Ray

That’s a pretty yikes lineup for the White Sox.

Joe (CT) Are you concerned by Noelvi Marte's start to the season? Kyle Glaser: Yes. The main concern is how out of shape Marte has gotten. It's affected every part of his game. It's made him a significantly worse defender whose chances of staying at shortstop have basically dropped to zero, his arm stroke has been really ugly and his swing has gone backwards, too. He's going to drop quite a bit in the updated Top 100 coming out this week. Tom (Portland, OR): Hi, Kyle. As a Jays fan I'm particularly starved for outfield prospects, but Gabriel Martinez seems to have a "tweener" vibe to him. Is it too early to slap that label on him? Kyle Glaser: Martinez is slugging .532 as a teenager in the Florida State League. He has plenty of power for a corner, which is where he projects to play. He's not really a tweener at all. He's a potential power-hitting corner outfielder with plenty of bat speed, a projectable frame and enough contact skills to get to his power, although he's a touch aggressive right now and needs to rein that in a bit.

Nick Frasso today: 3.0IP, 4H, 2ER, 7K. Sinker: 95-97 mph (touched 99) Slider: 85 mph

He’s been one of my favourite prospects to follow this season. Still only 19 years old, so 2 years younger than the average age in A-ball. April splits: .183/.290/.250, .540 OPS May splits: .369/.411/.714, 1.125 OPS 17% strikeout rate, 9% walk rate, .312 BABIP. So good peripherals and not outrageously lucky either. Home Run #1: 104 mph Home Run #2: 109 mph We seem to have really good luck with prospects whose name start with Gabriel M.

Austin Martin has a .722 OPS through 36 games in his second go around at AA. Hot take, but I don't think he'll become the next Rendon/Bregman like he was projected to be.

I was off on my Danny Jansen being an All-Star prediction by a year (he might still not be due to lost time, but sure is playing like one). I've been a huge Jansen fan since his breakout in the minor leagues in 2017. So it's nice to see everything clicking for him. If he continues to be a good offensive player, it might be time to start talking extension. Feel like he's a hometown discount guy.

Other notes: Impressed with Cameron Eden. He's got some real tools. Hit the ball hard a couple times and really has game changing speed. Semi-interesting. The stress and lack of success is getting to Miguel Hiraldo. Having a very rough season. 1st PA after he gets out, he slams his bat out of frustration. 2nd PA after he strikes out, he slams his bat down and then breaks it in half between the knees Vladdy style. Right after which he was pulled by the manager lol.

I was fortunate enough to see him in person today and he blew me away. I'm all in. He is a special talent. The noise the catchers mitt made when Tiedemmen was pitching vs. literally anybody else I saw was staggering. It's sounds like a bullet. He was consistently sitting 94-96 mph, touched 98 mph once. He was getting by mostly by his fastball. I counted like 20 swinging strikes at least. Smooth, easy delivery (a little violent arm whip, but he uses his lower half well to limit the stress on it). There's also a little deception mixed in with the cross-fire action. Hitters could barely make contact with his fastball tbh. They were having trouble just making contact. By the way, he should've had 10K because the ump robbed him of a clear strike, and got let down by some shoddy C's defense a couple times (which eleveated his pitch count). He was cruising, but reached his pitch limit around ~75 pitches. Crazy to think he's only 19 years old. Would not be surprised if he gets a taste of AA before end of the season, but no need to rush him.

It’s definitely a weird season so far. The White Sox were supposed to be one of the best offenses in the league as well, and they are 26th in runs scored per game. Their drop in performance is actually somewhat explainable though. Grandal, Pollock, Harrison, Abreu, are all old, so a decline isn’t that unusual. The younger position players in Tim Anderson, Andrew Vaughn, & Luis Robert are doing well enough. Moncada is a high variance player who yo-yos between good and meh seasons. Eloy injured, as is tradition.

Trevor Story raised his wRC+ from 80 coming into the game to 112. I’ll take that as a reminder to myself that it’s still early enough that a huge night can shift season stats by 30 pts. Hopefully our guys can follow suit.

Another perfect inning for Adrian Hernandez (no hits, no walks, 2K). Totals in AAA: 9IP, 1H, 0ER, 3BB, 15K. Also didn’t realize he’s only 22? Damn.

The one thing batting average is good at is evaluating contact ability for minor leaguers. And it has been proven to have somewhat of a correlation to minor leaguers being able to hit major league pitching. Average in the minor leagues: Orelvis: .259 Teoscar: .269 Sano: .279 I know Orelvis is crushing the ball, but a .259 average is really not a good indicator for a top prospect, regardless of how much he’s hitting for power.

Orelvis always gave Miguel Sano vibes to me (offensively, not necessarily body wise). Sano also was on a 50-something homer pace as a 20-year-old in AA, but also demonstrated more of an ability to walk. I actually think Orelvis may have more potential power than Sano though, which is absurd to think about. Teoscar with a tick more power might be a good comp actually? With Orelvis, I haven't seen many prospects so effortlessly crush fastballs before. I've been watching his PA's even during his hot streak in May, and he still whiffs pretty badly on good breaking stuff. His ugly stretches are going to be ugly.

Crazy slider by Nick Fraze, who struck out 9 today.

Orelvis Martinez is on a 58 home run pace at AA. 1.061 OPS in May so far with a 22% K-rate. Looks like he’s adjusted well.

Semien had a terrible April (.443 OPS), but he's actually been worse in May (.400 OPS). Jesus christ. Sucks to see a good guy struggle so much.

I may have vastly under estimated the Yankees. They’re on a 120 win pace. Even against an easy schedule, that’s insane.

Kelenic is approaching 500 PA and has a 67 OPS+, and his k-rate is actually up from last season. He’s very likely not going to be a superstar like he was supposed to, but at this point he’s unplayable.

Hard-Hit%: 40% (up from 22.8% in 2021) Barrel%: 6.7% (up from 1.6% in 2021) wOBA - xwOBA: -0.23, so he's actually underperforming his expected stats OAA: 97th percentile (!) He's also the 4th best 2B in the MLB by fWAR (1st in the AL). Hell of a breakout season for him to be having.

Groshans continues to stay hot at the plate. 2-for-4 (both singles) with no K tonight. He now has a .932 OPS in AAA in 6 games with more walks (3) than K (2). Short sample obviously, and the power isn’t there yet, but really encouraging. What was really impressive was how he battled in a long, extended AB against highly touted Rays prospect Tommy Romero (see attached pic). Hope he can keep it up. It would be something if Groshans ends up making an appearance in the majors before Moreno like we all expected.

Phillies were up 7-1 heading into the 9th inning against the Mets at which point they had a 99.8% win probability. They gave up a 7 spot and ended up losing 8-7. That franchise is such a dumpster fire. First they botch their rebuild. Then they say f*** it and try to compete by buying players. Then they let go of Gabe Kapler who ends up leading the Giants to 107 wins. And finally, they hire Dave Dombrowski as GM, who cannot put together a bullpen to save his life (plus doesn’t really give a s*** about defense). The Mets on the other hand, are looking incredibly legit.

Would love it if the Yankees really spent their entire bonus pool to get Kevin Maitan 2.0.

Notes by Logenhagen on Ricky Tiedemenn, Irv Carter, Eric Pardinho, Manuel Beltre, & Nick Frasso. Link: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/in-person-scouting-notes-headlined-by-blue-jays-lefty-ricky-tiedemann/