Braun had his struggles with six runs allowed, but continues to miss bats at a high rate
With no Atlanta Braves baseball being played it was up to the farm system to carry the torch on Thursday night. They did not do that. They got swept. Still there were a handful of things to like — Cal Conley had a hell of a day and has had a resurgent season in Mississippi. Lucas Braun had his worst day of the past month, but still had flashes of brilliance for Rome the day after they clinched the division.
(34-38) Gwinnett Stripers 5, (31-40) Charlotte Knights 7
- Nacho Alvarez, SS: 1-4, BB, RBI, .389/.436/.722
- Drake Baldwin, DH: 0-5, .273/.368/.455
- Luke Waddell, 2B: 2-4, HR, 2 RBI, .215/.297/.307
- Bryce Elder, SP: 4 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 3 BB, 7 K, 3.86 ERA
- Jackson Stephens, RP: 1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 3.54 ERA
The blistering start from the Braves duo of prospects in Gwinnett has slowed this week and they’re having a tough go of things on both sides of the ball. Bryce Elder got off to a terrible start on the mound as he couldn’t get anyone out in the first couple of innings, and Gwinnett never really made a push to catch back up until the very late stages of the game. Elder’s feel for the zone, perhaps partially due to this being a full ABS day, and he often found himself either issuing walks or in hitter-friendly counts. Needing to rely on his fastball he just wasn’t able to have success, though his results on his slider were as encouraging as they’ve been in the past few weeks. It was more of a hiccup than anything over a stretch where Elder has been quite good, and he was just missing by a hair especially below the zone.
Drake Baldwin and Nacho Alvarez have obviously been good early in their Triple-A careers, but an underrated resurgence of late has been that of Luke Waddell. Waddell’s numbers have been horrible this year as his contact is just not sharp enough to really do damage at the upper levels, but he’s managed to turn in a few weeks of good play and be a roughly league average hitter. Still hard at this point to see him in a major league role, but the improvements especially in drawing walks are notable.
As for Baldwin he’s had a tough week, and we’re already seeing pitchers starting to challenge him more with offspeed stuff and especially challenge him on the outer half of the plate. Baldwin has done his best damage by jumping on inside fastballs, and will need to find a way to get a bit more power in pitches out away from him in order to make that an area pitchers can’t go to as confidently. Baldwin still showed good plate discipline this game and didn’t expand out of the zone, a key factor to the success he’s had in the past couple of months. Alvarez on the other hand was getting a steady dose of fastballs in this game, and he was pitched quite well. The one mistake the Knights made on a fastball up the middle Alvarez took advantage of, smacking a 102 mph single on a middle-middle fastball in the ninth inning. He drove in the final run of the game for Gwinnett, but Baldwin and Yuli Gurriel struck out with two runners in scoring position to end the game.
Swing and Misses
Bryce Elder – 14
(29-36) Mississippi Braves 3, (39-26) Tennessee Smokies 4
- Cody Milligan, CF: 1-4, .224/.286/.327
- Cal Conley, 2B: 2-4, 2B, HR, 2 RBI, .251/.326/.338
- Drew Parrish, SP: 5.1 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 4.02 ERA
This Mississippi team is hurting for major league quality talent, and the one player I’ve really been looking at lately is Cal Conley. Conley has done a bit of work to his swing on the left side to tighten up some of the holes and make a bit more contact there, and so far this season he has seen huge dividends from these changes. Now you would expect a player to improve in his second trip through Double-A, so some of this is just a matter of experience, but Conley went from abysmal last season to a guy who over the past month has been a major offensive threat. Over his past 30 days Conley has a 142 wRC+, and it’s not merely just a run of good batted ball luck. We’re seeing the best swings from the left side we’ve ever seen from Conley with consistent hard contact – especially pull side – and an improvement in swing decisions that is the factor I will mostly chalk up to being a year older and facing the same level of competition. With Conley dropping switch-hitting completely now I like his chances a bit more at a major league role, and he’s gone from a guy I thought was a liability on the defensive end two years ago to one I can see playing shortstop at the major league level well enough to be a utility infielder. He’s a better fit for second base, but with his power potential and better foot speed he’s easily leapfrogged Waddell in my eyes in the pecking order.
The game got a bit away from Drew Parrish early as the Smokies were sitting on him right from the outset and he allowed two runs in the first inning. Overall he settled in and managed to get into the sixth inning, but it was not a great outing for him. Parrish’s stuff just isn’t good enough to make mistakes in the zone and we’ve seen that all season with him having allowed 12 home runs, with another one today to the Cubs 2023 first rounder Matt Shaw who has been torturing the Braves this series.
Swing and Misses
Drew Parrish – 11
Jonathan Hughes – 3
(36-28) Rome Emperors 3, (26-40) Greenville Drive 10
- Drew Compton, DH: 2-4, .205/.314/.341
- EJ Exposito, SS: 2-4, 2 2B, .288/.350/.532
- Lucas Braun, SP: 5.1 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 0 BB, 9 K, 4.34 ERA
The Emperors had their hangover lineup out there on Thursday, and without a few of the better prospects there wasn’t a whole lot going on offensively. EJ Exposito has been somewhat struggling the past few weeks in comparison to his early season numbers, with his wRC+ sitting at 98 since May 25th, but a day like today certainly helps those numbers. Exposito hit the ball hard and twice came away with a double, and even during this cold streak there has been a stark increase in contact rate for Expo compared to last year. The power numbers have remained solid as well — a .146 isolated power with that home park is nothing to scoff at — and he is still hitting the ball hard, though the walk rate (4.2%) is indicative of some of what I’ve felt lately with him expanding the edges of the zone just a bit.
Lucas Braun certainly had a bad day at the office, no way around it. Any time you allow six runs in a game you have to feel like you didn’t do your job on the mound. However you look at the whiff numbers and the overall strikeout numbers and there is a glimmer there of some of the quality Braun showed during the outing. Braun had stretches of the pure dominance we’ve seen from him over the last month of play, but there were too many times he was leaving his slider a bit up and arm side and missing right into the heart of the plate. Greenville wasn’t missing either, as the lit up a slider in the first inning for a home run, then did the same on the inside-the-park home run a few innings later. The shape of Braun’s pitches looked good and he was really landing his fastball arm side and up in the zone, forcing some whiffs on his fastball and getting them when he buried his breaking ball a bit more. Braun’s command looks good and he had a bit of a fluke game where they pretty much hit everything he left over the plate. Zoom out though, and he is on a seven game stretch with a 32.5% strikeout rate, 3.6% walk rate, and a 2.66 FIP. He’s been the team’s best pitcher and going into the second half it’s only a matter of time before Mississippi calls.
Swing and Misses
Lucas Braun – 14
Tyree Thomspon – 6
(27-38) Augusta GreenJackets 1, (34-32) Salem Red Sox 7
- Isaiah Drake, CF: 0-5, .156/.227/.274
- Will Verdung, DH: 1-2, 2B, BB, .232/.359/.286
- Robert Gonzalez, RF: 0-2, 2 BB, .173/.264/.243
- Davis Polo, SP: 4 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 4.18 ERA
- Giomar Diaz, RP: 3 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 4.26 ERA
Augusta went 2-32 at the plate in this game and 0-11 with runners in scoring position and that’s really all you need to know here. It was an awful game and it’s been a lot of that lately as this offense is hard to watch. Isaiah Drake has cooled this week and had to battle a couple of lefty starters which doesn’t help, though I still think he looks good at the plate and it’s a matter of time before the hits start falling. There is definitely discomfort there for Drake against left handed pitching and he’s going to need to see the ball better, though we’re talking about a guy who doesn’t turn 19 until next month and I’m not expecting him to have platoon issues figured out yet. If we’re trying to glean any other positives from this it’s hard, if you look at Robert Gonzalez he has started to chase a lot less and has a 19.7% walk rate over the past month, but in exchange for those walk rates his hard contact has all but dried up and he still has not been good. Patience is good by all means, but he’s still not swinging at ideal pitches.
Davis Polo had a solid start and I liked how his fastball looked in this game. For a 19 year old Polo has quite good command and was hitting the upper half of the zone with his fastball with seeming regularity. It’s a better fastball than its velocity thanks to location and movement, but for Polo I don’t see any of those secondaries as major league quality offerings. This is why he will tend to struggle deeper in games as there really isn’t anything for him to get hitters off of his fastball. Athleticism and fastball command are positives but Polo has to develop a better breaking ball to even have a major league relief projection.
Swing and Misses
Davis Polo – 7
Giomar Diaz – 6
(8-22) FCL Braves 3, (15-15) FCL Orioles 5
- Luis Guanipa, CF: 1-4, .350/.381/.550
- John Gil, SS: 1-4, .248/.323/.319
- Luis Arestigueta, SP: 4.2 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 3.42 ERA
It was Luis Arestigueta day but the FCL Braves still couldn’t turn that into a win, and it was because it was by far the worst outing of the season for Arestigueta. Four runs in 4 2⁄3 innings isn’t completely awful, which goes to show just how good he has been, though there has been somewhat of a dip in strikeouts recently. At this stage his stuff isn’t amazing, at least by full season standards, but there is a ton of projection from Arestigueta and we could see him in full season ball later this season. Luis Guanipa had another hit, and he has hit safely in five of his six games this year. This was the first time he has struck out multiple times so far, hopefully not something we see too many repeats of, but he is still trying to work back to complete physical form after a long injury layoff. I think as soon as the Braves feel he is 100% they’ll bump him to Single-A, based on what we’ve seen and heard from him he is as ready or more ready than the guys already there and the improvements he’s made in the contact department give him a great chance to be an immediate impact guy there.
(4-7) DSL Braves 3, (4-8) DSL Athletics 6
- Juan Espinal, CF: 0-4, BB, 4 K, .194/.388/.306
- Juan Mateo, SS: 1-3, 2 BB, .293/.420/.366
- Edward Cedano, SP: 5 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 1.13 ERA
I was liking Juan Espinal early in the season (I still do, talent-wise) but the strikeouts have gotten really bad in the last few games. Of course he is a super raw talent, but you never want to see 30+ percent strikeout rates at complex levels. Juan Mateo has been great though, and it’s disappointing we won’t really get to see him this season because the contact numbers have been impressive. It wasn’t a great outing for Edward Cedano, as this is another young guy with command issues, but it’s a talented arm to watch nonetheless. His raw stuff is already showing major league potential, especially with velocity into the upper 90’s as a 18 year old, and when he is in the zone DSL hitters aren’t doing much with it. If we see a command bump I could see him getting transferred to Florida as he is repeating this level, and the results so far have been decent.