Is Patrick Weigel just old for his level or is there real potential there? Kevin M. Los Angeles @aplaceforfacts BA:Weigel has been dominant this year in his first full season as a pro. He’s leading the South Atlantic League with a .206 opponents average against and ranks fourth among Sally League starters with 9.3 strikeouts per nine innings. At 9-4, 2.66 he also ranks fifth in the league in ERA. As a 22-year-old, Weigel is a little old for the league, but there is a logical reason why he hasn’t been pushed more aggressively. Weigel had an up-and-down college career, so the Braves have left him in Rome to build up a base of success. He might be a little older than some of his teammates, but on one of the best pitching staffs in the minors, Weigel’s pure stuff is as good as anyone else in the Rome rotation. Weigel has always been known for having outstanding velocity, but often the velo has come with bottom-of-the-scale control. Weigel posted an 8.03 ERA and walked 27 in 33 innings as a freshman at Pacific in 2013. He transferred to Oxnard (Calif.) JC for his sophomore year and had the same problems–he posted a 5-3, 3.39 record, but he walked 65 in 61 innings. The Brewers drafted him in the 22nd round out of Oxnard but were unable to sign him. He went to Houston and did show some significant improvement with his control, walking 21 in 51 innings out of the Cougars bullpen, but there was still enough concern about his delivery and control to cause him to slide to the seventh round in the 2015 draft. A little more than a year later, Weigel looks to be a steal. He throws four pitches, but it’s his fastball and slider that are the standouts. Everything begins with a 94-99 mph fastball with arm-side run. That sets up a mid-80s sharp slider with plus potential. Weigel calls it a slider and it’s a hard pitch, but it generally has more downward break than sweep, so it is as much a power curve as it is a hard slider. Weigel also throws a more traditional 11-to-5 curveball that’s bigger and slower (it sits in the mid-70s). After largely shelving his changeup when pitching as a reliever in college, he’s working on it again. It’s a little hard, but has some fade. Weigel’s slider is the pitch that low Class A hitters have few answer for. While most righthanders like to get hitters to chase sliders that start off over the plate and dive outside, Weigel is actually more comfortable pitching inside to righthanded hitters with it. At its best, Weigel starts his slider at a hitter’s hip or rib cage, letting the pitch diving into the strike zone. It plays well with the run on his fastball, as he can jam righthanded hitters with the fastball that starts over the plate and runs in on their hands, while the slider starts off the plate inside before sliding into the zone. Weigel’s control and command are still a concern. He misses high a lot, has some trouble locating to his glove side (away to righthanded hitters/inside to lefthanded hitters) and while his walk rate has improved steadily, he’s still walking 3.3 batters per nine innings. Weigel has worked with pitching coordinator Chuck Hernandez and Rome pitching coach Dan Meyer to stay direct to the plate and to keep his release point consistent. “When I get in trouble I get rotational and lower my arm angle,” he said. “One thing we’ve really worked on is staying on top of the ball and staying direct to the plate.” Weigel said the regular work of pitching every fifth day and the side sessions that come with it have helped him develop consistency. “Going out there every fifth day and competing. I’ve really grown into my own,” Weigel said. “I’m much more comfortable with my delivery and my body.” If the control doesn’t continue to get better, Weigel should have at least a future as a power reliever relying on his lively fastball and his power slider in shorter stints. But there are plenty of reasons to see him as a starting pitching prospect as well. While his delivery has a little effort and there are the control concerns, Weigel has the strength to maintain his delivery and his velocity in longer stints–he’s throwing as hard in the seventh as he does in the first. While many pitchers wilt as their first full season wraps up, Weigel looks just as strong in August as he did in April. And while his changeup still needs work, he’s held lefthanded hitters to a .582 OPS, even better than the .608 OPS righthanded hitters have posted. Coming into the season, Weigel appeared to be the afterthought on a Rome rotation that now includes Max Fried, Touki Toussaint, Kolby Allard, Ricardo Sanchez and Mike Soroka. As a 22-year-old with Division I experience and a fastball that grades as a 70 on the 20-to-80 scouting scale, Weigel should dominate low Class A hitters. He’ll need to keep proving it as he moves up the development ladder, but Weigel’s stuff is big league caliber.
Jonah Keri with a blurb in his column on Ender Inciarte and a decision the Braves have to make at some point. Last Tuesday, the Braves beat the Brewers for Atlanta’s fourth straight win and sixth in seven games. For the worst team in baseball, that qualifies as a colossal winning streak. That game also snapped an 18-game hitting streak for Ender Inciarte, briefly cooling off the team’s best player over the past month. The biggest question facing Atlanta is what its roster will look like a year, two years and three-plus years down the road. But will Inciarte be one of the small number of players on the current roster still wearing a Braves uniform at that time? According to well-connected baseball scribe Jon Heyman, the Yankees were at one point seeking Inciarte (along with hard-throwing righthander Mike Foltynewicz) in exchange for veteran catcher Brian McCann. In a follow-up report, however, Heyman backed off somewhat on the specifics of that proposal, and it was also never reported whether or not the Braves are actually dangling Inciarte in trade talks. Still, a quick glance at Atlanta’s current group of 25 reveals two tiers of players: keepers like Freddie Freeman and Julio Teheran who are young, highly productive, and controllable at below-market rates for many years to come; and nearly everyone else. Inciarte is one of the few players who falls into the gray area in between. When the Braves fleeced the Diamondbacks in their off-season trade of Shelby Miller, 2015 No. 1 pick Dansby Swanson was (rightly) considered the prize of the deal. What made the trade a true heist, though, were its other parts: Along with Swanson, the Braves landed talented young righthander Aaron Blair and Inciarte. By Wins Above Replacement (Baseball-Reference.com version), the best player in the trade based on 2015 performance wasn’t Miller; it was Inciarte. His Gold Glove-caliber defense, combined with a (somewhat empty) .303 batting average, made him a five-win player. That hasn't been the case this season: Even with Inciarte hitting nearly .350 with an on-base percentage just below .400 over the past month, he's merely hiked his season line to .268/.327/.341, making him the third-worst hitter among batting title-qualified centerfielders this season. At age 25, with elite defense and team control through 2020, Inciarte becomes a somewhat uncertain asset if he’s going to show as much power as a backup middle infielder from the Dead Ball Era. This isn’t a decision the Braves need to make today or tomorrow, not when the team is in the midst of a total, painful, potentially long overhaul. But the Inciarte dilemma highlights one of the hidden challenges the Braves face as they try to follow in the footsteps of teams like the Cubs and Astros and successfully pull off a massive turnaround. They’ll need to acquire the right prospects and hope they develop into stars, they’ll need keep the right two or three veterans to lead the way and they’ll need to build the right supporting cast to glue it all together. Whether their current starting centerfielder belongs in that group remains to be seen.
The #Tigers today have acquired INF Erick Aybar from Atlanta in exchange for INF Mike Aviles and C Kade Scivicque.
The dude with the funny name is a catching prospect from lsu. Pretty high draft pick like 2 or 3 drafts ago. Don't know how he's been doing though
Last 28 days for Scivicque .350/.385/.534 4 of his 6 HR during that span He was Detroit's 20th rated prospect. Well done coppy.
Atlanta Braves @Braves The #Braves plan to select the contract of INF Dansby Swanson (@LieutenantDans7) on Wednesday. He will wear No. 2. pic.twitter.com/OIzh1qlnSo !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On Tuesday night, the Braves traded veteran shortstop Erick Aybar, a move that was long anticipated since Atlanta is in the middle of a significant rebuilding effort. As soon as the Aybar deal was finished, Atlanta followed up by announcing that Dansby Swanson, the team’s No. 1 prospect, and the No. 1 pick in the 2015 draft, will be called up before Wednesday’s game. WHAT TO EXPECT Swanson’s arrival is more about the future than the present. Swanson’s production at Double-A offers no indication that he’s played his way out of the minors. Mississippi’s Trustmark Park is a very difficult stadium for home runs, but Swanson has slugged less than .400 in June, July and August. Swanson’s fellow Southeastern Conference cohort Alex Bregman dominated three levels before going 1-for-32 in the first eight big league games, offering a reminder of the crapshoot that comes with big league debuts and small sample sizes. Swanson might not be fully ready for the big leagues, but his makeup should be able to handle being pushed. As far back as spring training, the Braves believed that getting Swanson some at-bats late this year could make it easier for him to be in the Opening Day lineup next year when the Braves open their new ballpark in Cobb County. For now, Atlanta is again breaking up the Swanson/Ozzie Albies pairing. They had been working together at Double-A Mississippi with Swanson playing shortstop and Albies sliding over to second base. While Aybar’s departure left a gaping hole at shortstop, Jace Peterson’s presence gives Atlanta a serviceable second baseman. Peterson won’t stand in Albies’ way over the long-term, but he might slow Albies’ arrival over the final two months of the season. SCOUTING REPORT Swanson is a reliable defender with plenty of range to stick at shortstop. Offensively he projects as a plus hitter with 10-15 home run power. Swanson is more of a top-of-the-order hitter than a middle-of-the-lineup thumper, but his whole-field approach, loose hands and bat speed should allow him to hit for average. Scouts love his makeup, which should allow him to get the most out of his tools. Swanson is a plus runner with the speed to steal 10-15 bases at the big league level.
Scouting Dansby Swanson, Atlanta Braves Cornerstone by Eric Longenhagen - August 17, 2016 Just fourteen months after having been selected first overall in the draft by the Arizona Diamondbacks, Dansby Swanson is making his Major League debut for the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday. While Swanson doesn’t have a robust collection of plus tools and won’t be setting the National League ablaze with top-of-the scale speed or monster raw power, his skillset is air tight with nothing but the smallest of nits to pick. Combined with his ability to play most valuable of position in baseball, Swanson should provide All Star-level value for the Braves. Of course, Dansby Swanson was an Arizona Diamondback not that long ago. His stay with Arizona was brief but eventful. Swanson was drafted first overall, signed for $6.5 million and was hit in the face by a pitch from human Monkey’s Paw, Yoan Lopez, during a sim game on the Salt River backfields that kept him out of game action until mid-August of last year. Swanson suited up for just 22 games as a member of the Diamondbacks organization before headlining the offseason’s Shelby Miller blockbuster. Say what you will about that trade, the Diamondbacks at least got that pick right. Though he was beaten to the big leagues by other members of his draft class, Swanson was and remains a better bet to play shortstop long-term than Alex Bregman does, Carson Fulmer continues to look like a reliever and teams didn’t have as long of a scouting history with Andrew Benintendi as they did with Swanson. He had already put himself into conversation as a potential top selection for the 2015 draft during his sophomore year at Vanderbilt in 2014 when the Commodores won the National Title. Though he was playing mostly second base in deference to Vince Conde, it was clear he had the skills to kick over to the left side of the infield and play a viable short. Those views were cemented during Swanson’s junior season while hit also hit .335/.423/.623 (a .148 uptick over what he SLG’d as a soph), hit 15 homers in 71 games and successfully stole 16 bases in 18 attempts. And all of that against mostly SEC opponents. Swanson’s scouting report reads very much like it did a year ago. He’s a plus runner with terrific instincts on the bases and enough range for SS. His defensive footwork is exceptional, aided by a freaskish foot-to-ground contact ratio befitting an NFL corner. He has an above average arm and I think he’ll be a plus defender at short despite lacking the explosiveness and acrobatics typically associated with that kind of glove at short because he’s so technically proficient. Offensively, Swanson’s footwork is minimalistic and plain, so much so that Rachel Leigh Cook studied it for her part in She’s All That. Without much of a stride and explosion coming from his lower half, Swanson’s power comes almost exclusively from his hands and bat speed, which can only do so much on their own. While he has average raw power, Swanson only projects to hit for 45-grade game power unless we see substantial mechanical changes. There were some concerns about Swanson swinging and missing a bit while he was at Vanderbilt but he’s been more apt to bend and flex his front leg as a pro which has allowed him to get to balls in the bottom of the zone more often than he did in college when he was more upright. I think he’s a future plus hitter. One caveat for those of you who are thinking about hopping on Swanson for the stretch run of your fantasy season: Beware of fatigue. While some of this might be counterbalanced by September’s annual talent dilution, keep in mind that Swanson has played 105 games this season, easily the most of his career. He played 71 at Vanderbilt last year and 22 more at Low-A but those pro appearances came after a lengthy rest due to a broken face. Since Swanson has passed that 71 game threshold this season, he’s hitting .252. Swanson’s performance has been underwhelming enough that I got some questions on Twitter about whether or not I thought Swanson even deserved this promotion. One could argue it is not, but because of the opportunity presented to Atlanta in the Erick Aybar/Kade Scivique deal and the hole it cleared at short for the big club, I think it’s defensible despite Swanson’s struggles. Scenarios like this, in which a prospect is circumstantially promoted, are what makes it hard to provide answers to those, “When will Prospect X make his Major League debut?” questions with any sort of accuracy. Hit: 45/60, Raw Power: 50/50, Game Power: 40/45, Run: 60/60, Field: 50/60, Arm: 55/55, FV: 60
ESPN Insider help http://www.espn.com/blog/buster-olney/insider/post?id=14018 MLB roundup: Reasoning behind Swanson call-up
Atlanta Braves @Braves 2h2 hours ago Starting tonight at shortstop for his hometown Atlanta #Braves, number 2, Dansby Swanson. #ChopOn
I listen to Jim and Don most nights. And "best" is relative, winning six of seven then dropping five of the next six.
If Freeman can put up 25 plus for a few years I'm ok with the "Franchise tag" given his defense and hugs. Just need another power hitting piece that's not Matt Kemp.
Apparently the cool thing to do is to say how long you've gone without watching the Braves. It was all over twitter last night as well. Great fans.
I watch every time I get the chance but I'm also a gamecock fan. I'm really experienced at watching shit teams.
I'm fine with watching shitty baseball. I can only handle so much shitty baseball combined with Chip and Joe however. That's why it's been Jim and Don on the radio mostly for me lately.
What do we do about Mallex and Ender long term? Ender has turned it around at the plate and is playing gold glove defense but Mallex has similar capabilities.
Put one in left and one in center. Bat them 1/2 and set the lineup. Power can come from 3b, 1b, RF, and C. Hoping Dansby is a doubles machine.