7/12 ML Gameday Thread: Portland plays 2; Kopech debuts

Amfox and others. Any ideas or predictions on who goes to the fall league for us? Seems Brentz could make up some ABs.

My quick guesses (year in parentheses, if they have previously played in the AFL):

Bryce Brentz (2012)
John Ely (??)
Joe Gunkel (NA) (sub-AA pick)
Two of Michael Almanzar (2012), Derrik Gibson (2013), Sean Coyle (NA) and David Chester (NA)
Two of Noe Ramirez (2013), Robby Scott (NA) and Aaron Kurcz (NA)

1 inning, no runs, 2 ks, 1 hit. Just what you can hope for from a hard throwing first round hs kid.

Yeah if Brentz is healthy, seems like a no-brainer. Coyle and Almanzar too. And Kurcz probably. Gibson makes sense too if Brentz can't go.
I don't think they'd send Gunkel I in his first full season. Have they ever done that with a pitcher?
Don't they usually send a catcher? Would think Swihart might be the guy. Finishing school a la Cecchini and Betts last year. If not him, then Blair has missed some time, but he's getting way more reps than he ever has already.
I have a feeling Augliera will go or something. The Double-A relievers make sense. What about Hinojosa maybe?

Perfunctory Devers post - back to .500 with a double

Guerra proving to be real interesting. Should be in top 40 in a week or two.

Any opinions on Monge? He is repeating the GCL, and seems to be doing considerably better than last year. How up to date is his profile?

Devers' walk rate (.083) is actually below average for the GCL, based on last year's leaders. However ...

He has an .083 HR/Contact. Last year's leader had .058.
He has a .500 BABIP. Last year's leader: .423.
Most impressive, though, is his .069 K rate, which would have been second best last year.

Here are the components of the four players:

Name        Team       Age K% HRC BABIP
Jose Pujols Phillies (R) 17 .311 .058 .245
Bryan Hudson Red Sox (R) 18 .244 .000 .423
Jose Zambrano Tigers (R) 19 .057 .020 .218
Rafael Devers Red Sox (R) 17 .069 .083 .500
Pujols, last year's HRC leader, had the 5th worst K rate and the 3rd worst BABIP. That's not an unusual combination. Zambrano, the only guy last year with a better K rate, had the second worst BABIP, also not am uncommon combo.

It's a tiny sample (29 PA), but this defies the ordinary logic of hitting. You ordinarily have to pay for power with strikeouts, lower BABIP, or both.

Oh, and his XBH / Hits in Play would rank 3rd, and just barely 2nd (.455 to .458) if we exclude guys 21 and older.

It's a good start.

Michael Kopech with a scoreless inning in his debut, striking out two.

Extrapolating this out, I'd assume that no MLB pitchers have ever averaged 2 k's per inning and given up no runs during their time in Rookie ball, so clearly Kopech is going to be the greatest pitcher ever to play the game.

A lot of it is just that GCL kids are very young. Most are high school kids in their first or second season or international guys new to the U.S.; the average age is 19.7, and once you filter out the org-guy-types, most position player prospects are 18 or 19. Guys that age almost universally need to add strength, and few have the bat speed to consistently hit live pitching out of the park.

Yeah, I definitely see where you're coming from on Gunkel. My thought on Gunkel was that he's at 71.2 right now. Say he gets another 20 this month (he's got 4 more starts probably), 25 in August/September (I'm spitballing - tell me if this is off). He'll be at 117 innings. Last year he threw just 98.1. Would they want to jump him that much more? Maybe they would. Maybe send him for half the time, then replace him with McCarthy, or the top guy from Instructs?

My bad on Hinojosa.

They wouldn't send Mike Miller, would they?

Used to be that way in the FSL also, kids playing in ST facilities with huge foul lines and very young. League leaders would generally always have less than 20, unless it was huge physical specimens, such as Jack Baker, Dave Hostetler, or Dave Koza who would come along and whack 25-30 on their way through the league.

Many of the older ST facilities had 330' down the line and 420' or greater to straight away center, such as the old Chain-0-Lakes at Winter Haven did. Those places were the norm at one time.