Noel was asked to lay off the outside pitch and be more patient and selective. So far he is making contact and if he can continue the home runs will happen.

8 at bats, 1 strike out, 1 hit, Wish he could play more often but I do want to see Nolan Jones. I think Martinez will be up soon. I think Lane will need to go down in the order.

We can expect based on last year's experience that Thomas will be really cold and really hot. We don't know how long either will last.

As for Jones, I hope you're right; I'm not expecting much; unfortunately yesterday he played down to and below my expectations, with 4 strikeouts in 4 at bats.

Clippers were shut out yesterday; Dion started and was lifted after facing 6 batters, 2 runs, both unearned.
Mason Hickman who really should be let go followed and managed 1 2/3 3 hits 3 walks.
Walters pitched a perfect inning with 2 strikeouts. He shouldn't stay away from Cleveland for long if they're willing to go with 1 lefty in the pen, Cantillo would be much better off working on his stuff in Columbus

What appear to be actual rosters have been posted. Now Velezquez and Allard are on the Columbus roster. Messick, too, he's scheduled to start today

No other notable adjustments through the rest of the system.
Seasons open Friday; Doughty scheduled to open for Lynchburg; other starting pitchers not yet announced; Tugboat seems likely for Lake County, fronting a 4-lefty rotation. At Akron Peterson seems logical after his fine 2024 1/2 of which was in AA

Omitted the information that Genao is opening the season on the injured list

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Cleveland Guardians Prospect Report 4/1/25
Walters' 2025 Triple-A debut was a dominant one
Arthur Kinney
Apr 2






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SCOREBOARD

St. Paul Saints 5, Columbus Clippers 0 (Statcast)
HIGHLIGHTS

Kyle Datres (1B): 2-3, 1 2B - While Datres is more of a Triple-A veteran than a prospect, he was also the unquestioned offensive star of a largely dismal 2025 Home Opener at the Corner of Neil and Nationwide.

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Andrew Walters (RP): 1 IP, perfect, 2 K - On the pitching side, Walters - one of the six players added to the roster yesterday as the true Clippers squad finally took shape after an ersatz squad played the Opening Series in Toledo - provided the highlight with a perfect fifth frame that saw him get both looking and swinging strikeouts. His bread and butter was a 96-97 MPH four-seamer (eight of eleven pitches), but one of his three mid-80s sliders got his called strikeout with its 38 inches of drop.
NOTABLE PERFORMANCES

Angel Martinez (2B): 1-4 , 1 2B, 1 K - Martinez had the Clip Show’s other double - already his fourth of the campaign in as many games, representing just over one-third of Columbus’ league-leading eleven two-baggers.

Petey Halpin (LF): 1-3 - Halpin’s second-inning single was the Clippers’ hardest-hit ball of the day at 100.8 MPH.

Will Brennan (RF): 1-4, 1 K - Brennan has alternated hitless and one-hit games to start an unexpected stint in the minor leagues.

Will Brennan (RF): 1-4, 1 K - Brennan has alternated hitless and one-hit games to start an unexpected stint in the minor leagues.

Would hardly be surprised if the demotion was unexpected as well as depressing.
He'll need to get over it and earn his way back. Although the presence of Jones as another LH bat is going to make his return difficult. Jones is out of options so he'll get a long look before they give up on him. His CLE start is no more impressive than Brennan's in COL

weekend pitching lineups;

Columbus: Allard, TBD, Webb,
Akron: Mace, Peterson, Davenport all these guys pitched most if not all of last year in Akron
Lake County: Wilkinson, DeLucia, they both started in Lynchburg, finished in Lake County Humphries-- promoted despite a 4.56 Lynchburg ERA last summer
Lynchburg: Doughty, Cam Walty 20th round pick last summer never heard of him, from U of Arizona, Jacob Zibin 2022 highly regarded high school RHP signed to a 10x slot bonus of $1,200,000 and has been hurt ever since. I'm excited for his debut.

PREDRAFT ANALYSIS: A Canadian-born righthander who is one of the youngest players in the 2022 class, Zibin will be 17 on draft day and doesn’t turn 18 until January 2023. Zibin has a strong 6-foot-3, 180-pound frame that still has more physical projection remaining, and an exciting fastball/changeup combination. He throws a fastball that sits in the low 90s, but the pitch has been up to 96 this spring. Zibin’s best secondary is a low-80s changeup, which he shows advanced feel to spot at the bottom of the zone. The pitch comes out of his hand with fastball arm speed and features plenty of arm-side fading action that keeps it off barrels. It’s a real swing-and-miss pitch at times when it falls off the table in addition to moving arm side. Zibin’s feel for spin is a bigger question. He throws a breaking ball with sweeping action in the upper 70s and lower 80s, but the pitch can back up at times and flatten out up in the zone. Zibin has a strong lower half and a workable delivery that should allow him to improve his strikes as he ages.

I have to guess it's intentional that the Guardians' minor league rotations are full of left handers. Who have been very rarely found among our major league starters for ages.

AAA: Nikhazy, Webb, Dion, Messick and Allard. Or will Velazquez be in the rotation as a token righty?
AA: will remain a RH domain with Mace, Peterson, Davenport, Denholm with Rodney Boone perhaps the sole lefthander
High A; Wilkinson, Humprhies, Kennedy, Hartle and RightHander DeLucia
Low A: to be determined when I turn my computer back on

Guardians farm teams have a very lefty heavy starting pitching collection this year. Very different from our extremely RH-oriented rotation for many years.
The apparent starters this year will be:

Columbus; Lefites Nikhazy, Messick, Webb, Allard, Dion. Or perhaps RH Velazquez will spell one of those five
Akron: RH-centric with Mace, Peterson, Davenport, Denholm; Perhaps LH Rodney Boone
Lake County: Lefties Wilkinson, Kennedy, Humphries, Hartle; Right-hander Dylan DeLucia
Lynchburg: RH Doughty. RH Walty, RH Zibin. I don't know who the other starters will be here.

Speaking of the Tugboat:


2025 Cleveland Guardians Prospect Scouting Report: #22 LHP Matt Wilkinson

Next Year in Cleveland - Guardians Farm System Coverage
To: me · Fri, Apr 4 at 11:06 AM
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2025 Cleveland Guardians Prospect Scouting Report: #22 LHP Matt Wilkinson
Will Tugboats fastball have enough life to compete in the majors?
Justin Lada
Apr 4






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Bio

Age (2025 season): 22

Acquired: Draft (2023, 10th round)

2024 Level: High-A

Height: 6’1

Weight: 270

Throws: Left

First impression

The everyman athlete with a great nickname. Tugboat is one of the best nicknames in sports right now. Sneaky athleticism in a figure that doesn’t look like it upon first look. Command, pitchability and confidence.
2025 Scouting Grades

Fastball: 45

Slider: 50

Changeup: 55

Command: 50

Overall: 40

Risk: Moderate

ETA: 2027

What Makes Wilkinson Fun

The athlete that doesn’t look like your typical athlete, but goes out there and dominates against what looks like typical way to get it done. When you combine that with humble confidence, charisma, great nickname, along with his pitchability, you get a lot of fun. So far, Wilkinson has not just survived but excelled with below average fastball velocity thanks to some very unique traits. He commands the fastball well, because he has to, but it has strong deceptiveness because of his very unusual release height and low-¾ delivery. It doesn’t appear as your typical straightline fastball and a lot of hitters swing over it or take it, expecting it to move like something else. His changeup plays very well off the fastball despite not having a ton of separation velocity-wise. It has plenty of tumble and run and he commands it well. His slider is a bit slurvy but he’s able to manipulate the shape so it looks like he has a curveball and a slider at times. He avoids walks and has missed a lot more bats than you’d ever expect from someone with his stuff and size.

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What Could Hold Wilkinson Back

While not trying to be a buzzkill on a great story, velocity matters, to a certain point. There is a minimum threshold to meet for a certain level of success. That doesn’t mean he can’t succeed at his current velocity thanks to his command and deception. It’s just that it would be a unique outcome that is different from what we see leads to success today. So he’s either a unicorn or a great story that eventually reaches a pre-imposed ceiling. So it’s important to define what success might looks like for Wilkinson based on his current velocity, and what it could look like if he gains more. Even at 89-92 and hitting say, 94, there’s a different level he can reach with his command and deception. The fact is, hitters train for velocity and better hitters are prepared for 96+ these days, so even the most deception isn’t going to work every time and not consistently. Each mile an hour gained gives you an added level of success and a margin for error. So at 88, Wilkinson can’t afford to ever miss his spots with it. Could further conditioning improvements lead to better velocity? If so, that raises his ceiling a little more. Otherwise, it’s unwise to bet that the best deception and command can beat upper level hitters as he moves up when throwing 88.
Key Metric

65.4% - The contact rate against Tugboat in 2024 would have been the lowest in the majors among all qualified starters in 2024 (Dylan Cease was the lowest at 69.3%). It was still just 67.9% at High-A after being 60% at Low-A before. It really makes you re-think if a non-traditional looking pitcher with below average velocity can succeed against the worlds best hitters.
Intangibles

The 15 strikeout game in his fourth appearance of 2024 put Tugboat on the map among the baseball/prospect community in a big way. He was on shows everywhere and on sportscasts. That didn’t change Tugboat. He continued to be as confidently humble as ever. Wilkinson knows exactly what he’s good at, knows his game and is very confident and what he can do. He’s also continued to improve his conditioning since the Guardians drafted him and should be well below his initial 270lb weight as it is, showing a dedication to get into more serious baseball shape.
Future

The big picture is that it is still hard to believe that 86-88 can succeed at the big league level with regularity. Any fastball velocity in that range, I would be tempted to not rank or report on a prospect because it’s unlikely they would have enough to get by at the upper levels of the minors. But Wilkinson is unique because of his delivery, deception and command. His secondaries are good enough. Bringing up the floor of his velocity and improved conditioning could make him a back of the rotation type starter. Until we see that his velocity and deception work enough against hitters in the upper minors, predicting anything more would be declaring him a unicorn. Other pitchers with his velocity have dominated the lower minors, even Double-A (think Will Dion recently) but at Triple-A it wasn’t enough, let alone the majors. It’s not all velocity, but as said, there’s still a minimum threshold that probably needs to be met against the best hitters in the world who are training for 96+ and are used to it that make him seem like an up and down arm or a middle relief option. As a unicorn, Tugboat could be a fifth starter that gets by on command and secondaries sort of like a Josh Tomlin
Role/Risk

40/High - Up/down depth starter/middle relief

Bazzana AA debut

2 singles
2 walks
2 steals

Doughty debut 3 innings 2 runs 6 strikeouts
Wilkinson 3 innings 1 unearned run 3 walks 5 strikeouts

Chourio 0-5
Velazquez 4 walks 1 strikeout

Cleveland Guardians Prospect Report 4/4/25

Next Year in Cleveland - Guardians Farm System Coverage
To: me · Sat, Apr 5 at 6:01 AM
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Cleveland Guardians Prospect Report 4/4/25
Nights like this are why MiLB.TV needs a multiview feature...
Arthur Kinney
Apr 5




Columbus Clippers 3, St. Paul Saints 2 (G1 - F/7) - Statcast
Columbus Clippers 11, St. Paul Saints 1 (G2 - F/6 - Rain) - Statcast
Akron RubberDucks 7, Richmond Flying Squirrels 4
Lake County Captains 8, Great Lakes Loons 1
Fayetteville Woodpeckers 7, Lynchburg Hillcats 0
HIGHLIGHTS

Christian Cairo (SS, Columbus - G2): 4-4, 1 R, 2 2B, 4 RBI, 1 CS - Entering yesterday’s nightcap, Cairo had played in 361 official professional baseball games. He had never had more than three hits in any of them. He then proceeded to not only get his first four-hit game in a seven-doubleheader contest, but in a rain-shortened one in which the Clippers only came to bat five times. When they say you never know what you’re going to see when you walk into a ballpark, they really do mean it.

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Angel Martinez (CF, Columbus - G1): 3-4, 1 R, 2 RBI, 1 SB - While not as astonishing as Cairo’s Game 2 performance, Martinez nonetheless impressed in the twin bill’s opener with a trio of hits including a bottom-of-the-seventh two-run line drive to center that tied the game for the previously scoreless Clippers, who were down to their last outs.

Andrew Walters (RP, Columbus - G1): 1.1 IP, 1 H, 2 BB, 2 K - After looking a bit shaky in closing out the fourth and starting the fifth with a walk, Walters looked as impressive as he did in his Triple-A debut in getting the next three Saints out in order. Like on Tuesday, his reliance on the four-seamer bordered on extreme (21 of 26 pitches) but his slider proved to be the weapon when a called strike was needed (both times he got a Twins prospect to look at a strike, it was on one of the four sliders he threw).

Travis Bazzana (2B, Akron): 2-3, 1 R, 1 RBI, 2 BB, 2 SB - While he didn’t have an extra-base hit in his Double-A debut, he did pretty much everything else, reaching base in four of five plate appearances and stealing a pair of bases. Not a bad start in the high minors for the most anticipated prospect in the Guardians system.

Jorge Burgos (DH, Akron): 1-4, 1 R, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 1 HBP - Burgos nearly equaled Bazzana’s Opening Day OPS (1.400 compared to Travis’ 1.467) - mostly with one swing of the bat - a line drive homer to right that extended the ‘Ducks lead to four. Jorge opening his 2025 hit account with a homer is not surprising as he hit three of them in a 15-game cup of coffee with Akron last season.

Esteban Gonzalez (LF, Lake County): 2-5, 2 R, 1 2B, 2 RBI, 2 K - Gonzalez kicked off his second season of non-complex ball in grand fashion with a two-hit, two-RBI performance highlighted by a two-run double during the Captains’ six-run seventh-inning outburst.

Wuilfredo Antunez (DH, Lake County): 2-5, 1 R, 2 RBI, 1 K - While he didn’t record an extra-base hit, Antunez also had a multi-hit Opening Day that, in his case, included opening the Captains’ 2025 scoring account with a sixth-inning single.

Juan Benjamin (3B, Lake County): 2-3, 1 2B, 1 RBI, 2 BB, 2 SB, 1 CS - Benjamin joined in on the offensive explosion in a High-A debut that saw him be nearly as active on the basepaths as he was at the plate.

Matt Wikinson (SP, Lake County): ND, 3 IP, 3 H, 1 R (unearned), 3 BB, 5 K - While his walk total was a little higher than usual, everyone seemed to be walking guys in Midland, Mich. last night - probably due to the cold weather (45 degrees at first pitch), conditions he hasn't had to pitch in since his high school days in Alberta. Otherwise, it was vintage Tugboat. Few runs. Lots of strikeouts. All in all, an encouraging performance.

Braylon Doughty (SP, Lynchburg): L (0-1), 3 IP, 5 H, 2 R (both earned), 1 WP, 6 K - Doughty got past some early jitters to strike out three Woodpeckers in a row to limit the damage in a professional debut inning that could have gone out of control very quickly. His overall performance was far more promising than the statline suggests. His next start will be one worth watching (which you will be able to do, regardless of which park it’s at, as all Carolina League teams are streaming on MiLB.TV for the 2025 season).
NOTABLE PERFORMANCES

Milan Tolentino (DH, Columbus - G2): 2-4, 1 2B, 2 RBI, 1 SB - Hopefully, Tolentino’s impressive nightcap - which included a Game 2 team best 103.6 MPH exit velo in his fourth-inning double - represents a breakout performance following a rough start to his Triple-A career.

Will Wilson (DH - G1/3B - G2, Columbus): combined 2-6, 2 R, 1 2B, 1 HR, 3 RBI, 2 BB, 2 K - Wilson had only one hit in each game last night, but they were big ones. His walk-off double in the first game was the hardest-hit ball of the day for the Clip Show at 106.7 MPH, While his second-contest hit was a good bit slower off the bat at 96.8 MPH, it traveled 348 feet over the right field wall for a two-run homer. Not bad for a Triple-A Rule 5 guy.

Bradley Hanner (RP, Columbus - G1): W (2-0), 2 IP, 2 H, 1 BB - Hanner now has two individual victories in three Triple-A appearances (0ne last season) after his first multi-inning effort and first scoreless outing at the level.

Kolby Allard (SP, Columbus - G2): ND, 4 IP, 3 H, 1 R (earned), 1 BB, 5 K - While the offense put up the gaudy numbers in Game 2, Allard quietly put together a solid start that helped turn the slugfest into a blowout.

C.J. Kayfus (1B, Akron): 2-5, 2 RBI - While Bazzana will get a majority of the headlines from the RubberDucks’ opener, Kayfus had a multi-hit, multi-RBI Opening Day of his own as he started a season at Double-A for the first time.

Dayan Frias (3B, Akron): 1-4, 1 R, 1 2B, 2 RBI, 1 BB, 1 K - Frias got his official 2025 season off to a good start by driving in the first two runs of the new campaign for the Mallards of Main Street with a first-inning line-drive double to left.

Tommy Mace (SP, Akron): W (1-0), 5 IP, 4 H, 1 R (earned), 4 BB, 4 K - While Mace didn;t have the greatest opener in terms of keeping Flying Squirrels off the basepaths, he was masterful in stranding them there.

Zach Jacobs (RP, Akron): 2 IP, perfect, 3 K - Jacobs followed Mace with a pair of dominant frames that included swinging strikeouts from the first two batters he faced in a Double-A debut that came, unusually, after his (not as impressive Triple-A debut (3 ER in 1.2 IP in Toledo last Saturday).

Zane Morehouse (RP, Akron): S (1), 1 IP, 1 BB, 2 WP, 2 K - Despite some control issues, Morehouse kept his record unblemished in three career Double-A save opportunities.

Ralphy Velazquez (1B, Lake County): 0-1, 1 R, 4 BB, 1 K - While Velazquez had a hitless Opening day, he made plenty of trips to the basepaths. Hopefully, the plate discipline he exhibited last night is the start of a trend.

Jacob Cozart (C, Lake County): 0-2, 3 BB, 1 K, 2 E - Cozart also had a good eye at the plate in the opener, even if he didn’t have the best night behind it.

Kyle Scott (RP, Lake County): W (1-0), 2.2 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 5 K - Scott impressed in a scoreless High-A debut.

Adam Tulloch (RP, Lake County): S (1), 3.1 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 3 K - The most experienced of the three Captain hurlers posted the longest and best outing of the evening to earn the ten-out Opening Day save.

Bennett Thompson (C, Lynchburg): 1-2, 2 BB, 1 SB, 1 E - Last summer’s 13th round pick was easily the offensive star of a rough opener for the Hillcats.

Jogly Garcia (RP, Lynchburg): 3 IP, 1 H, 1 R (unearned), 1 BB, 3 K - An excellent start to Garcia’s first full non-complex season.

"Career Game" [so far] for Bazzana: Homer; Double; Two Singles; in 5 trips.
2 stat line: .750/800/1250