Tommy Pham is proving you can’t keep tools down forever. Take heart, Colby Rasmus.
THREE UP
Tommy Pham: After hitting just an out-and-out revolting line of .146/.220/.220 in 91 plate appearances for Palm Beach, the 20 year old Pham was sent down to the Quad Cities. He replied to his demotion with his bat, hitting .333/.412/.933 (!) over 34 plate appearances. He’s still striking out a lot (11 in 30 at bats) but he’s gone on a massive power tear-of his 10 hits, one has been a double, another a triple and five have cleared the fence. Pham is one of those toosly players you just have to wait and be patient with. Hopefully this is just a prelude to him discovering his God-given athleticism.
Allen Craig: Craig earns yet another mention because he refuses to slow down. For the month of May Craig is hitting .368/385/.750 over 78 plate appearances. The free-swinging third-sacker snubs the free pass, conceivably because it’s just been so fun for him to hit. 8 of his 10 homers have come over the last 20 days. Taking a little closer look, there are a few red flags that pop up. His home/away splits do bear watching. Away his line is .213/.290/.416. Home-.374/.406/.637. Peripherally, he’s about the same other than he’s hitting for .060 points of isolated power on the road than at home. His BABIP is .214 away, at home .389. He strikes out slightly less at Hammons, and hits 4% more line drives. I’m not willing to say he’s a product of his park just yet, not after what he did in hitter-tough FSL last year, but I’ll be paying attention to it.
Mitchell Boggs: The former QB and Georgia Bulldog struck out 10 in his last 7 inning, 2 hit gem on Sunday, and he’s got a sparkling 3.33 ERA over 51.1 innings. “ERA is a fluky stat!” you may be inwardly protesting, but rest assured that in Boggs’ case it’s darn near precise indication of his actual performance. According to his Davenport Translation, he has a PERA (peripheral ERA) of 3.46. For all the hub-bub about him possibly needing to be converted to relief given his lack of a third pitch, all Boggs has done is made all of his starts since turning pro and done everything well, if not spectacularly. He may not be super flashy or put up gaudy strikeout numbers save from time to time as he did Sunday, but he’s done nothing but pitch well at every stop. Not bad for someone who pitched mostly in relief in college, and was seen to be a bit raw.
HM- Mark Diapoules: The former draft and follow has been pretty slick over his first 22 innings at the QC—7.1% BB/PA, 27.4% K/PA, 63% groundball rate and no homers.
THREE DOWN
Colby Rasmus: This whole fiasco has now been discussed ad nauseum. We’ve seen this with Anthony Reyes. All I will say is whomever the person is who tried to “fix” Rasmus’ swing should get a swift kick in the pants, or better yet a swift kick out the door. We can just hope that Colby goes back to what he’s comfortable with. I will never understand why some coaches deem it necessary to help someone who doesn’t need help. Baseball players aren’t cookie cutter, leave them be as long as they are successful. This whole ordeal really hacks me off.
Adam Ottavino: Behold the ugly: 23.2 innings pitches, 27 runs, 24 earned, 20 K, 17 walks, and 5 homers. This is starting to look a lot like Chris Lambert 2, the Revenge. In all genuineness, I don’t think Ottavino is another Lambert. He’s got better stuff on the mound and between the ears. He needs to be on the disabled list, because he has to still be hurting. Continuing to run him out there if he can’t be effective is not going to help the situation.
Springfield Cardinals: Standing at an 18-26 record right now after having just snapped a 10 game losing streak. For a team that has a lot of talent they sure are not showing it. They are 4th in runs scored per game with 5.1, so that’s a plus. On the other hand they are allowing 5 runs per game. Their defense has robbed them some, with a defense efficiency ratio of 6.32, 5th in the league (of 8 teams).
Filed under: three up, three down
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I’m mildly surprised not to see Brian Cartie in the “Three Up” as the dude’s been hitting better than he ever did as a college player since his promotion from extended. I’d be interested to find out what’s changed: whether he’s grown into his body, made some major adjustments, or what.
I admit Cartie has been almost invisible to me. I’ll have to see what I can dig up on him.
I haven’t found much info on him aside from the season stats at McNeese.
Good problem to have, too many worthy candidates.
I love me some Tommy Pham.
Maybe Rasmus is the Bizarro Ankiel and will eventually have to re-invent himself as a pitcher.
so did someone in the organization definitely mess with colby’s swing mechanics? i have heard speculation but you seem to be saying it is a definite…which if it is, is really really hard to understand
has there been a discussion on it that i missed?
There’s a good article on Christian Friedrich’s start against SEMO last week, if anyone’s interested…
http://semissourian.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080511/SPORTS02/764590435/-1/sports02
Hopefully that link works.
I have a hard time blaming the coaches. Colby is walking as often as he did last year, K’ing as often as he did last year, and is lifting almost as many balls in the air as he did last year (at least recently). His power numbers are down, but this isn’t summertime in the Texas League. Just my opinion, but if you were excited about Colby last year, you should be just as excited this year. Nobody is bad enough to maintain a .200 BABIP all season long. Especially not Colby.
Not going to lie, it’s getting a bit unsettling with Rasmus. But this happens in baseball to just about everybody at some point in time. He’s still a 21 year old that has risen to AAA already. I think ultimately everything’s going to be fine. He certainly has the time to work through it.
Last year around this time Lance Berkman was struggling to keep his BA above .250 and OPS was drifting below league average. Some were wondering if a swift career decline had begun. Such thoughts are a distant memory now. People that thought it probably don’t even remember now.
Rasmus looked great in spring.
I think he suffered a major case of I got no job in the major leagues blues after getting a taste in spring and seeing the logjam of outfielders in St. Louis.