Miami Marlins: April 17th Fish Farm Report

While Jarlin Garcia and the Miami Marlins took care of the New York Yankees in impressive fashion on Tuesday night, their farm teams played in some tight contest across the board.

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Upon J.T. Realmuto’s return to health, Miami optioned Chad Wallach to New Orleans after appearing in nine games with Miami.
Johnny Giavotella was activated from the seven-day DL and joined the Baby Cakes.
The Marlins sent Wei-Yin Chen (elbow) to Jupiter on a rehab assignment where he threw 60 pitches for the Hammerheads last night.

Single-A South Atlantic League

(6-5) Greensboro Grasshoppers 4, (6-6) Lakewood BlueClaws 5

In a hard-fought game that went ten innings, the Hoppers came up short due in part to four errors committed in the field. Hoppers starter, Brady Puckett produced his second quality start of the season in which he pitched seven innings, giving up one earned run on six hits and six strikeouts, lowering his ERA to 2.37 on the season.

The offense collected eight hits as a whole and the pitching staff threw relatively well despite the defense behind them. They combined to strike out 12 batters in 9.2 innings allowing zero walks and only two earned runs.

Second baseman, Samuel Castro added two more hits on the night which raised his average to .320. The 20-year-old middle infielder is an interesting player to watch this season as his batted ball information is rather unique.

In an era where hitters are focusing on lifting the ball, Castro has taken the opposite approach. His fly ball percent (FB%) is 15.4% compared to a league wide average of 35% and his ground ball percent (GB%) is 61.5% compared to the league average of 44%.

These numbers are right in line with what he has put up across his minor league career. If you translated his 2018 numbers on to the 2017 MLB leader boards, Castro would have the second highest GB% behind only Ian Desmond and the lowest FB% in the entire league.

Castro and the Grasshoppers look to take the series win at Lakewood on Tuesday. First pitch is scheduled for 6:35 EST.

High-A Florida State League

(4-8) Lakeland Flying Tigers 3, (9-3) Jupiter Hammerheads 4

In the second extra-inning affair of the night for a Marlins affiliate, the Jupiter Hammerheads won on a walk off sac fly to centerfield by Jarret Rindfleisch that scored Stone Garrett.

Wei-Yin Chen was effective in his first time out in 2018. On the first start of his rehab assignment, he threw 60 pitches, 42 of those were for strikes. He pitched 2.2 innings and allowed one run on three hits and one walk while striking out four.

The Marlins are hoping Chen rebounds in 2018 after he pitched just total of 156.1 innings in the previous two seasons as a Marlin after signing a five-year 80-million-dollar deal going into 2016.

Coming off of being named to MLB Pipeline’s Prospect Team of the Week and the Florida State League Player of the week, Joe Dunand, collected another hit to go along with two more RBIs in the victory.

Dunand was Miami’s second round pick out of North Carolina State last June. The Marlins loved his power potential coming out of the draft. He already has two home runs in the early part of 2018. If Dunand can keep making consistent contact at the pro ranks, look for him to shoot up the prospect list this summer.

The Hammerheads next contest will be at Roger Dean Stadium against the Flying Tigers. The start time is set for 6:30.

Double-A Southern League

(4-6) Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp 2, (6-5) Chattanooga Lookouts 3

The Jumbo Shrimp lost Tuesday’s matchup to the Lookouts on a walk off home run to Zander Wiel with one out in the ninth inning.

The Jumbo Shrimp collected seven hits and left ten runners on base in defeat. Isan Diaz and Monte Harrison had one hit each which will hopefully get their bats rolling.

Isan Diaz has had an especially strange start to 2018. Through nine games, Diaz is hitting .069, to go along with an extremely low .077 batting average on ball in play (BABIP) coming into the night. While part of the low BABIP is poor luck, Diaz has also not hit a line drive to this point in the season.

His line drive percent (LD%) is at exactly zero, which is making it hard for him to collect hits in the early going. The line drive is the easiest type of contact to collect a base hit on. The average for line drives across the major leagues is .685, compared to .239 for ground balls and .207 for fly balls.

As soon as Diaz starts to find his groove at the plate and starts to consistently square up baseballs, his LD% will rise resulting in a rise in both his BABIP and batting average.

Both Diaz and Harrison are pieces that the Marlins are counting on for their future. They will be on display tomorrow in a double-header at Chattanooga.

Triple-A Pacific Coast League

(8-4) Colorado Springs Sky Sox 2, (5-8) New Orleans Baby Cakes 4

The Baby Cakes used a three-run bottom of the eighth headlined by a Cristhian Adames triple to propel themselves to their fifth victory.

Sandy Alcantara picked up his first quality start of the year in his six innings of work against the Sky Sox.

Alcantara was acquired by Miami this past offseason as a part of the return for outfielder, Marcell Ozuna. When acquired, Alcantara was known for his electric arm, yet struggled with his command at times. Early on in 2018, command is still an issue as he is walking 6.6 batters per nine innings.

However, he does have real swing and miss stuff. His 27% strikeout percentage is first on the Baby Cakes starting staff and second on the team to Jumbo Diaz.

If Alcantara struggles to find a home in the starting staff, he can develop into a very talented arm in the back of the Marlins bullpen.

The Baby Cakes will be going for their second straight win tomorrow against the Sky Sox.

Next: Fish Farm Report: April 16th

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