4/18 - 4/24 Minor League Game Thread

[Lee Stone]

Harold Ramirez was 4-5 with 2 2B and a HR last night for New Orleans. Dean was 3-4 with a HR.

Can anyone explain why these two are down in AAA and Galloway and Berti are in the Majors?

Very reasonable question.

Galloway is up because he can play CF, that simple. Herrera is a capable defender but can't hit at all. Galloway can hit a little. Brinson's meter has expired. Berti is a bigger mystery. The team already seemed committed (at least said so) to leaving Anderson at third. I believe that Berti is there only until Cooper's impending return as RF. For some reason, Cooper enjoys Mattingly's support in spite of the facts that he's never had a hit in a Marlin uniform, can't run, and can't seem to stay healthy.

Dean has never enjoyed any real support from Marlin management, despite his outstanding offense in the minors last year and in spring training. I think his defense is questioned - and with cause based on the sample we have witnessed. After that 4-4 performance in his second game, he nearly captured the Marlins season RBI lead in a single game. Problem was that after his sterling performance in one game, he became a different guy at the plate. He struck out in like 8 of his next 10 AB and looked as helpless as Jorge Alfaro. (Yes, it is true that Granderson has been awful, but his warm personality has apparently bought him a few more weeks in the big league.) You'd think that Alfaro would be catching more shit than Dean if Mattingly thinks defense matters. Balls get by Alfaro more than any catcher I have ever seen. They are often labeled wild pitches, but what is a wild pitch ... really? It's a pitch that a catcher failed to block. Good catchers prevent balls in the dirt from getting away. Alfaro is 1 for his last 15 at the plate with about 10 whiffs. P.S. Holaday is hitting pretty well at NO and Wallach has improved there too.

Ramirez broke out last season in AA. He runs very well for a stocky guy. I'd feel much better with Harold in RF than I would with Cooper.

[fish16]

Dean i actually agree given our OF options that he should be up. He will never be ideally more than a 4th OF but he's better than the guys we've been throwing out there. Herrera is not and was never an ML player and galloway really shouldnt be either.


As far as Alfaro, get used to the K/BB ratio, thats what he is. He's a guy who hits the ball incredibly hard, and has especially this year at 64% hard hit ball% (which is unsustainable and will go down but is still an indication of his pure power). He will give you a horrendous K/BB ratio, low OBP, decent avg, 15-20 maybe more HR's if he's healthy, a great throwing arm and defense that needs improvement over time. He is an average catcher that could become an above average one but ideally he should be hitting 7th and at the highest 6th in a good lineup due to his plate discipline. He will be a good long term piece for us at a scarce position.

As far as Wallach, he has been much improved this year and I wouldnt mind a little more playing time for him if he keeps up the renewed plate discipline. He was a great K/BB guy before we dealt him to the reds and then seemingly lost that part of his game. IF he can get back to close to 1/1 K/BB ratio like he was early in his career, he could become a really nice long term backup type guy.

I'm sure all of those AAA OF's will get some run at some point. I just want to see Brinson go down and regroup a little for a month or 6-8 weeks and dominate and get out of the spotlight.

[tjfla]

Harold Ramirez was 4-5 with 2 2B and a HR last night for New Orleans. Dean was 3-4 with a HR.

Can anyone explain why these two are down in AAA and Galloway and Berti are in the Majors?

Nope other than neither can play CF. Want Grandy,Walker and Prado to get AB's and bring up value-BOTH will be up in August if not sooner. Only guess is they would rather them get regular AB's then split time in ML

Dean and Ramirez are both 5th OF types who could probably play 1B too.

4th OF are Defense guys with speed(Sierra/Brian Miller)
5th OF are bat guys(Dean/Ramirez/Cooper/O'Brien)

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and herrera. Dean should be up here and sierra and monte should be up in june/july if they keep this up. Its not even just us, but for some reason teams love these retread, speedy OF's who cant hit worth a lick and have no hope of improvement. Herrera has done nothing in his career and especially this year to justify being on the roster.

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We could have a bunch of them. Realistically, there is a path for VVM, Devers, Sixto, Gallen, Neidert, Garrett, Rogers, Holloway, and maybe even Stewart to find their way on the back end of some top 100 lists. They wont all do it, just saying i could see each of them individually getting onto the back end of some lists at the end of the year. We are incredibly healthy from a SP perspective moving forward. To the point where i wish they didnt focus exclusively on pitching in these deals and found some more hitting in some of the deals. We can always deal from the strength when the time comes but regardless, this pitching staff at the very least should be fantastic come 2021-2022.

Its annoying that it took us dealing literally everything away in order to get pitching. Especially given that we wouldnt have needed to do that had we not made short sighted moves for guys like Straily, the pittsburgh front office guy, and Rodney.

One thing that doesnt get talking about enough with the old regime is that they did a legitimately good job at finding and drafting/signing talent. Granted we traded them all away, but over the last 10 years out track record for signing/drafting/developing stars is pretty good. JT, Yelich, Stanton, Jose, Paddack, Williams, Castillo, Ozuna, Moran has developed elsewhere, Josh Naylor is a top 100 guy. The problem hasnt been finding top end talent, it has been not making shortsighted moves to add to non-contenders at the expense of good prospects and quality depth. And it is the exact reason why we never succeeded with the previous core- loria completely decimated the depth in the system because he is a short sighted idiot and we never had any depth and therefore we would crumble and have a month where we spiral out of contention almost every single year.

Very true however they never moved these guys fast. This new bunch is as good and are willing to test these guys