It’s Time for Loons Baseball
Boy, is it ever time! It has been 604 days since the Great Lakes Loons have taken the field for a good old game of hard ball. They kicked off the 2021 season with a game at home against the Dayton Dragons. It was the first game of a six-game series as each series in the Midwest League will be for six games during the 2021 season. The Loons roster
Boy, is it ever time! It has been 604 days since the Great Lakes Loons have taken the field for a good old game of hard ball.
They kicked off the 2021 season with a game at home against the Dayton Dragons. It was the first game of a six-game series as each series in the Midwest League will be for six games during the 2021 season.
The Loons roster has 31 players, 17 of whom are pitchers. Fourteen of the rostered players have previously played for the Loons, although at the low-A level. This will be an interesting season as with a year and some more off it must have been difficult to place players. It appears some have been assigned to the Loons because they are age appropriate but not experience appropriate for Class A+. The expanded roster from 25 players is partially due to Covid-19 concerns and also to accommodate more players with the reduction of minor league teams.
Five of the Loons on the current roster have had no minor league experience – Morgan Cooper, Braidyn Fink, Clayton Beeter, Bobby Miller and Carson Taylor. The last three are 2020 draft selections. Cooper – a 2017 second round selection – is now 26. Fink, 23, was a 2019 selection in the 19th round. Cooper might be the most interesting story in the Dodgers minor league system this year.
The roster features a pair of 22-year-old undrafted right-handed free agent pitchers. Mike Mokma went undrafted during the 2019 draft while Cole Percival suffered the same fate during the 2020 draft which was an abbreviated draft. Mokma stands 6’7” tall while Percival is 6’5” tall.
Catcher Ryan January, 23, was taken from the Arizona Diamondbacks during the 2020 Rule 5 minor league draft.
Left-hander Ryley Widell, 23, was signed by the Dodgers in early February two days after he was released by the Twins who had drafted him the the 7th round of the 2017 draft.
The youngest player on the team is 20-year-old outfielder Andy Pages. One of the more experienced is 21-year-old right-hander Melvin Jimenez who first pitched for the Dodgers during the 2016 season. He is one that AC has been waiting on.
One of my favorites is left-hander Austin Drury, 23, who was selected by the Dodgers in the 34th round of the 2018 First-Year Player Draft. Left-hander Jeff Belge is another favorite The 23-year-old left-hander was an 18th round selection in 2019. He is legally blind in his right eye having had it injured twice.
Former catcher Austin Chubb is the manager. He is 31 years old and in his 6th season as a manager/coach in the Dodgers minor league season.
Right-hander Bobby Miller started for the Loons. His first pitch was a fastball strike and his first batter faced struck out, as did the next two. His fastball was clocked at 97 mph. On the evening he pitched three innings giving up two hits, no runs, one walk and five strikeouts.
The left side of the infield was defended for the Loons by a pair of 21-year-olds. Third base was manned by Miguel Vargas and his partner at shortstop was Leonel Valera. Valera walked in the bottom of the first inning and stole the first base of the year for the Loons.
Justin Yurchak had a single in the bottom of the fifth inning which is the first hit by a Dodger minor league player this year.
Miguel Vargas hit a two-run home run in the seventh inning for the first Dodger minor league home run in the 2021 season. He edged out Ryan Noda who hit a solo home run for the Tulsa Drillers in the second inning of their game against Armarillo.
The aforementioned Mike Mokma pitched two scoreless innings after Jesus Vargas had given up three runs and Ryley Widell an additional run each pitching 1.1 innings.
Morgan Cooper made his professional debut in the bottom of the eighth inning inducing a ground out with two out. He didn’t fare as well in the ninth inning giving up a hit and two walks but did strike out two. He exited the game having made 23 pitches. Melvin Jimenez came on to try to get the third out but walked a run in and then gave up a grand slam.
Leonel Valera hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning.
The Loons fell 9-4 but baseball is back in Midland.
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Discussion (77)
Disagree, not disagreeable
I was thinking that maybe AF could call in that motivational speaker that the New York Knights had in ” The Natural”…Losing is a disease….ahh, but curable. I have seen them play worse. What I had not seen to this point was an entire team’s offense plating like baseball is a game foreign to them.
Some general Dodger info found on Internet:
MLB Scouts Identify 28 Prospects Turning Heads Entering 2021 Minor League Season
Open on www.baseballamerica.comhttps://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/mlb-scouts-identify-28-prospects-turning-heads-entering-2021-minor-league-season/Bobby Miller, Landon Knack, and Andy Pages featured here as 3 of the 28. Knack’s changeup “consistently showed plus and flashed at 70-grade” and Pages “can absolutely hammers fastballs.”
Kevin Goldstein Chat:
Scrapper: Fill in the blanks: 80 games of Kris Bryant gets the Cubs __ top __ prospects in a mid-season trade.
Kevin Goldstein: Probably one headliner and then another piece or two with some kind of attractive qualities. Bryant has looked outstanding this year.
Dallas Comegys: IF Jose Ramirez gets traded, can a Dodgers offer of Lux, Ruiz, plus prospects be realistically topped?
Kevin Goldstein: It can be.
Jonathan: Thoughts on Willie Calhoun rest of year?
Kevin Goldstein: I was just looking at him yesterday, and I’m encouraged.
Jay Jaffe Chat
Estevão: Mookie Betts is the fifth best hitter on the Dodgers? Thoughts
Avatar Jay Jaffe: Betts has been a bit banged up; he missed a couple days due to lower back stiffness and then got drilled on the right forearm. I don’t think there’s much to worry about here; his 121 wRC+ is still solid, and the Dodgers do have a bunch of good hitters, though their recent slide suggests they’re missing Cody Bellinger more than before, and their depth has taken a few other hits.
Estevão: I’m not concerned about Betts I simply believe the order os Seager, Bellinger, Turner, Muncy, Betts, Smith
Jay Jaffe: Don’t forget Chris Taylor, whose 138 wRC+ since the start of last year is only three points below Betts in that span.
Raphie C: The Padres are going through it with elbow injuries in a seemingly unprecedented way. How much of this can be tied to the new ways of high velo baseball vs. Larry Rothschild vs. plain dumb luck?
Jay Jaffe: I’m sure that there’s no way you’re going to get any kind of without-a-doubt link between the new ball and a cluster of injuries on one team, and it probably has less to do with one pitching coach than it does with some combination of dumb luck and the training staff.
That said, the Padres really have had a cluster. 11 pitchers in the organization have undergone Tommy John surgery since last March, and Dinelson Lamet had a UCL sprain. The handling of Lamet and Mike Clevinger has raised some eyebrows as they seem to be convinced they can send these guys back out there sooner rather than later.
Old friend Kenta Maeda making mistakes:
Open on blogs.fangraphs.comhttps://blogs.fangraphs.com/kenta-maeda-has-made-a-lot-of-mistakes/Forest Stulting on Pepiot, Kendall Williams and Michael Busch amongst others
Open on www.baseballprospectus.comhttps://www.baseballprospectus.com/prospects/article/66403/monday-morning-ten-pack-updates-from-minor-league-spring-training/Teaser: He loves Pepiot’s change!
Dodgers odds to win it all have fallen by 40 cents (more or less, kinda.)
From 3:1 to 3.4:1
Open on www.betonline.aghttps://www.betonline.ag/Last update had an article on the Padres, shifting. Here’s one on the Dodgers:
Open on blogs.fangraphs.comhttps://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-dodgers-might-have-a-shifting-strategy-of-their-own/Dustin Nosler, underrated IMHO, has capped off his prospect list for the Dodgers with Jo gray:
Open on dodgersdigest.comhttp://dodgersdigest.com/2021/05/03/2021-dodgers-top-50-prospects-no-1-rhp-josiah-gray/Another thing that makes Dodger Stadium unique, it’s batters’ boxes.
Open on uni-watch.comhttps://uni-watch.com/2021/05/05/chalk-talk-the-unique-batters-boxes-of-dodger-stadium/The great Ken Rosenthal on injuries being “up” this season:
Open on theathletic.comhttps://theathletic.com/2567674/2021/05/05/rosenthal-mlb-injuries-are-up-again-in-2021-and-the-sport-is-nowhere-near-solving-the-problem/At Rancho Park, Gavin Stone sat 90-92 at Central Arkansas last year. The Dodgers fifth-rounder sat 94-96 for three innings tonight. Pounded the strike zone, lots of swings and misses on his fastball. 3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 6 K. Rancho Park also saw Brandon Lewis getting a bit of run at 3B.
At Great Lakes, the reports that Leonel Valera has bulked up a bit this offseason seems to be true with a nice oppo homer. 2017 2nd round pick Morgan Cooper started. He was a little wild, but got his first two pro strikeouts, both looking, both on secondary stuff. Showed a fastball, curveball, and changeup.
And finally, I’m reposting a nice little twitter rant about the Astros from Jarrett Seidler
The righteous indignation everyone involved with the late-teens Astros has—and I mean everyone, from ownership to the front office to the players to the fans—when they got caught in the largest cheating scandal in a century is one of the most genuinely bizarre things I’ve seen…
You are not a victim whose name got unfairly tainted; at best you benefitted as a bystander, and also like seriously people were calling out Luhnow et al. for incredibly shitty behavior from almost day 1. It ain’t like the cheating was the first clue that things were fucked there.
This has now extended to significant chunks of the media, and not even just the local media. I do not get it at all! They did a lot of bad shit, got caught at a fraction of it, and basically everyone involved except Carlos Beltrán got an incredibly soft landing.
And yeah, the Yankees and the league office and all don’t have totally clean hands either. MLB has a lot of bad actors. But that doesn’t absolve the Astros of blatantly cheating their way to a World Series or harassing reporters over Osuna or trading for Osuna to begin with, etc
I am as furious at Roberts’ decisions as the rest of you.
I am as furious at the lack of defense as the rest of you.
I am as furious at the lack of offense as the rest of you.
I seem to remember I was really upset in 2017 when we were playing lousy baseball and started with the same 17-14 record as we have today.
We won 70 of the next 90 games and finished the season with 104 wins.
They should call up Michael Bush, after I read this I thought he’d fit right in…
Michael Busch had a rough Double-A debut, going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts at the plate, then missed a catch for an error in the seventh inning, allowing the winning run to score.
It’s hard to get going after blowing the double header in standard fashion yesterday. That is going into extras, burning pitchers and ultimately losing the game by one run.
The bullpen keeps looking sharp until it gets into those close and late situations. We were all hoping Mitch White would shut them down yesterday, but he tested positive for whatever is going around in the Dodger’s bullpen. Whatever it is, the symptoms seem to get worse as the game progresses into the ninth and into extras.
Doc is not a good manager. It doesn’t seem like he’s good at anything except having a positive attitude all the time. Maybe he should tear up the locker room and cuss everyone out. Tommy would do just that, then throw them a bunch a crappy curveballs to embarrass them further in front of a crowd during on field batting practice.
When the entire team is not playing anywhere near their potential, who does that fall on? It really looks like they’re taking their struggles at the plate into the field.
Then there’s the questionable lineup decisions. After 8 RBI, Beaty can’t get a start in a freaking double header? Are you kidding me? Beaty and Pollock should have been moved into the 4 and 5 hole after that game. Keep riding the hot hand. If Muncy has to sit out a few games, so be it. Put him back in after Beaty draws an 0-fer.
Everyone wants to complain about the bullpen, but when you’re team constantly keeps you in tight games, you’re bound to have that extra pressure lead to discouraging results. The hitters have to do better and it starts with riding the hot hand.
Let Smith and Ruiz split the catching duties down the middle except when Kersh demands his personal catcher (not much help yesterday). Let Barnes pinch hit, play a little second base if Lux struggles early in the game. You have to let Lux start on defense since he’s the only one of the infield with any range at all. Sit Seager for a game the day after he misses a ball by an inch while failing to leave his feet. Taylor, Pollock, Turner and Betts shouldn’t be getting rest until they have a bad showing at the plate. Don’t sit them after a multi-hit game because it was previously scheduled.
The whole team is sucking right now and the disease has spread to the starting rotation with poor showings by both starting pitchers yesterday. Did the bullpen game have anything to do with this? I’m wondering if their goal of getting to 85% vaccinated is getting in the way of their goal to repeat. I sure hope this is vaccine side effects and not that everyone sucks all of the sudden. Except Doc, he’s always sucked but the talent on the team has disguised that fact to most.
The Dodgers are a mess and it is a combination of injuries, World Series Letdown, Fat Catism, Focus on Social Justice Instead of Baseball, and Purely Bad Baseball Luck.
It will pass. the core is too good, but if the malaise continues another month, Doc better get his resume polished.
How come I’ve never heard of Gavin Stone?
Pages last night came across as one who loves to swing the bat. In his first three AB’s he saw seven pitches and swung at every one. He did draw a walk later and struck out once in five plate appearances.
Miller pitched well but as expected he didn’t seem in total sync early in the season yet was VG. He comes across as one of those expressionless pitchers. Maybe that was just his first pro experience expression and maybe he is just all business.
The Dodgers are a mess. Andrew Friedman is no doubt losing sleep. How do you fix it? Honestly don’t know. Maybe the Dodgers fix themselves. Maybe not. Long season.
Yah, going to watch some minor league games might be nice, but Lancaster is no more, so no games for me. Thanks Rob Manfred. I’ll check out the box scores. I still have tickets for games at Dodger Stadium, suppose to get back our regular seats beginning in June. But not sure how this all works. Word drifts out slowly, communication has been somewhat difficult.
Maybe Dylan Hernandez is right. The Dodgers have some serious flaws and won’t be an easy fix.
Maybe it’s the Farmer John curse.
Happy to read this DC. I knew it would be hard to retire when the Minor Leagues started up. 😉
Two players on a fast track for the Loons are Pages and Miller. I would no be surprised to see either or both at AAA before years’ end!
Morgan Cooper is s fascinating story. I probably won’t attend an MLB game this year, but I will be at some games in Ft. Wayne from June 29th through July 4th. This should be a fun team to watch.
There is certainly nothing of interest to talk about with the big club right about now.