2025 Minor league game thread – Week 16– 7/21-27

Mathews clearly seems to be injured.

That may not be the case. Unless he wants his shoulder to go out again, he has to adopt altered mechanics which his shoulder can hopefully tolerate. He has to fine tune that and then figure out how to be effective pitching in a different way his shoulder will tolerate. That can take a while. What can happen, though, is if he cannot figure out how to be effective, he will revert to doing what got him where he is. Then it is just a matter of when the shoulder will go out again. Then he is back to square one again except he then has two bouts worth of accumulated damage. We will just have to wait and see.

Jnevel, looking forward to your first hand report.

6 balls in a row struck hard now off Rajcic. Two went over the wall. Rajcic used to be a prospect that I had fairly big hopes around that he would at least make our starting rotation some day. I’ve soured on him a bit. I’m still fairly certain he will get called up some day, but probably as a fill in guy. On the positive side, he’s always healthy and takes his turn every time it’s his day.

Bling, we went down to Beale St for BB King’s today. We typically do that or Huey’s which is just down from the stadium. I have seen the ducks at the Peabody as well. I used to go to Springfield, IL a bunch when the AAA team was there and I’ve been to Peoria as well plus seen the team at a few road venues.

Roycroft has thrown gas on the fire here in Memphis due to his lack of control. If we had been adding at the deadline, his 40-man spot would be in Jeopardy. It may still be.

Now Graceffo getting crushed in the 9th as he is doing his nonchalant act again. Not excited to be in this game I guess with his team now down 10-1.

Blling said:

I nice long stint in AAA, a full season at the least, is important. Opponents have a chance to discover and expose the holes and find ways to exploit them. Then there is the chance to fix the holes. Hopefully those wanting Wetherholt up right away will not get their wish and we can avoid another Walker fiasco. He is going to have to have good pitch recognition and swing discipline. he will have to be able to foul off pitches too good to take with two strikes. He will have to be able to make solid contact with pitches that are not right in his wheelhouse. The org can’t just watch him launch mistakes and forget about everything else. And decide where he will play and put him there for a good stretch before he gets here. Avoiding left side, right side swaps, back and forth wood be a good idea. I just about puked when they did that to Walker in the outfield.

Pads said

I completely agree.

Leaving Wetherholt in AAA for another year is just wasting him and not going to allow him to be challenged like he will need to be by then. Bling you point out a bunch of very good things a hitter needs to do to show they are ready for the show, and those are things Wetherholt is known for doing. Wetherholt is a very different player than Walker. Walker was very raw with high potential, but he did not have an advanced approach. Wetherholt has a very advanced approach. His plate discipline is great as he doesn’t swing out of the zone, and importantly he also swings at hittable pitches (cough Nootbaar). Wetherholt is the complete opposite of a “launch mistakes” guy and is a pure hitter who adjust to the pitch that is thrown and sprays line drives across the field.

I would fully expect Wetherholt to either be in the Opening Day lineup or be up by June. Many in the industry think he is basically ready now and could maybe be a September callup.