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Player Breakdowns: April 22nd

Player Breakdowns: April 22nd

Notable Performances, Cade Horton, & Yorman Galindez

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Apr 22, 2024
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Player Breakdowns: April 22nd
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Caden Dana (LAA) - AA: 7IP 2H 0ER 1BB 8K

Caden Dana is on his way to becoming one of the better pitching prospects in the minors. He’s only 20 years old and he’s mowing hitters down at the AA level. I went over him in my Player Breakdowns on April 11th and here is what I wrote:

Dana is an arm I’m extremely excited about. He’s from Don Bosco Prep and looks like he could’ve been a Defensive End for their football program. He also looks like if Theo Vonn and Noah Syndergaard had a child conceived in a pitching lab.

I wrote about Dana in the offseason as one of my breakout picks coming into this year and here is what I wrote:

Dana has allowed just four Home Runs in over 75 innings pitched in professional baseball and three of them came in a single game. He limits the home run and strikes batters out. I would be higher on Dana if he weren’t in the Angels system but I can’t ignore the stuff and results. He pitched to a 17.24% SwStr% last season in just over 68 innings for a K rate of 31.7%. If you take out the one professional start in which he gave up the 3 home runs from his stat line, he pitched to a 2.80 ERA as a 19-year-old between A and A+.

For someone 6’4, Dana has a compact, athletic delivery that’s repeatable and has an easy loose arm action. He has a great mound presence and can get his fastball up to 95 (reportedly higher this spring) while mixing in a pretty hellacious curveball and a good changeup which can use some refinement. Dana has flowing blond locks which makes him look like Noah Syndergaard, except Syndergaard didn’t know what to do with himself when he was throwing 94. Dana does. He’s someone I expect to climb into potential top 100 overall lists with a good 2024 showing. There’s something here and I would be adding in deeper leagues, although I caution there’s a risk factor with Angels pitchers that I just can’t seem to grip. The organization scares me and if Dana was in another org., I would rank him higher on this list.

Jose Rodriguez (LAD) - Low-A: 4.2IP 2H 0ER 2BB 11K

Rodriguez racked up the most whiffs at the low-A level by a significant margin yesterday. He had 27 in total leading to his 11 strikeouts on the night. He came in the game in the 3rd inning in relief of Edgardo Henriquez and went 4 and two-thirds. His last two outings have been great:

5IP 3H 1ER 0BB 8K

4.2IP 2H 0ER 2BB 11K

He’s now running a 25:4 K to Walk ratio through 3 outings.

Cam Schlittler (NYY) - High-A: 4IP 3H 1ER 4BB 7K

Schlittler gave up his first earned run in yesterday’s start and now has an ERA of 0.60 through 3 outings at 15 innings pitched. He’s not a control freak in any sense of the phrase as he’s now walked 4 batters in his last two starts but he does look like a promising arm. He’s 6’6 210 and looks the part. He’s barely allowing any hits as he’s only given up 6 hits through his 15 innings. I went over Schlittler in my Player Breakdowns from April 15th and here is what I wrote:

Schlittler is an interesting arm. He has a 94-95 mph fastball and I think there’s more in the tank. His breaking pitches are also good and he uses them to good effectiveness to get whiffs, especially his tight slider.

He got into a bit of trouble in the 4th inning in yesterday’s start but that was because of a few errors which led to unearned runs. His final line on the day was 5IP 2H 0ER 4BB 5K. He got bit by the walk bug yesterday.

In his first start, Schlittler’s line was 6IP 1H 0ER 1BB 7K.

I think Schlittler is another name to pay attention to as he rises in the Yankees system. I think the walks were more of an anomaly performance than something we’re going to see with regularity — in his final 8 starts of 2023, he didn’t have a single start where he walked more than 2 batters.

Maybe the back-to-back starts with 4 walks are out of the norm but I’d like to see more from him in the way of command going forward.

Chayce McDermott (BAL) - AAA: 3.2IP 5H 0ER 3BB 7K

McDermott piggybacked in this one as Kyle Bradish was getting his rehab start. He wasn’t the sharpest command-wise but he was racking up whiffs left and right. He led AAA with 19 whiffs yesterday in only 3.2IP. The 4-seamer averaged 94.4 mph and topped out at 96.6 mph while the cutter sat mid-80s and generated 8 whiffs on 13 swings. It was a real difference-maker for McDermott in yesterday’s outing. His 4-seamer has now averaged over 18 inches of iVB in every outing he’s pitched in. Yesterday he averaged more than a tick on his fastball velocity while maintaining an iVB of 18.1 inches. McDermott should see time in the big league rotation this year and he along with Cade Povich have both seen gains in the iVB department — leading me to believe the Orioles may have a decent 1-2 punch of homegrown arms on their hands that can contribute this year.

Bryan Woo (SEA) - AAA: 3IP 0H 0ER 0BB 5K

Woo looked excellent yesterday. He was throwing his fastball a bit slower in the first inning but was sitting 94-95 towards the end of his outing. The slider looked good and he was able to get some lefties out on the pitch which I think he’ll do at the major league level as he worked on that this offseason. In typical Woo fashion, he had a low VAA coming in at -4.4 degrees on his fastball. The fastball had some giddy-up to it as hitters were swinging right through it whether it was up in the zone or down low. I see one more rehab start for Woo before being activated by Seattle.

Mavis Graves (PHI) - Low-A: 5IP 3H 0ER 1BB 9K

Graves racked up 11 whiffs and totaled 9 strikeouts yesterday. He did it on the back of his slider. While his 4-seamer only averages 91.3 mph and has 15.5 inches of iVB & 13 inches of Horizontal run, his slider averages 81 mph and has nearly 2900 average RPM. He threw the slider 20% of the time and had a 50% chase rate and a 57.1% whiff rate on it. He threw 75 pitches in this outing and had a 40.7% whiff rate in total. He also mixed in his changeup and cutter as much as his slider and threw his sinker just 5 times. Graves is an interesting arm but I’m not going beyond that at this point.

Brandon Sproat (NYM) - High-A: 3IP 3H 1ER 1BB 2K

Sproat got off to a weird start. He had the best command he’s had this year as he only walked one batter and it came in the first inning. All the damage done to him was in the first inning. He got bit with some bad batted ball luck. He allowed an infield single with 2 outs which could’ve been the third out of the inning if it was hit any harder. The runner then moved onto second and then a flare single brought the runner in for the only run of the game. He then cruised through the next two innings before being lifted in the 4th after allowing a lead-off single. He threw just 50 pitches so I’d like to see him get a bit deeper into games as they work him harder — let’s say 65-70 pitches an outing. He sat mostly 95-96 in this one touching 97. The good development is he used his changeup and slider effectively and he had pretty good command of them both. Here are his Whiffs and CS from yesterday:

Cade Horton (CHC) - AA:

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