The unofficial online home for fans of the Kent State University Golden Flashes. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Because we should have one when Eric Lauer pitches 6 shutout innings on opening day.

In the bigs:
Travis Shaw (3B Brewers)
Taylor Williams (RP Brewers)
Eric Lauer (SP Padres)
Andrew Chafin (RP D'backs)

and a cast of tens in the minors...

Might as well do a May 1 update:

* Andrew Chafin is pitching well for the D'backs after a rough early outing. He seems to be in the setup role he's been in the past, but brought in where there is a clear platoon advantage.

* Eric Lauer has been solid for the Padres, but a little below average (kind of like last year). His fastball has been in the 92 mph range, which is good, but he does give up too many homeruns.

* Travis Shaw is off to a really rough start (194/282/347), but has shown some signs of the bat waking up the last week or so. His BB/SO has been bad this year (and it was horrendous in spring training), so I'm not sure what's up.

* Taylor Williams started the year in Milwaukee, didn't pitch particularly well and got sent to the minors where he has been ok. I think he'll bounce up and down a bit this year.

* John Fasola got promoted to St. Louis' AAA team. He hasn't pitched well, but he is only one step from the bigs. He was taken in the offseason minor league Rule 5 draft from the Rangers.

* Brian Clark started the year in AA for the White Sox and got released in mid-April. I'm not sure if Clark has big-league talent, but it was clear he was going no where with the Sox, so a fresh start somewhere might be helpful for him.

Seems like it is time for a midseason update.

* Travis Shaw was demoted to AAA San Antonio to straighten out whatever is wrong. I've heard he has had wrist issues and he has spent time on the DL this year. I've also heard that he is striking the ball fairly well and has been very unlucky. A drop off so significant is likely due to some other forces (injuries), so I would expect he gets his stroke back and finds his way back to the bigs this year.

* Andrew Chafin has been very good for the D-Backs. I've noticed he is pitching mostly in the sixth or the seventh in close games (he is 6th in the NL in holds) and has been put in situations where he is facing more lefties than in the past with a quicker hook. 60% of his opponent's batters have been lefty as opposed to 45% over the course of his career. With Chafin, the question is how to avoid the second half dropoff that seems to happen every year as he tires out. We'll see if this approach works. If it does, Chafin cements himself as one of the top left-handed relievers in the game.

* Eric Lauer has been solidly average for the Padres, with a 5-7 record and a 4.22 ERA. I actually think he has been better than that, since he got absolutely nuked the two times he pitched in Coors Field (which mean he has been nuked in all 3 of his Coors Field starts). If you take out those two games, his ERA is 3.05, which is excellent. Overall, his K rate is a bit low, but it is made up for a low BB rate and improved HR rate. The one thing I find odd is how quickly Lauer gets pulled as he is only averaging 85 pitches and 5 1/3 innings a start. Last year, it seemed like he ran up his pitch count quickly and got pulled early. This year, he is more efficient with his pitches, but still getting pulled early. Maybe they are protecting the young arm (he's just 24). I doubt he'll be a star, but I do think there is room for improvement to become a strong starting pitcher for a fairly long time.

* Taylor Williams started the season with the Brewers, but has been demoted three times and brought back up twice so far this year. He basically is being used to fill out the bullpen when the backend gets worn out, which is what one of the Brewer's bloggers predicted in spring training. He, unfortunately, has a horrible stat line with the Brewers with a 12.66 ERA in 10 2/3 innings, which is mostly because he gave up 8 runs in 1/3 inning in a 16-0 loss to the Marlins. Of course, that is a statistical fluke as I think I could put up a better line than that. At AAA, he has pitched quite well, with a low 1.15 ERA and an excellent K/BB ratio. He is getting caught in that AAAA role and will need a prolonged stay of success in the bigs to get out of it as there is nothing quite as fringy in the bigs as righthanded back of the bullpen relievers.

So, those are your 4 Kent players that has hit the bigs this year. I'll hit the high minor guys next (Clark, Fasola and Burch).

Both Travis Shaw and Taylor Williams are back up with the Brewers. For Shaw, he hit a fine 286/445/593 at San Antonio with a good BB/K rate (1:1) and hopefully has found his stroke.

For Williams, it is his fourth trip to the bigs this year and hopefully he'll hang around for more than a few days.

Going to the high minors,

* Brian Clark has been pitching for the Atlantic League High Point Rockers and pitching well. He has a 2.89 ERA in 26 IP with 8 BBs and 23 Ks. Hopefully he latches onto an organization that will give him a chance (unlike the White Sox).

* John Fasola has split time between the AA & AAA teams of the Cardinals. He hasn't pitched well (7.36 ERA) and has been hurt since early May and I don't know what's wrong.

* Luke Burch. Starting the year in high A and then was promoted to AA Erie in the Tigers organization and then recently released. He is a funny player because he has no power and his BB/K ratio sucks, but he hits for a very high average (316 this year) and that makes him useful. I wonder if he'll land a chance elsewhere and I would love to have him if I were running an independent league club.

* Joey Murray. Starting the year at A and has been promoted to high A and now AA. As good of a pitcher he was in college, I expected him to be able to handle A ball and he did (2.69 ERA with 31 BBs and 117 Ks in 93 2/3 IP). He's had 3 starts at AA and has 14Ks and 3 BBs in 9 IP. I think we'll find out if Murray is a prospect at AA and I actually think he is and will end up being a steal as a 8th round draft choice.

I'll hit the low minors later...

Travis Shaw and Taylor Williams have been recalled from AAA and are the Brewers roster. Shaw absolutely killed the ball at San Antonio, so I don't think he is done as a player, but his performance this year has been flukily bad. I wonder how the offseason will play out for him.

For Williams, he did pitch well at San Antonio but is getting trapped in that good arm to call up for some emergency help in the pen but really a "AAA" talent. He has done nothing this year to show otherwise. Interestingly, his first appearance for the Brewers since being recalled was as a pitchrunner.

As the season winds down, might as well start talking about how the Kent guys did...

Eric Lauer. In 29 starts and 1 relief appearance, Lauer went 8-10 with a 4.45 ERA and 138Ks and 51BBs in 149 2/3 innings. In my opinion, Lauer had a really good year even though the stat line isn't all that great. First, Lauer got hit very hard in three starts at Coors Field (giving up 17 earned runs in 8 innings). Without that, his ERA was 3.62 which is pretty good. Also, Lauer stumbled a bit in July when he returned to the club after attending to family issues. So, I think he's on the verge of becoming an above average starting pitcher and, at just 24, he has a lot of years potentially ahead of him. I think the biggest issues will be Lauer going deeper into the game (averaging just 5 IP and 86 pitches a start) and getting the HR rate down. Maybe getting traded to an American League team would help too (get away from the Rockies and having to bat).

I think just about every pitcher falls into the "needs to get the HR rate down" after this year. 14 teams set new franchise records for HRs in a season. Seems pretty clear baseball did something to the ball likely to try to make the game more interesting and stop the attendance decline.

And it didn’t work. Attendance was down for the fourth straight year, so more home runs probably aren’t the answer. It’s become a home run or strikeout game. Both are at record levels. Add in also an increase in pitching changes and you have a game that lacks action and takes too long. I love baseball and always have, but MLB gets harder and harder to watch. It’s easy to see why it’s not creating a new fan base and the one it has gets older and older.

Yeah, I tend to agree with Ax. While everyone thought Rob Deer and the three true outcomes (BB, K or HR) was funny, everyone playing the game that way makes it very boring. My personal choice would be to drop most OF fences back 40 feet and open up a lot of possible triples. Of course, that is impossible. In lieu of that, maybe dampening the baseballs. I don't know. But I am losing interest in watching...

(09-30-2019 03:52 PM)bopol Wrote:  Yeah, I tend to agree with Ax. While everyone thought Rob Deer and the three true outcomes (BB, K or HR) was funny, everyone playing the game that way makes it very boring. My personal choice would be to drop most OF fences back 40 feet and open up a lot of possible triples. Of course, that is impossible. In lieu of that, maybe dampening the baseballs. I don't know. But I am losing interest in watching...

I'm speaking off topic, but I think all pro sports are less interesting now than a generation ago. Or I'm just becoming a grumpy middle-aged man.

(09-30-2019 06:21 PM)goldenflash99 Wrote:  

(09-30-2019 03:52 PM)bopol Wrote:  Yeah, I tend to agree with Ax. While everyone thought Rob Deer and the three true outcomes (BB, K or HR) was funny, everyone playing the game that way makes it very boring. My personal choice would be to drop most OF fences back 40 feet and open up a lot of possible triples. Of course, that is impossible. In lieu of that, maybe dampening the baseballs. I don't know. But I am losing interest in watching...

I'm speaking off topic, but I think all pro sports are less interesting now than a generation ago. Or I'm just becoming a grumpy middle-aged man.

Times & tastes are changing. You can't fight it. Here in Philly over the weekend was the Overwatch E-Sports finals. The Wells Fargo Center was completely sold out. And e-sports has become a college "sport".

I have no idea what is interesting about watching this, but this is what they have & are growing up with. It is what it is.

Games in all pro sports are getting too long. I'm pretty sure that doesn’t help attract young people and it’s even turning off us geezers. Of course a lot of it is the TV ads. You know the football drill of score a TD, wait for the replay, go to a commercial, kick-off, go to another commercial etc.

Another issue are rule changes. College footballs stopping the clock after every first down has certainly extended games. It causes excitement at the end of halves but what’s it purpose for the other 50 minutes of the game.

Finally in all sports coaching has really slowed things down. Can’t blame them but 20 years ago or so these things rarely happened:

1. Football coaches using all their first half timeouts to try and get the ball back for 30 seconds. It rarely happened. Now it is almost mandatory.

2. An endless amount of Lefty/righty pitching changes. I understand it but combine it with the 40 man rosters (thank God this is the last year for that) and it makes September baseball a joke.

3. The MLB rule that mandates every Yankee/Red Sox game and Cardinal/Cubs game must last 4 hours.

4. Even hockey is starting to succumb. Their timeouts are annoying as hell.

5. Basketball coaches having to use their use it or lose it first half time out just because.

Our college and pro sports are going the way of cricket. I can go on but it won’t help.

Your complaint about pitching changes will soon be a thing of the past too. Starting next year a pitcher will be required to face at least 3 batters or end an inning. I understand that this will improve the flow of the game, but I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. It's going to be interesting for sure. I'll be curious to see how it's going to impact free agency. It will likely increase the salaries of the 7th inning man on most teams. There will probably be one or two teams that over react and spend stupid amounts of money on relievers.

Back to the players, ANDREW CHAFIN

Andrew didn't have a great year, but more good year (2-2, 3.76 ERA). He had a shaky July, but avoided his usual second half slump, though, by the end of the year, he was more often facing just one or two batters instead of going close to a full inning. As the only effective lefty in the Dbacks bullpen, he was used often (3rd in the NL with 77 games) and in pressure situations (5th in the NL with 22 holds). Chafin had the best K rate and BB rate in his career and kept baserunners from stealing, but he was more vulnerable to the long ball this year, giving up 6 HRs in 52.7 innings (much more than the 9 HRs in 212.3 IP coming into this year). I think he is a fine reliever, but will never quite be the great reliever and is probably in year 5 of a good 12-year career.

TAYLOR WILLIAMS

Taylor Williams spent the year between AAA and the bigs. He had 5 stints in the bigs this year, basically getting called up when the bullpen was worn out for short stints or at the end of the year. His stat line with the Brewers was bad, (14.2 IP, 22 Hs, 7 BBs and 15 Ks with a 9.82 ERA), but was influenced by one of the worst outings I've ever seen where he gave up 8 earned runs in 1/3 IP in a game against the Marlins). His performance at AAA was strong (54 IP, 40 H, 21 BBs and 57Ks with a 2.83 ERA). And strangely enough, he pitchran twice during his September callup.

He's got a good power arm, but so far is just short of what he needs to be to really stick in the bigs. He's probably one of 100 pitchers at the same point. Good enough to be a strong AAA pitcher, not quite good enough to be consistently effective in the bigs. My guess is that he'll hang around in that position for a while. With a little luck, Taylor will figure something out and/or find the right pitching coach that can get him over the hump. There are plenty of relief pitchers that figure out something in their late 20s and early 30s that give them a nice run in the bigs.

TRAVIS SHAW

This year's mystery is what went wrong with Travis Shaw. In the end, he batted just 157 with a 281 OBP and 270 SLG. Now, even if things were a bit off (his spring training was horrible with no walks and 30 some strikeouts), there is no way his stats should have been that bad. His walk rate was still solid, his strikeout rate was up a bit, his power was down, but even then he should have reverted more towards a 230-240 BA, not 157. In an attempt to help Shaw straighten things out, Shaw spent time at AAA San Antonio where he batted 286/437/586 which, of course, is quite good, but even after returning, Shaw just had 3 hits in 30 ABs in September.

So, what's going on? I don't know. 1 in a hundred statistical fluke combined with regression as Shaw ages would be my guess. I think he is still capable of putting together a 230/320/480 type season and I think he'll get a chance to do that somewhere, but I expect the Brewers will try to resign Moustakas and use Shaw as Plan B. I wouldn't mind if the Indians gave him a shot at 3rd and move Rameriz to second, but I always want Kent players to end up on the Indians.

I've thought the same thing about Shaw to the Indians. In all honesty the most expensive player we'd probably be willing to bring in for that 2b/3b spot would be in the Asdrubal Cabrera tier with a real chance we just give the spot to an unproven cheap guy or Mike Freeman. So Shaw would be fine with me. Although I do acknowledge that if I wasn't a Kent fan I'd probably be unhappy with that being the plan.

(10-27-2019 12:28 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  I've thought the same thing about Shaw to the Indians. In all honesty the most expensive player we'd probably be willing to bring in for that 2b/3b spot would be in the Asdrubal Cabrera tier with a real chance we just give the spot to an unproven cheap guy or Mike Freeman. So Shaw would be fine with me. Although I do acknowledge that if I wasn't a Kent fan I'd probably be unhappy with that being the plan.

Actually, I'd like all the ex-Kent guys to be on the Indians.

Shaw is better than he played this year, but not as good as he played in 2017-18. You would get better than Kipnis numbers especially if you find a reasonable platoon mate for about $5M ish and two years before free agency.

Lauer is pretty good once you ignore him getting killed in Colorado and would be a perfectly fine #4-#5 guy for the Indians rotation since I don't think Salazar will ever come back.

Chafin is a very good leftie. Williams is a power arm. And Terry Francona seems to get more mileage out of relievers than almost any other manager in baseball, so I think he would get the most out of those guys.

Before the year i wanted to trade Kluber and Lindor for Tatis, Lauer and a few minor league players.

Eric Lauer just got traded to the Brewers, which I think will be positive for him.

It's a weird trade, where the Padres send Urias (a 22 year old SS that didn't hit that much in his first trip to the bigs) with Lauer for Grisham (23 year old OF that had a great year in the minors and ok in the bigs) and Zach Davies, an above average starting pitcher.

Davies is better than Lauer right now, but is arbitration eligible (made $2.6M last year) and has 2 years before free agency. Lauer is not arbitration eligible (made $.5M last year) and is 4 years from free agency. A lot is being made of San Diego's home park being more of a pitcher's park than Miller Park, but Lauer actually pitched pretty well on the road except for Coors Field last year. Also, the Brewers only play at Coors Field 3 or 4 times a year. My guess is that the Brewers will get roughly the same performance out of Lauer as the Padres get out of Davies for less cost and I fully expect Lauer to be an average starter next year and that the Brewers will end up winning this side of the trade, though the likely winner will be whichever team ends up with the prospect (Urias or Grisham) that works out.

The interesting thing for me is the money saving side for the Brewers, which could allow them to sign Mike Moustakas, who, of course, won the starting 3B job away from Travis Shaw last year. If Moustakas stays, it's hard to see how Shaw fits in. If Moustakas goes, it is likely that Shaw will end up back at third trying to regain the hitting form that abandoned him last year.