Excellent Meoli article on Zach Fruit's deveopment

[sportsfan8703]

Fruit pitched the first 4.2 IP of the combined no hitter by Aberdeen last night. 

https://www.milb.com/gameday/blue-rocks-vs-ironbirds/2024/07/19/755161/final/box

[jabba72]

He's been better his last four starts. Before that Fruit was walking too many. Isn't K'ing a lot but the walks are improving. The last 3 numbers in the chart are BB, K's and HR's.

14	2024-06-29	A+-SALL	Aberdeen IronBirds		Brooklyn Cyclones	1-4		4.0	3	2	2	2	6	1
15	2024-07-05	A+-SALL	Aberdeen IronBirds	@	Greensboro Grasshoppers	1-5		5.0	5	2	2	1	3	2
16	2024-07-11	A+-SALL	Aberdeen IronBirds	@	Asheville Tourists	1-5		4.2	1	1	0	1	8	0
17	2024-07-19	A+-SALL	Aberdeen IronBirds		Wilmington Blue Rocks	1-5		4.2	0	0	0	1	2	0

[733baseball]

I didn't really understand him getting the hook after only 62 pitches when he was cruising, but all's well that ends well. 

[Frobby]

Ever since Meoli wrote his article featuring Zach Fruit, he’s been dominating:

7/11 4.2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 8 K’s

7/19 4.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K’s

7/25 5.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 6 K’s

Maybe Meoli wasn’t just blowing smoke.  

 

[accinfo]

22 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Ever since Meoli wrote his article featuring Zach Fruit, he’s been dominating:

7/11 4.2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 8 K’s

7/19 4.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K’s

7/25 5.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 6 K’s

Maybe Meoli wasn’t just blowing smoke.  

 

It is pretty funny because I looked at the Aberdeen box score and saw Zach Fruit pitched well tonight.  Saw he was 24 and had just been drafted last year.   So I decided to head  over to OH to see if there is anything about this guy on the board.  I didn’t expect such a long thread with so much heated back and forth.     Now I am really rooting for this guy!  You got to love the name at the very least.  

[Frobby]

Fruit had a bad game last time out (3 IP, 3 R, 2 ER), but rebounded today with 5.1 innings of 1 hit, 1 run ball, walking 3 but striking out 6.  He lowered his ERA on the season to 3.24,

[emmett16]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Fruit had a bad game last time out (3 IP, 3 R, 2 ER), but rebounded today with 5.1 innings of 1 hit, 1 run ball, walking 3 but striking out 6.  He lowered his ERA on the season to 3.24,

I caught the first 4innings today and he was pretty dominant.  Consistently got ahead of batters.  His fastball was live and really getting on the batters, a lot of swing and miss.  I stopped watching in 5th.  Pretty sure he had 5 Ks & 1 hit through 4.  Was surprised to see his final line with 3BB & 1R. 

[Just Regular]

Six no-hit innings tonight seems goodish.

[bluedog]

3 hours ago, Just Regular said:

Six no-hit innings tonight seems goodish.

6 no hit innings on only 69 pitches!

He's now thrown 101 innings and given up only 68 hits. And recently, he seems to have figured out how to keep his walks in check, which has been his only weak point this year.

Pretty dominant.

Legit prospect?

Edited August 21 by bluedog

[Tony-OH]

8 hours ago, bluedog said:

Legit prospect?

Well, let's looks at things:

He's 24 years old in High-A ball
He's walking 4.6 batter per 9.
His FIP is 3.72
His xFIP is 4.07
Since July he's been very good 

But that 9% swinging strikes rate is low and it appears he still relies on batters to chase for misses. 

I think we need to wait to see how he does in AA before getting him too far up the list. He might be a late bloomer, but the walk rate against younger High-A hitters concerns me.

[Frobby]

22 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Well, let's looks at things:

He's 24 years old in High-A ball
He's walking 4.6 batter per 9.
His FIP is 3.72
His xFIP is 4.07
Since July he's been very good 

But that 9% swinging strikes rate is low and it appears he still relies on batters to chase for misses. 

I think we need to wait to see how he does in AA before getting him too far up the list. He might be a late bloomer, but the walk rate against younger High-A hitters concerns me.

These are very legit points.  I don’t care too much about his age.  He had a circuitous path through college before the O’s drafted him at 23.  I’d be more worried about his age if he’d been in our system for 3 years and was only at Aberdeen.  The walk rate is a bigger issue for me.

The O’s are drafting a lot of pitchers who didn’t go to prestige college programs or who put up mediocre numbers at prestige college programs.   They seem to think they can unearth some diamonds in the rough there and coach ‘em up.   They haven’t really had any demonstrated successes yet (I.e., pitchers who’ve reached the majors or are on the cusp), but I’d say Fruit’s class was really the first one where a fair number of pitchers got picked before rounds 11-20, so I’m interested to see how that group fares.  At least Fruit has put himself squarely in line for a promotion and we’ll see if he can make further progress in AA. He’s come a pretty long way in a year and seems to respond well to coaching, so hopefully there’s room for more improvement.  
 

Edited August 21 by Frobby

[LookinUp]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

The walk rate is a bigger issue for me.

And the swinging strike rate. That's kind of huge for me. I'm sure it doesn't tell the whole story, but really good pitchers often don't get you too far without the stuff to compliment it.

But I'm sure there's more to that story.

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

These are very legit points.  I don’t care too much about his age.  He had a circuitous path through college before the O’s drafted him at 23.  I’d be more worried about his age if he’d been in our system for 3 years and was only at Aberdeen.  The walk rate is a bigger issue for me.

The O’s are drafting a lot of pitchers who didn’t go to prestige college programs or who put up mediocre numbers at prestige college programs.   They seem to think they can unearth some diamonds in the rough there and coach ‘em up.   They haven’t really had any demonstrated successes yet (I.e., pitchers who’ve reached the majors or are on the cusp), but I’d say Fruit’s class was really the first one where a fair number of pitchers got picked before rounds 11-20, so I’m interested to see how that group fares.  At least Fruit has put himself squarely in line for a promotion and we’ll see if he can make further progress in AA. He’s come a pretty long way in a year and seems to respond well to coaching, so hopefully there’s room for more improvement.  
 

Age doesn't care about the route a pitcher took. It matters because of the amount of progression a pitcher makes at that age and beyond when it comes to command is typically minimal. 

Fruit has certainly put himself on the distant radar and probably deserves a promotion to AA to see how he does there, but I I've seen players like this that get write ups and suddenly he becomes a "prospect" in some fans eyes. He's shown improvements over his pretty bad numbers in college, but the one thing that is very similar is his K-BB ratio, which is not great. 

I'll go back and watch more of his latest starts to see if I see anything in the stuff that jumps out at me, but I'd like to see a little more domination and less walks for a guy pitching to much younger competition. 

[Jim'sKid26]

5 hours ago, Frobby said:

These are very legit points.  I don’t care too much about his age.  He had a circuitous path through college before the O’s drafted him at 23.  I’d be more worried about his age if he’d been in our system for 3 years and was only at Aberdeen.  The walk rate is a bigger issue for me.

The O’s are drafting a lot of pitchers who didn’t go to prestige college programs or who put up mediocre numbers at prestige college programs.   They seem to think they can unearth some diamonds in the rough there and coach ‘em up.   They haven’t really had any demonstrated successes yet (I.e., pitchers who’ve reached the majors or are on the cusp), but I’d say Fruit’s class was really the first one where a fair number of pitchers got picked before rounds 11-20, so I’m interested to see how that group fares.  At least Fruit has put himself squarely in line for a promotion and we’ll see if he can make further progress in AA. He’s come a pretty long way in a year and seems to respond well to coaching, so hopefully there’s room for more improvement.  
 

Corbin Burnes did not attend a prestigious College program. Just sayin'...      https://smcgaels.com/sports/baseball

I am intrigued by the idea of drafting pitchers for specific skillsets and pitch shapes, which is rumored to what the O's have done the last few drafts. Its a low risk strategy that only has to hit once or twice to justify the exercise. If Zach bears fruit (pardon the pun) and develops into an MLB SP, the O's have a bargain.

 

[Frobby]

Zach Fruit had his season finale last night: 4 IP, 3 R, 2 ER, 5 H, 1 BB, 7 K’s.   He finishes the year at 3.03 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 9.5 K/9, 2.1 K/BB.   Over his final 14 starts dating to mid-June, he had a 2.04 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 9.5 K/9, 2.0 K/BB.   He allowed only 33 hits in 61.2 innings, but also walked 33.   Basically, like so many of our Elias era minor league pitchers, walks are the issue.