Gil joined Luis Guanipa and Junior Garcia in the GreenJackets lineup Friday
It’s a new-look Augusta GreenJackets lineup, as they have completely rebuilt the roster with the promotions of top Atlanta Braves prospects Luis Guanipa, John Gil, and Junior Garcia. This trio all have impressed in the Florida Complex League, and I gave some of my first impressions of them in their Augusta debuts. In Rome Mitch Farris had a terrific day, but the game ended in disappointment at the Emperors were no hit.
(44-49) Gwinnett Stripers, (41-49) Charlotte Knights POSTPONED
(41-46) Mississippi Braves 5, (49-38) Pensacola Blue Wahoos 4
- Tyler Tolve, C: 1-4, HR, 3 RBI, .207/.263/.383
- Justin Dean, RF: 1-4, 2B, BB, .240/.334/.327
- David Fletcher, SP: 6 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 4.82 ERA
- Patrick Halligan, RP: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 1.91 ERA
David Fletcher had another game where the first inning was a major problem for him, but he went on to have an overall solid start. Fletcher allowed a walk and hit two batters in the first inning, all of which scored, but managed to hold Pensacola to only one run the rest of the game. He was helped out by a couple of double play balls, and when the Braves took a lead in the top of the sixth inning it helped Fletcher to earn his first professional win.
Tyler Tolve had his struggled in this game, as he struck out three times. But it was in the other time up to bat that he made his mark, as he came up with a huge opportunity in the sixth inning. The Braves were trailing 4-1, never having made a huge push to come back from that early deficit, but the first two batters in the sixth inning each had hits to bring up Tolve with two runners on and no outs. Tolve got a slider that was left over the plate, and he turned on one with an easy swing and hit it over the left center field wall for a game-tying three run home run. Mississippi wasn’t done, however, and Geraldo Quintero’s speed made a huge difference in this one. Quintero walked and advanced on a passed ball, then on a base hit into right field was able to motor in from second and score the go-ahead run for the game. Quintero has been on a solid hot streak of late with a six-game hitting streak, and has reached base multiple times in all six of those games. A lot of that has been from him drawing walks, as he has six of them over his past five games and has seen his on base percentage jump 30 points during this streak.
Swing and Misses
David Fletcher – 9
Jake McSteen – 5
(43-43) Rome Emperors 0, (43-43) Hudson Valley Renegades 1
- Sabin Ceballos, 3B: 0-4, .262/.352/.362
- Kevin Kilpatrick Jr., CF: 0-3, BB, .240/.320/.357
- Mitch Farris, SP: 6.1 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 5 K, 3.26 ERA
- Shay Schanaman, RP: 1.2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 4.50 ERA
I’m not sure how much worse of an experience you can have on a baseball field than what the Rome Emperors did on Friday night, getting no-hit and walked off in the same game. If it feels like this team has hit a wall offensively it’s because they have, as over the past 15 games they have been easily the worst offense in the South Atlantic League. The Emperors suffered their fifth shutout in July, which is a lot for a team who came into the month having only been shut out three times and only once since April 13th. Rome hasn’t even seen a significant jump in strikeouts or drop in walks or anything like that, they are just not hitting the ball hard and what they do hit is not falling.
The only thing keeping the Emperors even remotely in games lately has been the strength of the pitching staff, and Mitch Farris has been one of the biggest contributors. Farris’s five strikeouts pushed him back on top of the system in total strikeouts, a race that seems to be coming down to who between he and Lucas Braun can finish the strongest. Farris had his struggles to find the strike zone in Augusta, but has been back to throwing strikes as expected in High-A and his lethal changeup and solid curveball have combined with that command to make him one of the league’s best pitchers. Farris has a 2.61 FIP, third in the South Atlantic League behind Jonah Tong and fellow Rome Emperor Owen Murphy, with his K-BB% also ranking second in the league. Farris was in control of this game, needing only 79 pitches to get into the seventh inning.
Swing and Misses
Mitch Farris – 11
Shay Schanaman – 3
(36-50) Augusta GreenJackets 3, (51-37) Kannapolis Intimidators 13
- Luis Guanipa, CF: 1-4, .250/.250/.250
- John Gil, SS: 2-3, RBI, .667/.500/.667
- Isaiah Drake, LF: 0-3, BB, .164/.244/.264
- Rolando Gutierrez, SP: 2 IP, 2 H, 7 R, 4 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 9.00 ERA
The focus of everyone evaluating the system, at least for the next few weeks, is going to land right here in Augusta. Unfortunately for those who enjoy watching GreenJackets baseball this one got ugly quickly. Rolando Gutierrez was awful, Adam Shoemaker was even worse, and the defense did nothing to help either get through their strike zone issues. The only pitcher who had any success was Juan Sanchez, who has been one of the intriguing players in the bullpen this season for Augusta. Sanchez has a legit MLB quality slider though his sinker and command are both below average and will need a lot of development for him to get to a middle relief role.
As for the offense, which is finally worth caring about for one of the lower level teams, somehow it was Will Verdung who stole the show from all of the recently-promoted teenagers. Verdung hit a home run to get Augusta on the board early, which was his first long ball since May 2nd. Verdung has made plenty of strides towards being consistent with his contact and approach, but ultimately we will need to see more power from him in order to project him to a major league bench role.
John Gil is a fun one, and a guy I am much higher on than the consensus and maybe even the general consensus among the Battery Power crew. I love the athleticism here, and he showed it off early with two infield singles that both posted with 80 grade home to first times. It’s only one game here, and that’s an important note for every observation on the trio of new hitters, but I do think Gil is going to struggle the more he climbs the ladder I think, as his contact is well ahead of his approach and in full season ball he’s have to be more selective to maintain his lower level numbers. His swing looks a whole lot like Javy Baez, though he is not completely selling out for power in the same way. Still, my original evaluation that he is going to struggle in the top half of the zone given his swing path still holds true, but the bat speed is there, he creates leverage and loft, and I think he’ll continue to make contact as long as he doesn’t chase out of the zone too often. We really didn’t get to see much of how he would react here to breaking balls out of the zone so that will be something to monitor.
Luis Guanipa smacked a single up the middle for a hit in this game, and his bat speed just jumps off of the page every time you watch him play. I’ve said before that I like Guanipa a ton and that’s not changed a bit, and really every flaw I’m seeing seems fixable. Guanipa covers the plate well and can make contact in any part of the zone, which is one of those things that you don’t often see from players this young. The main two improvements that I saw as issues in the first game are as follows. One, he got fooled badly on a few sliders and his recognition of secondaries will have to improve. I’m not surprised by this at all as we’re talking about an 18 year old and other than Juan Soto every guy this age has to improve his recognition of secondaries. Two is his bat path, which is a bit more of an active process to fix. Guanipa’s swing got a bit long and loopy especially in the lower half of the zone, and that led to him swinging through some pitches that seemed hittable. His bat path is also flatter than ideal and the Braves will need to make some adjustments to unlock his full power potential. After a few more games watching him I’ll start to delve deeper into some mechanical adjustments I think he could make, but what really impressed me was his ability to get his bat to multiple parts of the zone and of course his bat speed. Those two traits are much, much harder to improve for clubs than swing path and approach and having those already in the bag will make his development more a point of refinement than building.
Junior Garcia I had a bit less of a lead in on information from so I’m starting from scratch relative to Gil and Guanipa, so I’m going to be a bit more patient on spewing observation here. Again one game sample, but Garcia really impressed me with his strike zone recognition in this game. He had some great takes on borderline pitches, and really seems to know that his attack zones are in the bottom half of the zone. My initial thought is that the Braves will probably end up having Garcia drop his hands a bit in his setup, but that’s really overall a minor adjustment. Once I get more looks at him I’ll go deeper in on some of the negatives I saw but don’t feel confident throwing my weight behind just yet.
Swing and Misses
Juan Sanchez – 11
Adam Shoemaker – 7
(20-34) FCL Braves 1, (32-23) FCL Rays 11
- Douglas Glod, CF: 1-4, .205/.366/.315
- Carlos Monteverde, LF: 3-4, .381/.480/.429
- Luis Arestigueta, SP: 4 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 4 BB, 2 K, 6.28 ERA
It’s been a struggle for Luis Arestigueta to find the strike zone his past few starts, and you have to wonder if he is starting to get a bit tired. This late in the season, especially for a player so young, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him trail off a bit and even his strikeouts have taken a notable dip. Carlos Monteverde has taken quickly to the FCL level, with more walks than strikeouts so far in his six games played. He has been the best player on the roster since his promotion, and now hasn’t struck out for four straight games. There has been unfortunately little power to speak of at either level this year, but it’s nice to see one of the higher profile signings hitting this much.
(6-13) DSL Braves 7, (10-10) DSL Rays 8 F/10
*Completion of June 29th game
- Michael Martinez, LF: 1-5, .186/.291/.324
- Juan Mateo, SS: 0-1, .220/.326/.305
- Kelvin Carmona, SP: 3 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 3.97 ERA
(9-22) DSL Braves 3, (15-17) DSL Rays 0 SUSPENDED
- Michael Martinez, DH: 1-2, .186/.291/.324
- Juan Mateo, SS: 1-2, .220/.326/.305
- Jose Pineda, SP: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 10.32 ERA
So the first of these games was the completion of a game that was delayed in the eighth inning a few weeks ago, so the DSL team only got about five total innings of run in on Friday. There was unfortunately no Jose Perdomo in the lineup as they are definitely alternating him off and on playing to work him back in healthy, so the lineups were a bit limited on intrigue. Add 17 year old Kelvin Carmona to the list of DSL pitchers with reasonably high strikeout rates but unholy walk rates, as he has allowed 15 in 14 innings this year. That’s kind of the name of the game for the Braves in the international market — grab a ton of athletic pitchers and if even one of them develops average command you’ve made a steal out of the entire class. Juan Mateo had a hit in the half inning before the delay and suspension of game two, hopefully helping to ease what has been a horrible streak of play for him this month.