Triple-A — Sacramento 7, Portland 6
Craig Stansberry: 1-for-4
Peter Ciofrone (3B): 0-for-4, E
Chase Headley: 0-for-4
Brian Myrow: 1-for-3, BB
Chip Ambres (RF): 2-for-4, E
Will Venable (CF): 2-for-4
Nick Hundley: 2-for-4
Vince Sinisi (DH): 0-for-3
Matt Antonelli: 0-for-4
Clay Hensley: 2 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 0 HR, 1 BB, 1 SO (45 pitches, 28 strikes)
Cesar Ramos: 6 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 0 HR, 1 BB, 4 SO
Hensley’s line is terrible but at least he’s throwing. Got up to 45 pitches on Thursday.
Double-A — San Antonio 4, Frisco 0
Drew Macias: 1-for-4
Chad Huffman: 1-for-4
Kyle Blanks: 4-for-4
Craig Cooper: 2-for-4, 2B
Seth Johnston: 0-for-4
Jose Lobaton: 1-for-4, 2B
Matt Buschmann: 5 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 HR, 5 BB, 2 SO
The Missions have won five straight… Huffman, Blanks, and Buschmann all have been selected to play in the Texas League All-Star game. Congrats to those young men… Great to see Blanks answering a lot of questions this year.
More coverage at the San Antonio Express-News.
High-A — Inland Empire 8, Lake Elsinore 5
Javis Diaz: 0-for-5
Cedric Hunter: 0-for-5
Eric Sogard: 2-for-5, 2B, SB, E
Mitch Canham (DH): 1-for-3, BB
Rayner Contreras: 1-for-4
Kellen Kulbacki: 0-for-2, 2 BB
Drew Miller: 5 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 1 HR, 2 BB, 3 SO, HBP
After a lackluster May, Sogard has started June on fire. In three games so far, he’s 7-for-14 with a double and a homer.
Low-A — Fort Wayne 4, Lansing 2
Luis Durango (DH): 1-for-4, BB
Lance Zawadzki (SS): 1-for-5
Justin Baum: 1-for-5, 2B
Felix Carrasco: 1-for-5, HR
Yefri Carvajal: 0-for-3
Jeremy Hefner: 6 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 0 HR, 0 BB, 5 SO
Robert Woodard: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 HR, 1 BB, 2 SO
Another day, another homer for Carrasco… Nice start from Hefner.
More coverage at OurSports Central.
It’s nice to see Blanks hitting for average and drawing his walks, but a guy that size has to start hitting for power eventually. Right?
I guess he is only 21… Patience…
I think one of the biggest questions he’s had to answer this year is power – and he hasn’t so far.
#2@John Conniff: Really? He showed plenty of power last year. I guess for me the biggest questions were plate discipline and defense. I don’t know how good he’s been at first base (although it’s nice that he’s getting more time there now than last year), but I’ve been impressed by his ability to control the strike zone, something he hadn’t demonstrated in the past.
Running late this morning, shooting for 8:20 a.m. PT.
#4@Geoff Young: Gosh, Geoff. It’s the day after the first round of the draft. I need analysis, NOW!
This month his slugging percentage was .363 and in April it was .438. Last year in Lake Elsinore it was .604 in the first half, but in the second it was .468 – and remember that is in the California League, by far the best place to hit in the system.
To realistically have an opportunity as an everyday first baseman in the major legues that number has to be in the mid-.500′s in the minors.
He’s always been able to control the strike zone. In FW his OBP was .382, LE .380 and this year in San Antonio its .409.
From what Gary Jones, the Padres roving infield instructor said in an interview with us is that Jones has the talent, but just has certain problems associated with a man his size, mainly getting down on balls, moving his feet and his arm angle on throws to second. He didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary for a young player and thought he would eventually be pretty good.
In short Blanks is a very good hitter but despite the natural assumptions that come along with his size he really is not the type of hitter that had him projected with an “80″ for power when he was signed. The knock on Blanks is that he has always been a little too selective on pitches instead of turning on them early in the count.
#6@John Conniff: We may have different definitions of controlling the strike zone. Here’s what I see:
2006: .443 BB/K, .098 BB/PA
2007: .449 BB/K, .083 BB/PA
2008: 1.217 BB/K, .121 BB/PA
That looks like a new level of performance to me.
#7@Geoff Young: Good point but I really don’t believe anyone questions whether or not Blanks is a selective hitter. What they do question is his power and a sub .500 slugging percentage does not bode well for his chances to become an everyday MLB first baseman, especially from someone with his expectations and size.
Granted San Antonio is a very tough place to hit, but he really didn’t show that much power in the second half at LE either or in FW in 2006.
#8@John Conniff: I questioned whether he was a selective hitter coming into the season; guess I’m alone on that one.
#9@Geoff Young: What is interesting, and this discussion mirrors it to some extent, (although I had Blanks in my Top 10) is the wide split on his future. Some people absolutely rave about him, others see him as a “4A” player.
Gosh, if you question whether or not a guy with a career .380 OBP is selective enough….you are much tougher than me.
#10@John Conniff: Not tougher, just looking at the problem in a different way. His career OBP is .392. Although that is outstanding, it’s also largely dependent on his career BA of .300. Blanks has walked in 10% of his PAs as a pro, which is acceptable but not great. For his career, he also strikes out about twice as often as he walks. The evidence available to me doesn’t suggest an especially selective hitter, or at least it didn’t prior to the current season. This year, his walks are up and his strikeouts are down, both by quite a bit. Maybe you are right and this isn’t indicative of anything, but it seems interesting to me.
milb.com reports that The Missions members (of the TL All-Star team) are starting OF Chad Huffman and starting 1B Kyle Blanks as well as P Will Inman, Matt Buschmann, and Greg Burke.
Full rosters here …
http://sanantonio.missions.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080606&content_id=410278&vkey=news_t510&fext=.jsp&sid=t510
#11@Geoff Young: Interesting points, but under your logic I’m slightly perplexed why you don’t like Chad Huffman, whom I like more than Blanks. Huffman’s career line in the minors is .308/.404/.506 and has 124 BB/168 Ks in 1016 PAs.
To me the natural follow through to what you are writing is by increasing his selectivity could lead to him driving more balls – which I haven’t seen yet. To me, and I apologize if I am sounding like a broken record, what will take him to an everyday job as a first baseman is if people believe that he has the ability to consistently drive the ball for extra bases or over the wall.
#13@John Conniff: I don’t dislike Huffman, he’s just never done anything to impress me when I’ve seen him play. Obviously his numbers are terrific, so my assumption is that I’ve caught him when he’s not at his best. It happens.
I get what you’re saying about Blanks’ ability to drive the ball for extra bases, but to me he already demonstrated that skill last year (I even saw him knock a ball out of Petco Park). Even though it’s not there right now, I at least have some indication that he’s capable of it. The plate discipline is something I haven’t seen out of him — in terms of actual numbers — until now.
#14@Geoff Young: I agree that his power is there but that is the difficulty in evaluating the minor leagues – how often does it show up. To me the power only showed up for a limited time in LE last year and has been absent this season in San Antonio.
A good example is everytime I watch Sean Kazmir I think he’s just going to be great – but he can’t seem to put together a consistent performance over a significiant period of time.