Hoglund has been fantastic this season but is shut down for the time being
Record: 65-67, 28-29 2nd half, 4th in PCL West (5 GB)
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It was an unusually quiet week for transactions in Triple-A, but there were two big ones with Will Klein landing on the injured list and Gunnar Hoglund on the development list. For Hoglund it is no surprise to see the Athletics deciding to give him a rest, as he has already more than doubled his inning total from 2023. Hoglund’s velocity has been a bit inconsistent and dipped over the past couple of games and it seems like his secondaries haven’t quiet been as pinpoint in their location leading to him getting hit harder lately. Overall though if this is the last he pitches this season it has been hugely successful as his raw stuff has taken a step forward, his command has come back into form, and he looks like a player who could challenge for a big league rotation spot out of spring training next season.
Offensively it wasn’t a prospect who led the way for the Aviators, but veteran Carlos Perez. Perez had a three home run game on Sunday, though the Aviators ultimately lost as the bullpen duo of Wander Guante and Dany Jimenez allowed seven runs including a walk-off home run in the ninth inning of an 11-9 loss. Perez has five home runs in his past five games including a grand slam on Tuesday in a game that the bullpen held on to win after six brilliant scoreless innings from Brandon Bielak.
There weren’t any overwhelming standouts among the actual prospects, though if you still consider Logan Davidson a significant one he did have a fantastic week. Davidson has been somewhat cutting back on his swing and miss in the past few weeks and went deep twice against the Rivercats. Davidson has overall hit the ball fairly hard this season, but his issue arises from his swing not being geared to hit fly balls particularly hard. He has below average exit velocities on fly balls, and as a result despite solid base level exit velocities and hard hit rates he doesn’t tap into his raw power often enough to make up for the lack of walks and high strikeout rates. An even more extreme example of this is Cooper Bowman, who has not hit the ball hard in the air at all in Triple-A and has also been striking out a ton lately. Bowman needed to be pushed to Triple-A for a challenge, but has a lot of work left to do to prove he can hit at this level.
There unfortunately hasn’t been much adjusting for Colby Thomas lately, who is still chasing a ton and still swinging and missing a ton. Where earlier in his tenure in Triple-A he made up for it with home runs, lately a lot of his batted balls have flattened out and he hasn’t had the same extra base impact. However there have been good signs as overall he is hitting the ball much harder when he does make contact, and I have no questions about his swing being geared to hit home runs. If he continues to hit the ball as hard as he has lately I have no doubt he is going to go on a huge home run tear in the near future, where suddenly those high strikeout rates won’t be too oppressing. Darell Hernaiz has been great since his demotion but is pretty much the same player he was to start the season. He unfortunately lost a lot of development time and ground in the race to get a starting job in Oakland’s infield, though I’m not at all concerned he won’t turn things around. He’s been making a ton of contact and relatively hard contact, though like Bowman and Davidson just isn’t hitting the ball hard in the air. Hernaiz’s steep swing path is often times still descending as it enters the contact zone and he may benefit from lowering his hands a bit to help him move towards a more neutral swing.
Record: 75-51, 35-22 2nd half, 1st TL South (+2.5 G)
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With two series left in the season the Rockhounds are staying hot, riding now a 2.5 game lead in the Texas League South Division. Given that 2nd-place Frisco was the first half winner the Rockhounds have a 9.5 game advantage over Amarillo in the playoff race with a chance to close out a playoff berth this week. It seems Midland has someone stepping up on offense every week, and this time around it was a big week from Brayan Buelvas. Buelvas has struggled significantly since his promotion to Double-A, as his approach hasn’t been treated particularly well. Still he has been making contact at a better rate than his strikeout rates have suggested — though too often weak and on the ground — and it came together for him last week as he had at least one hit in each of his games against the Missions and totaled three extra base hits in the series. Buelvas is still overly aggressive at the plate, especially out of the zone, but if the power starts to come around at Double-A like it did in Lansing he could find himself putting up impressive numbers.
Henry Bolte has turned it around lately as well, cutting down on those games where he would strike out three or more times and overall his strikeout numbers have come back to earth after a concerning stretch in July and early Augusta. Bolte always hits the ball hard when he makes contact and makes solid swing decisions, though the increased quality of the stuff in Double-A has taken a toll on him a bit. Bolte has frequently been a bit slow to adjust, but as he’s hit the ball harder in recent weeks and started to lift the ball better I’m hopeful a similar turnaround as the one in High-A will follow.
Denzel Clarke spent much of the middle parts of the season on a tear at the plate, showing off his double plus raw power through June and early July, but that came to a screeching halt as his July 9th home run was the last time he went deep for over a month. Finally on Thursday last week, 36 games since his previous home run, he got a pitch right in his wheelhouse and crushed it deep into the trees in San Antonio for a two-run home run. Clarke’s work to shorten some aspects of his swing to try to close/limit holes in the zone along with his improved patience on breaking pitches have paid off with reduced strikeout rates, and now he is finding the barrel more often. If he can put all of those traits together he’ll play himself out of Double-A and should start out 2025 in Triple-A.
The pitching duo of Jack Perkins and Mason Barnett both had strong outings last week, though for the latter one big mistake ruined what was otherwise prepped to be his signature game from the season. Barnett mostly dominated the game, striking out nine batters and walking only one, and through 4 1⁄3 innings was in complete control of the game. He then hit a short rough patch with his fastball command where he left a couple over the plate that led to a double and a dangerous fly out to the wall in center field before walking a batter. He then hung a slider over the middle of the plate, allowing a three-run home run that ruined an otherwise sparkling night. Barnett adjusted to get back into the feel of things and pitched 2 2⁄3 more innings, though the Missions had a bit more success getting hard contact off of Barnett later in the game. Perkins had a bit of an off game in comparison to his recent work, striking out six and walking three over seven innings, but he got a bit lucky as the Missions home park held in all of the fly balls he allowed and he was able to cover seven innings of one-run ball. Ryan Cusick hit a rough patch for the Rockhounds over a series of three games, but has otherwise been excellent since the July 20th move to the bullpen. Cusick allowed six walks across two appearances in Wichita, but in the other 13 games has walked only five over 18 innings while striking out 18 batters. Cusick doesn’t have quite the overpowering stuff he did when he was drafted, but if he can stay healthy in the bullpen hopefully he can reclaim more of the velocity as he has over the past year.
Record: 58-68, 26-35 2nd half, 5th in MWL East, (13 GB)
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Luke Mann has struggled after being promoted to High-A, as his swing-and-miss has skyrocketed and he hasn’t made good enough contact to make up for it. Last week though he had a home run in two straight games and lately started to hit the ball much more consistently. Mann’s two home runs last week brings him up to 16 on the season, a good number for a guy who is likely able to stick on the infield, though given his age and swing-and-miss issues the results have supported the evaluation that he’s probably a utility guy in a best-case scenario.
Reducing strikeouts is a theme that others on the team have shared in, notably Ryan Lasko who has seemed like a reborn player since his promotion to Lansing. Lasko has been excellent, and after last week cut his strikeout rate at the level to 20% while still drawing walks. Lasko hasn’t been tapping into the power all too often yet, but on Thursday impressed when he turned on an inside pitch and lined it over the wall in left field for his second in Lansing. Lasko’s sudden ability to make contact reignites confidence in his ceiling as a starting outfielder, and if he can start to tap into his raw tools more effectively he could quickly rise back up prospect rankings next season. Joshua Kuroda-Grauer had a rough first week in Lansing, as his batted balls didn’t find space often enough and a .167 BABIP over the week hurt him. Kuroda-Grauer favors making contact over getting hard contact a bit too often, tending to swing down on pitches, but he makes contact through all parts of the zone and should continue to hit up into the upper levels. I would like to see Kuroda-Grauer sit back looking for pitches in the fat part of the plate to turn on and hit hard. He tends to dive a bit down into the zone leading to that swing plane and a ton of ground balls. but has enough bat speed and strength for it to seem like he can have enough power to actually have impact in that regard. He makes so much contact that he can afford to wait out counts more often and trust that he has the contact ability to still maintain low strikeout rates deep in counts.
Will Johnston had an outstanding start last week, striking out eight batters over five scoreless innings for Lansing. He then started out this week with six innings of one run ball and overall he’s quietly been fantastic for the past couple of months. Johnston has made nine appearances since the start of July, posting a 2.44 FIP and 33.5% strikeout rate through that period. Johnston pitchability and experience is somewhat part of his ability to take advantage of low level hitters, but is giving more confidence that he can stick as a back end starter as he shows command improvements throughout the year. His lack of a go-to swing-and-miss secondary will catch up to him somewhat in Double-A, but his deceptive fastball and curveball is good enough to make him trouble for left handed hitters in particular, and if the changeup can even jump a half grade that would give him a three-pitch mix capable of sticking in a rotation. The difficulty hitters have picking up his release helps his changeup play up more than its raw grades, though I do thing he may need to fiddle with the grip to get more movement.
Record: 45-80, 19-42 2nd half, 4th in CAL North, 15 GB
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Just a couple of weeks before the end of the Single-A season the Ports lost their top pitching prospect, with Steven Echavarria’s season cut short as he hit the injured list on August 31st. It could be considered a disappointing season overall for Echavarria, who started the season injured as well, finished with an ERA over six, and never pitched more than four innings in a game but Echavarria still made notable progress throughout the season. Echavarria’s raw stuff took a step forward and he began to command the ball better heading through July and into early August before hitting a wall towards the end of the season and struggling. It certainly wasn’t an outstanding year by any stretch, but for a player who just turned 19 to start August and was known to be a bit of a project he looks to be on a good track as long as he can stay healthy and get more experience in the future.
As for the other big name teenager on the team the progress for Myles Naylor has been a bit less straightforward as he still hasn’t seemed to find his way at the plate and stayed fairly steady with his strikeout rates and walk rates throughout the season. Naylor clubbed a grand slam on Friday, his 11th home run of the season and one that gave him two in each of the last four months this season. While Naylor’s swing path and natural contact have continued to cause him troubles and project to limit his contact throughout his career, it still feels like Naylor has made good progress in developing his swing to help improve his plate coverage and further tap into his plus all-fields power. He has simplified much of the pre-swing movement to allow him to get to the point of contact more quickly, and while the numbers haven’t yet reflected his improvement it feels like it’s only a matter of time before he will find a rhythm at the plate though obviously it’s a bit late in the year for that to be realistic in 2024.
The two major draftees still on the roster have had some mixed results, but Rodney Green has quickly adjusted to pro ball and cut down on the swing-and-miss that caused him trouble in the first couple of series of his career. Green is currently on a nine-game hitting streak during which he is striking out just a bit over 20% of the time while cranking out seven doubles. It’s no surprise to see Green doing well so quickly, as his collegiate experience combined with his raw athletic traits and bat speed should have no issues overcoming his swing and contact deficiencies at this level of the sport. Tommy White has been a bit more surprising for his overall struggled though he has been much better of late and just saw an eight game hitting streak snapped last night. White has had surprisingly significant issues with swing-and-miss, running a high swinging strike rate and not really making solid contact often enough so far. White has had a couple of home runs to boost his numbers and of course a long season combined with the layoff from competitive play following his college season have likely had an impact on his play, but I still wouldn’t have expected him to struggle in Single-A at all. In any case it’s a small sample and draft-season results are often misleading so there is no real reason for worry regarding White.
