Rainiers Recap - 7/3/14, Reno 1, Tacoma 5

Skydivers entered the stadium pre-game. America!

I attended the Rainiers' annual Independence Day spectacular, and it was spectacular indeed! I also chose it as my annual game to take score at, simply to find out if I still remember how to score a baseball game. It turns out that I do, and armed with my score card, I'm capable of a nice little game recap.

Aces 1, Rainiers 5

Summary: This game was a cluster luck special, though the Rainiers gleefully accepted the good fortune. Tacoma, according to Mike Curto's recap, went 20 innings without scoring a run before breaking though in the sixth inning last night. Jordan Pries stranded base runners left and right throughout his seven innings of work, while his adversary for the Aces, Charles Brewer, proved largely untouchable until the fateful sixth inning. The Rainiers strung together six consecutive hits in the sixth inning, with the pivotal blow stuck by Ji-Man Choi, a bases-clearing double (sort of - Justin Smoak got thrown out at the plate, so only two runs scored despite the emptied bases). Abraham Almonte added a home run that appeared to land on the hill across the street right outside the right field fence in the eight inning, adding a finishing touch to the game and serving as a fitting prelude to the fireworks extravaganza that followed the Rainiers victory.

Game notes:

• Jonathan Stewart, a current NFL running back for the Carolina Panthers, threw out the ceremonial first pitch. He graduated from Timberline High School and obviously maintains a connection with his hometown roots. It is odd to see the best athlete on a professional field throw out a ceremonial pitch and do nothing else. The wonders of AAA baseball, particularly on one of the biggest nights of the year.
• Jordan Pries makes the most of his talent thanks to his composure. Ultimately, his pitching line was pretty nice - 7 innings, 1 run, 6 hits, 3 walks, 7 strikeouts, 99 pitches. However, the line does not capture everything. Pries labored early on, throwing 18 pitches in the first inning and 25 in the second, where he also managed to wriggle out of a bases-loaded jam. His only clean 1-2-3 inning came in the third. He worked around a Chris Taylor error in the sixth. Pries had to deal with the stress of a very tight game too, given that the Rainiers did not score until the sixth inning. Pries topped out at 90mph, which is normal for him (I've seen him start a few times now), and if he threw a few miles an hour harder he would get way more buzz. His ability to manage his pitch count, continually strand base runners, and keep the Rainiers in the game until they broke through, was probably a bit lucky, but not all luck. Pries has high "pitchability" as scouts would say. He knows how to pitch.
• Stephen Kohlscheen pitched the eighth inning for the Rainiers. This was my first chance to see him and I was interested to see him. He hasn't generated much buzz despite blitzing through the M's minor leagues with impressive numbers out of the bullpen. He worked a fairly clean eighth inning, allowing no hits or runs with a walk and a strikeout. The first thing that stands out about Kohlscheen is his height - he's listed at 6'6" and looks every bit that tall. His eighth inning enthralled me because I'm not entirely sure how he generates the results that he does. Kohlscheen doesn't throw particularly hard. He consistently hit 90mph, and occasionally touched 91 or 92 when he reached back for a little extra on his fastball. However, he generated a surprising number of swings and misses, and some batters looked late and uncomfortable in the batter's box. The best explanation I have is Kohlscheen's wind-up. He uses his height to his full advantage with a high arm slot, which creates an abnormally downward angle for the ball's path to home plate. Moreover, Kohlscheen appears to hide the ball well from batters by keeping his pitching arm low behind his back and plant leg most of the delivery. The first comp that came to mind as I watched him last night is current Mariners miracle-worker Chris Young.
• Stephen Pryor worked the ninth inning for the Rainiers. He sat at 92mph early in counts with an easy delivery. However, the old flame-throwing Pryor seems to still be around, because once he got two strikes on a batter he dialed up to 95mph, again with a relatively easy delivery. He gave up a hard-hit double (that, by the way, probably gets caught by a better right fielder than Stefen Romero, who took a circuitous route before jumping up against the right field wall to try to catch it) but followed that with two strikeouts to finish off the Rainiers victory.
• Nick Franklin extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a double in the middle of Tacoma's sixth-inning barrage.

  

  Jesus Montero (#40) didn't play in the
  game, but warmed up Jordan Pries a
  few times between innings.

• Abe Almonte had a very promising night. He saw 10 total pitches in his first two at-bats before getting aggressive in his final two. He ended up with two hits, a solid single the opposite way to left field in the sixth inning (on the second pitch of the at-bat), and the aforementioned bomb he pulled to right field that led off the eighth inning. What also made the home run impressive to me is that it came on the first pitch of the at-bat, off of Kevin Munson, whom the Aces had just inserted into the game. This suggests to me that Almonte's confidence at the plate is on the rise. He went into that at-bat knowing he would swing if he saw a particular pitch - clearly, he got it, and did not miss it. He wasn't just swinging at anything thrown, as evidenced by his extended at-bats early in the game. Almonte has holes in his swing and must compensate for them with a disciplined approach at the plate. He exhibited great discipline in this contest.
• Justin Smoak had an unassuming night at the plate. He went 1-4, collecting a single in the middle of Tacoma's sixth-inning outburst. The single in the sixth inning was easily his most impressive at-bat as it came on the eighth pitch in a 2-2 count.
• Stefen Romero is too aggressive at the plate. He ended up with a single in the sixth inning on a hard-hit ground ball that just eluded the shortstop. He only saw seven pitches total in his three plate appearances on the night and did not make memorable contact.
• Chris Taylor, despite an error on defense and a strikeout in the seventh inning, had a solid night overall. He got two singles, one to left field and one to right, along with a stolen base. He also did a solid job working counts, seeing 15 pitches total in his 4 plate appearances. The only plate appearance he saw less than four pitches was his sixth inning single, which he hit on the second pitch of the at-bat and got an RBI out of. At the time, that single tied the score at one. It turns out Taylor's single was the first of Tacoma's six consecutive hits in the sixth inning.
• Xavier Avery deserves a shout-out. He went hitless on the night but was a pest. He only got three trips to the plate but saw 15 pitches. This is even more impressive given that he only saw one pitch in his second plate appearance, which he dropped down for a beautiful sacrifice bunt that moved Humberto Quintero to third base in the sixth inning (right before the Rainiers strung together six consecutive hits.) Avery lacks power but has good speed and does little things that at least make him an annoying out.

The Rainiers hit the road for a week before returning to Cheney July 11 for a quick three-game home stand against the Fresno Grizzlies before the AAA all-star break.

Stefen Romero, Southpaw Smasher (?)

Stefen Romero won yesterday's Cactus League tilt with a walk-off three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth with two outs. Pretty cool stuff that certainly did not hurt his chances to make the opening day roster.

Romero hit the game-winning home run off of Evan Scribner, a right-hander, but the rest of this post is about left-handers. The Mariners were linked to Nelson Cruz all offseason because Zduriencik let it be known that the team was looking for a right-handed power bat to offset the M's lefty-laden lineup. Stefen Romero has emerged as the best internal option, and emerged enough to potentially claim a spot on the opening day roster.*

*Time for a mea culpa. I totally ignored him as a possibility just over a week ago. Oops.

Now, since Romero doesn't project to play every day, and he would earn a bench spot as the right-handed bat the Mariners feel they need to offset all their lefty hitters, it is likely that Romero's most meaningful action would come as a pinch-hitter against lefty specialists. Essentially, he is the guy tasked with making managers ask themselves what they would rather deal with: one of their premier set-up righties against guys like Brad Miller, Dustin Ackley, Logan Morrison, and maybe even Kyle Seager** - or the lefty specialist against Stefen Romero.

**Cano bats left-handed too, but nobody is pinch-hitting for him, regardless of the situation. Nor should he ever be lifted for a pinch-hitter.

So it would be pretty cool if Stefen Romero can, you know, hit lefties pretty well. I dug into his minor league track record for some answers.

Minor league data is incomplete at best, for many reasons. First of all, there are only small sample sizes for Stefen Romero at each level, and the level matters a ton. Romero hasn't really faced lefty specialists because they don't exactly exist in the minors until AAA, and maybe AA here and there. A pitcher becomes a lefty specialist after they've proven they can't handle other more significant roles (starting and closing/late relief). Baseball Darwinism basically guarantees all specialty lefties are "crafty." If they weren't, they'd be a starter or a closer. Therefore, projecting how Romero fares against specialty lefties is a whole bunch of educated guesswork.

Let's start by understanding what kind of Romero hitter is in general. Here are a couple heat maps from MLBfarm.com showing where Romero's hits go when facing left-handers and right-handers:

vs. lefties

vs. righties

Romero has faced many more righties simply because there are more righties in baseball, and that is why the righty heat map is more populated. However, aside from more data points, the two heat maps don't look all that different. The hottest spot on both is the hole between shortstop and third base. There's also a frequent spot for ground balls at second base. There are three frequented pockets ranging from the left field foul line to straightaway center. In all, Romero exhibits a slight pull tendency whether he faces lefties or righties. Unsurprisingly, most of his home runs are to left field too. His approach doesn't seem to change much whether he faces a left-hander or a right-hander.

The heat maps square up with Romero's production so far in the minor leagues. According to splits I obtained at Minor League Central, Romero's career minor OPS against left-handers is .885, while against right-handers .859, a minuscule difference especially when the small sample sizes are considered (along with league and ballpark switches in that time). Moreover, that difference is completely driven by walks as his walk rate against lefties (9.6%) is almost double that of his against righties (5.1%). Everything else is virtually the same, though perhaps you could convince that his K% is a bit different depending on handedness (17.0% vs. L, 15.7% vs. R). That's the biggest gap in his splits though, other than walks.

Romero has essentially been the same hitter in the minors whether he faces left-handers or right-handers, which generally comes in handy. However, it's unfortunately a value that will go unused if Romero mainly gets at-bats as a lefty specialist smasher. So would he still be of value as a hitter only against left-handers, given one of his strengths is his consistency against either hand?

It's hard to say how Romero would fare against lefty specialists. Like most hitting prospects he is a great fastball hitter. Via MLB Farm again, 75% of Romero's hits in pitch F/X parks (a very, very limited sample size in the minors) came on fastballs while just about 35% of his swings and misses came on heaters. Most hitters swing and miss against breaking pitches more often, so that's not an alarming statistic, but it's still there.

Specialty lefties don't throw many fastballs though. They tend to throw loopy breaking balls that are death to lefties because of arm slots that seem to start behind a left-handed hitter and make pitches cut away out of reach of a lefty hitter. However, the same tactics make a ball cut in to righties and don't create that awkward "behind the hitter" effect at all from the right-handed batter's box. Hence why lefty specialists tend to have massive platoon splits.

So, how would a lefty specialist attack Romero? Would he be lost against their breaking ball? Or would their breaking ball be utterly ineffective?

My best guess is that a lefty specialist's stuff is not all that different from what Romero has already seen in the minors. Remember, lefty specialists are never top prospects. They survive on deception, and that is mitigated, if not completely negated, by right-handed batters. Moreover, one thing Romero's higher walk rate against lefties might suggest is that he sees the ball better out of a lefty's hand, which would again hint at negating deception. With that said, Romero struggled mightily against the few left-handers he faced in AAA last year (.679 OPS in 95 plate appearances, versus an .806 OPS against righties in 316 plate appearances), so maybe those slurvy, sweeping breaking balls are death on him.

I am really only certain of one thing right now: Stefen Romero is not destined to be a lefty smasher in his career. If the M's try to turn him into that he will join a graveyard of failed hitting prospects already too large thanks in part to organizational ineptitude. However, breaking Romero into the majors against crafty southpaws could work. There are as many reasons in his minor league stats to think he will fail miserably as there are to believe he will do just fine in such a role. It's at least a question worth answering in the batting cage and spring games through Lloyd McClendon's seasoned eyes.

Future Is Almost Now

The Mariners went farther than sending Jesus Montero down and promoting Jesus Sucre. They also DFAd Robert Andino and promoted Carlos Triunfel to the majors. I'd imagine Triunfel will take some playing time away from Brendan Ryan, but now that Ryan's batting average is over .200 who knows! Anything is possible.

What's most interesting about all these moves is who took Triunfel's place in Tacoma. Brad Miller got promoted from AA Jackson, and will presumably be the new starting shortstop for the Rainiers.

Media attention in Tacoma will probably swirl around Montero's transition to first base, but I'm here to tell you there are way, way more interesting scenarios brewing in Tacoma right now.

2012 AFL Wrap-Up

I wrote an Arizona Fall League preview when rosters were announced back at the end of August. The league finished up play a few weeks ago, and the weekend after Thanksgiving seemed like a decent time see how M's prospects fared. The predictions/questions I had back in August now have answers:

2012 Fall Leaguers

The Arizona Fall League is a like a bonus month of minor league baseball where every team picks the players they want to send the most. As a result, the fall league often features many of baseball's most promising prospects. It's almost like a real-life prospect fantasy league. The rosters were announced on Wednesday.

The Mariners will send eight players to the Arizona Fall League. They are listed below with some brief comments on what they might stand to gain, and what to look for out of them: