Beck's Minor League Threecap: 7/13/2024
Rapper name puns, mulling over McDermott, and Jace Jung is hitting quiet bombs
Happy Futures Game day! I won’t be able to watch, unfortunately, but I also don’t think a seven inning exhibition game is particularly useful for player evaluation anyway. Don’t let me rain on your parade – it’s definitely a fun event to tune into if you’re around – I’m just trying to blunt the disappointment that I can’t watch. Let’s jump in to yesterday’s performers!
Jung Gravy.
Jace Jung (DET) might have had the quietest 28 homer season in a long time, and maybe some of that has to do with the fact that it’s not a nice round number, but he’s been a little overlooked in dynasty circles for some time now. He’s been playing at Triple-A this year which means we get some sweet public statcast data, and it’s actually pretty interesting. He’s posting a 90th percentile exit velocity that is roughly in line with the MLB average, which doesn’t typically portend near-30 home run power. He’s getting there by hitting the ball at optimal angles – he’s got a 16 degree launch angle in 2024, which I can only assume resembles his 2023 launch angle to some extent – and he’s also not wasting batted ball events on pitches out of the zone. He’s chasing at just a 19.1% rate, and though his zone contact rate is below average, that’s mostly fine because he’s avoiding poor contact on bad balls to hit. He was 2-for-5 with two home runs on Friday, bringing his season home run total to 14 through 313 plate appearances.
I’ve written about Eric Bitonti (MIL) a fair bit lately. I wish he would stop striking out so much (26.1% since June 1st), but he is also really hitting (1.092 OPS in that same span). He was 4-for-5 with a double and a home run on Friday. Here’s what I had to say last time:
“When Eric Bitonti isn’t striking out he’s usually hitting the ball a very long way. I last wrote about him just two weeks into the Arizona Complex League season and he’d been lighting it up but also carrying a 28.8% strikeout rate, which was a little disconcerting at the time. He’s a big guy at 6-foot-4, 218-pounds, and is susceptible to the same zone coverage and long-lever concerns we have with Spencer Jones and James Wood (these are NOT comps), albeit to a lesser degree. It’s been a lot of the same since I last checked in; Bitonti is still running a four-digit OPS (1.016) and still striking out a lot (29.2%). He belted his fifth and sixth home runs of the year in a 3-for-3 effort on Saturday.”
Ritchie Homie Quan.
Hey, remember JR Ritchie (ATL)? It feels appropriate to write about him today as I’m spending my evening at my friend Ritchie’s wedding (no relation as far as I know), so my most sincere thank you to JR for throwing a really nice game in his first start of the year with Augusta. He’d generated some serious buzz in just 12.1 innings last year before going down with a torn UCL and he’s on the way back now. I think he could be a rather significant riser should he prove the new ligament hasn’t caused a degradation in stuff or control, especially given the draft pedigree already present. His cost to acquire in dynasty leagues is near zero. He went 5.0 near-perfect innings with just a walk and seven strikeouts on Friday.
The battle between Chayce McDermott (BAL) and the strike zone wages on. To his credit he was able to hold Memphis off the scoreboard for 6.0 innings in spite of the four walks he allowed, but I think his ability to limit free passes (or lack thereof) is the only thing keeping him from a stint in Baltimore’s big league rotation. He’s fully stretched out – he threw 99 pitches on Friday and has eclipsed the 90 pitch threshold in eight of his last 10 outings – and Baltimore’s features just four starters (including Albert Suarez) after Cade Povich was optioned today. I expect we will see him in the second half but I also expected him much earlier, so who’s really to say.
Mincinnati.
I didn’t realize that I had a ton of MIN and CIN when I put the viewing guide together but it was extremely apparent when filling out the table this morning. Samuel Aldegheri had a pretty solid Double-A debut, Jacob Misiorowski continued his stretch of total dominance (and control), and Darren Bowen put up one of the all time ten-percenters (I’m really trying to coin a phrase for when a pitcher gets shelled and only goes 0.1 innings) with six earned runs.
You should probably just tune into the draft, but here’s Sunday’s viewing guide with my recommendations italicized as usual:
Yordanny Monegro (7.36 ERA) for the Greenville Drive (BOS) at 1:00 ET
George Klassen (4.67 ERA) for the Jersey Shore BlueClaws (PHI) at 1:05 ET
Max Meyer (4.89 ERA) for the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (MIA) at 1:05 ET
AJ Smith-Shawver (6.10 ERA) for the Gwinnett Stripers (ATL) at 1:05 ET
Cristian Mena (5.08 ERA) for the Reno Aces (ARI) at 4:05 ET
Santiago Suarez (4.25 ERA) for the Charleston RiverDogs (TBR) at 5:05 ET