Beck's Minor League Threecap: 5/3/24

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

Good afternoon and happy Friday! Hopefully just a few hours of work separate you from a few days of freedom however you choose to use them. We’re going big with a 10-pack of write-ups for you today and continuing our experiment of adding the statlines from the previous viewing guide. 

Oh, and happy Complex opening day. Let’s go!

Mini Cooper? Kinney, Cooper.

It’s getting very difficult to deny Coby Mayo (BAL) a call-up, or at least I would imagine Mike Elias and the Baltimore front office is puzzled about how to fit in a number of very deserving minor league bats to their lineup. Mayo has strung together four straight games with a home run for Norfolk, the latest having left the bat at 101.2 mph and traveling 391 feet. He had four total batted ball events over 100mph on Thursday: the aforementioned home run, a 103.3 mph grounder that resulted in him reaching on an error, a 103.9 mph double, and a 109.3 mph lineout. We are not very far away from his Major League debut.

Red Sox 2023 fourth rounder Kristian Campbell (BOS) is off to a blazing start and doing things he simply did not do in college. His max exit velocity at the Georgia Institute of Technology with a metal bat was 109 mph and he’s crested that twice already this season with wood. He’s been a little whiffy so far despite a really strong track record of in-zone and total contact in college, but I expect that to even out over time so long as he’s not totally infatuated with his newfound power output. He was 4-for-4 with a double, a home run, and a walk to reach safely in all five of his plate appearances on Thursday.

The Brewers shelled out $2.9M in the 2021 signing period between Jackson Chourio and Daniel Guilarte (MIL), and this isn’t a Kobe and Kwame Brown combining for 82 points kind of situation. Guilarte commanded $1.0M on his own as a promising up-the-middle defender with a lot of projection necessary to become an offensive threat. That’s still largely the case for him – his best tools are with the glove and his legs – as he had not hit a professional home run until this year. He was a perfect 4-for-4 with a double, a home run, and a pair of walks.

Cooper Pratt (MIL) was off to a solid start, albeit a miniscule sample, before missing 12 days with a broken pinkie finger sustained in the first game of a double-header on 4/12. He’s since been a little slow in his eight games back, but may have kickstarted a turnaround with a 3-for-5 night on Thursday. Pratt was one of my favorite preps in the 2023 class and I was overjoyed when my Milwaukee Brewers scooped him in the sixth round for a bonus over a million dollars higher than the slot value. His 6-foot-4 frame oozes potential and he’ll be a sought-after fantasy prospect  if he can develop more in-game power.

Cooper Kinney (TBR) the namesake for today’s hitter rundown, which is ironic because he didn’t do much running on Thursday night. He had four walks and a hit in five plate appearances to round out a perfect day at the dish. He’d been a competitive balance first rounder in 2021 as the 34th overall selection, but missed all of 2022 with a shoulder injury and later had a perfectly cromulent 2023 season in Single-A. He’s been solid so far in High-A this year with 12 doubles and two triples en route to an .888 OPS through 20 games and may be recapturing some of his luster.

Pretty Iriarte-itating to Hit Against (Sorry, That Was Bad).

There are two fellas out there named Cade Smith (NYY), one on the Guardians and the one I’m writing about today down on the Yankees farm. Throwing that out there in case you decide to search him up and wonder why I’ve fixated on a 24-year-old reliever. The New York Cade Smith was excellent on Thursday, allowing just one hit and yielding a single walk over 6.0 scoreless innings. He struck out 11, bringing his season total to 33 in 21.1 innings. He was a 6th rounder last summer after a shaky conversion from relief to starting at Mississippi State. He has exemplary stuff led by a heater that sits mid-90s and regularly hits 20 inches of induced vertical beak and is complemented by a hard power slider. He’s an interesting name to watch among recent Yankees breakout arms. I really think they’re up to something with their pitching development of late.

Yilber Diaz (ARI) has big stuff. He’s fanned 11.6 per nine innings over the course of his professional career and 15.1 per nine through 25.0 innings in 2024, but the concern is that he’ll be relegated to a bullpen role as a result of lackluster command/control. He threw 102.2 innings over 25 starts split between High-A and Double-A as a 22-year-old last year, indicating that Arizona intends to give him as much leash as a starter as possible, and he’s returned to Double-A to open the year. Amarillo can be a mighty unforgiving place to pitch, so his 3.96 ERA to date is likely a little deceiving. He went 7.0 shutout innings with 11 strikeouts and just two hits allowed on Thursday.

I know, I know. You don’t have to keep reminding me that Colorado is a bad place to find pitching. You’re the angel on my shoulder telling me to stay away, but Sean Sullivan (COL) makes a pretty convincing devil on the opposite side. He flat out shoved for Spokane on Thursday, going 5.0 innings of one-run ball and striking out 10 in the process. It was his second game of the year fanning at least 10 batters (previously had 13 in his first outing of the season) and he’s gone 4.2 innings or more in every outing. The crafty lefty moniker is overdone at this point, but Sullivan is in many ways (including his handedness) emblematic of that style of pitching. He doesn’t have big stuff but is able to mix and match between his fastball, slider, and changeup while leveraging a fair amount of deception to help his arsenal play up.

Jonah Tong (NYM) made his High-A debut on Thursday. I was most curious to see how his control would hold up without the assistance of the extra-wide, 20-inch zone, and it looks like he fared alright in that department. Three walks isn’t great by any means, but he was still limiting contact and preventing runs. He finished with one run allowed (zero earned) on two hits and three walks over 5.0 innings and struck out seven.

Will Schomberg (SEA), like Cade Smith, is a former reliever who transitioned to a starting role during his platform season in college. He’s currently 23 years old in Single-A and has walked 14 batters over his first 24.0 innings this year, so I think the experiment with him as a starter is likely to be short-lived. Nonetheless he absolutely dealt on Thursday by striking out 10 batters over 6.0 scoreless innings while allowing a lone walk.

Weekend Viewing.

Going to continue adding the previous day’s results here, though there may be days I skip it as it’s a very manual process. If you feel strongly about it being a permanent fixture, I’d encourage you to sound off in the comments!

Thursday’s results:

Saturday’s viewing guide, with my particular interests italicized as usual:

• Blade Tidwell (1.69 ERA) for the Binghamton Rumble Ponies (NYM) at 1:05 ET

• Nolan McLean (3.86 ERA) for the Brooklyn Cyclones (NYM) at 2:00 ET

• Emiliano Teodo (3.78 ERA) for the Frisco RoughRiders (TEX) at 4:05 ET

• Yorman Galindez (2.08 ERA) for the Carolina Mudcats (MIL) at 5:00 ET

• Adam Maier (5.29 ERA) for the Augusta GreenJackets (ATL) at 6:05 ET

• Andry Lara (2.28 ERA) for the Wilmington Blue Rocks (WSH) at 6:05 ET

• Noble Meyer (5.79 ERA) for the Jupiter Hammerheads (MIA) at 6:10 ET

• Troy Melton (3.94 ERA) for the Erie Seawolves (DET) at 6:35 ET

• Jacob Misiorowski (3.44 ERA) for the Biloxi Shuckers (MIL) at 7:00 ET

• Logan Evans (1.99 ERA) for the Arkansas Travelers (SEA) at 7:35 ET

• AJ Blubaugh (3.93 ERA) for the Sugar Land Space Cowboys (HOU) at 7:35 ET