Sean Hjelle opens strong in big win
Plus a preview of Richmond's roster
It’s been a long, cold winter, but Opening Day is finally here! Coming at you, like a fastball to the chin…
Today’s a Free For All There R Giants post and to celebrate the full opening of another year of minor league baseball (not to denigrate the “soft opening” we’ve had in Sacramento this week), let’s kick off with an Opening Day Special for new subscribers! Make an annual subscription in the next week and you’ll get 30% of my normal rate. Just $49.99 for a full year of Giants prospect content delivered ad free straight to your Inbox! Start the year off right:
Everybody knows that one of my favorite parts of the beautiful game is the duel between speedy baserunners and strong armed backstops (bring back Billy Ball!), so let’s open up today with a dart from Ricardo Genovés!
HITTER of the Night: David Villar (3b), 1 for 4, HR (2), 2 RBI, BB, K
PITCHER of the Night: Sean Hjelle, 3.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K
Sacramento beat Sugar Land Space Cowboys (Astros), 6-0
Sean Hjelle opened up his 2022 campaign with a gorgeous effort, nearly working through four full innings before hitting his 60 pitch count limit. Hjelle retired 10 of the 11 batters he faced, allowing only a 1st inning walk (immediately erased by his battery-mate and bestest friend in the world, as seen above). Hjelle’s fastball sat, as normal, in the 90-94 range, averaging 92.9 mph. He did have a slight spin rate bump on the pitch, so that’s something to watch moving forward this year.
Kyle Haines made an interesting comment about Hjelle recently, suggesting that he might benefit from the Automated Ball Strike system when it comes on board later this season in Triple A. Haines believes that umpires have a specific problem with Hjelle’s fastballs down in the zone because of the extreme angle at which the pitch comes in, and with the ABS in place, he might get more strike calls. Hjelle’s typically been an excellent strike thrower, however, but this is another nugget to keep filed away for later in the year!
What really made Hjelle’s outing last night special, however, was the bite on his slider. Opposing batters swung at the pitch eight times (out of 18 pitches), and on five of those occasions, they came up with nothing but air. That’s a 63% whiff rate on the slider which is far, FAR beyond elite (I’ll hazard a guess that he won’t keep that rate that high through the year, but it’s still an extremely encouraging sign for the first outing). When batters did manage to make contact with the pitch, they produced a mewl rather than a growl, with average exit velocity of just 66 mph.
The first and last strikeout victims in that clip were the Astros #4 prospect Pedro Leon, who has really pummeled River Cats pitching this series, so that’s particularly impressive work from the big man! Overall, Hjelle induced seven swinging strikes (for a 37% whiff rate), which is a high rate for him, and an excellent base from which to start this important season in his development. When batters did make contact, they beat the ball into ground, producing five ground ball outs. That’s the Hjelle recipe: lots of ground balls and just enough swing and miss to keep them honest. Great night, Sean!
And, hey, when you’re throwing ground balls, it always helps to get this kind of effort behind you:
Nice work on the grab from David Villar, who also had another big night with the bat, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
Hjelle was followed by off-season free agent signing Corey Oswalt, whose fastball was rather pedestrian (and hit very hard on a couple of occasions), but who showed a fantastic swing and miss changeup. I’m not sure if a fastball that only reached 92 mph and saw batters make contact on 90% of their swings is likely to play at the next level, but that changeup was an interesting pitch.
Kervin Castro also made his season debut last night, working a scoreless 8th inning. There was a lot of chatter from the beat writers this winter and spring about the Giants wanting to stretch Castro out as starter depth. I have to say, I’ve always been a bit skeptical of that notion. Castro is a strict two pitch guy (fastball/curve), without even a hint of a third pitch, and the fastball, while a strong offering, usually sits 93-96, even in relief. When he was starting in Salem-Keizer in 2019, it was typically more 90-92. Of course, he’s stronger and in better shape now than he was then, so it’s quite possible he could hold and maintain a slightly higher velocity as a starter now (93-94?), but I’m just not sure I see the fit. Given that his first appearance of the year came in late inning relief, and didn’t require an up/down innings change, I’m not really sure that the Giants do either. Still, he was strong in that one inning role, retiring three of the four batters he saw and striking out one. The fastball maxed out at 96 with some hop to it, getting three whiffs in six swings against it. (Can you tell how much I’m loving having Statcast data for the Triple A this year?)
For much of the game, all of that great pitching was going to waste, however, and the teams went into the bottom of the 7th, tied 0-0. Sacramento exploded for six runs in that inning to salt away their third victory. Patience has mostly been powering the offense in its first few games — these hitters simply are not chasing outside the strike zone, and they’ve been wearing down pitchers with walks. Sugar Land’s pitchers last night, led by starter Jonathan Bermudez, were mostly able to combat that by throwing more strikes. Though the River Cats did draw six walks, they had more trouble stringing rallies together last night.
Until the bottom of the 7th, that is! That’s when the patience proved out. Arquimedes Gamboa and Bryce Johnson both walked to set up Heliot Ramos with a run scoring opportunity. Ramos was hitless on the game up to that point, though he had drawn a walk in his second at bat. Working a 3-1 count, Ramos got a hanging slider up in the zone and he yanked it into the corner for a two-run double.
It’s funny we say “hanging” breaker — in fact, by Statcast data I can tell that that pitch had a nearly identical 30” drop to it that this slider, thrown earlier in the at bat had:
Location and the sharpness of the snap make a world of difference. Game of inches, man!
From there, the floodgates opened. Jaylin Davis grounded a hard single and Villar followed up with his second HR of the season. Villar got a middle-middle 92 mph fastball and did what good hitters should do with such an offering — clobbered it to the moon. That’s 106 mph and 399’ worth of clobbering, mind you!
Villar now has seven RBI over his first three games and is looking very much like the solid, middle of the order presence I watched for the second half of the season in Richmond last year. He’s also been an extreme Three True Outcomes hitter so far. In 13 PA, he’s produced 3 BB, 3 K, 2 HR, only producing a batted ball in play five times! That’s the organizational philosophy at work!
Davis also deserves a mention here. He’s fallen off the radar screens a bit, but he’s producing a lot of hard contact early in the season. He’s already blistered several balls over 100 mph and did so again last night — producing EV in excess of 100 mph twice and 91 mph in a third at bat. More importantly, he’s been keeping the swing and miss in check with just 1 punchout so far, though, in truth, he did come up empty with four of his seven swings last night. The other three produced, however!
Speaking of Davis, it’s worth mentioning that Sacramento is clearly working to prepare all of their OF for work in any position. Last night they had Davis in CF, with speedy Johnson manning LF and Ramos in RF. Ramos took CF duties in Wednesday night’s game. I’d guess they’re going to be rotating all of these guys regularly around the OF — you never know what need might pop up at the big league level to create an opportunity.
So, 3-0! Not a bad start! Let’s keep it going, Cats!
Richmond Flying Squirrels Roster Preview
For our final roster preview, we head out to the wet and cool eastern seaboard, where it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between baseball weather and football weather in the spring:
Richmond doesn’t start out the year with the star firepower (though watch out for their roster in the second half), but there are a lot of promising players at the Giants’ Double A roster, including some of who could have an impact on the big league club before the year is done — and one who already made quite an impact on spring training!
(That would be Brett Auerbach on the left — the, shall we say, less tall one? This is a group that looks like it’s going to be led by its talented infield and a pitching staff that should be able to hold its own in the Eastern League — particularly in the bullpen!
Let’s take a look at the full roster:
One of the things we’re seeing in the minors — as with the majors — is some pitcher heavy rosters, presumably to help get through the early season healthy. The Richmond roster, which carries a max of 28 players, includes 16 pitchers among those 28 to open with! That leaves Manager Dennis Pelfrey with a fairly short bench — though it’s a versatile one, since the starting catcher can play virtually any position, and infielders Tyler Fitzgerald, Will Wilson, and Shane Matheny can move all over, too. I also spied Rob Emery taking ground balls around the infield with Auerbach at the end of practice yesterday, so perhaps he’s going to add a few gloves to his personal mix to ensure some extra playing time as well.
The core of the lineup is going to be the group that helped push Eugene to its High A championship last year — particularly the powerful infield group of Sean Roby, Fitzgerald, Wilson, and Auerbach. They’ll be re-joining their early season teammate from last spring, Diego Rincones, who gets held back down in Richmond thanks to Sacramento’s super-stuffed outfield. That group collectively hit 85 home runs last year. It’ll be interesting to see if anybody can take a run at David Villar’s newly established team home run record this season.
The infield is completed by returning 1b Frankie Tostado, who had a solid season for Richmond last year. I probably don’t talk enough about Tostado’s fine effort in 2021. But to put the challenge he faced last year in perspective — guys like Roby and Fitzgerald and Franklin Labour were all teammates of his on the 2019 Augusta squad, and they’re just getting to this level! He produced a league average line here last year while jumping straight over High A.
Pelfrey has set his rotation with Indy ball vet Jake Dahlberg going tonight for the opener, to be followed by free agent signing Bryan Brickhouse, who was a 3rd round pick by the Royals way back in 2011. Brickhouse pitched last year in the Dodgers’ system, which immediately puts you on “smart team” alert with him — smart teams are seeing something in his arsenal! Kai-Wei Teng, Tristan Beck, and Matt Frisbee round out the rotation, giving it some prospecty goodness. Teng may be the name from the group that fans are most anticipating, but don’t sleep on a healthy Beck’s ability to move quickly. I was able to talk with Beck yesterday and will have a story coming out on him next week. Another intriguing pitcher who can give the team some starts if needed is right-hander Blake Rivera, who spent much of 2021 on the IL. The 2018 4th round pick has a lively mid-90s fastball and one of the better breaking balls in the system. He’s mostly been used as a starter, but scouts have always loved his potential to move fast in a relief role.
Speaking of which, the bullpen brings an intriguing mix of new and old to Richmond. There are two members of the There R Giants Top 50 in this pen in R.J. Dabovich and Chris Wright, and they’re both the type of pitchers who could move quickly if circumstances called for it. Dabovich, in particular, might not be long for this league after pitching in 20 games for the Squirrels last year. Had he not lost much of the final month to a core muscle strain, he might be on to Sacramento by now. He and Wright form a potent latent inning righty-lefty combo, as together they produced two of the highest K rates in all of minor league baseball last year.
Another free agent signing is right-hander Gray Fenter, come over from Baltimore, who has excellent carry on his fastball up in the zone and an above average slider. He joins a returning group of Patrick Ruotolo, Frank Rubio, and Ryan Walker — who might be the closest thing to a Tyler Rogers-esque funkmeister that we have in the system. Walker just kills right-handed hitters with an extremely odd angle that looks like it’s coming from the 3b coaches’ box. Walker spent most of his season in Eugene last year, but did make a few appearances on the Richmond squad during the summer. He’ll get to re-acquaint himself with several other members of the Eugene pen coming to Richmond for the first time, including hard throwing Tyler Schimpf and Taylor Rashi (and yes, I did have to double-check to make sure I was calling the right one “Tyler” and the right one “Taylor”).
It’s been seven years since the Squirrels saw the inside of the Eastern League playoffs — could this be the squad that breaks that dismal spell? Many of these guys have a championship experience in their recent past and they think of themselves as winners. It would be great to see them and Manager Dennis Pelfrey bring the Richmond fans some contending baseball this summer? I say thee “YAY!” And they may get some reinforcements along the way, too….
Tonight’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento (De Jesus) vs. Sugar Land (Solomon), 6:45 pm, MiLBTV
Richmond (Dahlberg) @ Bowie (Rom), 4:05 pm, MiLBTV
Eugene (Harrison) @ Everett (Campbell), 7:05 pm, No Video
San Jose (Winn) @ Modesto (TBD), 7:05 pm, MiLBTV
REAL OPENING DAY! HOORAY! Sacramento tries to keep its perfect record going against last year’s Pitcher of the Year in the Triple A West, Houston’s Peter Solomon (#10 prospect in the Astros’ system). Of course, the real prospect heat for the farm is coming from the Great North Woods, where Kyle Harrison is set to make is 2022 debut. Frustratingly, it’s the one game that won’t be accessible on MiLBTV, as much of the Northwest League is STILL not set up for a video feed. URGGHHH!!! In San Jose, Keaton Winn hits the comeback trail, making his first appearance since August, 2019. The Giants’ 5th round pick in 2018 was a solid starter for Augusta in that year, but has missed two seasons with injury since.
One final note, which didn’t quite belong up in the Richmond roster preview, is that the Giants announced the release of 2016 3rd round pick OF Heath Quinn out of Samford. Quinn, selected one round after Bryan Reynolds, in what looked like a draft that would set the Giants up in powerful OF prospects for years to come, had a tremendous debut season in short season ball, but has suffered through a series of injury racked seasons since then. He played in just 370 games over his five seasons in the Giants’ system and got in just 38 games last year, split between Eugene and Richmond. Best of luck to him in his future!
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I know you are an Ismael "Marvin Bernard Two" Munguia fan like me. IIRC he has a minor injury to recover from but will be in Richmond to play soon?