Thoughts for a Thursday

GAVIN WILLIAMS AND THE CLIPPERS

Gavin Williams made his debut in AAA today.  I have things to do but it is just really hard not to watch every inning of a Clippers game.  Besides the lineup chock full of prospects, today, besides Williams, Hentges made a rehab appearance.

As far as Williams, he did not look as sharp as Bibee did in the latter's ML debut.  Williams' curveball was not that sharp and from striking out a guy with 3 consecutive 97 mph fastballs in the first, his control of the fastball was not there and he lost a good deal of velocity as the game went on, being at 92-94 (and maybe at 91 mph once, although that may have been a cutter) later in his start today.  His breaking stuff was sharp enough to keep the hitters off balance although some of his breaking stuff looked much slower than you would want, relative to the difference in velo from his fastball.  William's stat line, 5.2, 3 H, 0 R, 3 BB and 6 K was impressive for his debut at AAA.

Hentges looked good in his inning even though his velo was down a little (91-94 compared to 96 mph at the ML level from my memory of him last year).

As I said, it is hard not to watch the whole 9 innings as 7 of the 9 hitters in the Columbus lineup are prospects and the other two, Collins and Roller, are just professional hitters.  I mean, up 7-0 in the 9th today and I am still watching as Rocchio and Pries line singles bringing up possible fireworks with Jhonkensy Noel, although he rolled over into a double play :-(   Still, looking at the numbers, seeing Palacios 2-4/2B/BB/SB, Rocchio 3-5, Pries 3-5/2B/SB, Noel 2-5/2 RBI, Fry 1-3/RBI/SB/BB stuff a scoresheet from innings 1 through 9 is pretty exciting if you are a prospect geek like me.  And speaking of Fry...

DAIVD FRY - NOT PART OF THE OPENING DAY ROSTER BUT SHOULD BE PART OF THE ROSTER LATER THIS YEAR

Look, AAAA guys are the heart of AAA.  They carry themselves like professionals, perform well at AAA and, generally, are good to have on your AAA team if you have a lot of young prospects.  They are just good examples for your young prospects to emulate.  

Like with Zach Collins, we can all get a little love-struck when we look at the performance of these AAAA guys.  Still, I have watched David Fry for 2 years now and I think he should be part of the Guardians roster.

His defense at first and third is stellar, something I didn't really expect.  The play he made today on the ball that went off Williams' foot was just outstanding.  I have seen him make hard plays look routine at 3B and at 1B this year and he can operate as your 3rd catcher and has even played some outfield and a little second base.  He hits some, takes his walks and generally doesn't hurt you either in the field or at the plate.  Think Austin Hedges-vibe but with hits.  If the baseball fates were fair he would be on the roster soon and for the rest of the season.  Not that I am saying that we are a WS team the way we are playing right now, but I would MUCH rather have David Fry up as the last batter in the World Series than I would having Michael Martinez (2016 WS) as potentially my last batter in the 7th game of a WS.  In fact, what a great site it would be for Fry to have the winning hit for the Guardians in this year's WS.

In my opinion, Fry should be up right now and Viloria should be DFA'd.  We need to find out what we have with guys like Fry before the deluge of 60-day DL come back and make our 40-man roster situation even more vexxing than it is now.

FRANCONA AND BUNTING

The other day the Guardians put two runners on in the 9th with no one out and had Tyler Freeman up.  Freeman bunted into a force play and we ended up not scoring and lost another close game.  I looked back and, as I feared, found that Tyler Freeman had only THREE sacrifices in almost 1700 career minor league and ML plate appearances.  To as him to bunt in that situation was just not the right move.  I mean, any analytics person would have told Francona NOT to bunt and even the most open-minded analytics person would have looked at Freeman's lack of bunting practice/efficiency and said not to bunt.  I not only don't like his recent penchant for bunting I also don't like that it appears to be situation and not performance-driven.  That is way too old school for me because, no, just because they are baseball players doesn't mean they have a high percentage chance of laying down a sacrifice bunt in a crucial, game-deciding situation.

THE GUARDIANS GOING FORWARD

Everyone wants this team to start playing well.  We know, based on last year, that the team is better than this.  We just know it.   But for those of us counting, going through Detroit, Washington and Colorado and actually being WORSE, record-wise, than when we started, definitely brings out the Pepto Bismol when we know that the team is traveling to Boston and New York and then having the Twins come to town.  I don't know what the answer is here but, duh, Ramirez and Bell are the keys. If we get two guys on ahead of Ramirez and then execute a double steal, it shouldn't bother us if Ramirez is intentionally walked.  Our hitters behind Ramirez should make the opposition pay for that strategy...but we don't.  Clearly this team could score runs in bunches if they just exectute but they aren't doing that.  I don't know what the secret is but Francona has a way of getting his teams to play well after the all-star break.  I just wish the all-star break was in April this year!