The Mets won 10-3. The game wasn’t that close.
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UPDATE FROM ALEX, 9/12:
Whoops! The Braves also won 4-3 on Saturday night and I completely failed to recap it. Swanson got two hits and looked beautiful, as always; John Gant was pretty good apart from two runs in the first that were aided by an error by Adonis Garcia; and each of the Braves’ runs came on single tallies in the first, fourth, sixth, and tenth, making this the opposite of a Hibernation Mode game. It was an utterly shocking display of competence, and one that fit my “Braves do really well when I forget to recap” pattern perfectly.
Guess we’re so depressed that wins don’t even get recaps now.
From the last thread….
I believe Williams Perez, Williams Perez, and Joel DeLa Cruz are the same pitcher. I mean, have you ever seen all three together at the same time?
@2 – Good point. So are you thinking that Joel DeLa Perez actually pitched 4 innings today and gave up 8 runs?
I think Td and td are the same poster.
We have 7 top-100 on MLB pipeline
Swanson
Albies
Newcomb
Allard
Anderson
Maitan
Soroka
Here are guys who you can make an argument for next preseason top-100:
Riley
Weigel
Fried
Minter
Peterson
Toussaint
I say Riley and Weigel make it. The rest are top-150.
Touki has made many top-100s already, and I thought for sure he was in MLB’s top-100, but maybe not. Also, I think we’ll have 9-10 in there with Weigel, Riley, and Touki making it in there.
MLB Pipeline is a quite a joke though. Just looking at the Braves top-30, there’s Anfernee Seymour, Zach Bird, and Luke Dykstra yet no Michael Mader, Brett Cumberland, Christian Pache, Derian Cruz, Dylan Moore, or Connor Lien.
What’s so darn tough about evaluating these pitchers is that you don’t have any historical track record, so you’re almost forced to be reactive to the last few starts. Perez’s first 27 starts saw him have an ERA of 4.48, and he had a 3.72 ERA this year until the two starts before his DL stint. In the two starts before and the two starts afterwards, his velocity has plummeted. They’re speculating he’s done for the year, and you really don’t know what to do with him. When his velocity was up, he was pitching really well. In May, he had four starts where he went 26.1 IP, 9 ER, 4 BB, 20 H, and 13K. But as you go into the offseason, you really have to just put him in the basket of players fighting for the spot starter/long reliever role in 2017. At best, he’s a 5th starter, and we have a lot of guys whose ceiling is similar.
@7
On 5/11, he was topping out 95, almost 96 with his 2-seamer, and similar with 4-seamer.
On 5/21, he hit 97 a few time, sitting around 95, and his 4-seamer hit 95, sitting around 93-94.
The velo that WP showed in those 2 starts (5/11&5/21) were the actual outliers as he’s been a 92-93 average FB guy throughout Minors and most of the Majors. However, on those 2 starts, he had elite numbers: 14.1 IP, 4H, 1 ER, 8K, 3BB. If only he could be that pitcher all of the time.
They obviously need to get on the same page. This internecine war will simply sabotage both careers.
@5/6, Touki seems borderline to me, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him on the list. There are also a few wild cards like Ronald Acuna and Christian Pache, as well as Wentz and Muller but I expect to see some of them creep into next year’s top-100. Now that I mention it, Acuna should definitely be top-100 before Dustin Peterson. He performed well at low-A as an 18-year-old
Touki’s asterisk was always “really raw”. He learned a lot this year, and his stats after his first four starts are a low 3’s ERA with nearly a K an innings over 121 innings. Walks are still high at 4.6 per 9, but that is some serious growth.
If you take his last 8 appearances, the ERA shrinks to 2.23, Ks increase to over 1 per inning, and walks drop slightly.
He’s getting better as he goes, and that is a great thing for such an elite arm.
It will definitely be encouraging to have 9+ players on the top-100’s, and that shifts our farm from being one described as being more about depth than elite talent.
I am extremely interested to see how the offseason goes, and I’m going to try very hard to be excited about watching the kids for the next couple weeks.
Yeah, I’m on the Touki train. I posted about his impressive performance a couple weeks ago. Walks are the only issue, and he’s got fewer of those than Lucas Sims who is 2 years ahead of him.
Lucas Sims walk rate has gone to hell of late along with his prospect status. I don’t know if walk rates usually climb as pitcher face more advanced competition, but it appears to be an issue that he didn’t have at Touki’s age at A-ball. Touki’s made strides, but the walks are still an issue.
I dunno. Sims career walk rate is 4.4/9. He only had one year where it was substantially below that, and that was in 2014. This year, it is 5.9/9, which is Juan Jaime bad.
2013 (3.55 per 9) and 2014 were a good bit below that; 2015 and 2016 were a good bit above that. It’s become an issue.
I’m pulling for Touki Toussaint simply because of his name. I want him in our starting rotation for a long time. It’s too bad Manny Bananas won’t be able to join him.
At least Ruiz and Mallex will be in the ATL when Mississippi’s season ends.
@1 and all, sorry I forgot to recap Saturday’s game! I just added something to the game thread.
We were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs yesterday. Maybe that will take some of the pressure off and we can just go out there and play.
Great recap, Alex. Thanks. If the Braves win when you forget to recap, please do so more often, especially next year.
Touki Toussaint is a world class baseball name, and I’m also hoping he makes it because of that. If he washes out, maybe one of our successful prospects with a more pedestrian name can adopt it.
Also there are astonishingly few great African American pitchers. Who else is there after David Price and Chris Archer currently?
Pretty sure Chris Archer was the engineer of earth’s first warp drive starship.
Just tuned in; can anyone tell me why Swanson was taken out?
Right ground contusion. I guess he took a throw to the pills? I was in a bar and couldn’t tell.
Thanks Rob! Just heard Chip say it was on a throw from Flowers. Sounds painful!
The infielders were having a discussion at second base between innings, and Flowers threw the ball over Folty’s head on a return throw and hit Swanson.
“It works on so many levels!”
http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=17535192
Didn’t Swanson have on a cup? That looked like a weak throw to me. Come on Dans, man up. 🙂