Drew Hayes took home the Minor League Baseball Class A Reliever of the Year Award.
“I think Drew’s numbers speak for themselves,” said Jeff Graupe of the Reds’ player development department.
“He showed a plus fastball, a plus slider and he was great in late inning situations.”
I wouldn’t quite rate his fastball as plus, but it is certainly a good fastball. His dominating numbers are below:
| W | L | ERA | SV | IP | H | HR | BB | SO | WHIP | SO/BB | BB% | K% |
| 2 | 2 | 1.35 | 22 | 60 | 29 | 2 | 27 | 89 | 0.93 | 3.3 | 11.5% | 37.9% |
John Fay has up some notes and one of them gives us some insight onto why Yasmani Grandal has not been playing much in the Arizona Fall League:
GRANDAL HURT: Catcher Yasmani Grandal was the Reds’ priority player for Desert Dogs, meaning he’d play full-time. But he has been unable to play since injuring a finger on his left hand.
“It’s very sore,” Jocketty said. “It bothers him when catches and it really bothers him when he hits. He’s going to see the doctor tomorrow and we’ll decide whether to shut him down or not.”
Hopefully the issue is not long lasting. Within the same post, Fay also mentioned that Yonder Alonso had minor knee surgery and that he is already walking around just fine.
Speaking of Yasmani Grandal, Milb.com has up an interview with him and Brad Boxberger. You can see the interview with Grandal here. Click here to see the interview with Brad Boxberger.
Now some more from the AFL. The pitchers all have Pitch F/X data to work with now, though it is limited. What I wanted to do was take a look at how the guys compare to each other with their fastballs (I was planning on doing a longer comparison, but I will get to that another day as it is now 2am and I need to be out of the door in 30 minutes).
The right handers both throw more traditional fastballs, with Boxberger looking like he throws a rising 4 seamer, while Christiani seems to throw more of a 2 seamer that has sink and run on it. The lefties seem like they both throw more of a cutter than a traditional 2 or 4 seam fastball. Here is the top velocity for each pitcher:
| Pitcher | MPH |
| Brad Boxberger | 95.1 |
| Nick Christiani | 94.7 |
| Travis Webb | 91.7 |
| Donnie Joseph | 92.7 |
The Top 25 Prospect List will be coming out on Monday and go through Friday. I finalized the list last night and let me be honest…. I was shocked at how low I wound up ranking some guys. The system is still incredibly strong and I don’t think enough credit can be given to the scouting and development team as well as the front office who has given them the money and resources to acquire the players.