Curious events in Cincinnati lead the way this week, as it probably hasn’t since Jerry Springer was running that town. Director of Pitching Initiatives / Pitching Coordinator Kyle Boddy has stepped away from the club this week, citing creative differences with the front office while heaping praise on major league pitching coach Derek Johnson.
Click here for the full press release.
The timing is odd, given the Reds success on the farm this season and proximity to a post-season on the big league side, but I suppose there’s never an ideal time for a break-up. Cut to early-20’s me navigating the transition from summer love to school-year fade to long-term relationship fizzle to finding some fickle reason to finally call it quits. I used to really hate endings. Now I’m old as hell and appreciate any kind of pause in the monotony.
Anywho, Boddy straight up supplexed my excitement about the ongoing experiment there in Red-ville but not before we got some interesting returns, such as Hunter Greene hitting his groove and throwing 102 all year, or Graham Ashcraft stringing together several dominant runs to put himself on the map.
Derek Johnson remains an excellent asset on the MLB side, and perhaps he’ll have more agency to build throughout the system now (though that’s not how it sounds from Boddy’s statement), but I’m expecting fewer pop-up arms down the ladder, fewer bullpen options bubbling up from within.
It was hard to put a finger on the Boddy effect when he was working with players exclusively over the off-season. Tonight I’ve been considering the possibility that the best place for that kind of close mechanical focus on velocity and pitch shaping is off-season. Like, perhaps it’s too academic an approach and too taxing on the arm to work that way throughout the year, anyway, but I wanted to see what happened across a decade or so. Driveline was still and will still be working with anyone seeking their services, so it’s not like this book is closed forever. I was just really into this particular chapter and don’t love that it’s ending.
The other big news of the week came late Saturday. Tampa Bay RHP Shane Baz is reportedly coming up to start on Monday, just in time for the playoffs. Some serious four-dimensional chess getting him to the majors with just 78 innings on his ledger, coming off a six-inning outing. Well worth a look to see if he’s available in your redraft leagues.
Cleveland 1B Jhonkensy Noel will be 20-years-old until July 2022, and he’s playing well enough to graduate High-A this winter: .297/.373/.593 with 8 HR and 3 SB in 24 games. If Cleveland pushes him to AA next Spring, and I’m guessing that happens, Noel is on a path to make AAA before his 21st birthday. Rare air there.
Speaking of 20-year-olds knocking on the door, Tampa Bay 3B Curtis Mead chugged right over AA this week after slashing .282/.346/.455 across 52 games in High-A. My only guess is they want him on the postseason roster for Durham. He’s been up to the task in the four games he’s played, collecting six hits in 14 plate appearances and slugging a home run for good measure.
Colorado SS Ryan Vilade made his debut as the new Daywalker in Coors. He’s 0-for-2 with a walk as I type this. He hasn’t played all that well at AAA (88 wRC+), but he skipped AA entirely, and he’s still just 22 years old. I’m not a big believer, but he’s a baseball player in Coors, so fantasy value is always just around the corner.
Atlanta SS Vaughn Grissom is leveling up in more than one sense. He was promoted to High-A a couple weeks ago, and the 20-year-old has been unstoppable there, slashing .378/.519/.595 across 12 games, walking (21.2%) more than twice as often as he’s striking out (9.6%). He carried strong rates in 75 games at A ball as well: 10.4 BB%, 14.9 K%. Grissom is 6’3” with plus speed and present power could grow into a top 50 prospect very soon.
Arizona RHP Luis Frias hasn’t been efficient this season. He’ll need to add some command if he’ll ever have a chance to start, but he’ll certainly grab some eyeballs if he gets on the mound much down the stretch. One of those guys anyone can see and say “Hey that guy’s throwing hard.” I’m surprised they’re promoting him. His walk rate was atrocious (6.65/9) in five starts (21.2 innings) at AAA.
San Francisco RHP Camilo Doval looks better this time around, having struggled to find his command in AAA before getting locked in and returning to the big league roster in September to throw six scoreless outings covering 5.2 innings, grabbing a couple wins in the process. Grey was just discussing this in the pages of Jomo Arigato: “If you need Wins, it’s a good time to start looking at who might be entering the game in the 4th inning of all games. Yes, this is the time of the year when Aaron Ashby can be more valuable than a guy who will garner Cy Young votes.”
Sharp guy, that Grey, which is one reason he’s a usual suspect in non-lethal stabbings all over the west coast.
Anyone on the Giants can pilfer a win at any moment. It’s remarkable, really, and many of their pensmen are rostered as a result. Doval is probably not, and his stuff is lethal.
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