Beck's Minor League Threecap: 5/17/24

Beck breaks down three major things you need to know from yesterday's MiLB action.

Heyo! It has been an extremely long week. I’m at the airport to make my return from Philadelphia back home in Minneapolis. I’ve been relatively unplugged from baseball (outside of the Threecap, of course) and I’m excited to get back to following closely. Skenes is pumping 100 mph and has a p****** g*** going as I write to you. He’s throwing like that infamous “I would strike out Timothee Chalamet on three pitches” bit but replace Mr. Chalamet with every hitter in the Cubs’ lineup.

Old Friend Alert?

Have a week, Brennen Davis (CHC). He’s homered in four consecutive games and has five home runs in his last six, which is making me yearn for 2021 prospect analysis. As we are all acutely and painfully aware, his minor league career has been largely derailed by injury – and not any that can be easily overlooked as they’ve been localized to his back – and he’s struggled for the better part of two and a half years. This year has been a little different and there are reasons to be optimistic, the most prominent being how hard he’s hitting the ball. His 93.3 mph average exit velocity ranks among the best in Triple-A. On the other hand, he’s having real difficulty making any contact and his contact rate on pitches in the zone is well under 70%, which I regard as a bare-minimum figure.

I’ve been thwarted once again. Nowhere can I locate the signing bonus for Guillermo Rosario (PHI), who joined the organization in the 2022 IFA period and played 32 games in the DSL last summer as an 18-year-old. The 6-foot-2, 190 lb righty finds himself in the Florida Complex league at 19 in his first stint of stateside ball and is having a far better go there. He’s got 10 hits in his first eight games including a pair of home runs – already two more than he had last year – which has culminated in an early .370/.469/.667 line. He’s a tad old for the typical DSL phenom, and scouting reports from his time in the DSL and first few games in the FCL are scant, but perhaps he warrants keeping an eye on.

If you want to talk about hitting the ball hard, you can talk for a while about Yerlin Confidan (CIN). He’s already registered a max EV just south of 114 mph at 21 years old, and his 106 mph 90th percentile exit velocity outpaces the major league average by a fair bit. Despite those gaudy batted ball numbers and passable contact rates (sub-70% overall, but 78% in-zone), he’s been mostly unremarkable from a surface perspective. That changed on Thursday as he swatted two home runs in a 3-for-4 night yesterday. If it all clicks, Confidan could be a big riser.

Mario and Luichi.

Luichi Casilla (COL) is an early contender for my favorite name in minor league baseball. He’s as electric as his name and has racked up 18 strikeouts in 7.1 innings in the Arizona Complex so far, but command/control can often escape him as is evidenced by his 15 wild pitches over 63.1 innings in his previous two years. He’s a 6-foot-2 lefty with projection left despite some of that projection already coming to fruition this year – his fastball has taken a step forward in terms of velocity. I’m hard-pressed to recommend a Complex-level arm this early in the year, but if we’re building a watch list, he’s on it.

Despite several appearances on the viewing guide, I’ve yet to write about Nolan McLean (NYM) this year. He’s got the rare baseball reference page that asks you whether you’d like to view his hitting or pitching stats when navigating to game logs. He’s been pretty excellent in both capacities, carrying a 2.57 ERA and .818 OPS across 28 innings and 65 plate appearances, respectively, though his future is much likelier as a pitcher. He has an electric two-seamer that sits mid-90’s and tops out two ticks short of 100 mph, a slider he throws with a huge spin rate and high velocity, a curveball and a changeup, and he’s used them to strike out 32.1% of all batters faced in 2024. Thursday’s outing was his best of the year as he struck out nine over 4.0 one-run innings (zero earned).

This one goes out to all of you in search of the next big relief prospect. Kohl Drake (TEX) is making his second Threecap appearance after striking out nine over 4.0 scoreless innings on Thursday – this time as a starter! Last time I wrote about him I stated he was a pure reliever, but he’s actually started a few games and racked up rather large pitch counts (e.g. 68, 68, 80 are his longest outings). His 6-foot-5, left-handed frame looks like it could sustain a starter’s workload, but he’s historically had problems with control. You can’t see me but I’m shrugging my shoulders.

It’s the Weekend!

Look, I know I didn’t recommend all that many arms on Thursday, but I’m begging these teams to throw who they say they will. Neither Bowen nor Wichrowski made their scheduled starts, so there’s only three names in the table. The bright side is they were all excellent!

Saturday’s viewing guide. Italicized names are the ones I’m most interested in following:

• Yorman Galindez (3.86 ERA) for the Carolina Mudcats (MIL) at 5:00 ET

• Chase Dollander (2.59 ERA) for the Spokane Indians (COL) at 5:05 ET

• Adam Maier (4.18 ERA) for the Augusta Greenjackets (ATL) at 6:05 ET

• Noble Meyer (3.38 ERA) for the Jupiter Hammerheads (MIA) at 6:30 ET

• Dylan Lesko (9.00 ERA) for the Fort Wayne TinCaps (SDP) at 6:35 ET

• Cade Povich (2.16 ERA) for the Norfolk Tides (BAL) at 6:35 ET

• Tink Hence (3.21 ERA) for the Springfield Cardinals (STL) at 7:05 ET

• Anthony Solometo (5.68 ERA) for the Altoona Curve (PIT) at 7:05 ET

• Jacob Misiorowski (2.63 ERA) for the Biloxi Shuckers (MIL) at 7:05 ET

• AJ Smith-Shawver (5.96 ERA) for the Gwinnett Stripers (ATL) at 7:35 ET

• Quinn Mathews (0.00 ERA) for the Peoria Chiefs (STL) at 8:05 ET (High-A debut)