Minor League Diary: July 21, 2006

Don’t Look Back, Something Might Be Gaining On You

On April 17, the Trenton Thunder (EL) defeated the Altoona Curve, 9-0, as Steven White and T.J. Beam combined on a four-hit shutout. This game was noteworthy for two reasons:

1. It was Trenton’s first victory of 2006, following a club-record 10-game losing streak to start the season, and
2. Immediately after the game, the Thunder put out a press release announcing that 2006 postseason tickets were on sale.

The Thunder responded to the announcement by losing their next three games, to drop to 1-13 overall. Then things started looking up a bit; the team won seven of its next eight, top prospect Philip Hughes arrived on May 4, and, amazingly, by May 29 the Thunder had made it back to .500. The next three weeks saw Trenton win a couple, then lose a couple and oscillate around the .500 mark - as late as June 20 the Thunder were still 35-35 - but the team then went on a second extended streak of excellence. As I write this, the Thunder stand at 54-43, one game behind first-place Portland in the Eastern League’s Northern Division, and 6 1/2 games ahead of third-place Harrisburg in the postseason race (the top two teams in the division make it).

What happened? A couple of things:

1. In the 10-game losing streak at the start of the season, Trenton scored a total of 20 runs. Since then, the Thunder have scored more runs than any other team in the EL other than Portland, led by minor-league vet Randy Ruiz, prospect Eric Duncan - who finally seems to be living up to the hype - and OF Vince Faison. Duncan’s recovery, after a particularly difficult start at AAA, has re-established him on the prospect map; he is still just 21, and living up to some of the promise that has earned him the title of #1 Yankee prospect.
2. The pitching, which had its peaks and valleys, has been solidified with the arrival of Hughes, a return to form by Tyler Clippard - who has put together a string of solid starts recently - and the outstanding bullpen work of J. Brent Cox and Justin Pope. Trenton’s pitchers have allowed fewer runs than any other team in the EL.

Hughes’s numbers over his last seven starts are simply overwhelming: 42 2/3 IP, 19 hits, 3 ER, 12 BB, 54 K, 0.63 ERA. He’s 4-1 with two no-decisions (both of which Trenton won) in that span. The only issue with Hughes is that he’s thrown a lot of pitches, even though the Yankees are being cautious with the just-turned-20-YO’s arm; he has been removed on three occasions before reaching the sisth inning, even though he has been pitching well, because of pitch count concerns.

Trenton looks like the best team in the EL at this point. Who’da thunk it back on April 17 - other than Thunder management, that is?

Yo!

Yovani Gallardo was Baseball America’s #4-ranked prospect in Milwaukee’s system prior to the start of the season. He was good, but hardly dominant, at West Virginia a year ago, posting an 8-3 record with a 2.74 ERA and a 110/51 K/BB ratio in 121 innings. Yes, he was just 19 a year ago, and the raw stuff was there, but even the Brewers were thinking that he was a middle-of-the-rotation starter, and he ranked behind Mark Rogers on Milwaukee’s pitching pecking order - more polished than Rogers, certainly, but with not quite as good stuff.

Gallardo went to the Florida State League to start the 2006 season. Something clicked for him there - he added 2-3 MPH to his fastball, sharpened his breaking stuff and his command, and in 13 starts covering 77 2/3 innings walked 23, fanned 103, and posted a 6-3 record and a 2.09 ERA. Opposing hitters batted just .196 against him and went deep just 4 times in 307 PAs. On June 24, the Brewers rewarded Yovani with a promotion to AA Huntsville. He’s made five starts for the Stars, which look like this:

June 26 vs Chattanooga (ND): 7 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 6 K. The bullpen blew a 2-0 lead.
July 1 vs West Tenn (ND): 7 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 10 K. Huntsville couldn’t score, either, and lost 1-0.
July 6 at Birmingham (L): 4 2/3 IP, 4 H, 1 R/0 ER, 5 BB, 5 K. Huntsville was shut out until the ninth in a 2-1 loss.
July 14 vs Mississippi (L): 6 IP, 5 H, 3 R/2 ER, 2 BB, 4 K. Huntsville lost 3-1.
July 20 at Carolina (W): 6 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 K. Huntsville finally scored some runs for him.

That’s a tidy 0.59 ERA, with 34 K and 10 BB in 30 2/3 IP. If Huntsville didn’t have such an awful offense (other than Ryan Braun, they have no hitting prospects at all), he’d probably have three or four wins in the book.

I was sitting in my usual spot in the upper deck watching Gallardo pitch last night, and he was just dominant. He is the second pitcher I have seen post a triple digit reading on Carolina’s (fast) scoreboard gun. He doesn’t look like he’s throwing hard - but the ball explodes up there in the mid-90s. Even in the sixth, he was still pumping 95s and 96s. One thing I did notice - and it’s something that Gallardo will need to fix as he moves up - is that he likes to start out hitters with his lesser stuff, and then work “up the gun”, throwing harder as he gets deeper into the count. He’ll probably need to mix it up more - although the Mudcats certainly didn’t have much hope out there last night.

Braun, by the way, is starting to look more and more like a #1 draft pick should. He smoked one over the CF wall at Five County last night - which is hard to do when it was as dead as it was in the first inning last night - and added a double and single later. He’s up to .301/.348/.566 since his promotion to AA. He had been swinging and missing a lot before this series, but I haven’t seen anything that leads me to think that’s going to be a long-term issue.

Don’t Give Me That Bull

On the other side of town, the Durham Bulls are going through a difficult season. Despite the presence of three top hitting prospects - B.J. Upton, Delmon Young, and Elijah Dukes for most of the season, the Bulls have struggled to a below-.500 record after a hot start, amid a substantial amount of turmoil on and off the field:

1. Young was suspended for 50 games, as is well-known, after throwing a bat and hitting an umpire in a game in Pawtucket.
2. Dukes was sent to extended spring camp for a week after a clubhouse altercation with hitting coach Richie Hebner early in the season, and was later suspended for a longer period after another altercation with then-teammate Ryan Knox, who was ‘coincidentally’ (according to the Bulls) shipped to Montgomery the day that Dukes returned.
3. Upton was arrested and charged with DWI after making a U-turn to avoid a sobriety checkpoint in Chapel Hill; he was benched for a game. The charge is pending.
4. Manager John Tamargo was suspended by the league for 10 games after another incident involving an argument with an umpire.

These incidents, to me, speak to a problem that I’ve seen in Tampa’s organization for several years - lack of discipline. I get the sense that the team runs a loose ship in the minors, and it is reflected to some extent in the play of the teams on the field. I’ve watched Upton for nearly three years now, and he hasn’t improved a lick in the field or at the plate - he’s basically the exact same player now that he was three years ago. Dukes and Young are obviously immensely talented players - but both have had multiple altercations, and both (along with Upton) try to make chicken soup out of chicken droppings far too often, giving away runs at the plate, on the bases, and in the field. No one seems to want to rein any of the players in, even a bit - and you wind up with talented players who become ego problems in the majors, when they can’t get away with things based on just their raw talent. I would not be at all surprised if none of the big three live up to the hype.

Tampa really needs to look at the way they do business on the player development side of the fence, and clean house.

Feel-good stories

I do have a couple of those.

After a nearly four-year hiatus due to injuries and drug problems, Josh Hamilton has been cleared to start playing again. Tampa sent the former #1 overall pick to Hudson Valley to begin the process of resurrecting his career, and so far, at least, Hamilton is passing through the initial hurdles. I expect him to show up in SW Michigan or maybe Visalia before the end of the season.

Ria Cortesio, the only female working as an umpire in affiliated baseball, worked the Futures Game and the Home Run Derby in Pittsburgh, and has been promoted to a Southern League crew chief slot. The crew chief is an important rung on the promotion ladder, and hopefully that will get her to AAA next season. I think she’s certainly got the talent to be a major league umpire; she calls a good tight consistent strike zone and handles herself well. I believe that she’ll get there on merit, not as a toekn representative of her gender.