The Rockies recalled Jon Gray tonight to start tonight’s game against the Mariners. Gray’s 5.77 ERA across 17 starts this season seemed like reasonable cause for a demotion, but it always seemed as though he wouldn’t spend too long in the minors. After all, he was striking out 29% of opposing hitters, and by measures of FIP (3.12), xFIP (2.82) and SIERA (3.19), he was having an absolutely fantastic season. As MLBTR’s Connor Byrne mentioned at the time, his .386 BABIP and 63.1% strand rate pointed to a horrific amount of bad luck. In two starts at the Triple-A level, Gray managed to strike out 13 batters in 10 2/3 innings while allowing four runs.
In a corresponding move, the Rockies optioned fellow young right-hander Jeff Hoffman to Triple-A. Also a former top prospect, Hoffman hasn’t managed to find his footing in the majors yet, and has allowed more than a run per inning on average while pitching out of the Rockies’ bullpen. He’s also walked more batters than he’s struck out, and spent time on the DL with a shoulder injury.
Here are some notable developments from around MLB…
- The Indians have recalled Francisco Mejia to make a start at DH tonight against the Yankees; it’s his 2018 MLB debut. The young switch-hitter is not only universally believed to be the Tribe’s top prospect, but he’s also considered the best catching prospect in all of baseball. Unfortunately for him, he’s been blocked in the majors by a solid defensive tandem of Yan Gomes and Roberto Perez, both of whom are signed to contracts that stretch a couple of years beyond 2018.
- Another former top prospect, Twins outfielder Byron Buxton, can’t seem to catch a break this season. He’s apparently suffered a left wrist strain at Triple-A, and will head to the 7-day minor league disabled list (hat tip to Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com). After posting a horrific wRC+ of -3 (yes, negative), Buxton has put up a .219/.288/.356 batting line at Triple-A and will now have to wait at least another week before he has a chance to get on track.
They keep trying, but I think it’s safe to say Buxton is a bust.
He’s 24 and coming off a 3.5 WAR season. In what universe is he already a bust?
He’s had 1/2 a good season
5.2 WAR according to Baseball Reference.
WAR……SCMORE!
He might be a great pinch runner and defensive replacement, but the kid can’t hit major league pitching or stay healthy. A cross between Peter Bourjos and Billy Hamilton…..if he could play.
When you base run and play defence like Byron the offensive bar is not a high one to clear. He’s shown stretches of being an impact talent. Short memories here.
Except last year he proved he could hit at least a league average pace
Byron suxton
Before Twins fans start hating on Buxton too much remember the last time you had a 5 tool CF that was having trouble developing his in game skills. You guys were brutal to Aaron Hicks and eventually traded him for a backup catcher who had one decent season as a backup. Buxton was the overall top prospect in baseball for 3 years in a row. His skill set averaged out at 70 with both his hit and fielding tools being 70!! That is a super prospect.
Some prospects just take awhile longer to develop into everyday MLB players. The Yankees are thrilled that the Twins gave up on Hicks and I bet the A’s were glad they didn’t give up on Donaldson after his age 26 season. Donaldson’s OPS in 2012 was .687 in 75 games. In 2013 his OPS was .883 and he finished 4th in the MVP vote.
Be patient with a player with Buxton’s pedigree and more often than not he will reward that patience by finally breaking out. If you are sick of him and want him gone I am sure several teams have a decent backup catcher available to trade.
Yup. And the wrist injury was from… hitting foul balls. Didn’t even hit his wrist apparently. Just hurt to swing. He’s an injury prone bust
And hitting .219 at AAA leading up to the injury? I’m waiting for someone to try to make a case here that BA is an irrelevant stat. Twins should leave him at AAA for the remainder of the year to work out whatever his problems are.
Well the average still isn’t the best way to measure. But that .288 OBP and .640 OPS at AAA are still pretty awful for a guy who was touted as the next big thing
I have had a hard time accepting BA as an irrelevant stat myself, and that is because I grew up with it being pretty important. I think misunderstood is probably a better description. Imo the reason some people have declared it irrelevant is because of how the game was played 25 years ago vs today. Before the defensive shift came into such widespread use fans were used to .300 being kind of a standard for a good hitter. Enter the shift around 2010-11 and .300 became much more elusive. I will use Mark Teixeira as an example (first player that came to mind when I was thinking of AL East players that were the first victims of Maddon and the Rays using the shift daily). Pre-shift he was a consistent .300 hitter every year (If he didn’t hit .300 he was in the ballpark). After the shift he became a consistent .250 hitter. I think fans have switched to OBP as more of a go-to stat because BA no longer gave an accurate portrayal of how good of a batter a player was and subconsciously current OBP numbers are just a bit higher than what the old averages were. Plus, it was a common baseball card stat sandwiched between BA and RBI’s, so casual fans already knew what it was. We haven’t seen anyone hit .350 for a season since 2010. Before that it seemed like someone hit .350 or close to it every year. I remember hoping Tony Gwynn was going to hit .400 in 1994, before the strike happened.
In time, once .250 becomes more of a standard for a solid hitter, I think BA will come back around as being an important stat. For now, us old-timers are going to be stuck thinking .250 is what your back-up catcher is supposed to hit not your clean-up batter.
I wonder how Jimmy Sheckard would be viewed in today’s game. In 1912 he hit .245 and had an OBP of .392. He was considered washed up in 1913 when he hit .194 but had an OBP of .368.
Breaking news: Brandon Guyer is awful.
Hehehehe…..yep.
With the availability of today’s statcast data, exit velocity on balls in play can tell you if BAPIP is poor luck or not. Maybe Gray was getting his pitches up and he was getting rocked!! Perhaps that is why he got sent down and not because he was simply “unlucky”.
And maybe he’s pitching his home games at the field that yields the highest BABIP’s in the big leagues.
How is a negative wRC+ even possible? Sounds worse than most pitchers. How about Buxton for Billy Hamilton anybody?
Mejia to the marlins for kyle barraclough. Perfect for the marlins rebuild cuz they can trade realmunto
MIA would be lucky to get that but I doubt it would happen.
The white sox have a lot of Buxtons on their roster. Especially Moncada.. Boston sold Chicago on that Sale trade