Ike Davis broke a 1-1 tie with a third-inning grandslam off Tigers LHP Andrew Oliver. Oliver, a second rounder, signed for $1.45 million, roughly twice slot, but was hit hard in his professional debut. Davis’s slam came on a 92 mph fastball on a 3-1 count in which Oliver missed with a slider for ball one and then threw Davis four straight heaters. Davis had to have been sitting dead red. All told, Davis finished 4-6 with with doubles, his slam, and six RBI in the Surprise Rafters 17-4 pummeling of the Peoria Javelinas.
LF Lucas Duda was 2-5 with a double, a walk and two RBI while SS Ruben Tejada was 2-5 with a double, a stolen base, and a pair of strikeouts.
As if those performances weren’t exciting enough, the AFL now features full pitch fx for some games, including those in Surprise. This is awesome on its own merits for evaluating AFLers. Also, since the AFL is often a lab where MLB experiments withideas for the upcoming MiLB season, does this mean that pitch fx is coming to the minors?
Adam Rubin reports that “Virtually the entire Mets front office was watching as the AFL got under way [Tuesday]. GM Omar Minaya, assistant GM John Ricco, top deputies Sandy Johnson and Bryan Lambe, Adam Fisher and virtually every professional scout from the organization is here in Peoria, Ariz.” So, Ike picked a good time to put on a show.
Smoak’s a joke, I like Ike.
re: Pitch f/x – its only in 2 stadiums for the AFL (Surprise and Peoria)
> FMart and Niese make IL Top 20 : http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/rankings/league-top-20-prospects/2009/268992.html
> Davis in Goldstein’s minor league update : http://baseballprospectus.com/minorleagueupdate/
> Mejia article by Rubin : http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/2009/10/14/2009-10-14_jenrry_mejia.html
Interesting PitchFX marks for Mejia.
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfx/indexafl.php?month=10&day=14&year=2009&game=gid_2009_10_14_perwin_surwin_1%2F&pitchSel=516769.xml&prevGame=gid_2009_10_14_perwin_surwin_1%2F&prevDate=1014
13 Change-Ups (86-89 MPH), 21 Fastballs, 4 Breaking Balls (Curves) by my count for 38 pitches.
The Fastball was averaging 94.82 mph and hit 98.2 mph at its highest, and that probably is a low #, as that data incorporates 2 change-ups.
Very interesting, I’ll work on this later tonight.