White Sox Minor Keys: May 27, 2019
With neither Yolmer Sánchez nor Jose Rondón doing anything to suggest they’re long-term solutions either at second base or on the bench, a lot of eyes are turning to Danny Mendick, who is being groomed for superutility work at Charlotte.
Mendick’s hitting .271/.367/.441 for the Knights, and it undersells what he’s been doing as of late. Over his last 30 games, he’s hitting .308/.388/.492, and he’s 9-for-9 in steals. The strikeout rate is a respectable 17.3 percent, which is within a rounding error of his K rate at Birmingham. The 12.5 percent walk rate is a new high. If I had to guess about how the crazy environment at Triple-A is most affecting his numbers, I’d point to the fact that he has more homers (eight) than doubles (six). It seems like those should be flipped.
If you’re wondering about his defensive assignments:
- Third base: 18 starts
- Shortstop: 16 starts
- Second base: 10 starts
- Left field: Two starts
And while errors aren’t anything, it’s worth noting that he’s only committed one, which came at short. The two outfield appearances are the first of his career, which started when the White Sox selected him in the 22nd round of the 2015 draft.
Durham 10, Charlotte 0
- Danny Mendick went 1-for-4.
- Zack Collins, 0-for-4 with two strikeouts.
- Joel Booker was 0-for-3 with a K.
Winston-Salem 6, Salem 1
- Nick Madrigal and Steele Walker both were 2-for-5.
- Carlos Perez went 1-for-4.
- Lincoln Henzman: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 0 K
Kannapolis 4, Lakewood 1
- Lenyn Sosa went 1-for-5 with a double.
- Romy Gonzalez, 1-for-4 with a strikeout and a sac fly.
- Corey Zangari, 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout.
- Amado Nunez was 0-for-4.
Author
There is a nearly 200 point OPS spread between Home amd Road games for Mendick.
Zack Collins has a 251 point difference between home and away (Home: 1.046 / Away: .795).
Yep. Certainly a reason to temper expectations for Zcak when the Sox decide to bring him up.
Is there any reason to believe this is anything more than randomness? We know that offensive numbers are up in AAA but are they up at the Knights’ ballpark in particular or could Mendick and Collins’ splits be a function of “shit happens.” Unless there’s a pronounced split for the average player or unless there’s some architectural feature of the Knights’ park (like a short left field or a Big Green Monster) that plays to these two’s strengths, I’d be disinclined to put too much weight on home/away splits. Might just be a function of guys being more comfortable when they wake up in their own bed.
#’s are up across AAA, but BB&T is an outlier.
It certainly looks like more than randomness. Most of the Knights hitters are working with fairly large splits.
The flip side of this? Dylan Cease’s ERA is 3.92 at home, but 2.31 on the road (only 3 more IP on the road). He does have a better K/BB ratio at home, however.
Interesting note about Cease. Perhaps opposing hitters are swinging for the fences against him at BB&T because they know the chances for the HR are easier, leading to more strikeouts?
Perhaps he’s just awesome for still having decent stats in that place.
We know that, on average, players hit better at home than they do on the road. At the major league level last year, players had an OPS 20 points higher at home than they did on the road.
We also know that BBT is a hitter friendly park – so we’d expect there to be a gap in OPS even greater than 20 points.
Each of these players only has ~100 PAs each at home and away. Off the top of my head, I don’t know what the standard error in OPS is over ~100 PAs, but I’d guess it’s probably too large to be able to reject the null hypothesis that Mendick and Collins splits are normal for home-road splits in Charlotte.
22nd round. Nice diamond in the rough.
Is Danny Mendick another Tyler Saladino ?
Probably, but he doesn’t have a lot left to do at AAA and you’ve gotta throw these guys at the roster and let them fail out. No point in playing a guy like Escobar.
On first glance, I thought that was a photo of Saladino up top.
Since busting his four game hitless streak, Madrigal’s at .327/.377/.436 with 5 BB, 2 K and 8 steals in 13 games. Hopefully he’s found his footing.
a lot of hard contact the last two games, best I’ve seen from him since he signed.