Beck's Minor League Threecap: 8/19/2024

Taking a page out of Nate Handy's book, gone muddin'

I’m just happy to have made it through another Monday, friends. I’m eating goat cheese on crackers while watching the Little League World Series as I write this and it absolutely rules. There weren’t a ton of standout performances on Sunday but I still found five guys worth diving into, so let’s discuss!

Beltin’ Melton.

I haven’t written much about Jacob Melton (HOU) this year. To wit, the only blurb I’ve authored about his performance was a brief reminder that despite his struggles in 2024, his physical tools remain fantasy-friendly. That was roughly six weeks ago and in the time since he’s managed a meager .219/.296/.394 slash and carried a concerning 27.3% strikeout rate. The Astros bumped him to Triple-A in late July which means we have some sweet, sweet statcast data with a decent enough sample, and it looks much better than his surface line. That may say more about how poor he’s fared with Sugar Land so far, but the 90th EV is sitting half a tick above major league average, he’s running a 16.3% barrel rate, and his zone contact rate is north of 85%, which leads me to believe he’s getting unlucky (the .261 BABIP supports this) and is possibly putting himself in pitcher’s counts too often. He was 2-for-4 with two home runs on Sunday.

It’s been a weird year for Ryan Clifford (NYM). He was underwhelming through the first two months of the season and ultimately entered May with a paltry .192/.371/.298 line to pair with a 34.5% strikeout rate, but has bounced back tremendously in the 59 games since. In that time he’s improved his strikeout rate to 26.5% and managed an .866 OPS. He was promoted to Double-A in mid-May, so the entirety of his recent uptick has come against better competition than he was initially struggling against to open the year. He’ll probably always have difficulty covering the zone with the same proficiency a much smaller but similarly talented version of himself likely could as his long levers make bat-to-ball a challenge and his height creates a more expansive area to defend. He’s confounding to rank and likely won’t make my top 100 update, but he’s close. He was 3-for-3 with a home run on Sunday.

We’re going to go on a journey together with this blurb. I know almost nothing about Ian Petrutz (STL) besides when he went in the draft (12th round), where he went to school (Alabama), and that he’s had an insane start to his professional career (15 games, 1.053 OPS, nine walks to four strikeouts). He put up monster numbers at Maryland over 92 games before transferring into the SEC and performing even better in that environment. He walked more than he struck out in each of his collegiate campaigns and looks like he could have an above-average hit tool by way of average contact rates and a discerning eye. He didn’t show off a ton of in-game pop but the reports I was able to find by scouring the world wide web seem optimistic about the possibility that he develops average or better power. The data thus far doesn’t necessarily bear that out – he has a 99.6 mph 90th percentile EV – but it’s a pretty small sample. He’s on my watch list and could become a late-round FYPD target.

Jairoller.

Chris had a pretty salient tweet today about how rarely the future ace label should be tossed around. Jackson Jobe (DET) is the only arm in minor league baseball who fits the criteria for me, though I’ll wait to see how Andrew Painter looks upon return from Tommy John surgery. He’ll be the top pitching prospect in my update and I’m toying with him inside the top ten. My hesitation (if you can call it that) has a lot to do with the fact that he throws baseballs for a living (which disagrees with the human physiology) and has already had some trouble with injury. He went 5.1 innings of two-run ball and struck out seven on Sunday.

Jairo Iriarte (CHW) has been excellent in terms of run prevention over his last six starts, but the peripherals don’t really back it up. Yes, he’s posted a 1.64 ERA in that time but has managed just 26 strikeouts and surrendered 14 walks (19.4% and 10.4%, respectively) and is largely the beneficiary of an unsustainably low .207 BABIP against. He’s still one of my favorite arms to watch – he is the definition of electricity – but I’m not entirely sold that he’ll be a starter as a result of his mechanics. He’s tossed 115.0 innings this year which has well eclipsed his inning total from a year ago, and the White Sox continue to let him start, both of which are nice to see but don’t help the underlying issue, which is inconsistency with command stemming from an unorthodox delivery. He went 6.0 scoreless innings and struck out five on Sunday.

The Maier of Atlanta. 

Sunday didn’t have as many headliners as I would have liked but the performances here were quite good. A little wild – 19 free passes in total – but these seven fellas were able to keep runs off the board for the most part.

It’s a truly light slate for interesting arms on Tuesday. Jack Wenninger was a 6th rounder last summer and has found excellent results since being promoted to High-A, Travis Sykora has had an outstanding season and is probably overdue for promotion, and Caden Dana will probably throw seven innings and 100 or more pitches.

• Jack Wenninger (2.84 ERA) for the Brooklyn Cyclones (NYM) at 7:00 ET

• Travis Sykora (2.51 ERA) for the Fredericksburg Nationals (WSH) at 7:05 ET

• Caden Dana (2.74 ERA) for the Rocket City Trash Pandas (LAA) at 7:35 ET