Odds and Ends – MiLB
Just a few notes today. Following some of the amazing posts in the past few days, I indeed feel somewhat like a little leaguer as my writing is solely focused on the minor leagues and naturally cannot lead to much discussion. However, little league provided me with some of my best long-term memories, way back in the early fifties. Minor league ball keeps me somewhat in touch with those memories
Just a few notes today. Following some of the amazing posts in the past few days, I indeed feel somewhat like a little leaguer as my writing is solely focused on the minor leagues and naturally cannot lead to much discussion. However, little league provided me with some of my best long-term memories, way back in the early fifties.
Minor league ball keeps me somewhat in touch with those memories where the game is still a game and not a business.
Landon Knack – MiLB Pitcher of the Month High-A Central
With the Loons, the 24-year-old right-hander went 3-0 in July with a 1.54 ERA in five appearances (four starts). He allowed 14 hits and one walk while striking out 37 in 23.1 innings and was promoted to Double-A Tulsa on July 31. Knack, 24, was selected by the Dodgers in the second round of the 2020 MLB Draft out of East Tennessee State University.
On Thursday Knack made his debut with the AA Tulsa Drillers. He didn’t miss a beat as he did not allow a hit until Ivan Herrera’s two-out single in the fourth. Except for an error his first three innings would have been perfect. He allowed but one hit, walked only one, and struck out six. Of his 72 pitches, 49 were strikes, some of which registered 100 mph on the radar gun at Hammons Field in Springfield.
Gavin Stone – MiLB Pitcher of the Week (July 26 – August 1)
Stone earned Pitcher of the Week honors in the Low-A West Division of MiLB on July 31 with a dominating appearance against the Modesta Nuts in which he threw six scoreless innings allowing only a hit and a walk. He struck out nine.
Stone was the Dodgers fifth-round selection in the 2020 First-Year Player Draft out of Central Arkansas University. The 22-year-old right-hander has a 3.79 ERA on the season over 59.1 innings pitched. He has struck out 81 and walked 20.
Three More UFO’s
Since my last post, the Dodgers have signed three more UFO’s bringing their total to 10. The new signees are left-hander Francisco Mateo out of the College of Central Florida and right-hander Garrett McDaniels out of Mount Olive University. The third UFO is left-handed pitcher Jack Dreyer out of the University of Iowa who is coming off TJ sugery.
Justin Time …
First baseman Justin Yurchak was recently promoted from the Great Lakes Loons to the Tulsa Drillers. At the time of his promotion, Yurchak was leading the High-A Central Division with a .356 batting average. He went hitless in his first three games with the Drillers but has erased that memory in the last two games in which he has six hits and five runs batted in.
Left-hander Justin Bruihl has found his way with the AAA OKC Dodgers. He started the season with the Drillers and was promoted to the OKC Dodgers after posting a 1.20 ERA and 0.67 WHIP with Tulsa.
He had two poor outings in early July resulting in eight earned runs. In his other 16 appearances, he has allowed one earned run and none in his last 11 appearances bringing his ERA down to 3.79. He has struck out 30 in 22.2 innings with the OKC Dodgers and walked seven.
Take Note …
Outfielder James Outman was recently promoted to the Drillers from the Loons. At that time most thinking was that Ryan Ward, Andy Pages or Brandon Lewis might be promoted before Outman. However, he had a strong July slashing .314/.442/.686 with an OPS of 1.128. He hit six home runs in 18 games and drove in 13 out of the lead off spot.
Outman who plays a good center field has suited up 12 times with the Drillers. He is slashing .333/.448/.688 with an OPS of 1.136. He has four home runs and driven in 12 runs while striking out 13 times and walking 10. On the season in the two levels, he has stolen 22 bases and been caught twice.
Andy Pages has surged back to life at the plate. He has 22 home runs, one behind the league leader and 65 runs batted in only two behind the league leader. A pair of streaks were extended for Pages on Thursday with a 1-for-2 night with two walks, as he’s reached base safely in his last 23 games and recorded a hit in his last nine.
Some of us were unhappy to see Keibert Ruiz leave the fold but we do understand the nature of the game. Many of us now see Diego Cartaya as the heir apparent to Ruiz’s role. That may well be true as he is a highly valued prospect who is now on the 7-day IL.
If it was not for Cartaya and the hype around him, the Dodgers have another catcher in the pipeline who may have been seen as a catcher of the future. He still may be that future catcher. He is not on their Top 30 Prospect List but I feel is deserving of such recognition.
Carson Taylor was selected by the Dodgers in the fourth round of the 2020 First-Year Player Draft out of Virginia Tech. In 50 games with the Loons, he has a triple slash of .280/.382/.429 and an OPS of .811. He has five home runs and 38 runs batted in while striking out 38 times and walking 32. This guy is a player. The 22-year-old switch hitter may well get a look-see with the Drillers before the 2021 season is over.
Jose Ramos has made it onto the Top 30 Prospect List. The information below is from that Top 30 list. It is the first time I have seen Ramos mentioned in the same breath as Andy Pages. Ramos will play the entire 2021 season as a 20-year-old.
The Dodgers signed MLB Pipeline’s top-rated international prospect in the 2018-19 class, Venezuela catcher Diego Cartaya, for $2.5 million and also found a bargain in that crop when they landed Ramos out of Panama for $30,000. He didn’t get a chance to come to the United States before 2021, making his debut in the Rookie-level Dominican Summer League in 2019 and getting limited to Los Angeles’ Dominican instructional league program last year during the coronavirus pandemic. He has made up for lost time this year, crushing the ball for three weeks in the Rookie-level Arizona Complex League and continuing to mash following promotion to Low-A.
Five-foot-11 and 150 pounds when he turned pro, Ramos now checks in at 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds and resembles Dodgers prospect Andy Pages both physically and in terms of tools. He features well-above-average raw pop from the right side of the plate and hit a couple of tape-measure blasts in the ACL before departing. He manages the strike zone and off-speed pitches reasonably well for a young slugger and has a chance to hit for average as well as power.
Ramos has lost some speed as he has matured physically but he’s still at least an average runner, and his instincts give him the possibility of staying in center field. He has split time between center and right field in 2021 and his plus-plus arm is a weapon. He recorded 17 assists in his first 78 pro games in the outfield.
Currently, with the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, Ramos in 12 games is slashing .400/.475/.760 with an OPS of 1.235. He has three home runs, 11 runs batted in and 11 of his 20 hits have been for extra bases.
Right-hander Marshall Kasowski has surfaced with the Dodgers in the Arizona Complex League. In 2.2 innings he has allowed one earned run while striking out six and walking one. Time is not on his side now so hopefully, he can get back to full-time service before the season ends.
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Discussion (111)
Disagree, not disagreeable
Most on here only know this from history, but I lived it! In 1951 the Dodgers were 13 games up on the Giants in early August. The Dodger manager(guess who?) said “The Giants is dead”. Regular season ends in a tie. Playoff comes down to a final game. Anyone remember “The shot heard round the world” and Bobby Thompson? The 4 game lead is not insurmountable!
I was listening to MLB Radio today on one of my trips to Lowes or Menards and heard that the Yankees were the 2nd worst hitting team in MLB with RISP… right ahead of the Pirates. The Yankees were co-favorites with the Dodgers at one time and they have had their wheels fall off. The Dodgers are still in it, but it seems that the Big Dodger in the Sky may be angry with Guggs and Company for trying to “BUY” a championship. I do not think that is the Dodger way.
Consider what has happened:
1. Dustin May (possible ROY) goes down with TJ.
2. Tony Gonsolin (another very good rookie pitcher) has had shoulder issues most of the year.
3. Corey Seager (World Series MVP) has missed significant time.
4. Cody Bellinger (former MVP) has missed major time with shoulder surgery, a broken leg, and hamstring issues and has yet to get untracked.
5. Jimmy Nelson who has looked devastating out of the bullpen has missed a lot of time and is gone for the year.
6. Corey Knebel (another very solid bullpen arm) has been injured for three months and is now ready to come back.
7. The Bazooka has missed significant time because he is a dumbass or maybe injured (U pick).
8. Clayton Kershaw (the Franchise Player) has had extended forearm tightness, which is a symptom of a torn UCL.
9. Mookie Betts (former MVP) has been injured all year and just as he was getting going, his hip becomes a problem.
10. Victor Gonzalez has not been healthy most of the season.
11. Supersub Edwin Rios has been lost for the year. He had the best HR Ratio in MLB.
11. Gavin Lux has underperformed and is now injured.
12. Trevor Bauer (Cy Young Winner) is in MLB Jail and may or may not return.
13. Kenley Jansen is in need of a brain transplant.
I know some of you are upset that the Dodgers do not divulge injuries, but what you have to remember is if Dave Roberts said “Mookie Bettes has a right hip impingement in the blah, blah, blah region” other teams trainers would determine that their pitchers need to throw him down and in fastballs, because it causes too much pain to hit them (this is just a poor example). Shutting your mouth about injuries is the best policy, even if we fans hate it.
OK, with that said, I am ready for tonight’s game. I will be on the deck and have a cigar, Cabo Wabo, and my Best Friend, The Mighty Quinn. He’s a Dodger fan and he will eat a Giants fan, but he usually spits them back out because they taste so bad!
And then there was this.
1993 San Francisco Giants
In Barry Bonds’ first year as a Giant, he had a mustache. That wasn’t the only thing that went wrong for the Giants.
On July 22, they led the Atlanta Braves by ten games, but the Braves were in the midst of a 49-16 stretch that also saw them go 28-9 at one point. Combine that with the Giants stumbling to a 20-18 finish, and the recipe for failure was set.
The Giants won three in a row, then lost to the Dodgers, while the Braves won, making the Giants one game short. 103 wins, a third MVP from Barry Bonds, an excellent pitching staff led by John Burkett, Bill Swift, and super-closer Rod Beck, and the Giants were unable to capitalize and unfortunately sent home.
And this.
1962 Los Angeles Dodgers
One of most legendary pitchers in Dodger lore, Sandy Koufax, was unable to stem another collapse, this time to the Giants of San Francisco.
Paired along with Don Drysdale, the Dodgers again seemed to cruise to another pennant, but unexpectedly lost a four-game lead with ten games to go starting September 22. They lost eight of their next ten, including their last four and found themselves in another three-game playoff for the pennant.
No Robby Thomson miracle this time, but this time the Giants found a way to score four runs in the top of the ninth to take a 6-4 lead (winning runs by Matty Alou and Willie Mays) and ultimately win.
Something a little different to tonight’s lineup:
2B Trea
1B Max
RF Mookie
SS Corey
3b Justin
C Will
LF Chris
CF Cody
P Julio
Dodgers are 64-33 in games that don’t go into extra innings.
Pollock is the first to get a rest with Trea Turner batting leadoff. I actually love this lineup and defense.
TT 2B
Muncy 1B
Betts RF
Seager SS
Turner 3B
Smith C
Taylor LF
Bellinger CF
I prefer having a left hander in the two hole with a speedy leadoff hitter. He get’s in the way of the catcher on throws to second. He can pull a ground ball through the hole created on steal attempts. Muncy also takes a lot of pitches, giving opportunities to steal a base. If he could only pull a ball if Trea winds up on second with no outs.
Mookie, Turner and Seager all profile well for a 3 hitter. They are all the best hitter on you team, if it weren’t an all-star team like we have here. So why not bat them 3, 4 and 5? I really like it. Belli would be a perfect cleanup hitter if he wasn’t hitting like Mendoza’s replacement player.
Smith, Taylor and Belli round out 6-8. Can’t get any better than that. I hope Cody keeps his hitting streak in tact.
I guess Pollock will enter at some point when Betts goes down, then it’s musical chairs and anyone’s guess how Doc will manage to over complicate the defensive alignment. I would image he would put Pollock in left, CT3 at second, TT in CF and Belli in right just to screw with everyone.
At least we don’t have Joe Maddon batting the pitcher 8th. What an idiot. Brandon Marsh is the only lefty in the lineup facing Urias. Marsh has reverse splits hitting lefties better than righties this year.
For all you Quackenbush fans, he’s coming!
Wallach dfa and claimed by the Angels.
Nunez to IL.
And for your evening enjoyment.
Let’s see if this makes it through the spamanator.
When Corey Knebel get the the call up from AAA ,which I’m thinking is going to be this week, he will be the 26th Dodgers relief pitcher this year. The record is in 2018 we had 29 relief pitchers make an appearance. Knebel I think will be closing many games in the next three months.
DODGERS SELECT KEVIN QUACKENBUSH
LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Dodgers selected the contract of right-handed pitcher Kevin Quackenbush and placed left-handed pitcher Darien Núñez on the injured list.
Quackenbush, 32, appeared in 30 games for Triple-A Oklahoma City, going 1-5 with a 0.61 ERA (2 ER/29.1 IP) with 33 strikeouts. He has only allowed an earned run in two of his 30 appearances while recording 14 saves in 15 chances. In his Major League career, spanning five years in San Diego (2014-2017) and Cincinnati (2018), he is 13-15 with a 4.38 ERA (101 ER/207.2 IP) with 186 strikeouts. He was acquired by the Dodgers as a minor league free agent on May 5, 2021.
Núñez, 28, is 0-1 with a 6.14 ERA (5 ER/7.1 IP) in five games (one start) for the Dodgers this season. He has split the season between Double-A Tulsa and Triple-A Oklahoma City, going a combined 5-0 with a 2.55 ERA (10 ER/35.1 IP) and 55 strikeouts. In 64 minor league contests, he is 8-2 with a 2.34 ERA (27 ER/104.0 IP) and 167 strikeouts. He was originally signed by the Dodgers as a minor league free agent on April 16, 2018.
The Dodgers signed C Tony Wolters to a minor league deal and he has been assigned to OKC. Wolters is a former Rockie, and was released by the Cubs earlier this week. Not much of a hitter, but a solid defensive catcher. Team USA loses to Japan in Olympic baseball. Brewers 2 SF 1 in the top of the 5th.
That may have been the worst play I’ve seen since we had 2 guys thrown out at home plate on the same play in the playoffs
Horrible baseball execution. Someone has to take charge on an IF pop up and direct the players as to who’s catching it. Is that Julio, is it Smith?……….. it doesn’t matter but someone has to take charge. JT’s lack of athleticism defensively is starting to show up with increasing frequency.
Julio pitching like crap with 60+ pitches through 3 IP. This team needs a heart transplant.
Thanks Cody…..for nothing!
Pffft…..what a waste…….
Vesia has allowed one run in his last 11 appearances, Joe Davis just mentioned, but who does the genius bring in last night in an extra inning game with a runner on 2B? Cleavinger…. doesn’t take hindsight to know that was a huge brain fart by Doc.
Josiah Gray with 10ks today……..against the Braves!! No Acuna, but still impressive.
Amazing to compare the Giants and Dodgers. Man for man their roster is inferior in almost very way and at every position…….but they have what we don’t. HEART and the ability to get timely hits. 10th inning they score three runs against the Brewers who fortunately also three runs in the bottom of the 10th.
11th inning the Giants play sound fundamental baseball and ground out behind the runner to get the go ahead runner to third who then scores on a basehit and then follow that up with 3 more runs. If that had been the Dodgers we would have seen three “swing from your ass swings” trying to get a HR rather than play fundamental baseball.
I’ve defended Doc forever but I’m starting to grow weary. Trea Turner is the real deal.
Bellinger bomb. Hopefully that gets him going.
Jajaja Bellinger..MVP jajajaja
Good news Dodgers tied the game. Bad news the extra innings comes
Giants just winning in a fantastic game
Bazooka 102
Haven’t the Giants been like that for a decade plus now. Heart and finding ways to win.
I don’t mean the last few as they rebuilt but those WS teams were not even close to the best teams in the playoffs and they went in and won 3 times. Maybe they just teach that in their system.
I don’t know but I know this LA team doesn’t have it. Haven’t really seen it since 2017 or that crazy streak in whatever year that was. 15? 16?
So much love for Taylor. I wish we had 40 guys that played like him.
Anyone speculate on a contract for him and what he gets from LA and maybe on the open market?
3/23?
And that guys is why you do not make statements until the game is over. They showed plenty of heart. And they won. Jansen a 10 pitch save. Belli has a 5 game hitting streak. Taylor will get a deal for close to 10 mil a year, say 3/27 or more.
I think CT will get 4 years and at least 50 mil, and we’ll be the ones to give it to him.
It’s universally said that 1 WAR is worth about $8 mil. CT is already over 3 WAR this year and the season still has 2 months to go. At that rate 4/50 would be a bargain.