2025 Minor league game thread – Week 9 – 6/2-8

Pugs, really curious how you chose Yaxson Lucena to expect a breakout from? There is hardly any info on the young man and he didn’t perform well last year.

Read an article on him a few weeks ago, Albert. Still trying to find it. I’m expecting big things from him this year and especially next season when he really settles in.

Oops wrong thread

Forgive my piggybacking on your comment, Albert.

Leonardo Bernal since the 8th of May is batting .356/.415/.699 (7 homers) with 8 walks and just 8 strikeouts across 82 trips to the plate. Needless to say, that combo of imposing power and elite contact is exceedingly rare in a hitter young for his league, even over a relatively short stretch of games. I don’t know if it’s any rarer to be achieved by a switch-hitter, but it’s certainly nice that Leo bats from both sides. Anybody for a fat Ted Simmons?

If the goal is to win the game, putting Pages at 2B that game was downright criminal. Even though they had no 2B options, Siani was on the bench and he’s at least athletic. Pages was never going to get to a ball more than 1 step to his left or right, let alone cover a base in the event of a double play. However, if the goal of baseball is to be entertaining, the whole idea of having Pages play 2B was whimsically comical and certainly entertaining. I’ll always remember the game where Kyle Lohse got to play LF, the game when Oquendo caught, the games where Forsch got subbed out temporarily as a pitcher and went into the outfield for a few lefty hitters, the game Pujols pitched, the game Yadi pitched, and that one time that Pedro Pages played an errorless game at second base.

I imagine Roby is looking at a promotion to AAA by the end of the month. He has been pitching great. I’m curious what they do with him innings limit wise as he threw 104 innings in 2022, but then due to injuries only threw 58 innings in 2023 and 38 innings in 2024. He is at 47 already on the year. I wonder if they let him get to 110-120ish which would get him close to a 150 IP growth next year. That is a big jump from the prior 2 years, but maybe counterintuitively having him pitch more and regularly all year can help him stay healthy and build up strength.

I’m wondering if they will leave Roby in AA till the first half is over. Springfield has a two game lead in that league and winning a playoff spot, having a place for some folks to experience postseason baseball would be good. Plus building a culture experienced with winning.

I’m unsure when the 2nd half starts. In AAA, the first half ends June 22. I’d think it would be the same for Texas League, but I’m not sure.

Petrutz is interesting. From his numbers last year, here is how a robo scout would rate him in terms of offense.

Raw Power – 50
Game Power – 40 or 35
Plate Discipline – 60
Bat Control – 55

Where Petrutz is horrible is the launch angle. He was simply a ground ball machine and that limits him from even hitting that many doubles. He is showing some improvement at least in terms of fly ball rates this year, but since he is at A+ and minors statcast data isn’t available there, I can’t say what the LA has been so far. Petrutz GB/FB rate was 2.63 last year (horrible) and 1.45 this year which isn’t bad. He likely has made some improvements to at least give himself a chance to be more than a slap hitter as he does have good raw power.

He has been doing well though and is creeping up my list. Not super high, but if he can get to 20 HR power (his raw power) then he is viable for a corner OF spot.