Minor League Roundup: PCL Championship Preview

Plus, two players made their Reno pitching debuts on Saturday, and a batting title

There’s just one team remaining in action, and the Reno Aces don’t have a lot of the top prospects. In fact, depending on how things go this week, it’s possible that no-one in the top-30 Diamondbacks’ prospects will be on Reno’s active roster by Saturday, if Reno is still playing then.

But this is baseball, and interesting and wonderful things are bound to happen, no matter who is occupying what space on the diamond.

Pitching Debuts

In Durham, North Carolina, on May 10, 2019, the visitors, who had led since the first inning, were in trouble. They had led 12-9 entering the ninth inning, and plated two in the top half. But it didn’t take long for things to change. Micah Carpenter was on the mound, and walked the first two batters. Georgia Tech was in danger of blowing the opening game of the series and spoiling an offensive outburst in which they had knocked out 15 hits, including three home runs. But the 21-year-old first baseman (who had already collected his 15^th home run of the season) moved to the mound and just two of his 14 pitches missed the strike zone as he closed things out.

Tristin English would turn 22 four days later, be drafted the following month, and not pitch in a high-level competitive game again for five years, four months, and 11 days. (He may have made one professional appearance in 2019; there is some uncertainty, and he’s not in any box scores. If so, it was at the complex.)

He threw 22 pitches, with 14 of them being strikes. He sat 91 MPH. He threw 20 fastballs with some natural cut. A couple of his 8 balls were pretty close to the zone, as he had some excellent control. In his first inning of work, he gave up a sacrifice fly to score the zombie, sandwiched in between a pair of ground balls. The sacrifice fly was hard hit, but not mashed. When he came out to pitch the 11^th, the Isotopes had realized he was a legitimate pitcher, and the first batter sacrificed. And then, English broke out his curveball. It featured respectable 12-6 break. He gave up a second sacrifice fly, but in two innings he did not allow a runner to reach base.

Sergio Alcántara did this in the bottom of the 11^th, giving English the win.

English wanted to be a two-way player. He finally got the chance to pitch. But this outing put an exclamation point on an excellent stretch of play for the now-outfielder, who once appeared towards the bottom of prospect lists but has now departed them entirely. In the first half of the season, he slashed .259/.315/.414, fairly dismal figures for Reno. He was a part-time player. He’d gone from being a comfortably above-average bat in 2023 to being well below-average in 2024. Then the calendar turned to July, and all of his numbers went up, despite a slight drop in BABIP. His batted ball metrics stayed basically the same; an average exit velocity higher than that of Pavin Smith, another bat who has turned things around this year with the help of Reno. The difference is that in English’s case, there really doesn’t seem to be an underlying reason for the improved results. He’s always hit the ball hard; it’s the swing-and-miss that causes problems. One could argue that he overachieved last year and is probably just a league average bat in the Pacific Coast League. But either way, he’s had quite the conclusion to the 2024 season. After a stretch in August where he was one of the hottest bats in the league (and basically kept the Reno offense competitive when other bats were scuffling) he got some time off for the birth of his daughter, and now he’s gotten to appear on the mound, and collected a win.

But English wasn’t the only player to make his Reno pitching debut on Saturday.

Yu-Min Lin made his AAA debut, getting the start on Saturday and working 4.2 innings, allowing four hits, three walks, and one run. It was a solid, but not spectacular outing. He threw 89 pitches, topped out at 92.3 MPH, and threw what registered as five different pitches. He quite possibly did throw five different pitches, or even more. It might take a computer engineering degree to program PitchCom for his starts.

Statcast registered him throwing 50 changeups. However, pitches recorded as changeups topped out at 91.3 MPH and dropped all the way to 77 MPH. There was also variance of 1400 RPM in the spin rate from the highest spin to the lowest spin. Looking deeper at the data, it’s obvious that a type of fastball (cutter or sinker, most likely) was being misclassified. Pitches classified as a changeup break into two groups. His actual changeup was between 77-83 MPH, had 34-41 inches of vertical break, and 12-17 inches of arm-side break. The other ranged from 88.8-91.3 MPH, had between 23-28 inches of vertical break, and 8-13 inches of arm-side break. Given that the two pitches that registered as sinkers also fit within those parameters, I’m comfortable saying that he threw 20 sinkers, but the system needs to learn more.

He didn’t generate quite the number of whiffs that he was getting at AA, but that’s not surprising, both because the ball probably doesn’t break as much at Reno and because the hitters are better. The victim for both of his strikeouts was Elehuris Montero, who has struggled in the major leagues, but he has 739 big league plate appearances.

Lin just turned 21 in July and missed two months of the season due to an unfortunate incident where he was hit by a foul ball in the face while sitting in the dugout. His results haven’t measured up to what he did last year, but the process is still there, and he’ll be playing in the Arizona Fall League to get his innings.

Unexpected Batting Title

Minor league free agent signing Bryson Brigman started the season in Amarillo. He played in all of one game there before being summoned to Reno, where he got off to a dismal start. Held hitless in his first five games, he ended the first series in May slashing .256/.313/.349.

He picked up four hits on May 8th and slashed .344/.389/.490 between then and September 19th. That gave him an average for the season of .333, one point ahead of former teammate Andrés Chaparro for the Pacific Coast League batting title.

But Friday was a disaster. He posted an 0-for-4 day with a pair of strikeouts, dropping his average to .330, now two points behind Chaparro. He was off for the day on Saturday, but in the order, leading off, yesterday.

A single in the first at-bat improved his average to .331. But a ground out in the third dropped it to a figure that still rounded to .331, but barely.

(Chaparro, for the record, had a batting average of .332425 to carry things out several more decimal places.)

Back up in the fifth inning, Brigman doubled to make his average .332. But had his day ended then, he still would not have won the batting title, because he was eight-thousandths of a point behind Chaparro.

He drew a walk in the seventh inning.

At that point, the Isotopes broke a 3-3 tie by scoring two runs, taking a 5-3 lead into the ninth inning. Brigman was due up fifth in the ninth inning, far from likely to get another chance at the title.

But second baseman Hunter Stovall committed an error to allow Tristin English to reach base. Blaze Alexander followed with a single, and now, barring a double play, Brigman would have a chance. Andy Weber put down a sacrifice bunt and Jorge Barrosa grounded out, bringing Brigman to the plate.

The game situation: the Aces trailed 5-4, two outs, ninth inning, runner on third. If he walked, the inning would continue for Adrian Del Castillo, but he would not win the batting title unless he got another opportunity in extra innings. If he made an out, the game and the hunt for the batting title would be over. Only a hit would both extend the game and give Brigman a shot at the title.

He did it. And while it technically did not secure him the batting title, it would have taken his making three outs in extra innings to lose it. Interestingly, had he made two outs in extras, he would have finished with identical 122-for-367 figures to Chaparro.

Brigman was once a prospect, but has become a minor league regular who seems unlikely to make the major leagues (although one could argue that he’d be an improvement for several teams.) Still, this was his best single-season ever. He hit .305 with Modesto in 2018. He slashed .292/.388/.402 with Oklahoma City last year, leading the Diamondbacks to give him the opportunity, and he backed it up with his .334/.383/.474 season this year.

Postseason Preview

This week, as the Diamondbacks look to secure a postseason berth, the Aces will play somewhere between two and four playoff games of their own. First, they travel back to Sugar Land, Texas; to Constellation Field. There, they will play a best-of-three series against the team formerly known as the Skeeters. If they manage to win that series, they will journey back to Nevada (this time to Las Vegas) to face the winner of the International League in a single-game AAA championship.

(For the record, the International League championship features the Columbus Clippers, AAA affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians, traveling to Omaha to face the Omaha Storm Chasers, affiliate of the Kansas City Royals. Omaha is, of course, a former Pacific Coast League rival of Reno, but was moved to the International League in 2021. In fact, Omaha faced the Aces for the PCL title twice, in 2012 and 2014, with the teams splitting.)

2024 Results

Just two weeks ago, the Aces were in Sugar Land and split a six game series. However, they lost the first two games and won the next three. Lose the first two this time, and the season will be over. Sugar Land took five of six in Reno in April.

Venue

Constellation Field in Sugar Land is the worst park in AAA for hitters, the worst park for left-handed hitters, and the second-worst for right-handed hitters. Sugar Land will be looking to win their first ever Pacific Coast League title (although they have only been in affiliated ball since 2021) and Reno will be looking to win their second championship in three years.

Familiar Faces

Cooper Hummel appeared in 66 games and had 201 plate appearances with the Diamondbacks in 2022. He was a third catcher and fifth outfielder on that team, but he has not caught at all this season, nor would he be expected to catch. Longtime major league catcher Omar Narváez will likely handle those duties. A couple other former big leaguers are in the bullpen, most notably Rafael Montero, but Hummel and Narváez are the two names most likely to be recognized.

Prospects

Jacob Melton is the top prospect in the Astros’ system (per MLB Pipeline) and 93^rd in all of baseball. Seven of the top-30 prospects in the Astros’ system are likely to be on the active roster for Sugar Land. In addition to Melton, Brice Matthews (third) and Zach Dezenzo (fifth) are the big names. The Aces will have the higher-ranked prospect overall, with Jordan Lawlar currently seventh in all of baseball, but just one other top-30 organizational prospect (Jorge Barrosa) is likely to appear in the series, as Adrian Del Castillo will likely be called back to Phoenix.

Key Players

With this being a pitching-friendly park, the advantage that Sugar Land has in the pitching department might be neutralized. But despite it not being a good park for batters, Tim Tawa absolutely raked in the recent series, slashing .360/.429/.840, including three home runs. Lawlar came back from his latest injury in the middle of that series, and went 4-for-11 with three walks and a home run of his own. With the probable promotion of Del Castillo and the release of Ronaldo Hernández, it will also be important for catchers Andrew Knizner and Michael Pérez to pull their weight offensively. While both have done well overall, they combined to go 0-for-16 with just four walks during the series two weeks ago at Constellation Field.

Prediction

Predictions are always fool’s errands. The Aces are the hotter team, as they managed not only to clinch the playoff spot, but played well enough down the stretch to finish in a tie with Sugar Land atop the second half standings. They also posted the best run differential in the PCL over the second half, with their +93 56 runs better than Sugar Land. But this is baseball: anything can happen and most likely will. Sugar Land has the deeper roster and will be less likely to lose players for major league reinforcement during the week. I think the Aces fall short in three games, but I hope to be proven wrong.