Thoughts for A Wednesday

 1. A shame what happened with Rocchio and Calhoun on Monday.  A convergence of bad stuff that ruined a good start by Gavin Williams

2. Obviously very excited about Williams and Bibee and, to some extent, Logan Allen but would love to get some production out of our other 2021 and 2020 draftees and trade acquistion pitchers.  But, man, Williams and Bibee have looked really good.  Good test for Allen tonight as we can use the last 2 starts to measure where Allen is.  To me Allen's upside is as a left-handed version of Aaron Civale.  That would be pretty good.  Still hoping for Cantillo, Nikhazy, Mace, Webb, Carver, Hajjar, Messick and others provide more ML pitching.  However, there is a lot of work to do with these guys.

3. Speaking of Messick, two great starts in a row for him and he was sitting at 93 today which is good for him and especially good as we approach the end of his first long professional season.  He did look like he hurt his leg or hip when he landed oddly in the 5th.  Hope he is OK as he is just getting his footing at high A.  Note, also, that the 1-2 mph he has added on his fastball from his time at Lynchburg is really paying dividends.  

4. I had to laugh as the first of the 2023 college slap hitter draftees to play professionally, Cooper Ingle, started his career with a slap hit ground ball between short and 3rd that he legged out.    Walked in his next two plate appearances and slapped a ground ball down the 3rd base line in his 4th AB.  Priceless!  The draft strategy is working! (insert tongue-in-cheek emoji). [NOTE: Hawke and Advincula did play in the ACL the night before but I choose not to sount that.]

5. I love Chase DeLauter's swing.  Would love to see him promoted to AA as he is too dominant in A+ right now.  I am still wondering about his abilities against more polished pitchers, especially LH pitchers but, so far, his bat looks really quick and he seems to make a lot of hard contact.  This is in comaprison to Joe Lampe who never seems to make hard contact.

6. Still cannot believe that we signed Cole Calhoun and Ramon Laureano.  First, if either is on the roster next year it will not be good.  That is not who we should be.  That is what rebuilding teams do who are trying to save a buck, signing cheap guys who really don't make your team better.  We need a stud RH hitting outfielder.  Second, the money we saved on trading Civale we gave right back by obtaining Laureano.  I get that Francona wants veteran leadership on the team but Noel should get his feet wet this year in the majors.  If he had been on the team and playing 1B on Mnday, maybe we win that game.  I acknowledge that Laureano probably won the game yesterday with his bat and his arm, holding a runner at 2nd with an on-the-fly throw from RF to third base.  But, still, he was DFA'd by the worst team in baseball!

7. Still cannot believe they brought up Tena and not Schneeman.  Besides what a great, feel-good story it would have been for career organizational player Schneeman, he would be expendable if we eventually had to DFA him AND as Tena sits there on the Guardians bench. we are robbing Tena of really important AAA ABs in his development.  His option clock is ticking, as well.  More than sometimes I wonder if these guys in the FO have any clue about what they are doing.  This seemed like a no brainer to me...of course that was before they had to create room for AAAA players.  

8. I think there is going to be a major shakeup in the Guardians top 30 prospects.  No way George Valera deserves to be the #1 prospect the way he is hitting.  It is hard to tell if this is just a hangover from his injuries earlier this year but he now has two straight years of poor performances at AAA.  Next year will be his last option year and he doesn't look like he is even close to the majors, let alone being able to stay in the majors for good.  Plus I think Juan Brito has to leapfrog a lot of guys as his batting eye and bat-to-ball skills continues to translate to upper levels of the minors, which is a great sign.  Plus, I imagine Rocchio will get enough ABs that he will be off the prospect list before the end of the season.  I mean, heck, our newest prospect, Manzardo, might end up as our #1 prospect and then the FO can tell us what a great trade it was to get him for Civale and his great stats and 2+ years of control.  They can even add on that Civale gave up 9 hits in 4+ innings in his Tampa debut.

9. I would love to know how much Kopech was fined and what Arias did to be fined.   Hopefully Ramirez gets a game shaved off his suspension and Anderson's suspension is left as it is.  Basically what Ramirez did was throw one punch and stood up for his teammates.  

10. Speaking of prospects, it will be interesting to see what the experts think of the prospect status of Estaban Gonzalez who is in his 2nd year in the ACL.  Maybe, at about 20.4 years old he is just feasting on younger pitchers but his skill set is interesting.  The fact that he is short and still has power and speed gives me Jose Ramirez vibes.   Obviously Jaison Chourio is the stud there but if Gonzalez is a prospect of note, that makes our ACL team look better.   On the same note, with two stud prospects in Francisca and Pirela in the Dominican League this makes our very low levels of the minors must more exciting.  I can't really tell about the other position player prospects in the ACL or DSL but there is some interesting stuff going on at those levels that may impact prospect rankings leading up to the 024 season.  One caution: please, not trades involving these guys with Tampa Bay or, realistically, with any team.