Player Breakdowns: April 21st
Notable Performances, Noah Schultz, & Jairo Iriarte
Spencer Schwellenbach (ATL) - High-A: 5.1IP 4H 2ER 3BB 8K
When in Rome do as Owen Murphy does. Schwellenbach did just that. Schwellenbach features some refined power mechanics stemming from his 6’1 200 lb. frame (although he looks bigger, joker listings again) and has a mid-90s fastball to go with 3 other solid pitches. The slider shows promise and the changeup needs more usage. He also has a slower bendy curve he can throw all while managing his command. For the season he now has a 15:4 K to Walk ratio while pitching to a 1.08 ERA. He’s holding batters to a .155 Average Against as he’s only allowed 9 hits scattered across 16.2 innings of work. I don’t think Schwellenbach is long for High-A as I think the Braves push him to AA after several more starts or by mid-season. He now has about 30 innings pitched at the level dating back to last year and he’s gotten even better this year. He’s somewhat of a control freak but I don’t want to give him that label just yet. I want to see more outings with better control before I give him that kind of acclaim. All in all, Schwellenbach is pitching well enough at High-A, dating back to last year, to be a promotion candidate depending on how aggressively the Braves want to move him up the ladder.
Chen-Wei Lin (STL) - Low-A: 5IP 2H 0ER 2BB 8K
Lin is already showing better command than he did last year in his short stint at Low-A. He only tossed 11.2 IP last year but walked 11 batters in the process, pitching to a 7.71 ERA. He’s thrown 15 innings thus far in 2024 and has a 16:4 K to Walk ratio while pitching to a 2.40 ERA. Batters are hitting .189 against him.
He’s averaging 96.9 mph on his 4-seamer this year which gets average induced Vertical Break but comes with over 16 inches of Horizontal Break. He’s getting a ton of arm-side run on his 4-seamer. His sinker yesterday averaged 92.7 mph and got 17.2 inches of Horizontal Break. It isn’t quite Charlie Morton level of run but it’s nearing that 18-inch threshold Charlie Morton is known for. That’s impressive for a kid in Low-A and I’m curious to see how that pitch shape develops. The 4-seamer is heavy in the mid to upper 90s but I’m more curious about that Sinker and would like to see him throw it more often. He’s in Low-A so a fastball averaging nearly 97 mph with that type of run should suffice to get results but I think mixing in some other pitches to see what we have here in Lin would be a good developmental move. Keep an eye on Lin as he shouldn’t be long for Low-A.
Noble Meyer (MIA) - Low-A: 4.2IP 5H 3ER 2BB 3K
I want to highlight Meyer as this was his longest professional start going 4.2 IP as he threw 84 pitches in this one. I also want to highlight the slider. It’s been slowly ramping up in terms of its spin each start. In his first start, it averaged just above 2500 RPM and in this one, he averaged 2910 RPM on the pitch. He’s mostly sinker and slider right now with the sinker averaging just over 94 mph with 15+ inches of horizontal break. Meyer has tantalizing upside but he’s going to need to mix in some changeups and produce better results. Still, it’s only been 3 starts for the kid as he’s getting adjusted to pro ball and it’s a positive sign to see the highly acclaimed slider get to nearly 3000 RPM in his latest start. The max RPM he had on the slider yesterday was 3169. On a pure stuff basis, the arrow seems to be pointing up, although the box scores look a bit worrisome. He faced off against this next name who was also a highly-acclaimed prep arm taken fairly early in last year’s draft.
Charlee Soto (MIN) - Low-A: 3IP 4H 1ER 3BB 5K
Soto has impressed me early on. He’s barely just 18 years old and he’s one of the youngest pitchers at the level. He now has a 2.70 ERA to go with a 15:5 K to Walk ratio. They’re ramping him up slowly and they’re not going to take the training wheels off anytime soon as he’s only pitched 10 innings through 3 starts, usually sitting in the 50-65 pitch range. Over his last two starts, he’s thrown 7 innings of 4 hit ball while striking out 12 and allowing one earned run. The split-change he features is a put-away pitch for him as it has a ton of fade.
The developmental staff seems to be tinkering with his pitch usage as he threw the change 32.7% of the time last outing and the 4-seamer 22.4% of the time. He threw his slider just 10% of the time last time out for a total of 5 pitches. In yesterday’s outing, he threw the slider most often at 24.2% (15 pitches), his 4-seamer at 22.6% (14 pitches), his sinker at 21% (13 pitches), and his changeup at 19.4% (12 pitches). He also threw his cutter 8 times to give him a solid 5 pitch mix to work with yesterday. That will carry him far and may move him up as soon as late this year, depending on his command of the mix and the results he produces. I think he’s better than advertised. He gets solid separation between his mid-90s fastball and his split-change (85.1 mph with nearly 17 inches of run). I’ll be catching Soto’s next start because I think he’s an advanced arm for his level despite his age and if he can hone his command while tinkering around with pitch mixes and usage, then he’s nearly unhittable for batters at Low-A.
Michael Forret (BAL) - Low-A: 5IP 3H 0ER 0BB 8K
We might be looking at a control freak found in the 14th round here. Forret has now strung together back-to-back excellent starts and has a 19:3 K to BB on the season. This is an arm I’m excited about. He probably read the 95 mph body by Ben Brewster and decided to gain some good weight and hit up Tread this past offseason — if you’re unaware of Tread — it’s basically a pitching lab, similar to Driveline, that’s located in North Carolina. Because it’s located in North Carolina, nobody talks about it as much or is even aware of it — at least people outside of the baseball industry. Tread is posting numbers when it comes to the number of professional arms it’s developing and tinkering with and it’s an impressive lab. Forret’s fastball is now up to 95-96 after working an offseason there and his curveball and slider combination are a fairly sick mix. Indoor bullpen sessions had him clocked at 98 but if he’s sitting 94-96 then that’s a fairly good development for Forret, who now looks like an absolute steal and a pop-up prospect for the Baltimore Orioles. His last two starts:
5IP 0H 0ER 1BB 7K - 45 CSW%
5IP 3H 0ER 0BB 8K - 48 CSW%
These newfound gains to go with the results he’s posting shouldn’t have him in Low-A for much longer. Did I mention he’s also looking like a budding control freak?
Dylan Lesko (SDP) - High-A: 5IP 2H 3ER 3BB 6K
This was Lesko’s deepest game this year, going 5 innings and throwing 75 pitches. He had some issues with the free passes and the major damage came on a Cam Collier 2-run homer. Nobody is stopping Cam Collier in the early going though. What made it worse was that Lesko hung a curveball in the fat part of the plate that Collier just belted to deep right. Overall, Lesko looked fairly good. And he’s going to need to chill out with the curveball going forward. Fastball, slider, and change are good enough for him. The changeup looked filthy at times and as advertised. It generated plenty of whiffs as did the fastball and slider. 16 whiffs in total. Lesko has the potential to be one of the very top pitching prospects in baseball if he can somehow overcome his shaky command at times. Despite it, he’s still one of the better-looking arms in the minors. The potential is a top 3-5 pitching prospect in baseball if all goes well.