Minor League Updates

[Juliooooo]

Interesting look at Modesto and judging Joe Rizzo based off that. Didn't realize that Modesto was so hard on hitters as far as power numbers go. Definitely not Arkansas tough, but the 10 HR that Rizzo hit this year are even more encouraging.

Joe Rizzo: Jarred Kelenic was the more notable Mariners prospect to spend the bulk of his season at Modesto, but to his credit, his home-road splits weren't extreme enough for consideration here. Instead, turn to Rizzo, the 2016 second-rounder and Seattle's No. 19 prospect. The 21-year-old corner infielder was held at Modesto for a second straight season and saw some solid gains, finishing with a .295/.354/.423 line and 10 homers in 129 games. But it would have been interesting to see what those improvements could have done away from John Thurman Field. Seven of Rizzo's 10 homers were hit on the road, where he slugged .464 compared to .374 at home. That said, things won't get easier for him when he heads to Arkansas in 2020 -- home of Double-A's most pitcher-friendly park.

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https://www.milb.com/milb/news/toolshed ... _311853790

[D-train]

Interesting look at Modesto and judging Joe Rizzo based off that. Didn't realize that Modesto was so hard on hitters as far as power numbers go. Definitely not Arkansas tough, but the 10 HR that Rizzo hit this year are even more encouraging.

Joe Rizzo: Jarred Kelenic was the more notable Mariners prospect to spend the bulk of his season at Modesto, but to his credit, his home-road splits weren't extreme enough for consideration here. Instead, turn to Rizzo, the 2016 second-rounder and Seattle's No. 19 prospect. The 21-year-old corner infielder was held at Modesto for a second straight season and saw some solid gains, finishing with a .295/.354/.423 line and 10 homers in 129 games. But it would have been interesting to see what those improvements could have done away from John Thurman Field. Seven of Rizzo's 10 homers were hit on the road, where he slugged .464 compared to .374 at home. That said, things won't get easier for him when he heads to Arkansas in 2020 -- home of Double-A's most pitcher-friendly park.

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https://www.milb.com/milb/news/toolshed ... _311853790

We need more consistency in our minor leagues. High Desert used to be a hitters paradise and now Modesto and Arkansas are like playing in the dead ball era but then they go to the PCL and its like video game action for hitters. Crazy.

[bpj]

Wouldn't surprise me to hear they're experimenting with different balls in different leagues. Seems unlikely they'd change the top two levels.

Would be interesting to be an insider, what if they used a dead ball in other leagues..

Or maybe use the old MLB ball in Minors? Doubtful, imo.

Maybe it's all one big experiment lately...

After all, we would have thought the MLB ball being different was just a conspiracy theory if the commissioner didn't admit it.

Unlikely given the home road numbers, likely park related..

[Donn Beach]

what did he admit to?...as i understand it the claim is, being the balls are handmade they can't control the specifications very closely. The performance of baseballs is unpredictable year to year

https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb-isnt-confi ... 47979.html

[D-train]

what did he admit to?...as i understand it the claim is, being the balls are handmade they can't control the specifications very closely. The performance of baseballs is unpredictable year to year

https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb-isnt-confi ... 47979.html

How is it unpredictable from level to level? AAA got all the juiced balls and AA got all the dead ball coincidentally?

[Donn Beach]

If they did then yeah, that is how i read it, they say they cannot predict how a baseball is going to perform in the majors, so how could they manufacture them to have specific performance from level to level in the minors? That is what the GMs are complaining about, they don't care what the ball does, they just want it to be consistent. Its the same manufacturer isn't it?

“I can only speak for our organization, but what we want is consistency,” Forst said, “and we’ll build a team around that.”

Unfortunately, that kind of predictability might be impossible to come by — at least before the 2020 season. According to league sources, Major League Baseball is not confident that the ball can be made completely standardized and consistent without overhauling the manufacturing process.

This would mean that any changes in the ball’s so-called juiciness to date were unintentional — as Commissioner Rob Manfred has repeatedly insisted — and that the culprit behind the dramatic swings in drag coefficient the past few years remains a mystery to the league, which also happens to have an ownership stake in the company that produces the baseball. Beyond that, it implies that as long as the balls are handmade and comprised of natural materials, MLB might not ever be able to control to a sufficient degree of precision the behavior of the sport’s fundamental object.

[Donn Beach]

guess its not... AAA got ML balls and the lower levels got the old style ones, so yeah they got juiced balls but I don't see where it was intentional because of the juiciness

No matter whether a player is in the Gulf Coast League or the National League, they will be playing with a Rawlings baseball. It’s the official baseball of both the major and minors leagues.

But those two balls are very different.

The major league ball has smaller seams and better quality leather. The minor league ball has larger seams and by accounts of numerous players, does not carry as far when hit. The tolerances for minor league balls are greater and the core components specifications are a little different. The two balls are actually made in two very different manufacturing facilities as well. The traditional minor league balls being built in China while the MLB balls are built in a Rawlings-owned and operated factory in Costa Rica.

But this year that will change. This season Triple-A baseball will use MLB balls. Major League Baseball made the request last summer to make the switch to bring uniformity to the highest level of the minors. The ball will carry the stamp of the Pacific Coast League (with the signature of PCL president Branch Rickey) or the International League (with the signature of IL president Randy Mobley) and it will carry Minor League Baseball’s logo. But other than that different stamp, it will be identical to the MLB ball.

[Juliooooo]

I think I read that they could only make so many of the MLB baseballs, and they are more expensive, so they started with MLB, and just added it to AAA recently. I think the plan is to have the same ball throughout the minors, but that may take time. Maybe with the plan to decrease the number of minor league affiliates, they will get the MLB ball throughout the minors. I don't care if they keep the same ball, just keep it consistent. Know what you are playing with and adjust from there.

[D-train]

Hopefully with revenues of 10 billion dollars, MLB is not retracting the minors because it can't afford to supply all the teams with baseballs.

[Donn Beach]

and guess who is behind it, Darth Vader!...as if you needed another reason to hate on him...

As if they aren’t squarely involved in enough transgressions against baseball, we should not be at all surprised to know the Houston Astros — the Jeff Luhnow Houston Astros — were the ringleaders of the MLB plan to essentially destroy grass roots baseball and contract 42 of the 160 minor league teams.

I’m told that when Manfred presented this plan to the owners a few months ago, the vote was unanimous 30-0 to move forward. It was Luhnow, the godfather of analytics, and the Astros who first conceived of it, and they were quickly joined by the Brewers and Orioles, whose GMs — David Stearns and Mike Elias — both worked under Luhnow with the Astros. The rest of the teams apparently just said ‘OK’ without any discussion of the ramifications of such as a drastic attack on the minor leagues and all these communities across the country.

https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/base ... story.html