Break Up the Baysox: Week 2
The Fremulon Insurance Oriole Prospect of the Week
Brandon Erbe (right) threw the most impressive outing of any Oriole minor league pitcher so far in 2009, striking out 8 in 6 innings while only allowing 1 hit and no walks against the Akron Aeros. Unfortunately, that one hit was a home run and the Bowie offense couldn’t muster anything as the Baysox dropped the contest 3-1. This does little to diminish Erbe’s fantastic night. I’d be remiss if I didn’t give an honorable mention to the torrid, torrid hitting of Nolan Reimold, who put up a devastating .499 wOBA for the week.
The Norfolk Tides
The big stories of the week are Matt Wieters‘ hamstring and Brad Bergesen’s promotion, but we also saw somewhat disappointing encores for David Hernandez (4 IP, 7 baserunners) and Chris Tillman (4 IP, 8 baserunners). Meanwhile, Reimold and Lou Montanez (.441 OBP with a double) stayed hot, while Justin Turner (.318 OBP) and Scott Moore (.370 OBP with a home run) turned their bats back on. Wayward prospect Bob McCrory had 4 Ks and 1 hit in 3.1 innings.
The Bowie Baysox
Brandon Snyder (.425 wOBA) teamed up with Erbe and Troy Patton (6 IP, 6 K, 3 H, 0 BB) to give Bowie a good second week, while Jake Arrieta (5IP, 7 H, 3 BB, 4 K) struggled in his second Eastern League start. Chad Thall (2.2 IP, 6 K) and Wil Perez (4IP, 5 K) pitched excellent out of the bullpen. I’m not surprised with Patton’s success; if he’s healthy, he should absolutely dominate AA hitting. I have been very impressed with Snyder, though. He and Reimold are really giving me hope for the future in Baltimore.
The Frederick Keys
Bill Rowell (.280 OBP) continues to struggle while Brandon Waring (.363 wOBA with 4 walks) is doing his best to make my preseason description of him look idiotic. Brian Matusz (11 IP, 14 K, 5 BB, 11 H) is merely pitching okay, all things considered. Twenty-three year old Ryan Ouellette is probably old for the Carolina League, but is nonetheless impressing with 4 IP and 7 strikeouts to only 2 walks.
The Delmarva Shorebirds
Xavier Avery (.086 OBP, 10 K) looks lost at the plate. L.J. Hoes (5 K, 1 BB in 18 PA) and Greg Miclat (.238 OBP) aren’t exactly tearing it up, either. Fortunately, Oliver Drake had a terrific debut as a starter, pitching 13 innings and striking out 11 while only walking 2. Drake is also a little old for his level, but success is success is success. Cole McCurry also threw very well (6 IP, 7 K, 0 BB). As a side note, Tony Butler is still bothered by shoulder discomfort and hasn’t pitched at all this year. Things aren’t looking very good for him moving forward with his pitching career.
(photo via Baysox.com)
That weighted on base average is interesting. I had never seen that stat. I did some reading on it and it seems pretty cool. What’s your take on it? I just spent about 2 minutes researching it and get the basics, but what do you think about it?
What do we do with Montanez? I agree that we should keep the Pie experiment going until early-mid June. Then Reimold will hopefully be knocking at the door (or I should say continuing to be knocking on the door). Do we try to trade Scott and make Lou the DH? Do you think he could be a productive MLB DH?
There is a twisted part of me that wants to see Jones go on the DL so that Pie plays center and Montanez or Reimold gets called up to play left (I can already hear Luke Scott – who is plenty good in left field, as it turns out – crying himself to sleep because he has this reputation for not being very good for some reason).
Anyway, then we’d find out that either of those guys can do everything we want to see Pie do, and then some, and then we can end this experiment and make Pie the fourth outfielder (although, honestly, the way he looked in center yesterday wasn’t encouraging. Has this guy ever even seen a baseball field before 2009?)
I naturally really like wOBA…it always bothered me a little that OPS was adding two things that didn’t have the same denominator: OBP is (H + BB + HBP) / (PA – Sac Bunts), and Slugging is (1B + 2*2B + 3*3B + 4*HR) / AB…so it always just seemed lazy to say “let’s just add these two things together”. I am sure, however, that there is still something better out there than wOBA…
Rowell continues to look like a bust, but I am VERY excited about Reimold and Snyder. Bring Snyder up and let him hit some ML pitching later this year, and maybe, just maybe, we have our 1B of the future and don’t have to overpay a FA in the offseason. One more year of Huff with Snyder in the wings might work just fine. And we’ll see Reimold in about a month or two, I think, when we’re done with this Pie thing. Pie just looks lost out there. Good stuff with these minor league posts, Andrew.
Nice rundown. I dig these, because it means I don’t have to go searching for minor league stats.
I dunno what to think about Erbe. for whatever reason, I’m not really a believer yet. He needs a consistently good year.
I was thinking the same thing about the Jones DL. If anything, it would be nice for the organization to see Pie’s performance against Montanez/Reimold side by side. And yeah, what is the deal with Pie not being able to play the outfield?