Braves Minor League Recap: Blake Burkhalter throws six scoreless innings

The Atlanta Braves had a significant pitching prospect starting at every level on Saturday, most notably with AJ Smith-Shawver going in Gwinnett. Down in the lower levels Blake Burkhalter and JR Ritchie are both undergoing their returns from Tommy John surgery, and are facing many similar struggles early on in their progress. Still, both had positives to take away from their starts Saturday, including Burkhalter’s six scoreless in a Rome win.

(48-53) Gwinnett Stripers 0, (47-54) Durham Bulls 3

Box Score

Statcast

• Drake Baldwin, C: 1-3, BB, .286/.426/.471
• Luke Waddell, SS: 1-4, 2B, .238/.317/.331
• AJ Smith-Shawver, SP: 4 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 7 K, 5.53 ERA

The Stripers had their hands full at the plate handling Jacob Lopez, the tough lefty racking up eight strikeouts over six scoreless innings. For Drake Baldwin it was certainly a difficult matchup, as Lopez’s low release provided a challenge for him that definitely seemed to bother him at the plate. Baldwin did manage to coax a walk and a hit out of Lopez, but was chasing more and definitely seemed to have issues with picking up the ball. The team as a whole just couldn’t do much with Lopez, and Baldwin ended up being the only player on the team to reach base twice and the only one with a walk. Luke Waddell also struggled mightily with Lopez and it wasn’t until Lopez was out of the game that Waddell slapped the Stripers lone extra base hit into the left center field gap in the seventh inning.

There have been plenty of positive changes for AJ Smith-Shawver this year, with the Braves making adjustments to his delivery to get him moving more downhill and we’ve seemed improvements in his extension. However he still hasn’t been locating anything as well as he needs to, leaving the ball in the heart of the zone far too often which has led to him giving up a lot of home runs including three in this game. Now, the three home runs in this game weren’t necessarily all a matter of terrible location — the first was a fastball right on the top edge of the zone which is exactly where Smith-Shawver wants to throw that pitch, and the other two were 93.3 mph and 96.7 mph with the latter being Junior Caminero reaching a pitch not many could hit out. Still, those later two were curveballs in the top half of the zone and even though that 93.3 mph may have been batter ball luck it was still a middle-middle curveball.

Some of his issues this year could even be chalked up to simple sequencing, as the Braves over-reliance on his fastball as a means of helping him work on his command has made him predictable. However, Smith-Shawver’s struggle to find a consistent release point and throwing a higher percentage of his pitches in the heart of the zone than any other Stripers pitcher is a problem that he needs to work on to avoid these home run issues continuing at the major league level. To not keep things too negative here, because I’ve made it clear how much I like Smith-Shawver and this whole thing has been a pick at a single issue in his profile, his changeup this season has been marvelous compared to what he showed last year. It’s gone in a short time from a fresh offering to his most effective pitch and he got nine of his 16 whiffs in this game from that pitch alone. The work he did between this season and last to kill spin and velocity on that pitch has been superb, and this season he has a whiff rate of 42.6% on his changeup.

Swing and Misses

AJ Smith-Shawver – 16

Zach Logue – 7

(45-48) Mississippi Braves, (51-43) Montgomery Biscuit

(46-47) Rome Emperors 5, (44-51) Brooklyn Cyclones 1

Box Score

• Sabin Ceballos, 3B: 0-4, BB, .260/.355/.356
• Stephen Paolini, LF: 2-3, 2 2B, 3 RBI, .221/.322/.352
• Drew Compton, 1B: 2-4, BB, .255/.379/.382
• Blake Burkhalter, SP: 6 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 2.57 ERA
• Jared Johnson, RP: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 2.52 ERA

Blake Burkhalter has been piling up swing and miss in most of his games in Rome, but this one was a little bit different as he struggled to miss bats and the Cyclones went after his fastballs early in counts. The biggest issue for Burkhalter has been an inconsistency in his command especially his secondaries, making him a two pitch pitcher or in some cases one pitch pitcher when he can’t even find his location on his cutter like in this one. Burkhalter’s struggles are in the realm of things I tend to dismiss for guys who are just a few starts back off of Tommy John surgery, and one the things I haven’t really seen is any consistent velocity readings from him which I do want to get my hands on. I’ve liked the shape overall of the fastball/cutter/slider (haven’t seen many changeups lately to judge) and I’m interested to see where Burkhalter’s location ends up once he gets a bit more back into rhythm. It’s somewhat similar to what we saw with Spencer Schwellenbach last year where even though his location wasn’t perfect and he tends to just try to find the middle of plate when he’s off, the shape and quality of his pitches seems to be ahead of the swing and miss results right now.

Jared Johnson was outstanding for Rome in the ninth, with an infield hit and an error at third base being the only runners that reached.. Otherwise he showed the pitcher he can be when he locates his pitchers, especially in this game showing maybe the best slider location I’ve ever seen in one of his outings. He dotted the pitch low and glove side, forcing seven swing-and-misses on just his slider.

Stephen Paolini had a great day at the plate, contributing to four of Rome’s five runs in the game. In his fifth and sixth inning at bats he got pitches over the plate and turned on them, doubling each time with the second being a two-run double that first gave Rome a lead. Paolini has done a good job this year on jumping on fastballs and hitting the hard, but he still struggles to make solid contact on secondary pitches when he is even making contact. It took a whole month of being garbage but it seems like the offense is starting to heat up with three straight five-run outputs, especially getting better results from the big hitters in the lineup. Ethan Workinger and Drew Compton each had a couple of hits in the game, and both have been much better and making contact at a higher rate over the past three Rome games.

Swing and Misses

Jared Johnson – 8

Blake Burkhalter – 5

(36-55) Augusta GreenJackets 0, (41-52) Myrtle Beach Pelicans 2

Box Score

• Luis Guanipa, CF: 0-3, .077/.143/.077
• John Gil, SS: 0-3, .348/.360/.478
• Isaiah Drake, LF: 1-3, 2B, .169/.249/.265
• JR Ritchie, SP: 3.1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 3.00 ERA

(36-56) Augusta GreenJackets 1, (42-52) Myrtle Beach Pelicans 9

Box Score

• Luis Guanipa, DH: 0-3, BB, .077/.143/.077
• John Gil, SS: 2-3, 3B, .348/.360/.478
• Isaiah Drake, LF: 1-3, .169/.249/.265
• Davis Polo, SP: 2 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 4.97 ERA

I guess it simply must be that no one, regardless of their level of talent, will get on this Augusta GreenJackets roster and actually hit because it’s been a rough showing especially from Luis Guanipa. Guanipa’s overaggression isn’t a huge surprise, but he’s got a lot of work to do to get to the point he can handle anything with bend in it as he has expanded the zone and swung and miss far too often. Junior Garcia finally came away with a hit in the first at bat of the first game of this double header, slapping a single into right field. Garcia I’m a bit less worried about because I really don’t think it’s a matter of approach, though my concerns here focus on his bat path and bat speed. He can get a bit lengthy and doesn’t have the natural bat speed to make up for it, so I think swing-and-miss is just going to be part of his game. Still, Garcia makes good swing decisions for a player this age and has a lot of room to grow into strength, so I don’t think it’s a deal-breaker.

Game one both sides struggled to score runs, and JR Ritchie was the only one for either side to allow any runs. Similar to what I mentioned with Burkhalter, Ritchie’s feel for his secondaries just isn’t where it was the last time we saw him and that is to be expected. The focus is number one on health and number two on overall shape and feel for his arsenal, and right now Ritchie is in a good place. He’s spinning his slider well and getting movement on it, and showing an ability to change levels with his fastball. If you’re looking for reasons to be confident in a player Ritchie has given us that, and I think if the command of his slider gets back to where it was when he got injured then he will probably be in top 100 consideration again by this time next season.

Isaiah Drake has made a ton of progress this season even if the performance hasn’t been consistent, and he showed some of that in this pair of games. Drake has done a much better job even with some of his recent struggles at recognizing pitches and recognizing the strike zone, working deep into counts to try to find favorable pitches. His swing though is not great, and it tends to vary quite a bit between slapping at pitches in the zone and getting lengthy on pitches on the inner half which gives him trouble. There is more of a feel for contact and the barrel than his strikeout rates would indicate and I remain cautiously optimistic that we’re seeing him at his worst right now, though he needs a lot of work to refine his bat path and really unlock his potential. John Gil had two hits in the second game and I am upset that the MiLB tv feed didn’t start until after his first inning triple. Right now the biggest knock for Gil at the plate is recognition and swing choices on breaking balls, but it’s not anything you wouldn’t expect from a player his age. Where he differs from others is that his feel for contact and barrel control is so impressive that even when he makes a bad decision he can still find his way to contact, and his physical tools mean that anything in play could turn into a hit. That approach is not going to work as he advances, of course, but showing that feel for contact with his bat speed and swing tuning gives me a ton of hope that he can turn into one of the system’s top handful of prospects. His swing path is inconsistent, but there is strength to build on here and once he gets more into the mindset of turning and driving pitches pull side I think he can hit for both contact and power at an average to above average rate. Guanipa’s outstanding bat speed still has him as the best prospect of the group (and Guanipa too will take off once someone talks him into swinging deeper and aiming to pull fly balls) but Gil is easily one of those players that should get a ton of attention very soon.

Davis Polo really struggled in game two and allowed six runs, and the bullpen didn’t do much to help behind him. Adam Shoemaker issued three walks in his lone inning of work, and while he often flashes dazzling secondary pitches he just can’t locate anything well enough for it to matter. Maybe it will be a situation like Jared Johnson where it just takes time for it all to come together, but he’s so far behind where even Johnson was that it’s hard to project even relief-quality command.

Swing and Misses

Davis Polo – 10

JR Ritchie – 9

Giomar Diaz – 6

Adam Shoemaker – 6

(7-14) DSL Braves 14, (15-6) DSL Red Sox Red 10

Box Score

• Michael Martinez, RF: 3-4, RBI, .205/.326/.330
• Juan Mateo, SS: 1-3, 2 BB, .219/.324/.292
• Juan Espinal, CF: 1-4, 2B, BB, 2 RBI, .202/.381/.303
• Rudit Pina, SP: 1.2 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 3 K, 5.68 ERA

(13-23) DSL Braves 2, (28-9) DSL Red Sox Red 4

Box Score

• Jose Perdomo, SS: 1-3, .231/.231/.231
• Michael Martinez, RF: 1-2, BB, .205/.326/.330
• Juan Espinal, CF: 1-3, RBI, .202/.381/.303
• Anferni Gonzalez, SP: 3.2 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 5.89 ERA

The DSL Braves started their day by completing a game started on July 2nd, and both teams went crazy on offense in the first one. The game was 2-0 Red Sox when it was suspended, but neither team’s pitchers could throw strikes and it ended up going to extra innings where in the 11th the Braves scored five runs on two hit batters, three walks, and an error to win the game. Michael Martinez reached base multiple times in each game, and has been one of the team’s better hitters lately. The 17 year old has cut his strikeouts significantly after struggling with that early this year, and while the walks aren’t there he has a .385 on base percentage since over the past three weeks of games mostly driven by seven hit by pitches. The player we really want to see is Jose Perdomo, and he played the full seven innings of game two at shortstop and went 1-3 at the plate. We’ll see if the Braves let Perdomo play a nine inning game in a couple of days, then the next step would be playing back-to-back days.