civ ollilavad wrote:

Yandy was 3-4 with 2 doubles and a walk. It is awesome to know we have a team so good that they don't need this on base machine

Now that we have Crisp and still have Cowgill available on the 40-man roster we're oversupplied with RH quality bats.

I am assuming that is sarcasm.

Almonte .301 OBP
Davis .320 OBP
Martinez .280 OBP
Cowgill .214 OBP
Crisp .299 OBP

The reason this team goes through spells of futility offensively is they have so few players that are consistently getting on base.

Clips go down big, 8-1. Yandy and Zimmer both 0fer. Zimmer down to .250.

Akron loses 8-7. Allen with a hit and walk. Papi 3-5 with a homer.

Lynchburg loses 7-1. Krieger returns to lineup but goes hitless. Frankie and Bradley both with a hit and walk. Santander 0fer.

Captains lose 6-2. McKenzie got smacked around a little bit but did still have 6 K in 4.1 innings. Carter and Calica both 0fer. Calica BA now down to .391. #Loser

Scrappers lose 8-6. Aiken gets pounded too. Gabe goes 0-6 with 4 K. Definitely should have stayed out.

Looks like some of the prospects may be tuckered out and ready for seasons end.

Columbus was short-staffed with Gonzalez and Moore gone. They wound up with a catcher, Quiroz, at 1st; Aguillar at 3rd, Urshela at SS. Not sure if they were just having fun as the regular season nears an end or someone got hurt.

BA found a few lines to note from Thursday:

CLE AA Allen, Greg CF 4 0 1 0 .294 BB (16)
CLE AA Papi, Mike DH 5 2 3 1 .222 HR (5) [homers in back to back games! Avg over 220! He's on a roll]
CLE HiA Bradley, Bobby 1B 3 0 1 0 .241 BB (73) [batting average is awful and strikes out are mammoth, but he walks, he slugs, he's the MVP]
CLE HiA Chang, Yu-Cheng SS 4 1 1 0 .262 2B (29)
CLE HiA Mejia, Francisco C 3 0 1 0 .325 BB (12)
CLE SS Ice, Logan C 3 2 1 0 .203 BB (23) [plenty of walks, not much hitting]
CLE LoA McKenzie, Triston 4.1 7 3 3 2 6 3.18 L (2-2)
CLE SS Aiken, Brady 4.1 7 5 5 2 4 4.43 L (2-1)

Columbus loses tonight 7-3. I don't know whats going on but all of a sudden all our pitchers suck. Merritt got piss pounded tonight. Zimmer hit his average, 250, and struck out twice.

Akron won a shortened game 6-3. Allen managed a walk and Papi managed a golden sombrero. Yan Gomes was 2-3 with a double, an RBI and 2 runs. Oh please keep being good.

Hillcats go down 2-0. Krieger hitless again, as was Santander. Bradley managed a single.

Captains lost 3-2 but put up a fight for a change and went to 12 innings. With the loss Lake County is eliminated from the playoffs. Amazing they were still in contention given the terrible second half they had. ... Calica got 2 hits, two more than Carter. Calica at .393 now. Little more like it. ... Ben Krauth was called up to the Captains, he pitched 2 innings, allowed 2 hits, 1 R, and 1 K. I guess he is human.

Scrappers lose 4-2. Bieber with yet another fine outing. 3 innings, 2 hits, 0 runs or walks, 1 K. He has a 0.38 ERA now. ... Oscar Gonzalez got a call up here but went 0-3.

It just occurred to me reading the boxscores and noticing some promotions that I haven't read Twitter the last two days. I missed all the news from Paquette. This is all from yesterday ...

RHP Joe Colon RHP Cody Anderson INF Erik Gonzalez (C) Adam Moore were all September call ups yesterday by Tribe.

Akron Rubber Ducks promoted to Columbus: LHP Nick Maronde (C) Jeremy Lucas INF Todd Hankins Clippers transaction LHP Tyler Olson off DL

Lynchburg Hillcats players promoted to Akron LHP David Speer RHP Jordan Milbraith INF Mark Mathias (C) Alex Monsalve

Lake County Captains players promoted to Lynchburg RHP Leandro Linares INF Willi castro Hillcats transaction Claudio Bautista activated

Mahoning Valley Scrappers players promoted to Lake County: LHP Ben Krauth INF Erlin Cerda

(AZL) Indians promoted to Mahoning Valley roster: RHP Dalbert Siri RHP Domingo Jimenez (C) Simeon Lucas INF Miguel Eladio OF Oscar Gonzalez

And something interesting notes from today ...

Rob Kaminsky last 14 starts
85(IP) 67H 21ER 24BB 63SO 2.22 ERA

Anthony Santander ranks 2nd in all of the following catagories among Indians farm hands ...
2) Runs 88
2) H 143
2) 2B 42
2) RBI 93
2) OPS .863
2) SLG .495

Few quick hits for a Saturday night.

Zimmer 1-4 again tonight, with 3 K's. Morimando got shelled. 7 hits, 4 walks, 7 earned, in 4 innings.

Allen 1-3 with a walk. Papi 2-4 with a double. Kaminsky allowed 5 hits and 3 runs in 7 innings.

Frankie was 2-5 tonight. Santander 1-3 with a homer. Bradley and Krieger both 0fer with a walk.

Calica and Carter both 0fer.

Gabe Mejia 1-4 with 3 K. ... Civale shutout 3 innings, 1 hit, 2 K's.

Indians Prospective ‏@indiansPro

#Indians OF prospect Connor Marabell w/ 2 more Doubles tonight now is 2nd in all Minor League Baseball with (45) on the year

1st time in @Indians Milb history (1929-2016) 3 players w/ 40+ Doubles in a season
Connor Marabell 45
Anthony Santander 42
Mark Mathias 40

#Indians only organization in @MiLB that have 3 players w/ 40 (2B)

Connor Marabell w/ (45) Doubles in 2016 has hit the most in a season by an @Indians Milb player since Dick Zwainz (49) in 1950

#Indians w/ 4 minor league players hit 20 or more HR since 2007
Bobby Bradley 29
Jesus Aguilar 29
Nellie Rodriguez 26
Anthony Santander 20

Akron RubberDucks LHP Rob Kaminsky @Kaminsky21 over his last 7 starts:
6-0 43.1(IP) 31H 9R 9ER 14BB 30SO 1.87 ERA

Man, Zimmer 0-3, and he's down to .244 now.

RubberDucks win and with that they make the playoffs. Yan Gomes 0-3 tonight with 2 K. Greg Allen 2-4 with a triple. Papi 1-2 with a walk and another homer. Dude finally gets hot. I think he saw his career dissipation light flickering into overdrive. (Recently watched Backdraft again)

Bradley and Krieger both 0-5. Krieger went to crap after I bragged on him. Santander 1-4 with a walk.

Calica 2-3 with a homer and a walk. Carter 0-3 with 3 K's. He's went to shit since I bragged on him too. Shawn Armstrong you may remember was sent to Lake County temporarily. He struck out the side in a perfect inning tonight.

No such luck for Juan Hillman, he was smacked around again. 3 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 K

Calica is looking very good for an 11th round pick. One downside is that after drawing 16 walks in 155 TAB in Mah Valley, he's only taken one free pass in 36 TAB with the Captains. But his OPS at 964 is pretty impressive and I don't mind that it's nearly 100 points lower than with the Scrappers.

By now I believe Zimmer has pretty much established himself as far less than a top 50 prospect in all baseball, where he's been rated since being drafted, although descending gradually in the rankings. He cannot hit left-handed pitchers, his power is tailing off and he strikes out far too often. While I was inappropriately unimpressed by Naquin's high averages without a lot of power [and he still has a terrible K/BB ratio] Zimmer's high status is due more to hopes than performance.

In AAA his vs LH and vs RH splits are in one case terrible and the other not very good:

vs LH 179/323/179 13 K in 34 total at bats not one extra base hit
vs RH 263/363/337 41 K in 110 total at bats

With a group of solid prospects in the organization it no longer makes sense to rate Zimmer No. 1 [which he'd already surrendered before Frazier went away]. Mejia and Aiken and Bradley and McKenzie all probably have better claims to the top spot. Although Bradley's sub-240 avg and mammoth strikeout numbers take some of the luster off his star.

While I was inappropriately unimpressed by Naquin's high averages without a lot of power [and he still has a terrible K/BB ratio] Zimmer's high status is due more to hopes than performance.

Really need to watch them play most of the time.

Sunday:

CLE AA Allen, Greg CF 4 0 2 0 .293 3B (3), CS (6)
CLE AA Papi, Mike LF 2 2 1 2 .227 HR (7), BB (40) [he's just getting better and better and better; wish he hadn't waited until the last weeks of the season to start his surge]
CLE AA Rodriguez, Nellie 1B 4 0 2 0 .248
CLE HiA Chang, Yu-Cheng SS 6 0 2 0 .261 2B (30)
CLE HiA Paulino, Dorssys LF 5 0 1 2 .286 2B (14), BB (19)
CLE HiA Brown, Mitch 1 0 0 0 0 2 5.03 [see below]
CLE LoA Armstrong, Shawn 1 0 0 0 0 3 0.00
CLE SS Hillman, Juan 3 4 3 2 1 2 4.43

OK so here's another failed starter who's made a successful conversion to a reliever, well at least at the Class A level.

Mitch Brown as a 22 year old starter in his return to Lynchburg:

73 2/3 IP 69 H 51 R 46 ER 59 BB 80 K 5.62 ERA 1.72 WHIP 1.08 K/IP

As a reliever:
24 2/3 IP 13 H 9 R 9 ER 18 BB 40 K 3.28 ERA 1.26 WHIP 1.62 K/IP
And in his last 11 outings:
11 2/3 IP 4 H 2 R 2 ER 5 BB 22K 1.54 ERA 0.77 WHIP 1.89 K/IP
OK, so not quite an ace closer yet, but he sure is racking up the strikeouts, cutting down on the men on base. His curse is bases on balls, obviously.

Do you like what you see of Zimmer? I hope he turns out as good as Naquin and the slow-developing Chisenhall. At best it's hard to see him more than another platoon player, since his splits against lefties have been terrible at Akron before Columbus.

Good stuff, Civ. Unfortunately I agree with you on Zimmer. Except maybe listing Bradley as a better prospect. He's equally as disappointing to me.

I think Rusty was just disagreeing with your comment on Naquin. He's been a fan of his before it was cool. I'm a fan of his too though a little later to party. I'd just like to see him become more selective at the plate. He has a tendency to chase balls in the dirt and high fastballs. He matures and becomes more patient he could really kick ass. But he's a darn fine ball player now.