.

A side-by-side of the two pitches could be fascinating

It’s been like this for like 3 starts in a row where his FB velo ranges like 7-8mph within one start. It’s definitely weird.

[Jake McKibbin]

2 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

It’s been like this for like 3 starts in a row where his FB velo ranges like 7-8mph within one start. It’s definitely weird.

Yeah and I don't remember seeing it quite so often last season on his off speed pitches.. If it is mechanical, there's hope he could come back better than ever with a fastball velo of 95+, but perhaps that's the optimist in me

[Jake McKibbin]

@Joseph Zarrjust for you!

Hayden Robinson

Can't quite get the modelling from TJ Stats but here's some of the backing data sorted by Stuff+ on the fastball. The shape is really quite inconsistent, perhaps to be expected on his return and may have contributed to the wildness but some of those grades on the stuff+ (or 20-80 scale beside it if you prefer) are electric, even at 92 mph. It actually appears as though he has two different shapes (and some of the sinkers maybe play into this) with a cut-ride shape complemented by a true four seam with more run.

The changeup looks nasty, 10+ mph speed differential from his fastballs at least and solid vert with great horizontal movement. It was his most consistent pitch shape yesterday and grades out well on the 60-80 scale

The slider was more of a sweeper shape, doesn't grade out all that well due to the comparisons often having ~ 17" horizontal break but it does hover around 0" IVB and okay horizontal movement. Again showed flashes of more break but not consistent at this point.

Finally is the curveball, again not quite a true curveball and more of a slurve with some trade-off of horizontal break on the sweeper for a littler more depth on the pitch. Doesn't grade out all that well, but with the rehab situation at present after elbow surgery these things will likely tick up somewhat as we continue and do bear watching.

 

 

[Terry]

Additionally, here's some plot for visualization.

Hayden Robinson

As there's no release point or spin axis data to confirm it, not sure if the inconsistent shape is deliberate or not.

Griffin Tobias
Pitch tagging is a hot mess in this one, but he's likely in the three fastballs mold as well.

[Jake McKibbin]

Griffin Tobias

Fastballs (Statcast will have trouble at this level splitting sinkers and four seamers)

Some of the lower grades above came later in the game and it seemed like Tobias did tire as the game went on, understandable given his age. That being said, the fastball showed some flashes of true excellence.

Featuring up to almost 18" of ride, and a "sinker" with 172 of rise and 15" of run is a pretty electric offering as fastballs go, and the grades support that. From a low release height and arm slot, Tobias will naturally gain more horizontal break (and less IVB) than most. As such the rise he got here is truly outlier, although the inconsistent shape is something to watch. I'm assuming it's quite common at his age and at this level to be working through mechanical efficiencies so I'm more enamoured with the top end of the scale rather than the bottom and an eye on future potential, meaning I like what Tobias' heater might become whether he cuts it a little or let's that ride really play up.

Tobias also has a true cutter (with one extreme outlier being the 0 IVB, -10" HB offering) that sits around the 0" HB line and around 86 mph. It looks a nice offering and hints at three distinct fastball shapes for the Brewers to toy with. The velocity isn't anything to shout out about yet, but it's solid for a pitcher at 19 years old.

Breaking Pitches

The slider was Tobias most used offering yesterday and doesn't grade out too well because of the lower velocity and the fact tit has a bit of a riding shape. Some of the above should maybe be called cutters as the slider appears to sit south of 80 mph but with positive IVB of around 6" and solid Horizontal break of around 10". Its an interesting pitch, almost sweeper like but doesn't get the horizontal break one would expect from that pitch. Likely a product of the lower arm slot, he may be more effective moving towards a true sweeper shape and embracing that East/West profile as he does seem to struggle getting balls to "drop"

We see a similar story with the curveball, sitting 78 mph but I would suggest that only one of these is an actual curve, while the rest are more in that slider/sweeper shape above being mislabelled as a result of the more outlier release point. It doesn't generate much true drop either, more of a gyro slider shape than anything and stuff+ models weren't a fan.

Finally is the changeup, again an inconsistent shape as should maybe be expected at this point in his career although the velocity stayed largely on point. He can get a little too firm with it at times and kill the horizontal movement, back spinning more tan he would like, but we'll see how the pitch develops.

NB: Take the grades with some pinch of salt for Tobias especially. He's 19 being compared with big league stuff and as such there's a lot of development both velocity wise and consistency wise to come from him to hopefully harness and command some distinct shapes with all his pitches. There's certainly some potential there with the fastball

[shanedog19]

Brock Wilken is leading the Southern League in OPS and tied for the MiLB lead in HRs. He needs to get promoted to Nashville and see if he could help the big league club out this year yet. It would be nice to get that clarity before the trade deadline.