A pair of Twins pitchers are set to resume throwing tomorrow, according to statements from each via Twitter. Righty Trevor May, who is contributing at MLBTR while working back from Tommy John surgery, says he will begin his march back in earnest. That drew a reply from southpaw Hector Santiago, who says he’ll do the same; he has been out for nearly a month with what the team called upper thoracic back pain and discomfort. There’s no expectation that May will return during the 2017 season, as his procedure took place this March. But Santiago conceivably could. The 29-year-old has every incentive to do just that, as he’s slated to hit the market this fall and would surely like a chance to improve upon the subpar results he has produced during his time in Minnesota.
More from the game’s Central divisions…
- While the Twins had some other possible trade chips to move, the team never came close to making any deals beyond those it completed, assistant GM Rob Antony tells Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN (Twitter link). There was little in the way of rumors surrounding shorter-term assets like Ervin Santana, Brian Dozier or Eduardo Escobar prior to the deadline, so perhaps the team’s preference was simply to engage with other clubs on impending free agents such as Jaime Garcia and Brandon Kintzler. Speculatively speaking, righty Matt Belisle could be a name to watch in August. He’s playing on an eminently affordable one-year, $2.05MM deal and rebounded from an awful month of May with a solid June and a scoreless 12 2/3 frames (with a 13-to-2 K/BB ratio) in July.
- White Sox prospect Reynaldo Lopez, acquired in the offseason Adam Eaton trade, is forcing his way into the team’s big league plans, general manager Rick Hahn tells Dan Hayes of CSN Chicago. “He’s forcing the issue,” said Hahn. “He’s had several starts in a row that have been very impressive.” Indeed, Lopez has turned in a 2.16 ERA with a 54-to-11 K/BB ratio in his past 41 2/3 innings. Hahn also offered praise for Lucas Giolito’s recent work, though those numbers are skewed by a pair of drubbings in an otherwise solid run of 11 starts. Lopez recently appeared on the latest installment of Jason Martinez’s “Knocking Down the Door” series here at MLBTR and seems to be nearing his first Major League look with the ChiSox.
- Reds outfield prospect Jesse Winker, who was recalled from Triple-A this week, is in line for regular playing time in the Majors now, per Zach Buchanan of the Cincinnati Enquirer (Twitter link). The Reds tabbed Winker with the 49th overall pick in the 2012 draft, and he’s been considered among the game’s top 100 or so prospects for much of the past three years. Winker had a cup of coffee earlier this season but returned to Triple-A in short order, where he ultimately put together a .314/.395/.408 showing. Wrist injuries have led to a power outage for Winker over the past two seasons, but he looks to be regaining some of the pop he showed from 2013-15, as he’s homered in consecutive games for the Reds (including tonight).
- Buchanan also provides some updates on a trio of injured Reds players in a full column. Outfielder Scott Schebler, whose absence has helped create an opening for Winker, was diagnosed with a bruised rotator cuff following an MRI exam. He’s out for at least the next two to three weeks, per Buchanan. Injured righty Scott Feldman, meanwhile, threw a three-inning simulated game today, though the timeline on his return to the Majors isn’t yet clear. And second base prospect Dilson Herrera, who had a bone spur removed from his shoulder recently, will be cleared to begin throwing in three to four months. Buchanan’s column has more quotes and context from manager Bryan Price and Reds team doctor Timothy Kremchek, so Reds fans should take a look for more details.
Lopez cannot do any worse then Pelfrey and Shields those guys should just get released
That’s the exact reason why he isn’t up yet… Pelfrey and Shields are doing exactly what the Sox need them to do right now.
Agreed with Priggs. Granted I’m sure no one wanted Shields, Pelfrey, Gonzalez, or Holland, another reason they weren’t traded is that they want these guys to eat up innings into September. All of them except Shields are free agents after the season. I’m sure the Sox are hanging on to Shields hoping maybe he recovers in 2018 and could be a potential trade chip. The Padres are already covering half his salary and his 2019 buyout.
Sox are hanging onto shields because of his veteran presence. Look what he’s been able to do for Giolito. You best pitching prospect is none of the above. Michael Kopech will be chicagos future ace
Yep. Same reason Clippard and several other guys are in a big league uniform. I still expect Lopez to get a September call-up, though. He doesn’t seem to have much left to prove in the minors.
The White Sox top pitching prospects have been on a pretty nice roll recently.
Lopez has obviously been fantastic as of late and will be up very soon.
Giolito has been really confusing this year. He has had stretches where he has looked great, and then all of a sudden he has a couple embarrassingly bad games out of nowhere. Overall, he has been pretty solid over his last 15 starts though. He has a 4.14 ERA over that stretch, which admittedly doesn’t look great, but it’s heavily skewed because of 2 awful starts where he allowed 7 in 3.2 and 5 in 1.2. Obviously you can’t just take away those starts, but without them, his ERA has been about 3.04 over that stretch. While it’s still not “great,” I think he has pitched much better than his overall numbers look.
Kopech is one of the guys I’m extremely excited about. He had an excellent start to the season numbers-wise with a 2.38 ERA and ridiculous strikeout totals through is first 10 games, but he was still walking way too many guys (31 in 53.0 innings). Then he went through a rough patch of 6 games where his ERA shot up over 7. But his last 4 games have been absolutely phenomenal. I think it’s still a little too soon to say for sure, but it looks like he may have turned a corner. In his last 4 starts, he has gone 27.0 innings with a 1.00 ERA and a K:BB of 33:4. His Strike% is up from 61% to 67% in this stretch as well. Hopefully he can keep heading in this direction and continue throwing strikes to keep the walk rate down because his stuff is filthy.
Dunning has been an awesome addition as well. He was lights on in A ball before moving to High-A. He pitched to a 3.07 ERA through his first 13 games before finally having a bad game (8 runs in 4.2 innings). He has bounced back extremely well since then though, allowing only 1 run over his next 2 starts (7 innings each), including an 11 K game with only 1 walk.
Alec Hansen might be the guy I’m most excited about right now though (maybe tied with Kopech). He has electric stuff and has used it extremely effectively since joining the Sox organization. He was a top-end prospect before he lost all control of his pitches his final year of college and was put in the bullpen. From what I’ve read, the Sox were able to tweak something small with his delivery right out the gate, and the results have been phenomenal. He absolutely dominated A-ball to start the year (2.48 ERA over 13 starts with a 92:23 K:BB over 72.2 innings), and he hasn’t skipped a beat after being moved up to High-A. Despite his worst start of the year in his 3rd outing (5 earned over 3 innings), he has managed to put up a 2.78 ERA over 7 starts with a 46:15 K:BB over 35.2 innings. At 6’7 235 with electric stuff, if the changes he made can help keep his control in check, he can absolutely be a frontline starter in the near future. If he continues to pitch like this, he’s going to shoot up the prospect rankings next year (he already should have this season).
Sorry for the long post – just super excited about how these guys have been pitching most of this year. Going to be fun watching them take the next step.
their farm system is obviously stacked with potential… i don’t blame you for being excited
Agreed. The White Sox may have had the best 9-10 months in baseball with their rebuild. Certainly doing it the right way sending out all these players. They can take it a step further in the offseason dealing Abreu and Garcia.
Doubt they trade Abreu or Garcia. The former is a mentor to some of their most prized prospects, and the latter has no track record of being good before this season (plus, he’s been in a rather long slump). Add in that the market for slugging OF / 1B isn’t that hot and the interest in them will probably be limited. Might happen next year at the trade deadline, though, if someone on a contender is terrible or gets injured.
Right with you on the optimism for those pitchers in big picture except Giolito. Different sport, but the excuse making for and inconsistency associated with him linked to raw skills/previous hype is analagous to Cutler (who smart folks knew was Jeff George from moment Bears got him). Appreciate that lot of fellow Sox fans aren’t falling into the trap with his having to be good if others are instead. Eloy might be foolproof being groomed right under Theo on the hitting side as a stud. Rest of highly touted bats are truly suspects as good pros until player development staff proves they can prepare youth otherwise …..that includes Moncada.
Moncada has looked awfully bad in his first couple stints in the majors. I think he figures it out in the end, though. Avi did, and Moncada’s much more talented than Avi is.
Moncada hasn’t looked great by any means, but their have been some encouraging signs. First and foremost, he has played very good defense. That was a question mark for a lot of scouts coming into the season, so I’m happy he looks solid on that side of the ball so far.
As for his hitting, I’m not extremely worried (yet) because his biggest issue right now is being too selective. It’s not like he’s up there swinging away at everything, chasing curveballs in the dirt, and swinging through high fastballs. If I have to choose between a young guy being too selective or being a free swinger, I’ll take the selective guy every time.
He’s doing a good job taking walks (part of him being overly selective), and he’s hitting the ball pretty well. He has an incredibly low BABIP despite having a lot of medium and hard contact – his soft contact % would be one of the 20 best in all of baseball if he was “qualified.”
But like I mentioned, his biggest problem at the plate has been his selectivity. I want to say that half of his strikeouts have been looking. But to me, something even bigger than that is that he has started almost every single at bat in a pitcher’s count. He’s constantly down 0-1 because he’s letting fastballs over the plate go on the first pitch. I understand and appreciate the concept of working the at bat and trying to see a lot of pitches, but if guys are just throwing fastballs over the plate on the first pitch because they know you aren’t going to swing, you HAVE to change your approach. Turn on a couple of those fastballs and rip them, and then pitchers will start having to adjust to him. Then he can start working the at bats and work on getting into hitter’s counts. It’s so easy to see when watching the games, and the numbers back it up. It’s such a simple, non-mechanical fix that I’d be shocked if he doesn’t start implementing it in the next couple weeks and start swinging earlier and more often.
Just for reference – Yoan has only swung at 37.9% of the pitches he has seen so far this year. That’d be the 6th lowest in all of baseball if he was qualified. For pitches in the strike zone, he has only swung at 45.3%. The lowest percentage of any qualified player this year belongs to Joe Mauer, who is sitting at 53.0%. Time to start swinging the bat more.
Back in the early 1900s, there was an ump who used to tell players who watched a called 3rd strike,
“Let me tell you something, son,
Before you get much older:
You cannot hit the ball, my friend,
With the bat upon your shoulder.”
Where I am, White Sox games don’t come on TV and I’m too cheap for MLBTV, so I have yet to actually see him play. I, too, would take the overly selective hitter, but his poor stats still matter. A K is a K, whether it’s swinging or called. As I said, I still think he comes around in the end.
Don’t blame you for being excited; I think most of us Sox fans are. My biggest worry is that the Sox seem to have a penchant for picking up guys who have electric arms but also have control issues. Most of the guys you’ve mentioned have had them, as does Rodon. Control is usually something that’s teachable / correctable, but some guys just don’t seem to ever get it. Rodon still has more trouble throwing strikes than you’d like, which leads to numbers like start against the Cubs: 11K in 4 innings (phenomenal), but also 4ER, 3BB, and 7 hits. I’m hoping the changes their prospects have made continue, but control is more important to me than having a killer fastball or slider.
I agree with you there, which is why I’m really intrigued by Kopech’s last 4 starts and what Hansen has been able to do since joining the organization.
As for Rodon, I’m not really concerned about the numbers he is putting up this year. This is basically a lost year for him with the injury. Any improvements he makes going into next year will be a bonus in my opinion. This is still basically spring training for him; he has thrown a whopping 31 innings all year. In regards to his control, his walks were actually down last year under 3 per game, and they’re at 5.8 right now. I highly doubt he has regressed that badly (at least I hope not), I just think he’s trying to build the arm back up still.
I think his biggest problem is that he has had to learn everything at the major league level. He was called up to the bigs after a total of 8 minor league starts. Like Sale, he was an extremely talented draft pick, but he had a lot more to work on control-wise before he should’ve been called up. It’s really unfortunate he went down to start the year because he seemed to be making improvements the end of last year and was absolutely lights out in his only spring training start this year, but it is what it is. He’s still only 24 years old and has one of the most unhittable sliders in baseball, so I’m far from giving up on him. Assuming he can stay healthy, which is a big assumption, next year will be the year for him to show if he can be a big piece in this rotation going forward.
Hansen’s breakdown on MLB starts with him poss being the steal of the draft… he was a poss #1 overall then lost his mechanics his Jr year and got sent to the pen… his numbers across the board have been excellent at every stop in pro ball. Naturally that raised questions of sign-ability and white sox paid over slot but 138K/38BB in 101 ip a year and half after losing his control suggests the white sox the risk was worth it.
FWIW, Jesse Winker has looked outstanding this week. Looks different than he did during his cup of coffee earlier this year. He has two homers, got robbed by Marte on another homer, and has two outstanding plays in the field. I think Schebler just became the fourth outfielder for the rest of the year. Maybe even off-season trade bait, if there’s a market for him. He did good things this year, so I’d imagine someone would be happy to have his bat.
I agree with you. I don’t see how they can’t give him the keys to RF now.
At least Schebler has been versatile. Can play all three OF spots and has plenty of power.
Yeah it’s a good problem to have. I really like Schebler because he always plays hard. I’d be curious to see what kind of interest he could generate on the trade market, even though I’d be happy keeping him too.
I wouldn’t look to move Schebler. He would make the perfect 4th outfielder. He’s cheep, can play all 3 spots, a lefty, and has power.
If you’re marketing him on his ability to “play hard”, then the answer won’t be much.
Until the Reds know for sure Winker can play everyday against the big boys they shouldn’t be so quick to move Schebler. Not to mention, they could potentially put Schebler in CF and move on from Hamilton.
I can see that argument. A solid fourth outfielder matters. But so does pitching and trades might be the best bet to bring in capable pitching.
Maybe they should have a parade for him when the team gets back home. Rename the ballpark address to Jesse Winker Way. Or maybe we should reserve judgement and let him play more than two games.
Do you need a hug?
Lighten up, Francis. I did preface my statement with “for what it’s worth.” I get it – small sample size, etc. I was merely noting that he’s playing with more confidence and aggression than he did last time up.
He’s also been one of the Reds top prospects, and a consistent history of being a high OBP guy. Maybe people are a bit excited, and maybe your a wet blanket.
Jeez, the White Sox are going to be pretty damn good in a few years.
Define a few.
I hope so. As with any group of prospects, some will fulfill most of their potential, some will become just serviceable, and others will bust. The Sox and Braves have some really deep farm systems, though, so they can each afford a few busts and still be pretty good.