Post Game Thoughts
- Joe Kelly looked good. As long as he’s sitting 90-92 (which I suspect he is) with the fastball, he flashed the stuff to be a very good pitching prospect. His command of his breaking ball was erratic. He’s not conditioned to go deep into games yet as he started to show signs of tiring in the 4th. He’s going to be challenged when QC ditches the piggyback rotation later this year. I hope the Cardinals move Kelly slowly through the system.
- Robert Stock looks good behind the plate. I can see why the Cardinals like him as a catcher. Let’s hope the bat comes around.
- Niko Vasquez put a charge into the HR he hit. The athleticism is palpable with Vasquez but he seems to lack focus and is prone to mental errors in the field. He’s got the arm for 3rd but obviously he’s more valuable if he can stick at SS.
- Ryan Jackson covered SS well. It’s hard to tell exactly how good he was because we rarely saw his positioning as the camera switched to the field after the ball was caught in many instances. He didn’t make any obvious mistakes though and seemed to show good range towards 2nd base.
Bottom 9th:
- Ryde Rodriguez shows little pitch recognition and a very long swing. Not a good combination.
- Stock shows a good approach at the plate. I’m not sold on his offensive potential based on today but I like what I’ve seen of him catching today.
- These walks in the 9th are more a function of the Bees’ pitcher than QC’s hitters.
Top 9th: QC 1, Burlington 4
- Nice solid pitching and defense that inning. Two shallow flyouts to Parejo and a groundball hit to Vasquez who makes a strong throw to first.
Bottom 8th: QC 1, Burlington 4
- I hate these batting helmets. They look terrible. If I was a baseball player, I’d probably wear one as well but they look like little kids putting on their dad’s stuff.
- The Quad Cities’ hitters do not look good today.
Top 8th: QC 1, Burlington 4
- Vasquez airs one to first. He looks athletic enough to play either SS or third. The arm would play at third but I’ve seen a lot of mental lapses while Niko has been on defense today.
- Calhoun does a nice job with a ball to his right even with the mound to get the out at first.
Bottom 7th: QC 1, Burlington 4
- Between innings viewing.
- The Bees catcher has a hell of an arm.
- Ingram has good speed but I’m unimpressed with him at the plate.
Top 7th: QC 1, Burlington 4
- Calhoun looks solid if unspectacular. Fastball is flat. Breaking ball is big and slow.
- Calhoun tiring this inning as the defense struggles on some plays. Calhoun walks in a run.
Bottom 6th: QC 1, Burlington 3
- Matt Adams takes a ball on his shoestrings into mid left field. Adams is going to have to hit a ton for me to get past the horrible physique and defensive limitations.
Top 6th: QC 1, Burlington 3
- MLB 2K10 has some great commercials.
- Daniel Calhoun is the only lefty on the River Bandits roster.
- Vasquez starts the 4-6-3 double play on a ball hit right too him. First nice defensive play we’ve seen Vasquez make today.
Bottom 5th: QC 1, Burlington 3
- Finally showing some discipline this inning. Of course it hels when the pitcher is no longer around the zone.
Top 5th: QC 1, Burlington 3
- Second defensive bumble by Vasquez coming in on a bunt down the 3rd base line. Likely wouldn’t have made the play on the bunt regardless though.
- Ugly stolen base with Niko in on the grass and the runner at 2nd takes off.
- Joe Kelly is looking pretty worn out hanging bad pitches in the zone and loosing command of anything non-fastball.
- Parejo and Ingram are no great shakes in the outfield.
- I like what I’ve seen of Stock behind the plate. Good at receiving and framing pitches.
- The umpire helps out Kelly with a borderline strike call for the 3rd out. Kelly’s day is likely over.
Bottom 4th: QC 1, Burlington 1
- Hal McRae is the new batting coach for the River Bandits.
- O Niko, that was a beautiful swing. Hips and core into it and everything. About 10 feet over the left field fence.
Top 4th: QC 0, Burlington 1
- It’s hard to get a feel for Ryan Jackson’s defense since the camerawork is about 3 seconds late after every hit.
- We had Joe Kelly as #18 on the FR prospect rankings.
- Kelly is struggling with command of his breaking ball.
- Bad throw by Vasquez from third. Looked like he wanted to sidearm the throw but didn’t.
- Kelly’s command deteriorates as the game continues. He’s starting to flag as the game goes on.
- Kelly is on a 75 pitch limit today per the announcers.
Bottom 3rd: QC 0, Burlington 1
- D’Marcus Ingram has wheels but the difference between minor league fielding and major league fielding is huge. That looks like a catchable ball if the Bees CF takes a better route and doesn’t pull up short at the end.
Top 3rd: QC 0, Burlington 1
- The one thing this broadcast is missing is a speed readout.
- I like Kelly’s fastball a lot more when he’s pitching down in the zone. It’s a little flat. Not the prototypical sinker we expect from org. pitchers.
- Be careful with the camera angle. It makes the zone deceptive because it’s not the straightaway camera that the Cardinals use.
- Parejo threw a lollipop of a throw to Stock from CF.
- Nice play by Stidham moving back to reach up and snag a pop-up nearly over his head.
Bottom 2nd: QC 0, Burlington 0
- There must be 10,000 children in the park and none of them realize that balls in the air don’t automatically leave the park.
- Ryde Rodriguez has a big swing. He’s going to have problems on offspeed pitches.
Top 2nd: QC 0, Burlington 0
- Joe Kelly looks sharp in the goings thus far. He’s got a little funk in the leg kick of his delivery. Arm comes from a low 3/4 arm slot. Stuff looks good. Fastball is up more than I’d like.
Bottom 1st: QC 0, Burlington 0
- D’Marcus Ingram doesn’t seem to be picking the ball up well.
- Matt Adams is well along on the Adam Dunn bad body path.
Feel free to comment here on the game. I’ll add thoughts as time permits.
Entries (RSS)
Wow… Didn’t think Joe Kelly threw this hard.
helluva start to the game. HELLO Joe Kelly.
I like that the River Bandits were up 2-0 before the leadoff hitter came to bat.
Yea and the picture of the field with the fielders names on it was transposed…Great production value..lol Great stadium and view too, im about 3 hours from it and plan to se a few games this year.
Procured a laptop — will update between innings.
Kelly hasn’t been in the organization that long I’m sure he will learn the sinker slider assuming plans are to have him stick as a starter. As advertised Ryan Jackson has been smooth and consistant at short.
Plate discipline for qc seems to be an issue so far
@Clark: Agreed. The offense doesn’t look very sharp. On paper that looked like the weakness for this team.
Regarding Kelly he didn’t p itch much in college and had never been a starter so we can’t expect him to hold his stuff late into games this early in his development.
@Andrew: I’m aware of that. Eventually he’s going to be asked to pitch deeper into games though.
Your completely right but I think stretching it from a 20 pitch relief stint to 75 piggyback start helps build arm endurance. Same with all of our starters at this level. Ryde Rodriquez is a lot faster than I thought, living up to the King of the jam shot nickname with 2 already. Azru do you know if Palm Beach still has piggyback, I don’t think they do but I could be wrong.
Should have walked Myers I guess…
@Andrew: They used it one season there but I think they’ve decided that they’d prefer to get their starters pitching longer there. I think some of that depends on the pitching staff they have at the level at any given time though.
They are not using it this season. The starting rotation is (in no particular order): Bradford, Castillo, Nieto, McGregor, Broderick
I guess the hitter throwing the bat at calhoun woke him up, he looked great after that. Maybe somebody should throw a bat at our hitters.
Good at bat by Niko, What I liked best about that at bat was he didn’t glare at the pitcher who came up and in even after the home run. It obviously wasn’t intentional and shows the kids maturity.
Wow nice arm my Myers……..maybe the Royals shouldn’t draft Grandel
Is it inconsistent to say we out pitched them today but at the same time they out hit us?
I have to add that Niko took some really good at bats in addition to the HR. He did have some mental lapses in the field he remained focused and drew 2 walks in addition to the HR today.
I’m not totally sold on the idea that Kelly’s problem later into the game is conditioning. He has known all Winter he was going to be a starter in the Spring. He conditioned all Spring. We are now into the 5th start of the season. Does this mean if McClellen had won the Cards 5th starter spot we’d expect him to only go 5 innings still at this point? It is possible he doesn’t have the arm to be a starter. There may be a reason they made him a reliever in college. I dont know but it seems suspect that his arm is tiring in the 5th inning this far into the season.
As an aside, I never had any problem with the tandem per se but the way they are using it this year is different and the tandem guys are going every 5th day instead of evey 4th day like before. The idea was sold originally as since they go every 4th day they still get nearly as many innings. Not happening that way now.
We don’t know how long that Kelly has known he would be a starter and for that matter how when the team made the decison. For that matter Kelly has never been a starter and rarely pitched. It’s aa much longer process converting reliever to start as other way around. Gotta give the guy time before passing judgement.
Kelly has kind of a funky delivery, but his arm action is really fluid and he repeats it well.
Overall, I was impressed by Kelly. He clearly has a long way to go in his development, but his upside is high.
On Stock, Vasquez, Jackson, and Adams.
When I saw QC play last week, I had similar impressions of Stock, Vasquez, and Jackson. Seeing them live, I felt Jackson played a good shortstop, but I felt Vasquez was out of position. I don’t know if it’s his physique or what, but I just don’t see him sticking at 3rd. He’s got 2b written all over him and with his bat potential, that should be pretty darn good. However, there were times he just looked lost at the plate. He seems to be an all or nothing guy (from an eyeball/one game impression). Didn’t work any counts and swung at bad pitches.
Adams has a ton of power. He could very quickly develop into a pretty nice trade chip since he ain’t going anywhere but 1st. Seemed to play well enough there for the few chances I watched him.
Rodriguez doesn’t imperess me one bit after seeing him live. I hate when people knock on guys for “looking like they don’t care” but my goodness, he’s a walking (slowly) definition of that phrase.
Oh, and about Stock. When I saw him, his at bats were not impressive at all. Like you said, he does a good job behind the plate but he looks over-matched at the plate at times. Seems to have a good approach, though.
Well, here’s looking forward to seeing the guys again in 2 weeks. They’re back in Geneva then for a 4 game weekend series and I’m going to at least 1 of the games (gonna try to squeeze in 2).
Andrew, the Cards have been saying publicly since drafted (including all Winter) that Kelly was going to be converted to a starter. My judgment is not final I’m just saying i think there are other possibilities.
Point is even if he’s known for a half a year he’s never been a starter in his life, and it takes time to build up to pitch a full game. It’s and adjustment going from throwing full out every pitch to 90 percent so you can throw 5 times as many pitches.
So it was a farce to even have McClellen try to make the rotation this Spring? I guess well just have to agree to disagree.
I agree, it was a farce trying to make McClellen a starter.
@buckriggs: The Cards are never going to start McClellan. Its just a trick TLR plays every spring on Carioca.
[...] has a rundown of the televised QC River Bandits game over at [...]