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OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: Congrats to the Houston Cheaters on their win

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DJ Spinoza said:
Burrows looks terrific tonight for Altoona, but I'd kill for a quality, consistent CF camera in these MiLB games. Bradenton basically laps the upper minors, though Indy and other AAA streams I've watched are usually good. Maybe because Bradenton is in the team's ST facility.

In any case, Burrows is someone to be excited about.
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Yep, Burrow and my man Jared Jones are the 2 most intriguing arms we have now. Jones has Contreras level fastball/curve combo but lacks a 3rd out pitch and the refinement. Obviously much younger, so you hope he follows the same developmental plane.

I'm fully expecting Priester to be at, best, a back end starter. Hoping for a Musgrove, but honestly would settle for a 4/5 at this point.
 
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Hayes, locked in. Goes opposite field easy, for a double. Kid's playing with a lot of confidence, on the field and at the plate.
 
At this point, I'm just hoping Keller is a guy who can eat innings and not completely sink their chances of winning in a game. All of the stuff improvement he showed in the pre-season is completely gone at this point, and his control is non-existent.

If he can become a pitcher who averages like 3 runs against and 5 innings per start, I'd consider that a win.
 
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I agree, Scott has been intriguing so far for Altoona. Just put a nice swing on a ball for an opposite field single. He seems like a slightly more advanced version of what we have with Head and Siani, or a slightly less advanced version of Mitchell -- a guy who has all-around tools and no obvious standout, which means that he could pop into something really great (a la Reynolds) or end up as a 4th OF type or up and down guy (I like Mitchell, but I think that's where he's settled for now).

Not a bad idea to collect those types of players as at worst some depth options and at best catching lightning in a bottle.
 
ImporterExporter said:
Connor Scott (13th overall pick in 2018 by Miami) is absolutely raking at AA, in CF, at 22 years old. He was one of the 2 lottery tickets we got for Stallings.

Not a bad way to begin the biggest jump (A+ to AA) for a guy who clearly has some talent in there.
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Nicolas probably ends up a reliever in the long run, but I think people are sleeping on Scott. He was a high 1st round pick for a reason and clearly has an intriguing skillset.

Fangraphs is down on his hitting tool, but he hit .315 with an OPS of .900 in August and September of last year, and is absolutely torching it in AA this year.
 
Much more of a mixed bag out of Keller tonight. He had some bad BABIP luck, but it was reminiscent of earlier versions of him where he was too hittable. Optimistically, I think the most I can say is that it seems like the game plan has been evolving so that he doesn't really rely on the fastball as much -- it plays a lot better when he uses it as a surprise pitch almost, or at least not the go-to pitch like it is for so many pitchers.

It didn't seem like the curve was really involved tonight, but he leaned heavily on the change and had some good ones. He was at his best when he was locating the slider in some big moments.

Overall I am much more with everybody else than what I suggested earlier, but still willing to have some patience given the other options. It's shaping up where he has 4 pitches he can use in most situations, but I'm not sure 1) whether he has dialed in how to deploy them and 2) whether that's sustainable since it quickly can come apart if everything isn't working. It's still a more intriguing overall package for me than we've seen in previous years, and I'm not willing to just junk the progress I've seen in 2022, but it's not there for sure.
 
Hayes is just fun to watch at 3rd.

Everything he does is with such a low heart rate. He is very relaxed out there. And the result is that he never rushes or hurries, and always looks so smooth out there.
 
Really would have been nice to either prevent that 5th run or get some instant offense in that last inning. 5-2 isn't insurmountable, but bloop and a blast seems much more possible vs. a bullpen we worked a bit last night.

Fedde was getting a ton of calls all night while Keller seemed to get squeezed a few times. Not sure either of them pitched well enough to earn the benefit of the doubt.
 
Let's also not sleep on Omar Cruz. He, after all, throws the baseball with his left arm which helps.
 
Some interesting items in MLB this week.

Kershaw gets pulled after 7, while in the midst of a perfect game. Kershaw agreed with the decision. Lack of enough reps in spring training.

Angels walk Cory Seager intentionally with the bases loaded. Only 3rd time that has happened in MLB history.

Vlad Guerrero Jr. with 3 dingers in the same game.
 
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Mason Martin and Cal Mitchell are the real studs down at Indy so far. Check out their numbers.

Minor league pitching has largely been atrocious though Burrows and Jones have pitched very well early.
 
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I'm looking forward to checking out Nicolas tomorrow for Altoona. Scott with his first HR tonight, and then later was beaned, which led to a pretty insane benches clearing brawl after the Altoona pitcher threw at a guy's head the next inning.

Pirates so far have been really wild swings between high and low. Last night I was thinking that it's a biproduct of two pretty similar teams: some good players (understatement in Soto's case obviously), enough to win, but inexperience and lots of bad and mediocre players.

Good game top to bottom tonight though. Hopefully, Castillo has done enough to cement a starting role. I like Chavis in a kind of regular rotation with Vogelbach and/or Yoshi, where you have one on the bench to start the game for pinch hit matchups later on. Of the three, I think Yoshi is putting forth the most consistent ABs, but Chavis has looked good since the season started.
 
I'm enjoying some quality herb and I find it particularly humorous those people who are screaming repeatedly in the background. Just utter nonsense. Why are you that upset? Why did you need to drink so much? Questions that should be answered.
 
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