Results tagged ‘ Reno Aces ’
Catching up with Under-the-Radar prospects
By Robert Emrich
At the start of the season, the staff at MiLB put together their preseason picks for prospects in each Minor League full-season league who were considered under-the-radar. Any player not in a MLB organization’s top 10 prospects according to MLB.com was eligible. One month into the season, it’s time to see where those picks stand.
Alex Colome, Durham Bulls: Colome has been as good as advertised (or unadvertised depending on your view) for the Bulls. Though the 24-year-old right-hander was just 1-3 in April, he leads the club with a 2.28 ERA through the season’s first month and limited International League hitters to a .200 average. On April 11 he picked up his first Triple-A win with six scoreless innings and took the Triple-A lead with his double-digit strikeout performance Monday vs. Lehigh Valley.
Alex Colome won his first Triple-A game on April 12 for Durham. (Al Drago/Durham Herald-Sun)
Chase Anderson, Reno Aces: Anderson has struggled in his first trip through the Pacific Coast League. He allowed 24 runs — 19 earned — in five April starts, and though he fanned 23 batters, he’s also yielded 35 hits, including four homers, in 27 1/3 innings.
Nik Turley, Trenton Thunder: Turley’s first two Eastern League starts did not go well (he allowed nine earned runs combined), but the California native showed signs of turning it around. Over his last three starts in April, he allowed six earned runs while notching a pair of wins for the Thunder.
Stefen Romero, Tacoma Rainiers: Romero skipped right over Double-A after a five-game stint in Class A Advanced High Desert. He hit in eight of the nine games he’s played in the season’s first month with the Tacoma Rainiers and batted .324 with five extra-base hits through that time frame.
Domingo Santana, Corpus Christi Hooks: Though his average sat at .241 in April, Santana showed the power that put him on this list, going deep three times and smacking five doubles in 16 Texas League games. He also posted a healthy .343 on-base percentage and stole three bases.
Clayton Blackburn, San Jose Giants: Blackburn is another player that has been as good as advertised early on, going 2-0 with a 2.57 ERA in five California League starts through the end of April. He racked up 33 strikeouts in 28 innings while allowing just 25 baserunners.
Keury De La Cruz, Salem Red Sox: The 21-year-old outfielder had an uneven first month, batting .256 while posting a .706 OPS for the Red Sox. He did drive in 19 runs in 22 games and stole five bases.
Steven Moya, Lakeland Flying Tigers: Moya played five games before succumbing to an arm injury. He has not played a game since April 9 and was batting .238 at the time of the injury.
Dan Vogelbach, Kane County Cougars: Vogelbach began to heat up as the season’s first month came to a conclusion, going yard in each of the final three games of April. He finished the month batting .315 with five homers and 14 RBIs in 22 games for the Cougars.
C.J. Edwards, Hickory Crawdads: Edwards has been just about lights out early on, holding South Atlantic League hitters to a .176 average in April and not allowing a homer this season. He was also 1-1 while compiling a 1.93 ERA for the Crawdads.
Prospect Uniformed: Indians’ Trevor Bauer in His Every MiLB Jersey, Plus More on The Montero Kerfuffle
(John Amis/AP)
Like or dislike him, Trevor Bauer is his own man. He’s shown that with his pitches, his preparation and his preaching. Since being the third overall pick in the 2011 Draft, whether he’s been at Class A Advanced Visalia or Double-A Mobile or Triple-A Reno, Bauer has been, well, himself.
The 21-year-old right-hander (bio, stats here) was also authentic in his first try at the Majors — a four-start stint in Arizona last summer. Which explains why he didn’t exactly get along with everyone in the D-backs clubhouse. In case your Spring Training coverage hasn’t included the Bauer-Miguel Montero duel, this story ought to send you down the worm-hole.
I covered Montero on a near-daily basis in 2010 and found him to be a smart, genial interviewee as well as a fiery, not-always-aware competitor. (He also had a run-in with the even-keeled Ian Kennedy that season.) I’ve also interviewed Bauer nearly a dozen times and have found him to be highly intelligent and, yeah, ultra-competitive and perhaps a little stubborn.
So that’s what I chalk the former battery mates’ battle up to: two guys who both want to be the best at what they do but have different ideas about how to do it. Luckily, they’re now in opposite leagues and no longer teammates. With the offseason deal that sent Bauer from the D-backs to the Indians, the unique if not eccentric righty could begin the season in Cleveland. Triple-A Columbus is also a possibility. In case he’s gone from the Minors for good…
Here is a gallery of Bauer in every uni he’s donned to date. Click on any picture to begin the slideshow. For all past editions of Prospect Uniformed, head here.
Lost and Found: D-backs Prospect Chase Anderson
Editor’s note: Lost and Found is an offseason series in which one underrated prospect from each of the 30 MLB clubs will be discussed in a short, snappy post.
Lost: A ninth-round pick out of the University of Oklahoma in 2009, Chase Anderson impressed in his first two pro seasons, splitting his time between the bullpen and the rotation. Then he struggled in three starts in 2011 before missing the remainder of the year to rest a strained flexor in his throwing elbow.
Found: Anderson avoided surgery on his pitching arm and, aside from another month of rest starting last May, put together the best campaign of his four-year career. (In his second start back, on April 23, he fanned 10 over seven four-hit, scoreless innings.)
2012: 2.86 ERA — 21 G — 21 GS — 104 IP — 97-to-25 K-BB — .238 OPP .AVG at Double-A Mobile
So Anderson was lost, now he is found. Now, about the D-backs’ returns: Anderson, who turns 25 on Friday, throws an outstanding changeup and a very good sinker — and those two pitches are enough to put him in the back end of a five-man rotation. If he develops his breaking pitches — and stays healthy, of course — we could be looking at a very solid No. 3 starter. Given his successful run through the AFL (3.47 ERA in six starts, 26 K in 23 1/3 IP), Anderson is likely to break big league camp with the Triple-A Reno Aces but will be at or near the top of the list to get the call to Arizona in 2013.
(Jordan Megenhardt/MiLB.com)
What Bauer, Skaggs Need to Fix for 2013
In some ways, it’s hard to envy Tyler Skaggs — yes, the 21-year-old strong-armed hurler entering the prime of his pitching life. In some ways, not all ways. Here is one: When Skaggs was traded from the Angels in Aug. 2010, he was a bright prospect to be sure, but he didn’t bring with him the sort of homegrown, battling-back-from-Tommy John surgery tale that attracted Arizona D-backs faithful to right-hander Jarrod Parker. This seemed to be fine by Skaggs who was still a lanky left-hander learning his craft on the Minors’ lower rungs.
Then, five months before Parker was traded to the Athletics in December, the D-backs went out and drafted another fire-balling righty in Trevor Bauer. And few ballplayers yield as much attention from the media and the fans because Bauer not only throws nine different pitches (he invented one of them), produces YouTube videos of his mound mechanics (and his musical performances) — he is also willing to discuss all of his zanier interests with any clubhouse visitor.
Skaggs, whom I have interviewed on five occasions for MiLB.com, is a very smart, at times thoughtful, interviewee, too. But it is obvious that he is less interested in what happens on the periphery, beyond the diamond’s white lines, or he is at least reticent to share his observations. As a result — fairly or unfairly –Skaggs has never been the No. 1 guy, and it was difficult to mention his name without comparing him to Parker and, nowadays, Bauer.
In this case, however, a juxtaposition might be justified: Bauer and Skaggs are Arizona’s top-ranked prospects and both excelled in the Minors in 2012 before finding little sweetness in their first cup of coffee in the Majors. So both need to make adjustments to be their best selves in ’13. They’re on no strict deadline, but Skaggs — and Bauer — might be overshadowed by this fellow farmhand soon enough.
Tyler Skaggs in the Minors: 9-6 — 2.87 ERA — 22 Gs — 122 1/3 IP — 37 BBs — 116 Ks
Skaggs in the Majors: 1-3 — 5.83 ERA — 6 Gs — 29 1/3 IP — 13 BBs — 21 Ks
Skaggs going forward: ”He’s gotten a little bit tired, which is understandable when you jump two levels. For him, it will be managing that. Each year, it gets easier. You pitch in the big leagues with fans, pressure, eyes on you — its different than pitching in Mobile.” – D-backs player development director Mike Bell
Trevor Bauer in the Minors: 12-2 — 2.42 ERA — 22 Gs — 130 1/3 IP — 61 BBs — 157 Ks
Bauer in the Majors: 1-2 — 6.06 ERA — 4 Gs — 16 1/3 IP — 13 BBs — 17 Ks
Bauer going forward: “I am anxious to see what changes he’s made next spring. I don’t think Trevor is ever going to make a ton of changes — he is always making subtle changes. In time, he’ll get more efficient, I think, possibly. But you can’t argue with his numbers.” – D-backs player development director Mike Bell
Tyler Skaggs (David Calvert/Reno Aces).
- Trevor Bauer (Louriann Mardo-Zayat).
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