Rock Cats Report 2014.1

Nate Hanson celebrating a home run.
Courtesy of McClelland Miscellanea.

As of this writing, the New Britain Rock Cats sit at 4-6. It's important before reading this piece -- or really any piece related to baseball -- that we all realize that we're only 10 games (or so) into the season. Everything anyone says should be couched with the "small sample size" caveat. Still, though, it is worthwhile to start to look at how Twins' prospects are beginning to perform against what we, the fans, expect to see this season.

The Rock Cats seem ... serviceable. But something is missing this spring. I've been fortunate, since I began closely following this team in 2012, to have had at least 1 Top 10 Twins prospect on this team at pretty much all times. Aaron Hicks; Oswaldo Arcia; Trevor May; Alex Meyer; Miguel Sano; Eddie Rosario. Take a look for a second at Baseball America's 2014 Twins Top 10 Prospects List. The talent on that list is all above AA, below AA, injured (Sano & Buxton), or just elsewhere (Rosario). This will change, for sure. Once Buxton's wrist heals and he gets back into playing shape, he'll likely spend the rest of 2014 in New Britain. And that's just what this team needs: a game-changer. Eddie Rosario will also be back in New Britain later this season, I hope. And Miguel Sano will log another stint in Connecticut on his way back up.

For now, though, New Britain needs to make do with their current roster. Indeed, there are bright spots, including some MiLB veterans who have been performing well. Offensively, New Britain veteran (really, a super-veteran) Nate Hanson has been leading the offense, hitting .350/.372/.475 with 5 doubles and 7 RBIs in 10 games. He's hit safely in 8 of the 10 games. Aderlin Mejia, shortstop, has a line of .375/.464/.417, but also has 4 errors in 8 games. Let's not forget emerging prospect Kennys Vargas. He only has a .216/.302/.405 line, but has 2 of the Rock Cats' 3 home runs, a double, and 6 RBIs. Additionally, after starting out 2-for-20, Vargas is 6 for his last 17 (which includes both homers and the double).

Pitching results have been mixed. Pat Dean has had the most success of the starters, going 2-0 with a 4.76 ERA. He's struck out 12 and walked only 2 in 11 1/3 innings. DJ Baxendale, a really nice guy, hasn't had as much luck. After 2 starts, he has a 5.91 ERA. He's simply given up too many hits -- 14 in 10 2/3 innings. Atlanta Braves pick-up Sean Gilmartin had 1 good, and 1 bad start. Out of the bullpen, AJ Achter is already gone to Rochester (where he should have started in the first place). BJ Hermsen was recently reassigned to extended spring training, and former Twins reliever Matt Guerrier is now a member of the Rock Cats. Kind of interesting, to say the least. Adrian Salcedo, who I was looking forward to watching, has had a rough start, giving up runs in 2 of his 4 outings, including a 6 run 1/3-of-an-inning performance that will really skew your stat line. Ryan O'Rourke has been another bright spot in relief, giving up only 1 run in 4 appearances (3 2/3 innings).

One of the things Rock Cats manager Jeff Smith stressed at the Annual Welcome Home Dinner was that he believed the 2014 Rock Cats would play as a team, as opposed to some minor league teams comprised of a few talented individuals who care more about individual stats. It's a nice thing to say, of course, but I do see what he was getting at. Let's not forget -- Smith doesn't choose his roster; he gets who he gets. This current team -- composed largely of MiLB vets and AA first-timers, with no Top Prospects -- will have to learn to play as a team.

Plan to hear more from me next Tuesday -- if not before. The Rock Cats are wrapping up a road trip, and I should get to the ballpark over the weekend. A few things to watch for in the meantime: does Kennys Vargas continue to warm up to AA; how do the starting pitchers fare as their pitch limit increases (most are at a 75-85 pitch limit this early in the spring); and who steps up offensively and defensively while the Twins (and their fans) wait for Buxton to come back?

One final note: I spent a lot of time covering/following Trevor May, James Beresford and Alex Meyer the last couple seasons. They are all off to strong starts at AAA. Christopher Fee is doing a great job covering the Red Wings for TwinsDaily, so be sure to check out his stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if all three ended up with the Twins in 2014.

Rock Cats: Day Game Away from a 4-Game Sweep

Evan Bigley says, "Do not take my
playing time, Oswaldo Arcia."

The Rock Cats finish up their four game series, as well as their week-long road trip, in a noon game today against the Richmond Flying Squirrels, but the series has already been a success. The Rock Cats won the first three games, and go for the sweep in today's finale.

Friday night was an offensive showing for both teams, but New Britain prevailed, 9-8. Evan Bigley had 4 hits, including his 9th home run, and Chris Colabello had 2 hits, including a double, and 2 RBIs. Catcher Chris Herrmann also notched 2 hits and a double. Starter B.J. Hermsen actually pitched pretty well, but wasn't aided by his defense. Though he only was charged with 2 earned runs in 6 and 1/3 innings, 6 runs scored thanks to errors.

Saturday New Britain won 6-1. Blake Martin, traditionally a reliever, started and went 4 innings. Luis Perdomo threw the other 5 innings and gave up only 1 run, striking out 6. Chris Colabello had a double and a home run, and Evan Bigley hit his 15th double of the season. Oswaldo Arcia also had a hit, and Minnesota's own Nathan Hanson hit his second home run of the season.

On Sunday, the Rock Cats won 7-3. Logan Darnell turned in a quality start for the Rock Cats, pitching 6 innings and giving up 3 runs. He struck out 3 and walked 2, but gave up 2 home runs. Daniel Turpen was excellent out of the bullpen, throwing 3 innings, allowing 2 hits and striking out 2. Chris Colabello, again, had a big game. He notched 3 hits, including his 12th home run, in 5 at-bats, and scored twice. Evan Bigley was 3-for-4 with his 16th double and drove in 2 runs, and Matt Rizzotti was 2-for-3 with 2 RBIs. Oswaldo Arcia was 1-for-5 and is batting .174 in a very, very small AA sample size.

These are just very short summaries, but I think it's important to note who is carrying this team lately when it wins. It's not necessarily Aaron Hicks, Oswaldo Arcia or Chris Herrmann (although Hicks and Herrmann certainly have been productive at various points this season). Right now, it's unquestionably Chris Colabello, the 28 year old journeyman, 25 year old Evan Bigley, who recently was told that with Arcia's promotion, he would lose playing time, and 25 year old Nathan Hanson, who has played various positions and has found more playing time as a result of his hot bat. I'm not sure if any of these guys are destined for major league careers, but it's nice to see veteran players getting the job done at AA -- a level at which they need to excel.

Let's look at the last 10 games: Evan Bigley is hitting at a .400/.415/.700 clip, and has 4 2B, 1 3B, 2 HR and 10 RBIs. The 25 year old is now hitting a respectable .265 on the season. Chris Colabello is hitting .293/.326/.488 2 2B, 2 HR and 8 RBIs. He's still leading the entire Eastern League in RBIs with 52, and his 12 home runs are good for 3rd in the Eastern League. Guess who's in second place in the Eastern League RBI race? Evan Bigley, with 48. Finally, there's Nathan Hanson. In his last 10 games, he's hitting .343/.378/.629 with 2 2B, 1 3B, 2 HR and 4 RBIs. After starting the season off slow, Hanson is batting an even .270 on the season.

The finale of the Rock Cats-Flying Squirrels series is noon (eastern time). The Rock Cats are still 3 games back in the standings, and are hoping to gain a little more ground today. All season long, this has been a streaky team, so hopefully they will continue to ride this current streak.

[Update: All my positive mentions of Bigley were not in vain. He took home Eastern League player of the week honors for this past week. http://eastern.league.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120625&content_id=33893738&vkey=news_l113&fext=.jsp&sid=l113]

The Rock Cats and Pitching

In each of his 4 starts since joining the Rock  Cats,
B.J. Hermsen has gone over  6 innings.

Yesterday, I reviewed some notable hitting prospects for the New Britain Rock Cats. The team is now 10 games over .500 and is in first place with a 1.5 game lead over the Reading Phillies. So although the offense has been scoring plenty of runs, the pitching has also kept this team in games.

Today I thought I would take a look at the Rock Cats' pitching. Keep in mind that Lucas French, Lester Oliveros and Deolis Guerra have all been promoted to AAA Rochester, so less than 2 months into the season, the Rock Cats have lost 3 of their most consistent arms. With that being said, let's see how a few of the pitchers are doing:

First, some starters:

Logan Darnell: 5-2, 4.53 ERA, 51 and 2/3 innings, 35K, 16 BB, 1.37 WHIP.

Steve Hirschfeld: 3-4, 3.14 ERA, 49 and 2/3 innings, 37K, 14 BB, 1.39 WHIP.

Andrew Albers: 1-1, 4.31 ERA, 48 innings, 37 K, 4 BB, 1.35 WHIP.

David Bromberg: 1-1, 3.94 ERA, 29 and 2/3 innings, 26 K, 12 BB, 1.31 WHIP.

B.J. Hermsen: 2-1, 2.57 ERA, 28 innings, 16 K, 2 BB, 0.86 WHIP.


And now some of the bullpen arms:

Daniel Turpen: 3-1, 5.56 ERA, 22 and 2/3 innings, 4 saves, 24 K, 4 BB, 1.19 WHIP.

Luis Perdomo: 3-2, 2.45 ERA, 22 innings, 1 save, 22 K, 9 BB, 1.23 WHIP.

Bobby Lanigan: 1-2, 2.49 ERA, 21 and 2/3 innings, 3 saves, 22K, 3 BB, 1.11 WHIP.

Caleb Thielbar: 1-0, 2.61 ERA, 10 and 1/3 innings, 1 save, 7 K, 3 BB, 1.45 WHIP.

There you have it. As a group, there are no major standout performers -- no guys with a 1-point-something ERA or massive strikeout totals. But if you look a little deeper, some of the stats are pretty impressive: BJ Hermsen has been very good so far, and you have to like his control. In fact, I would say that, as a team the Rock Cats have shown good command of the strike zone. Perdomo, Lanigan and Turpen all have been striking out close to 1 batter per inning while exhibiting good control. And new Rock Cat (and Minnesota's own) Caleb Thielbar has been solid out of the New Britain bullpen thus far.

Finally, I'm going to dig a little deeper on Daniel Turpen. In two rough performances this season (most recently on Monday night), he allowed 4 runs and 6 runs. In those outings he pitched a combined 4 and 1/3 innings. In his other 18 and 1/3 innings pitched, he has allowed only 4 total earned runs -- good for an ERA right around 2. Not to imply that you can simply "take away" bad outings, but when we're dealing with relatively small sample sizes, it's important to at least note a couple factors that are contributing to Turpen's interesting stat line.

The Rock Cats play a noon game today, and a 10:35 a.m. game Thursday, so be sure to check back for updates!

Monday Morning Rock Cats Update

Wilkin Ramirez is not long for AA if he keeps up
his 1.228 OPS

Like their parent club, the Rock Cats split a 4-game series over the weekend against the Reading Phillies. I attended Thursday night's game, a 10-3 loss. You can find my game recap here. Apparently, I picked the one bad game to go to. The rest of the series was pretty evenly matched, and featured some excellent pitching performances.

New Britain won 4-1 on Friday. In that game, hits were at a premium, with the teams combining for only 5 all night. David Bromberg, starting, and Lester Oliveros, out of the bullpen, were great for the Rock Cats. Chris Herrmann had a double, and Wilkin Ramirez hit his 3rd home run of the season for New Britain.

The Rock Cats also won Saturday, 8-4. New Rock Cat starter BJ Hermsen was excellent, going 7 innings and giving up only 2 runs, striking out 3 and walking 2. He earned his first AA win. Wilkin Ramirez was a 1-man wrecking crew, hitting 2 triples and another home run. Aaron Hicks also contributed 2 doubles. He had 3 RBIs and 2 stolen bases (9 on the season). Every starter except for Joe Benson and Estarlin De Los Santos had at least one hit.

Sunday, New Britain wasn't as lucky. They lost 6-4, and were only 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position. Andrew Albers delivered a quality start, tossing 6 innings and giving up 3 runs, but took the loss. New Rock Cat Caleb Thielbar had a rough appearance, giving up 3 runs on 5 hits in just 1 and 1/3 inning. You can't help but think that this is one game New Britain would like to have back: they had a chance to increase their division lead, but instead are now back in second place; they scored 4 runs, but only managed 4 hits (3 singles and a Chris Herrmann home run). As it stands, they are still doing well, sitting at 22-14, just 1/2 game back from Reading. They are off today, and then go back to work tomorrow with a double-header comprised of 2 7-inning games.

Here are some current slash lines of players you might be keeping an eye on:

Aaron Hicks: .258/.347/.414, 4 HR, 6 2B, 21 RBIs.

Chris Herrmann: .246/.288/.415, 4 HR, 10 2B, 13 RBIs.

Deibinson Romero: .264/.350/.430, 3 HR, 9 2B, 21 RBIs.

Wilkin Ramirez (in 49 at-bats): .388/.412/.816, 4 HR, 3 3B, 3 2B, 7 RBIs.

Joe Benson: (in 21 at-bats): .095/.174/.095, 2 RBIs.

Rock Cats Starting Pitcher Lucas French Promoted to AAA Rochester

Lucas French, who logged MLB time with the
Tigers and Mariners, is working his way
back up the chain

The minor league moves continue in the Twins organization. It was just announced that Rock Cats lefty starter Lucas French has been promoted to AAA Rochester Red Wings. This, as with the other recent moves, is hardly surprising. French, who has major league experience, dominated at AA this spring, going 2-0 with a 1.80 ERA in 30 innings pitched. In his month with the Rock Cats, French struck out 18 and walked 12, giving up 17 hits along the way. Presumably, new Rock Cat starer BJ Hermsen will replace French in the Cats' rotation.

Here's a release announcing the move.

Congratulations to Lucas!

Monday's New Britain News



Newly promoted B.J. Hermsen will take the
mound tonight in his AA debut


The landscape for the New Britain Rock Cats is already starting to change only 23 games into the season. A couple days ago, reliever Deolis Guerra was promoted to AAA Rochester. Congratulations to him! He's now just one step away from joining the Twins. If he can do in Rochester what he did in late-inning situations for the Rock Cats, it won't be too long before we see Guerra making his Target Field debut. Also, Rock Cats starting pitcher Alex Wimmers is now rehabbing his elbow strain in Ft. Myers, so it sounds like it will be some time before he rejoins the team. Although Guerra was yanked from the Rock Cats, Ft. Myers Miracle pitchers BJ Hermsen (1-0 with a 0.78 ERA in 23 innings) and Caleb Thielbar (1-1 with 0 earned runs allowed in 12 and 1/3 innings, with 16 strikeouts and 2 walks) were promoted to New Britain. Good luck to them, especially Hermsen who will start tonight's game.

Over the weekend, the Rock Cats dropped 2 of 3 games against the Richmond Flying Squirrels, and are 14-9 on the season, 1.5 games back of the Reading Phillies. Yesterday, they won. As I wrote in TwinsDaily's Sundy Minor League Daily, Starter Logan Darnell picked up the win (3-0). He pitched 6 and 2/3 innings, gave up 7 hits and 2 runs, and struck out 8 while walking 1 along the way. His ERA stands at 4.56. He has been the recipient of some solid Rock Cats offense when he has pitched this season. Reliever Daniel Turpen pitched the rest of the game, 2 and 1/3 innings, and earned the save, his second of the season. He was very effective, giving up no hits and no walks, while striking out 2. This effort improved his ERA to 4.5.

On offense, the team had 9 hits. Every starter except for Estarlin De Los Santos and Evan Bigley tallied at least one hit. Chris Herrmann was 2-for-3 with a walk, and also reached base on an error in his other plate appearance. He scored 3 runs. Nathan Hanson also had a good game, going 2-for-4 with a double and accumulating 2 RBIs. Aaron Hicks was 1-for-4 with a single and a stolen base (his 3rd of the season), and is batting .265 on the season. Deibinson Romero hit a triple, and shortstop Pedro Florimon had a double.

On Saturday, New Britain lost 5-3 to the Squirrels. Start Steve Hirschfeld (6 innings, 10 hits, 3 earned runs, 5 strikeouts and 2 walks) picked up the loss, and the offense couldn't muster too much, only accumulating 7 hits all day. Brett Jacobson pitched 2 scoreless innings out of the bullpen. Notables on offense included Evan Bigley, with a double and 2 RBIs, Chris Herrmann with an RBI single, and Pedro Florimon, Aaron Hicks, Nathan Hanson, James Beresford and Danny Lehmann with singles. Bigley also stole 2 bases, giving him 3 on the season.

For a quick recap of Friday night's game, a 13-inning 5-4 loss (though Andrew Albers had a quality start), check out this earlier post from Saturday. So, after starting out hot, New Britain has cooled a little. Their record, 14-9, is still good, but they are 4-6 over their last 10. Tonight, they begin a 4-game series against the Harrisburg Senators, the AA affiliate of the Washington Nationals, who coincidentally are also 14-9.