2021 Arkansas Travelers Preview
The Travelers have come… Again! Okay outside of a Gozer the Gozerian reference, this team is probably the least star-studded roster in the system. That’s fine because mid-season promotions from Everett seem likely. Although dealing with a smaller roster, I somewhat dreaded this write-up and grew to appreciate the team as I went on. I worried minor league contraction would lead to streamlining and remove some of the weird stories and personalities I’ve long admired. That definitely is not the case here. I don’t know if they’ll compete, but they’re fun and interesting in their own way.
In addition to profiles, talk of a predominantly Irish rotation, astronomy comparisons, rogue baseball leagues, unnecessary math, and Hollywood connections. Let’s roll.
Rotation:
RHP Adam Hill, RHP Darren McCaughan, LHP Ian McKinney, RHP Penn Murfee, RHP Alejandro Requena, RHP Devin Sweet
I’ll take a guess at a six-man rotation here to keep things neat and orderly (Ed. Note: I was right somehow). The opening night guy for the Travs was Requena, whom you could be forgiven for not knowing as he’s a former Rockies and Phillies farmhand. Scouting data I have on him is old, but a few years ago he threw in the low-90s and had a curveball and a change as good secondaries. After the trade, he had a forearm injury which sidelined him for half a season. This will be his first real exposure to double-A and the BB/9 of above three and K/9 of below nine makes me nervous.
Outside of the new face, there are mostly guys who are orbiting out in the Oort Cloud of prospectdom. Sweet is among the more interesting arms because of his change-up, maybe the best in-system if not Stoudt’s, and the fact that he’s all but skipping high-A. Said change has made him an uncomfortable at-bat for left-handers and they struck out 62 times over 45.0 frames in 2019. He’s not bad against righties at all, but when you have a reverse split, I think it’s smart to keep the guy starting until he proves he can’t to maximize value.
Murfee would have been noted before the pandemic for pitching on Team USA and getting an AFL stint the previous offseason, which was not his original plan, which entailed farm work in Wyoming and then bumming up the coast in a bus. If that didn’t provide you with enough material to wish him nothing but good things, he also is a converted infielder who basically pitches like he’s slinging double play balls. Somehow, it works: He had a 122/23 K/BB in 102.2 innings for Modesto, mainly as a starter! One thing to watch with the angle he comes at is how he handles left-handed hitting.
A friend of his and also late-season alt-site addition is McKinney, who was formerly a high school draft pick by the Cardinals. While its repeatability is debated, one mark in his favor as a new Mariner was his average against dropping to .220, which was accompanied by an extra K/9 over where he’d previously topped out. Otherwise, his profile of being a low-90s, change-up and pitching smarts lefty was probably more exciting prior to the recent vogue of high velocity arms.
Continuing a somewhat Irish feeling to the rotation is McCaughan, who saw seventeen starts with the squad in 2019. He did Nothing Wrong there and had a 2.89 ERA over 102.2 innings with an 89/10 K/BB. Heck, he was TL Pitcher of the Year. So what buzzkill info do I have? Well, Dickey-Stephens park is notoriously good for pitching and bad for offense. On the road, he had a 4.62 ERA and an opposing average approaching .300. He likewise had a rough go in seven PCL starts. Like McKinney, he’s a pitchability dude, but does so with less velo and from the right side.
Finally, we have Hill, a newcomer after the offseason trade that sent Omar Narvaez to the Brewers a year and a half ago. Before that, he was a Mets prospect, so he’s definitely traveled a bit despite entering pro ball in 2018. Hill is a tall (6’6”) and big (225 lbs) dude and the right program could get him sitting in the mid-90s. Presently, he throws an impressive, diving curveball, but also needs to work on his other secondary offerings if he wants to stick to starting. The potential is fascinating, but the most “data” we have on him from the past year is that the M’s thought he could safely skip high-A and go straight to the high minors as a 24-year-old.
Bullpen:
RHP Jack Anderson, RHP Nick Duron, RHP Darin Gillies, RHP Jake Haberer, RHP Ryne Inman, RHP Collin Kober, RHP Reid Morgan, RHP Michael Stryffeler
I’ve been a long-time fan of Anderson and wanted to know why my favorite knuckledragger was not yet a member of the 40-man roster. Then I started seeing radar gun readings last fall and this spring and realized that his fastball was 80-82 mph. Actually, that just makes him more relatable to me. Baseball is fun BECAUSE of the unconventional abilities finding success. You won’t find many complaints about the production either, because he had a 1.50 ERA and a 51/16 K/BB last tour of double-A despite the established weirdness. Free The Creature.
Gillies came up as a 10th round pick by us out of ASU in 2015. Nevertheless, we released him last May. What happened as a result was that he was one of the few system players to log any innings at all. That was because he played in the COVID-restricted Constellation Energy League, so named because you had four teams playing weekend double-headers at Constellation Field in Sugar Land, TX. After that uniquely baseball experience, the Skeeters affiliated with Houston and Gillies re-signed with the Mariners in March. He should probably improve his walk rate and avoid hits but seriously just look at some of those CEL rosters: It’s a trip.
Speaking of former indy leaguers, who replenished our badly depleted pitching depth in 2019, we’ll just line up the next three, all Frontier Leaguers, for a theme. Haberer comes to us having been undrafted out of Eastern Illinois. Since leaving college, he’s grown a formidable beard and has been averaging around 95 mph with his fastball. He doesn’t necessarily know where it’s going, however, as he’s had about six walks per nine to go with his thirteen or so Ks per nine. I don’t know what the future holds for him, but we’ve seen guys like this hooked up with spring training invites since forever.
Stryffeler had the even shorter move from the D-II Lake Erie College Storm to the Lake Erie Crushers (???). While he started part time his final two years, he returned to relief work with the Crushers and was suddenly mid-to-upper 90s. His command like Haberer’s is rather bad at times, but his Ks are very good indeed, so copy and paste some conceptual stuff there. If he’s good we can forgo the “r”, as I want to already, and deem him “Stifler.” Or his given surname already lends itself well to a hair metal theme. Many directions you could go with it.
Duron was initially drafted by the Red Sox out of Clark College, known alma mater of Sam Elliott and the guy that invented Earth Day. He’s had two statistical profiles already, starting out as a contact guy with okay command and transforming himself into unhittable strikeout machine whom you can probably draw a walk on. Old scouting reports indicate that he’s always been a mid-90s guy who topped out on the high-end, so perhaps he was trying to be too fine earlier and instead embraced being a flamethrower.
Kober has been mostly station-to-station since being drafted in the 27th round in 2017, albeit skipping over Everett as the short-season affiliate. I’ve been fascinated by his numbers for years as he’s always kept the walks per nine below three with Ks in the double-digits, but I have no clue what he throws outside of being a sidearmer, as he’s got the expected L/R splits and doesn’t have a distinct edge in groundballs or fly outs. I’ll look forward to getting some Gameday info on his offerings.
Inman has been given a chance in the bullpen after six years starting in the low minors with uneven results. The Ks have always been there thanks to a solid fastball-curveball combo, but he’s been more walk-prone than you’d like. I’m not seeing anything in the splits to confirm much more than “either he has it or he doesn’t:” He had thirty-nine walks in 74.0 innings spanning one through three, fourteen in 52.1 innings from four and beyond. The stats would seem to self-select for whether he’s on or not so I’m not sure why I did that math other than to prove he wasn’t tiring late in games.
Morgan and starter Adam Hill share a birthday, they were just born a time zone apart. I can’t recall that happening previously. As for Morgan, he’s well-traveled? He was at Oklahoma State, then San Jacinto, before landing in the right place at the right time and working as South Carolina’s ace despite limited starting experience. He had good command and got a lot of groundballs, His innings were spread across the low-levels, so we’re still trying to figure out who exactly he is, outside of a guy who moonlights as a varsity pitching coach.
Catchers:
Jake Anchia, Josh Morgan, Brian O’Keefe
With the caveat of “oh lord, our catching depth,” it’s surprising to see Anchia here given that he only had eleven games in high-A and .213/.288/.374 line in 81 games prior to that in West Virginia. Coming from Nova Southeastern, his rep was a guy who could really hit, we just haven’t seen it outside of a couple of months where he likewise racked up the Ks. As for the glove, well, in 68 games behind the plate for the Power, he passed fifteen balls and had a caught stealing of 27%, so my ungenerous take is that they wanted the Everett pitchers throwing to Bins.
Also a 7th-round catcher, O’Keefe comes over after six years with the Cardinals. He was noted in college for calling his own games and as a pro has managed to be a solid receiver who rarely lets anything get past him. In the low minors, he’s topped out at a 38% caught stealing, which is not bad at all. Offensively, his profile isn’t too far off of Anchia, minus the gaudy college numbers, but plus some more walks and better plate discipline overall. He can be counted on to hit the teens in home runs and twenty or more doubles with enough playing time.
That might be an issue with Morgan charting the same path up as Austin Nola formerly did. Morgan was drafted as a shortstop out of prep powerhouse Orange Lutheran and took to catching regularly in 2017 when he was in the Rangers system. There, he was still at most 50/50 behind the plate and playing the infield, so I’m hesitant to make much of the defensive numbers. At the plate, his power potential is more modest compared to the other two though he’s considerably more selective.
Infielders:
IF Jordan Cowan, 3B/1B Bobby Honeyman, IF Connor Kopach, IF David Masters, 3B/1B Joe Rizzo, 3B/1B/OF Jake Scheiner
I’m not sure what to expect with this in-flux infield but I’ll start with the leadoff guy in J.CowShow. Cowan was drafted out of Kentlake in 2013 and has basically grown up in the system, not bad for a 37th round pick. He’s played all around the field, but mostly at second and third, though the Travs put him at short for the opener. As for the offense, he’s been a decent, .270ish hitter for average but remains a curiosity for his OBP long being higher than his slugging. That may not be for long though, as he’s been rumored to be lifting the ball higher and further than in the past.
Rizzo was the unlikely starting second baseman, but I say that recognizing that playing Ty France at the keystone makes more seem possible. The former second-rounder is finally leaving the Cal League behind, and I would say he earned his promotion with a .153 improvement in his OPS and by getting under one hundred Ks for the first time in a full season. He’s long had his fans around baseball for his combination of work ethic, attitude, and hitting skills, but power has been a shortcoming and won’t come easily in the newly-formed double-A Central.
At third to start, but really any old corner will do, we have Scheiner who came over from the Phillies for Jay Bruce. He broke out for Lakewood in 2018, batting .296/.372/.470 over a full-season, and then after a lull, hit .271/.325/.503 for Modesto in half a year there. The power is legit, but one hopes to see the walks rebound a bit. As a weird stat tidbit, he slugged lefties thirty-two points better in 2019, nothing big, but was decidedly less patient as he drew only two of his thirty-six walks against them.
Honeyman played game one at first, putting some pressure on a bat that skipped high-A. Again, I’m working with limited data here and don’t know how he spent his 2020, but in 2019 he hit .280/.339/.370 at West Virginia, which is not ideal for a corner guy. He’s played the vast majority of his games at third in his year and a half since turning pro out of SUNY Stony Brook, but I suspect that like a lot of the other guys on this roster, they could toy with him playing all the corners to see what happens.
If that is indeed the direction player development is headed, Kopach is a bit ahead of the game as he’s already seen center and right in addition to shortstop and second. He skipped the South Atlantic League and scuffled some for Modesto, hitting just .224/.311/.376. Fortunately, he’ll also add some value on the basepaths and snagged twenty-seven bags the last time we had a minor league season. It’s between him and Cowan as to who the next minor leaguer is to play all nine in a single game. Do ‘em both at once. Come on: It’ll be Fun.
As the new guy and minor league FA signing, I had to learn about Masters. What I found was that he’s Jon Hamm’s second cousin and that he’s gotten Brendan Ryan comps for his defense and non-hitting ability. But my real question is this: Does he have Brendan Ryan’s impersonation skills as well? Everyone needs an extra, wildcard skill these days and when you’re a career .221/.314/.334 hitter with ties to the acting world, may as well try.
Outfielders:
CF Connor Lien, LF Keegan McGovern, OF Dom Thompson-Williams, CF/RF Stephen Wrenn
DT-W wound up as the “forgotten third man” from the Paxton trade after his two pitching counterparts. Folks were eager to see what he could do after he slugged .546 for the Yankees’ Florida State affiliate, yet he came back down to earth in his first taste of high-minors ball not only hitting a .234/.298/.391, but striking out more than one hundred and fifty times. That’s right, he had more Ks than Generation One had Pokémon. Of interest, however, is that Arkansas is a really, really bad place to hit and on the road, his .277/.332/.509 line was far more interesting. I don’t oppose his starting here to work on hitting lefties better, but the ideal trajectory would have him in Tacoma over the summer.
McGovern has been “interesting when healthy” which seems self-explanatory. After four years at Georgia where he sometimes had back issues, he jumped in with the now-unaffiliated Clinton Lumberkings and hit .268/.351/.518 through sixty-five games, finally tapping his power potential. It would have been cool to see him do the same in Modesto for a full season, but lamentably, he only played half of one and hit .210/.338/.393 during with a triceps injury holding him back a little.
A new and unfamiliar Connor (to me at least), Lien was formerly a Braves prospect drafted out of a regional high school, as they are wont to do. He’s always been able to run and throw and could be good for a double play or two annually. Hitting has not come naturally to him. He had a couple of seasons in A-ball when he hit over .270, but otherwise what you’re looking at is a guy who will strike out a lot and hit for a low average, but provide secondary benefits in his slugging and on-base ability.
Another center / right candidate is Wrenn, who was inked in spring training after spending time with the hated Astros (hiss). Also a well-regarded defender out of high school, Wrenn spent a few years at Georgia (McGovern may have put in a good word once he became a FA) before being drafted in the sixth round. He’s not quite as dismal average-wise as Lien and has settled into a career minor league line of .253/.328/.397, but his defense is less flashy.
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Originally this was queued up to post at 4 pm but lol