The Dynasty Digest: August 30, 2024

Chris breaks down all the action from the Majors to the Minors.

A fun day of action with some big performances at all levels across professional baseball. Lawrence Butler looks primed for a breakout and several Minor League arms put up some big performances, lets talk about them!

MLB Performances

Lawrence Butler, OF, OAK

Butler homered for the third straight game, but he did not stop there, hitting three on the game. All four of his batted balls left the bat north of 100 mph, topping out at 109.5 mph. The 2024 season has been a full-on breakout for the former sixth-round pick, who showed major strides last year, improving his contact rate by ten percentage points last season.

The 24-year-old checks all the boxes when it comes to quality of contact, as his barrel rate is nearly 12 percent. The average exit velocity and hard-hit rate rank 86 and 88th percentile, respectively.

Butler’s zone contact rate of 80 percent is a respectable mark, and his overall contact rate of 73 percent is another step forward from last season. The fact that the team will be moving from Oakland next year to Sacramento will also be a big boost. On the road this year, Butler has 13 home runs and a .894 OPS versus .746 at home.

Bowden Francis, RHP, TOR

Francis turned in another stellar start on Thursday, striking out five batters over seven scoreless innings without issuing a walk and only allowing one hit. His numbers in August have been stellar as Francis has completed seven innings in four of his five starts and has a 1.06 ERA in 34 innings. He likely does not sustain the production given his 100 percent strand rate and incredibly low .087 BABIP, but Francis could see the success continue.

A lot of this can be attributed to a change in his arsenal. Francis has curbed his curve usage, which was getting hit quite hard. He has upped the splitter usage by nearly 15 percentage points and the slider usage by eight percentage points. The splitter has a 28 percent whiff rate in August and the slider an impressive 53 percent.

In the process, the fastball has played better, and the results have come. Maybe Francis is not an ace like the numbers he has put up this month, but I do think he can be a serviceable starter moving forward in 2025 and beyond.

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