5/11 ML Gameday Thread: Matt Barnes pitches for Pawtucket

Portland Sea Dogs ?@portlandseadogs 8m

Sea Dogs: Betts 4, Marrero 6, Shaw 3, Rivero DH, Ramos 9, Spring 2, Meneses 5, Gibson 7, Wilkerson 8, Pena LH (2-0, 3.58)

Swihart was DH yesterday, hope he's OK.

Mookie led off with a hard hit single to right. Streak extended. Cats pitcher is a lefty with a weird delivery, I'm guessing it will take a few pitches to get used to him.

Good news for those with MiLB.TV, the camera is now moving a lot more on the pitches and they've widened the angle. You can now see the defensive reaction to contact.

Dogs up 2-0 after 1. Cats pitcher did a good job of escaping a huge inning.

Still in the second, pitching change, Dogs up 5-0 but could have been more but two hard hit balls right to fielders. Mookie now has two opposite field hard hit ground singles.

Top of the Portland lineup doing great. Mookie with a walk, still prefect. Marerro & Shaw both on base twice. Missed most of the defensive part of the inning but Pena also giving up hard contact and TV camera much improved today. 5-2 dogs. after 3

5-5 middle 4th. Not sure why Pena is still in. RBI triple is debatable as to whether or not Ramos should have gotten to it.

Pitching change 5th. McCarthy coming in. 6-6 but Cats have 2 on, nobody out. Box is stuck on the 4th inning.

7-6 Cats middle of the fifth. Mookie has some splainin' to do, throwing error after a nice play by Meneses.
Pitchers duel. 9-9 after 6. 6 different Dogs with 2 hits so far. Mookie leads off the seventh.

8-7 Dogs Shaw with a 2R HR off a lefty. Hard hit to RF. Mookie 2/3 w a walk. He hit a hard 2-2 liner to left that the lF had to jump to get.

Pitcher's duel. 9-9 after 6. 6 different Dogs with 2 hits.

12-9 Cats now. My Firefox updated and right now none of the minor league games are streaming but MLB is no problem. Good time for bed, I'll figure it out later

LOL, listening on radio, exciting game, 12-9 bottom of the ninth, anniversary of Springs walk off grand slam mother's day, betts walk, marrero walk, Shaw walk, Revero 2 run single. No outs, ramos sac bunt but error. Spring up, bases loaded again. Just missed a grand slam with a just foul HR. Sac fly 12-12, one out runner on third. Meneses wins it single to left. 13-12 final. WOW.

Mookie with hohum night. 2-4 with 2 BB's and some nice defensive plays. Box says SB but will likely be changed to defensive indifference. Marrero, Shaw, Ramos big nights.

Mookie's SB changed to defensive indifference.

2 for 2, back over 400

Really like Deven Marrero. With that defense, what is starting to show on the bases and at bat is exciting.

It seems like Barnes might be learning how to pitch. Can't argue with the results. At minimum his stuff should play well in a late season call up as a reliever.

I would expect that he will not move up until he deals successfully with a bad stretch and/or plays half a season at Portland.

I know it's unconventional but after the consecutive game streak issue is over at Portland I'd put him in AAA. That is only a week or 2 from now. The guy has completely dominated this level from day one. It's 134 AB now and he's still hitting almost .400 with all the peripherals doing fine. Base running, defense, ...etc. Plate discipline is not a problem. Maybe leave him in AAA for a while but I don't see much point of leaving him in Portland except to give him an all star honor or let him combine with Marerro for a while.

I'd rather see him get more time against advanced pitching before he gets called up to mlb.

Let me ask a question: when do you think Betts reasonably could be called up to the Majors? And I don't just mean in terms of his readiness - I mean with all factors considered. Whose roster spot would he take when he gets called up? What would his role be?

My point is that, if you're going to ask him to fill some kind of utility role, he's going to need to learn to play the other positions you're going to ask him to play. That is going to take time. And if it's going to take time, I don't see the need to rush him to Triple-A yet. At this rate, he might get promoted midseason - when most players doing what he's doing get promoted in this system - but I can't see him getting promoted before June 15 or so at least. That's when Bogaerts was promoted last year, June 13, and he'd played at the level for a month the previous season. If I were to project, I'd actually push a reasonable estimate of when we might see a promotion back to July or so, given the lack of an obvious path to the majors and that he didn't play at this level last season. He was promoted to Salem on July 9 last year.

Unless Dustin ".312/.413/.452 since April 16 and signed for the next 50 years" Pedroia gets hurt or something, they're going to need to turn Betts into something else to make room for him on the roster. That's going to take a minute. And until that happens, I don't see the reason to rush him to Pawtucket.

At the very least, let's hold off on the promotion watch until the month begins with a "J".

Sometimes being unconventional is the smart approach. Not everything fits inside the box and one of the keys to making it to the top is recognizing those times when the box is just an obstacle to an organization's achievement and when the risk / benefit analysis might just have a huge payback when you need it. Especially when one is striving for the very top of the mountain. Taking risks is sometimes necessary and appropriate.

For example with Abreu last winter. Convenional wisdom said all sorts of reasons why not to sign him but look at the upside of that move now. Lots of guys didn't want to even give $100 mil to Tanaka but now he looks like one of the top 5-10 pitchers in the game. No one wanted to sign Choo but his hit chart screamed Fenway and now he's hitting .330.

I don't think it hurts us much to move Mookie to AAA ball in 2 weeks and he might just be a stud who is capable of making a difference in the playoffs this year, if needed in an injury situation. And it's not like our CF, our LF, our 3rd basemen...etc are ripping the cover off the ball or giving much indication they are going to start doing so any time soon.

Just my opinion. Get him ready. We might need him.

Henry Ramos has been getting noticed for his bat.
0.331/0.365/0.454/0.819

Deven Marrero has been getting noticed for his glove.
0.282/0.383/0.437/0.820

Deven has the present discipline and gap power that we always hoped for Jose Iglesias (being fair to Jose, he was significantly younger). If he continues to hone his pitch recognition skills (still upside down but moving in the right direction), he could force the Red Sox to rethink Xander. This coming offseason, the Red Sox might be rethinking the future Sox blueprint.

Agreed regarding a Ramos comp. and more importantly that Ramos is very raw because of his soccer background. My point was intended to be more the last paragraph and that I think Marrero's season at the plate is being overshadowed by what's happening around him. I only used Ramos because of the OPS number.

Curious stat for Wendell Rijo: 0 for 5 on the day with two Ks and no BB. Yet he managed two RBI apparently w/o any SFs.
GB outs with runners on third?

Edit: Recap does record two GB outs resulting in scoring runners from third. Still, odd.