Minor League Game Thread – Weeks of June 13-19 and 20-26

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  • June 22, 2023 at 7:18 am #225284
    Brian Walton
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    June 22, 2023 at 7:29 pm #225309
    blingboy
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    Thompson is getting lit up again in the first two innings. How long do they keep this up?

    June 23, 2023 at 5:09 am #225317
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

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    What should they do? If he is giving up runs early, moving to relief wouldn’t help.

    June 23, 2023 at 6:06 am #225321
    Brian Walton
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    June 23, 2023 at 8:42 am #225322
    blingboy
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    What should they do? If he is giving up runs early, moving to relief wouldn’t help.

    It would help by opening up a rotation slot at AAA for somebody else. But if there isn’t a somebody else, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.

    June 23, 2023 at 1:57 pm #225333
    Bob Reed
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    Free

    Great to see Tink back on the beam, with those five shutout frames (and just 59 pitches). In June he now has a 1.40 ERA and has walked just 2 men in 19 innings.

    Here’s some Tink Trivia. Over the past two seasons (~90IP), he’s allowed batters just a .127 average with runners in scoring position (8-63) and an even more meager .115 with multiple men on base (3-26). Not too shabby, eh? And with the bases loaded, batters are hitless. Okay, that’s because he’s never loaded the bases.

    And he’s severing the running game this year. Last season base stealers were 10-for-15 when he took the mound. But this year they’re just 3-for-7, which is pretty amazing these days. (The Midwest League success rate this year is 77%.)

    —————————————————-

    Zack Thompson has a sub-2.00 career ERA as a major league reliever in a non-trivial sample size of around 40 innings. And the Redbird bullpen has been fairly awful this year, with Gallegos the only arm with a sub-4.00 ERA and at least 10 innings pitched (not counting the injured Helsley, of course). So it was half crazy to move Zack back to Memphis to try and be a starter again, just as it was half crazy to remove Ian Bedell from the Peoria bullpen where he was absolutely dominating this season.

    Outstanding relievers are getting more important every year, what with the paucity of starters who routinely go 6 or more innings. I understand the front office desperation for starting pitchers, since so many are exiting after this season. But highly successful relievers should be left where they are. Period.

    As for the specifics of the Z. Thompson situation, I think it’s fair to say that overall he’s a failed starter and extremely successful reliever, for his professional career. And I’m not sure it’s relevant, which innings he gets shelled during, as a starter.

    Starting and relieving are two different animals. You don’t have to pace yourself as a reliever. You don’t need more than two pitches, or one very good one. And the preparation — both between games and at the ballpark — is different from starting. Not to mention the more fundamental mental fact that Zack will have more confidence when he’s returned to a role at which he’s already enjoyed conspicuous sustained success at the MLB level. And despite what Ollie might believe, confidence & comfort play a significant role in major league performance.

    I don’t know if this back-to-starting nonsense has ruined Zack, but it quite clearly is not working at all. So the only reasonable course is a return to what HAS worked. Right?

    June 23, 2023 at 2:37 pm #225339
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

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    Something happened with Zack before he was sent down. He had gone all spring without allowing a run. He went eight more games in the regular season scoreless. Then in his final three outings, he seemed to fall apart, taking two losses. He walked five batters, more than he had all season to date, and allowed multiple runs in all three games.

    What that negative momentum, he was sent down and told to start. If he is like 99% of the pitchers, he would rather be in that role. He surely has not done well in this go-round at it though.

    I suspect there is more to his problems than starting vs. relieving.

    June 23, 2023 at 2:43 pm #225340
    Brian Walton
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    Tink has been great and I remain high on him. However, I worry about a starting pitcher who was drafted three years ago who cannot throw more than 60 pitches per start for fear of injury. Jordan Walker was in the same draft class as a high schooler and is in MLB, while Tink is still in A-ball. Also, numbers are always going to look better when a starter is pulled before he has to face a lineup for a third time and perhaps gets tired and into jams.

    June 23, 2023 at 3:31 pm #225341
    blingboy
    Participant

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    Bob Reed, Thanks for the great stuff about Thompson, but I’d like to see you try explaining all that to a computer.

    June 25, 2023 at 7:52 am #225438
    Brian Walton
    Keymaster

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    June 26, 2023 at 9:40 am #225588
    Brian Walton
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    June 27, 2023 at 9:27 am #225667
    Brian Walton
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