Minor League Ball Morning Report: August 9th, 2018

Good day everyone and welcome to the Minor League Ball Morning Report for Thursday, August 9th, 2018.

My main effort lately has been devoted to the organization mid-season reviews. It is taking longer than expected: this year I’m looking at everyone who got a C+ grade or higher, which for many systems means 25 or 30 or even 35 players to update on rather than just the top 20. It isn’t hard but it is tedious and takes extra time so the lists are coming out slower than I want.

I’m sometimes asked why I don’t do a direct mid-season re-ranking rather than just a review, add in 2018 draftees or emerging July 2nd guys or other breakouts. The answer to that is simply time constraint: it would be impossible to do it right while maintaining the normal daily posting pace for the blog. There’s also the issue of sample size and, in some cases, vague or non-existent scouting reports for players just emerging.

Research is constantly on-going of course but I find it more useful to fold new information and analysis into the system reports as we head into 2019.

The next list under review is the San Diego Padres, which I should have finished and posted later today.

I want to take a moment and point out one arm who might get overlooked given how deep the system is: right-hander Ronald Bolanos. A 21-year-old from Cuba, he got off to a terrible start in 2018 with an 8.78 ERA in April and a 5.96 mark in May. He’s improved dramatically over the last three months however, with a 2.97 ERA in his last 10 starts with a 61/17 K/BB in 61 innings. That’s quite good for the California League. He can get up to 96 and has made progress improving his curveball and slider.

This video from rkyoshi007 was taken July 28th, which was actually one of his weakest starts in recent weeks. He’s been more dominant in other starts but this clip gives the general idea. I think Bolanos can break through next year.