Minor League Roundup: Counting on the Future

With the upper minors decimated by injury, Trent Youngblood, Yassel Soler, and Cristofer Torin showed their skill at lower levels

It is fitting to start this week’s column by congratulating Slade Caldwell and LuJames Groover on their being named to the Futures Game roster. Twelve teams had just one prospect named to the roster, while only the Mariners (three) had more players than the Diamondbacks, so it’s a very evenly distributed roster, unlike the All Star rosters.

The Week That Was

This past week was a mixed bag down on the farm. The Aces split a series at home with Salt Lake, while Amarillo started their second half by dropping four of six at home against the Arkansas Travelers. Hillsboro did pick up their first win of the second half, but still dropped five of six at home to Spokane. And Visalia lost to Inland Empire for the first time all season on Saturday, and followed up by losing again on Sunday to still win the series, but only 4-2. Visalia is in first place in the second half.

In the rookie leagues, the Pygmy Rattlers of Salt River went 4-2. The DSL Black squad went 1-3, and were only saved from going 1-4 by having a game suspended due to power failure. But the Red squad went 4-1.

All told, that’s a record of 19-21 on the week. Batters slashed .286/.368/.428 with 29 long balls. Pitchers tossed 335.2 innings to an ERA of 6.33, struck out 308 against 213 walks, and had a WHIP+HBP of 1.776. (There are so many hit batters these days that traditional WHIP misses a lot of free passes. Diamondbacks farm pitching hit 31 batters over the week, and no one reading this needs reminded that plenty of batters are getting hit in the major leagues as well, particularly in the hands.) Slade Caldwell led all batters with 13 strikeouts (against just four walks) in a tough week. Jorge Barrosa and Andy Weber tied for the most hits (11 apiece) while Yassel Soler, Junior Franco, Manuel Pena, Enyervert Perez, and Christian Cerda all tied for the lead in home runs with two. Tristin English drove in the most runs yet again, as he plated 11 and no one else reached double digits. Eybert Sanchez with the DSL Red squad scored the most runs, with eight.

There were also a number of promotions. Ryan Waldschmidt was the biggest name to be moved up a level; his first week in AA was a mixed bag, as he picked up his first hit and first home run, but slashed .192/.250/.308 on the week. Kyle Sinzza and JD Dix also were moved up a level. Dix went 1-for-4 in his first taste of A ball; that’s probably better than it sounds, as the Rawhide managed just two hits in that game. Sinzza went 2-for-4 with both hits being doubles in his stateside debut.

Avery Short and Jordan Lawlar joined the injured list, while Adrian Del Castillo went on a second rehab assignment.

A New (to this space) Offensive Statistical Measure

OPS has been the single rate stat that has been accessible in measuring performance across levels, but OPS also has noted flaws. It overrates the value of a triple and underrates the value of a single. Is there a simple, better way to weight the various types of plate appearance outcomes?

There’s been some experimentation, and it will continue. What I’m doing is applying basic linear weights to the various types of outcomes. I will be playing with the weighting over time. But this is a simple weighted runs created. I don’t want to call it that, because I do not have all the computing power of Fangraphs at my disposal, and weighted runs created (wRC and wRC+) is their thing. What I’ve developed is a simple measure of run value per plate appearance, so that’s what I’ll call it for now, and it is presented in the same format as the traditional slash line statistics.

Some negatives: RV/PA is not park adjusted. I do plan on eventually normalizing it for the league, which will provide some basic park adjustments, but I have some major doubts about how reliable park factors are in the minor leagues. (For example, Constellation Field in Sugar Land is often rated as the most pitching-friendly park in AAA. Is this because of the park itself, or is this because most of the comparison is against other Pacific Coast League parks? I suspect it is the latter, and if the Space Cowboys (here is your reminder that Skeeters was a much better name) were in the International League, the results would be different.

With those caveats in place, here are the week’s leaders in RV/PA, minimum 20 plate appearances.

Melendez, across his 21 plate appearances, provided 44.5% of a run per plate appearance, despite just two extra base hits. That’s because singles, on average, rather than being worth 25% of a run, are worth somewhere around 70% of a run, taking into account both instances with no one on and two outs (where a single likely does not lead to a run) and situations with runners on second and third (where a single likely drives in two runs) and everything in between. Meanwhile, Perez had just six hits compared to at least ten by each of the others in the top-five, but two of them were home runs, and he had four free passes. That gave him a better OPS than Rojas (who had eight singles, a double, a triple, and one free pass). And I think that illustrates the utility of weighting the outcomes in terms of values rather than types of hit. Two home runs and four singles is a good week, but it’s hard to argue that it’s more valuable than a week featuring ten hits in a comparable number of plate appearances. (Barrosa’s 11 hits tied with Andy Weber for the most in the system, but Barrosa had 30 plate appearances, while nobody else in the top five had more than Pena’s 25.)

This isn’t exactly a new way of measuring offensive performance, as it builds heavily on existing metrics. Nor is it complete, as I am still trying to find the best way to work sacrifice hits and reaching on errors into the equation. But even in this nascent form, I believe it provides a better measurement of offensive success than easily available metrics.

Batters of the Week

Yassel Soler, Visalia (10 PA, 2 2B, 3B, 2 HR, .657 RV/PA)

Trent Youngblood, Visalia (23 PA, 9 H, 2B, HR, .373 RV/PA, 4 SB)

Soler tore up Inland Empire in the first two games, then missed the rest of the week. Here’s hoping that he does not have an injury that will keep him out for long. But even though he missed four games, the fact that he had five hits and all of them went for extra bases certainly deserves mention.

RV/PA does not take stolen bases into account, and that is the reason why Youngblood is mentioned here. He had a good week at the plate, just outside of the top-five players with at least 20 plate appearances by RV/PA, but he stole four bases without being caught. While the run value of a stolen base doesn’t map exactly to an extra base hit, if you turned four of his singles into doubles his RV/PA jumps to .427. He collected his second home run and his second double of the season, he’s stolen ten bases while being caught just once, and he’s walked almost as much as he’s struck out. The Count is looking like the real deal, a utility player who might be playing the Tim Tawa role in several years.

Starting Pitcher of the Week

Angel Beltran, DSL Arizona Red (7 IP, CGSO, 2 H, 1 BB, 4 K, Game Score 76)

Complete game shutouts, even of the seven inning variety, are scarce to nonexistent. But Beltran (aided by a double play) faced just one over the minimum. He got 14 ground ball outs. Beltran is listed at 6’4” and 240 pounds and will turn 18 on July 13. He doesn’t get a ton of strikeouts, but with that frame there might be some projection there. Whether or not he goes far, he had a career day (so far) on Saturday.

Relief Pitchers of the Week

Carlos Rey, Hillsboro (2 G, 3.1 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 2 BB, 7 K)

Jhosmer Alvarez, Amarillo (2 G, 4.2 IP, 2 R, 2 H, 1 BB, 6 K)

Division II Nova Southeastern University has only had a baseball team since 1988 and has only played in the NCAA since 2003. But there hasn’t been a year without a Shark in the big leagues since 2010. Rey is one of four looking to keep that streak going whenever Miles Mikolas hangs it up. The track record of players that make it is incredible; the four players have combined for 38 seasons, eight All Star appearances, 339 home runs, 1846 strikeouts, two no-hitters, and 53.6 bWAR. Of course, the bulk of those hitting stats comes from JD Martinez, but both Mike Fiers and Mikolas have put together at least a decade of good pitching. The Sharks also produced longtime farmhand and current coach in the complex Jancarlos Cintron.

Rey is a left-handed pitcher who throws hard and has struck out 13.1 per nine in his career thus far. He’s been wild and hasn’t gone an outing without walking a batter since May 25, but there’s a lot of promise here if he can harness his stuff. Ironically, he’s done better with control when tasked with pitching more than one inning, so overthrowing may be partially at fault. He pitched at least parts of multiple innings this past week.

Alvarez is another fireballer who has typically worked late innings for the Sod Poodles, but found himself called upon in the fourth inning on Tuesday as Logan Clayton recorded just one out. He gave up a walk, home run, and double in that first inning. He set down the next six batters he faced that day, then set down all six he faced while picking up the win on Friday.

Plays of the Week

This section comes and goes depending on whether I see something worth posting or not. This week there was certainly something.

Let this serve as your reminder that baseball players are not only human, they are also young humans. The oldest player to appear for the Hops this season is Logan Clayton, 25. The denizens of this site tend to treat players well, but after events in Chicago last week, it doesn’t hurt to be reminded.

It’s taken too long to mention Torin’s defense. He was no slouch offensively, either. He has one of the higher floors of the top middle infield prospects.

Slade Caldwell is not only the youngest player on the Hops, he’s the second-youngest at the entire High-A level. But he couldn’t let Torin have all the recognition and showed his own glove. He’s playing in left field because there’s a major league caliber center fielder on the team, but he’s demonstrated his ability in center as well this season.

The Sod Poodles got after it on Friday night.

Next Up

All full-season affiliates are on the road next week. Reno goes to Sacramento, Amarillo travels to arch-rival Midland, Hillsboro is in Eugene, and Visalia is at first-half champion Rancho Cucamonga.

Next week, as the last posting in this space before the draft, there will be a draft preview. I hope that it will be different from other draft previews so it will at least have some value. In two weeks there will be a recap of the first day of the draft, which will include three Diamondbacks’ selections. That is down from the original five, as the regular second-round pick was forfeited for signing Corbin Burnes, and the Compensation Round B pick was traded in the Josh Naylor deal. As a result, the Diamondbacks do not have a selection between #29 and #92, which is a nice palindromic spacing and also means there will be a lot of downtime if people are only interested in future Diamondbacks.