Trevor Oaks dominates, Edwin Rios and Johan Mieses talked up by Baseball Prospectus
I guess anyone can get 27 outs in AAA these days. Just a few days after ex-Dodger prospect Jharel Cotton threw a complete game one-hitter, Trevor Oaks responded with a complete game three-hitter. Maybe all the good hitters have been promoted to the major leagues?
This was by far the best game of Trevor Oaks career, along with giving up only three hits he struck out eleven. His previous strikeout high was ten back in April. In 2014 and 2015, Oaks never struck out more than seven in any game. The sinkerballing Oaks has climbed from A ball to AA ball to AAA ball in one season. If he gets a look in Sept he can say he did the Brock Stewart.
Baseball Prospectus did a prospect chat and Edwin Rios and Johan Mieses were given some love. It is not surprising since Rios is crushing at AA, while Mieses is destroying the California League.
CJ (Detroit): BEST Prospect nobody is talking about?
Wilson Karaman: I dunno about “best,” but I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to work Edwin Rios into this chat, so by gum I’m a-gonna take this as my opportunity. He got promoted to AA a couple weeks ago and has continued to buck all logic and profile doctrine to post disgusting power numbers there in spite of a hyper-aggressive approach and hella length in his swing. He’s got really impressive hand-eye and body control in his (gigantic) weight transfer, and he attacks the point of contact like a runaway train, so when he *does* hit the ball he hits it very, very hard. He moves about as quickly as a three-toed sloth on the dirt, and he’s one of the slowest guys I’ve seen all year going down the line, so paired with the swing-at-most-pitches approach, it’s really not a profile that tends to sniff major league potential all too often. But he’s one of those “stop what you’re doing, this guy’s up” hitters, or at least the minor league version thereof, and he’s sorta starting to force the conversation with this breakout year.
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Emmett (Massachusetts): So Johan Mieses has had himself quite a week. Has your opinion on him changed since your report in May?
Wilson Karaman: I *just* wrote up an update on Mieses for our “Notes From the Field” that’ll run tomorrow, so tune in manana, there’s before and after video involved. Short answer is that they’ve overhauled his swing mechanics and he’s made the kind of adjustments that he needed to make to get him closer to the 4 I hung on his hit tool. I still see him as having the kind of pop and defense to be a valuable Chris Young type down the line, and the recent hot streak hasn’t altered that assessment.
Don’t bury Ryan Howard yet
The last time the Dodgers saw Ryan Howard he was clearing the bases at Dodger Stadium against Kenley Jansen, after Dave Roberts decided to intentionally walk weak hitting infielder Freddy Galvis to pitch to Howard. It made sense at the time given that Howard was hitting only .183, but Howard had actually been on a roll that Roberts and his staff ignored.
On June 21st, Ryan Howard had an OPS of .531. That is as bad as you can have and still have a job in the major leagues. Yet, from June 22nd until that fateful at bat Ryan Howard was hitting a robust .291 / .329 /.609. Yes, his slug% was higher during that stretch than his previous OPS. Or in other words, Ryan Howard was hot, and he stayed even hotter delivering a base clearing double against one of the best relief pitchers in baseball. The Dodgers would go on to lose 6 – 2.
Ryan Howard has remained hot, collecting three hits in his next game and driving in five runs. For the season Howard still looks like a miserable hitter but take those cumulative stats with a grain of salt. Ryan Howard is on a hot streak, it might be the last hot streak of his career, but I wouldn’t want to be facing him right now.
- Another hot Philly is Dodger killer, Carlos Ruiz. Ruiz is also near the end of his career but for whatever reason has found some legs in August where he is hitting .417 in limited at-bats.
- The at-bats are limited for Ruiz because the everyday catcher Cameron Rupp is doing his best Yazmani Grandal imitation in August. Rupp has three home runs and sports a .606 slugging% in August.
- The final piece that could play havoc with the Dodgers is Odubel Herrera who has simply had a brilliant year for a rule five player. Herrera had a walk rate of 5% in 2015 his first year as an everyday player. In April of 2016, he increased that to 22%. Of course, that was not sustainable, and it is now down to 10%, but doubling your walk rate from year to year for a speedy leadoff hitter. That will play.
The Phillies look primed to feed on a shaky rotation, the Dodgers better bring their bats to this series.
Mikaela Mayer thwarted in quarterfinals by Anastasiia Beliakova
Woodland Hills Olympic lightweight boxer Mikaela Mayer lost a split decision to Anastasiia Beliakova. It was a close bout, with Mayer winning the opening round, and even though the announcers thought that Mayer had won the second round, the judges all went with Beliakova. It was so close that until the announcer said the name of Beliakova you had no idea who had won.
Mayer’s bout was the first bout in the evening schedule. This takes Mayer out of a shot at an Olympic medal. If she had won, she would have had a good shot at a gold medal as two of the other main gold medal competitors had also lost. Alas, she put up a good fight and came oh so close to advancing to the medal bout.
Yusniel Diaz is getting some attention. Baseball America and MiLB check in on the five-tool prospect
The minor league Dodgers had a successful weekend, and Yusniel Diaz capped the weekend with a huge day on Sunday for Rancho Cucamonga. Baseball America took notice and mentioned him in their daily prospect updates:
Yusniel Diaz, of, Dodgers. L.A.’s No. 9 prospect at midseason, Diaz drove in a career-best six runs Sunday as high Class A Rancho Cucamonga routed Visalia (Diamondbacks) 17-8. Diaz went 4-for-6 with a homer and overall is slashing .272/.338/.420, including .326 in the past 11 games. A super athletic player, Diaz has great bat speed. He’s learning to sync up his long swing with his lower body, which will lead to more power.
Minor League baseball also did a story on Diaz:
“To sit there and see someone who is 19 doing things he’s doing is impressive,” the Quakes’ skipper said. “Right now, if you put him in a college uniform, and no offense to Seth Beer of Clemson University, but he’d give him every run for his money for Freshman of the Year and borderline College Player of the Year.
Other notable performances this weekend:
Willie Calhoun slugged two home runs on Sunday, giving him twenty-five for the season. Willie now has forty-nine extra base hits with 23 doubles, and one triple to go along with his twenty-five round trippers. Willie had been cooling off but whatever ailed him took off when the weekend started. Willie had seven hits for the weekend driving in seven runs. Calhoun is only averaging 2.36 strikeouts per home run. For context, the AA home run leader is Matt Chapman with 29 home runs. Matt has struck out 147 times, so he’s averaging a home run every five strike outs.
Edwin Rios did not hit a home run on Sunday but did hit one on Friday and Saturday, giving Rios five home runs for Tulsa, and thirty on the season spread over three levels. Rios wasn’t given much credit for his power enfused work at Rancho Cucamonga given that it took place in the high octane offense of the California League. Since Rios has continued to smash in AA for Tulsa, people are starting to take notice. For someone who was not on anyone’s radar entering 2016, Rios will end up leading all Dodger prospects in home runs for the season. His AA OPS is now at .970, but unlike Calhoun is power does come with a price as Rios has struck out 96 times so far in 2016.
No one was hotter in the minor leagues than Johan Mieses headed into Sunday. Johan had hit home runs in four consecutive games, and six in his last nine but he would not get a chance to hit a home run on Sunday because of an injury he suffered in the field in the top of the 1st inning. Johan now leads the California League in home runs with 26, which is amazing for a guy who only had eighteen at the end of July. I will say I was disappointed he hit eight home runs in August because nothing was cooler to me than his home run ladder per month.
- April – 3
- May – 4
- June – 5
- July – 6
- but he ruined it with August – 8
Jose DeLeon wasn’t able to watch his significant other win her gold medal in Rio but was somehow able to concentrate and pitch a gem of his own on Friday night. While the Dodger rotation struggles to get fifteen outs, Jose has done it four of his last five starts in the Pacific Coast League. Dodgers just might figure out some roster shenanigans to get this arm into the rotation. He couldn’t do any worse that the non starts that Rich Hill has offered, or the horrific games that Brandon McCarthy has put up this month, or the debacle that was Brett Anderson’s 2016 debut.
Dodgers addition by subtraction doesn’t seem to be adding up
On August 1st the Dodgers made a plethora of moves, bringing in a new right fielder, a starting pitcher, and two new relief pitchers. Making room for all these additions they sent Yasiel Puig to AAA, without giving fans much of a clue as to what his future with the Dodgers held. Just the fact they felt Howie Kendrick was a better choice to play left field, and that Scott Van Slyke was a better bench option said volumes about how they little they felt that Puig could help the current ball club.
It was a little amusing when Eric Stephen put out his monthly stats for July, which showed Puig having a solid offensive month in July and clearly was not a candidate to be sent to AAA based on performance. Whatever the message the Dodger front office wanted to send to Puig, it was hard for me to believe that the team as a whole was better off without him, so the only thing I could think of was that this was a classic addition by subtraction move.
On the surface, the moves seemed to have paid off as the Dodgers have gained ground on the NL West-leading Giants moving to within one game, and for a brief moment were even tied.
But make no mistake, the Dodgers aren’t gaining ground on the Giants because they are all of the sudden a cohesive machine, they are basically treading the same water as the Giants. The Dodgers are 6 – 6 in August, the Giants are now 5 – 7. No one can lay claim to laying waste to the teams they have been playing.
Before the trading deadline, the team that still had Puig on it had gone 18- 10 from the point they were eight full games behind the Giants. That is the team that made up the ground on the Giants, not the “new” team. The Dodgers are still one game back of the Giants, on August 1st they were two games back. That means they have made up one game on a team that is two games under .500 for the month.
Yet, not having Puig is not why the Dodgers are trading water, the reason is the craziest excuse for a rotation the Los Angeles have seen in many a year. I personally can’t remember a Dodger team with a rotation like this.
If any Dodger fan ever used to wonder what a Dodger rotation would look like without the best pitcher in baseball, they now have the answer, and of course, the answer is a shambles. It was in shambles on August 1st and is now in even worse shape. In the month of August, only one pitcher has managed to pitch effectively and his name is not Kenta Maeda, or Scot Kazmir, or Rich Hill, or Brandon McCarthy, or Julio Urias, his name is Ross Stripling. That is not a good thing.
The Dodger rotation has made twelve starts in August, and in those twelve starts, they have managed to get 15 outs only seven times. Five times they have taken the mound and have not gotten 15 outs. Granted three of those games were by one pitcher, Brandon McCarthy. The other by Brock Stewart and final game was by Brett Anderson.
Those who love their fangraphs don’t have to take my word for it, they can simply use the August splits for starting pitching. The Dodgers are dead last. The bullpen has had to pitch more innings in August than any bullpen in baseball.
Headed into Friday, Rich Hill was supposed to make the start. He didn’t. On Saturday Brandon McCarthy was supposed to prove to everyone that he had fixed his mechanical problems. He didn’t. On Sunday, Brett Anderson was going to prove that only three rehab games were all he needed. He didn’t. The only thing Brett Anderson proved was that he just might be the most fragile pitcher that has graced the mound in many a year. A simple ground ball ended his game. Brett had already proven that he probably could have used another rehab start given that he was down by five runs and was still pitching in the first inning. The next play proved too much for the baseball athlete as he lunged for a groundball and somehow sprained his pitching wrist. I guess some bodies are simply not meant to touch the ground without repercussions.
Three starters, three down. Luckily rookies Ross Stripling, Julio Urias, and Brock Stewart were around to pick up the fallen veterans.
With Brandon McCarthy out, and Anderson up in the air. The team now turns back to Bud Norris who just got over his own bad back. Oh, and of course the mythical Rich Hill.
Josh Reddick who replaced Puig two weeks ago got his first extra base hit today . He’s made some highlight catches and highlight bloopers. Two sun balls so far. Maybe they can platoon him when the sun is out. With a Puig if they had him up.
Puig, as expected, is crushing in AAA, but the front office knows what is best for the team and that means a Puigless Dodgers for the foreseeable future.
Addition by Subtraction so far is 6 – 6, and that probably won’t cut it if/when the Giants ever decide to play like the team that was twenty-one games over .500 on June 26th.
Maybe they never do, maybe the Dodgers can simply play .500 ball the rest of the year and still win their fourth straight division title. I wouldn’t count on it though.
Another day, another home run for Rancho’s Johan Mieses
Mieses has now hit eight home runs in his last twelve games giving him twenty-four for the season and making the Baseball America hot sheet.
The Scoop: The muscle-bound Dominican has a lot of swing-and-miss to his game, but when he gets a hold of one, the ball is a safe bet to clear 400 feet with ease. He has done that plenty recently, homering in four of six games this week to continue a torrid streak. Mieses now has 11 home runs in his past 17 games—he’s hitting .403/.440/.985 in that span—to move into second place in the Cal League with 24.
Mieses just turned twenty-one last month and is primarily a centerfielder. His fielding splits in 2016 so far have been 62 games in CF, 17 games in LF, and 13 games in RF.
MLB had him ranked as the 27th best prospect in the Dodger organization at the mid-season.
In other Dodger minor league news, Omar Estevez slammed a dramatic grand slam in the 9th inning of the Loons come from behind victory. The home run comes complete with a bat flip causing some annoyance with the opposing team’s catcher.
Mikaela Mayer – someone to root for
For the first time in my life, I have an almost direct connection to an Olympic Athlete giving me someone to really root for. Her name is Mikaela Mayer and she is competing in the lightweight boxing division in Rio. It is not my connection it is my wife’s but I’ll take it. My wife is a fourth-grade teacher who taught Mikaela’s sister, and Mikaela’s other sister was Verdell’s student teacher several years ago. As a teacher and student teacher tend to do they developed a strong bond and we were invited to her wedding last summer. All the sisters came through the Woodlake / Hale / El Camino Real Woodland Hills school group of Elementary/Middle/High.
Even without the connection, Mikaela’s story is a great one. A gifted athlete she lost herself in high school but found herself again in a local boxing club on Shoup. Eventually, her boxing skills would take her to Northern University Michigan, to train with Al Mitchell. Her father had bugged Al Mitchell to train her but he kept refusing to train a female boxer. Her father persisted however and Al finally agreed to train her.
California across the country, to train with one of the world’s best boxing coaches in Marquette, Michigian – known for training amateur and professional champions – Al Mitchell.
He has said that when he saw the stunning California beauty he didn’t expect much from her in the ring. She had work to do and was unable to make the 2012 Olympic team, but that just made her work harder and now the one time model turned boxer is hoping to medal in Rio. People tend to underestimate beautiful people as not being tough. If you watch her this week, you won’t think she’s not tough anymore.
You can read or watch more video of her story here
First victory can be seen here:
Simone and Simone
Sometimes it is hard for me to root for the country with the largest contingent of athletes going against tiny little David’s but within the massive number of US Athletes, little stories become big.
Simone Biles proved that she was the best female gymnast in the world and did it in such a fashion that she’ll be talked about for years if not decades. Many times you end up seeing heartbreak but this time, the podium was exactly as I hoped with Biles on top and Aly Raisman right next to her. Aly getting the redemption she was searching for when they wouldn’t honor the tie for Bronze in London. Biles getting the biggest prize after three years of dominating her sport.
Simone Manuel won her swimming match in exhilarating fashion beating the two Aussie sisters. I have to admit I was rooting for the sisters to stand on the podium together but it turned out they weren’t even a medal factor, so if history was going to be made, I’m glad that Simone Manuel was the one making it, becoming the first black American swimmer to win an individual race.
I’ve always been struck by how a simple swimming cap makes everyone look the same no matter the race or ethnicity, but once you take the cap off, each person regains their individuality.
I’m still sad for Mara Abbott who did everything possible to medal in the road race only to have her legs give out seconds away after six hours of herculean biking. I can’t even imagine what that felt like for her at the end. Yet, for every Mara, there is 43-year-old Kristen Armstrong winning an improbable gold medal in the time trial.
With almost a week in, the Rio Olympics have once again provided me and my wife with hours of entertainment. It inexplicably makes me root for Goliath against multiple Davids because their stories are our stories.
I’ve never understood what makes an Olympic athlete tick, the ridiculous amount of sacrifice they make to be the best at their sport, but I’m glad they are out there. Smiles of relief, mixed in with either tears of joy, or tears of heartbreak, they make me smile, cry, and grimace, and it is good to feel something.
Merry Go Round Rotation
One day Rich Hill is pitching one day he is not. Over and over the merry go round goes, when Rich Hill will actually pitch no one knows. Might as well call him Scratch Hill at this point.
The Dodgers have had two constants in the rotation all year, Kenta Maeda and Scott Kazmir. Having Scott Kazmir in the rotation all year hasn’t exactly been a good thing but at least he takes the ball every fifth game. So far anyway.
Twelve pitchers have started for the Dodgers this year, but the two they need the most are not the one’s taking the mound. The Dodgers acquired Rich Hill to be the big arm they might need to help overtake the Giants and twelve days later he can’t seem to mend his blisters. Kershaw is starting to throw again, but we all know what happened last time, so holding our breath for a healthy Kershaw might just turn us blue.
At this rate, Julio Urias might make more starts than Clayton Kershaw. He’s only five behind right now and one is not trying for the second time to come back from a back problem.
Of the twelve starters to take the mound this year, we can write off Mike Bolsinger and Nick Tepesch for the year since neither are in the organization anymore. We can reasonably write off Hyun-jin Ryu and Alex Wood. At some point, Julio Urias won’t be allowed to pitch anymore, and that point is coming up. Brandon McCarthy is starting to scare fans with his lack of control after coming back from Tommy John surgery.
The patchwork rotation can’t get more than fifteen outs per start and this weekend they will be sending out three starters that just getting fifteen outs will be a victory.
Ross Stripling has been more than a finger in the dike, but Ross hasn’t gotten more than 15 outs since May 8th. Following Ross on Saturday will either by Brandon McCarthy coming off of two horrible outings or brand new 20-year-old Julio Urias. Neither can be expected to get more than fifteen outs. On Sunday Brett Anderson will be forced into the rotation making his first start of the year. Fifteen outs will be his max on Sunday. When/If Rich Hill ever makes a start you can bet he won’t be going deep since he hasn’t started in over a month.
Can the bullpen survive this type of rotation in the hot days of August?
Can a team yearning for Bud Norris actually be considered a postseason contender?
Can a team counting on a pitcher just returning from back surgery actually be considered a postseason contender?
Can a team counting on a pitcher returning from Tommy John surgery actually be considered a postseason contender?
Can a team counting on a pitcher returning from a herniated disk actually be considered a postseason contender?
Can a team counting on a pitcher who hasn’t pitched 100 innings since 2007 and already has 75 actually be considered a postseason contender?
The answer seems to be Yes. Nothing quite like Dodger baseball.
| Player | GS | IP | ERA | FIP | ERA+ | OPS+ |
| Kenta Maeda | 23 | 130.2 | 3.31 | 3.58 | 117 | 79 |
| Scott Kazmir | 23 | 127.2 | 4.44 | 4.34 | 87 | 104 |
| Clayton Kershaw | 16 | 121 | 1.79 | 1.65 | 217 | 32 |
| Julio Urias | 10 | 48.1 | 4.66 | 3.52 | 84 | 118 |
| Alex Wood | 10 | 56.1 | 3.99 | 3.25 | 97 | 92 |
| Ross Stripling | 9 | 59.1 | 3.79 | 3.41 | 102 | 87 |
| Brandon McCarthy | 7 | 33 | 3 | 3.61 | 130 | 55 |
| Bud Norris | 6 | 29 | 4.34 | 4.09 | 90 | 110 |
| Mike Bolsinger | 6 | 27.2 | 6.83 | 5.8 | 57 | 150 |
| Brock Stewart | 2 | 9 | 14 | 9.57 | 29 | 243 |
| Nick Tepesch | 1 | 4 | 11.25 | 4.88 | 38 | 175 |
| Hyun-jin Ryu | 1 | 4.2 | 11.57 | 5.48 | 36 | 214 |
| Brett Anderson | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jose De Leon | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Trevor Oaks hurls seven-plus shutout innings for Oklahoma Dodgers
As the Dodgers play musical chairs with their rotation, Trevor Oaks wants to make sure they don’t forget about him by throwing seven-plus shutout innings. Oaks coming off one of his worse starts got twenty-two outs, gave up six hits and zero runs. The 2014, 7th round pick is now 13 – 3 on the season over three levels.
Highly ranked prospect Alex Verdugo is in a huge funk hitting just .143 over his last ten games. Those 10 games just happen to coincide with the end of the trading deadline. Willie Calhoun is hitting only .214 in August with one home run. Only one of the Tulsa Trio is having a good August and that would be Bellinger who has hit three home runs and possesses a 1.004 OPS in August.
Cuban bonus man Yasiel Sierra had another solid outing in relief going two innings once again. That was Sierra’s ninth straight two-inning outing since being moved from the rotation to the bullpen. Whatever they have done with Sierra is working as he is getting the job done in relief, after being extremely hittable as a starter.
Johan Mieses slammed his seventh home run in his last eleven games giving him 23 for the season. The hotter it gets in Rancho the hotter Mieses seems to get.
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 