58 JULY 2019 • BASEBALLAMERICA.COM
Organization Reports
walk-to-strikeout rates,” Flanagan said. “His
fastball is in the upper 80s (mph) mostly,
but he pitched up in the zone well with it.
He has confidence in that pitch and is really
working on his changeup and curveball. We
think they will end up being good pitches
for him.”
—TOM HAUDRICOURT
NEW YORK
METS
Lefthander Anthony Kay is responding
to the challenges presented to him by the
Mets before the season began.
As spring training concluded, Kay was
told by assistant general manager Allard
Baird to concentrate more on where he
wanted to be in the future than just thriving
at Double-A Binghamton.
“A lot of young pitchers have velocity
and they have raw stuff, but what (Kay)
showed was poise, the ability to control a
running game and he showed a real quiet,
stealth-like competitiveness out there,” Baird
said.
“I think he stood out from there, so our
expectations that we presented to him
were that he needed to be putting himself
in a position to be part of our major league
rotation at some point and that should
be his mindset and what he should bring
to the ballpark every day. And he’s going
about it with things that show up in his
performance.”
Kay, a 2016 first-rounder from
Connecticut, was among the biggest ear-
ly-season bloomers in the organization.
Through nine Eastern League starts he went
5-2, 1.07 with 52 strikeouts in 50.2 innings.
The 24-year-old Kay’s hot start had
fueled speculation that he might be called
up to the Mets, who are short on starting
pitching depth.
After missing the entire 2016 and 2017
seasons while rehabbing from Tommy John
surgery, Kay went 7-11, 4.26 with a 0.99
WHIP split between low Class A Columbia
and high Class A St. Lucie last season.
“I give our development staff a lot of
credit: They have really challenged him with
usage of his changeup,” Baird said, “and from
all reports that has really come on well.
“In that next game we wanted more
usage of it—and he threw 20 of them. And
he used it left-on-left. So for a kid to take
that plan, implement it, and put it right into
play, it says a lot about him mentally, his
maturity, and his ability to look just beyond
the performance and look more, ‘What’s
going to put me in the best position to suc-
ceed when I get to the big league level?’
“That speaks volumes about the kid.”
—MIKE PUMA
PHILADELPHIA
PHILLIES
Early one morning in February, Deivy
Grullon approached Jake Arrieta in the
Phillies’ spring clubhouse and asked if he
had a minute. The young catcher, in his
first big league camp, proceeded to pepper
the former Cy Young Award winner with
questions.
“It was an interesting conversation,”
Grullon said in his native Spanish that day.
“I’m trying to learn as much as possible.”
He spoke the word esponja.
Sponge.
It took a little nerve for the 23-year-old
Grullon to approach the veteran Arrieta,
but he explained that he had been encour-
aged to build a bond with pitchers. The
day before, Grullon had been watching
video of Arrieta’s pitching. He was curious
about Arrieta’s thought process in attacking
righthanded hitters with his sinker and was
eager to learn.
This type of commitment has helped
Grullon elevate his game. At Double-A
Reading last season he hit .273/.310/.515
with 21 home runs. He got off to a fast
start with Triple-A Lehigh Valley this year,
batting .349 with seven homers and 32 RBIs
through 34 games.
“He’s performing at a high level and it’s
been awesome to see,” director of player
development Josh Bonifay said. “He brings
phenomenal dedication, mentally andphysically, every day.”
Grullon is powerfully built at 5-foot-10
and 235 pounds. He signed for $575,000
out of the Dominican Republic in July 2012.
The Phillies have long liked the power in
his bat and in his throwing arm. Maturity
and improved commitment—shown in that
moment of inquisitiveness with Arrieta—
are helping Grullon put it all together on
both sides of the ball.
“He’s blocking well, he’s got a bazooka
behind the plate, and he’s building rela-
tionships with his pitchers, helping them
prepare for starts and build game plans,”
Bonifay said. “Offensively, he’s going into
the box with a game plan. What’s not to
like?”
The Phillies rolled the dice and got
Grullon through the Rule 5 draft in
December. That won’t happen again this
year. Grullon keeps improving, and more
people are starting to believe in him.
—JIM SALISBURYPITTSBURGH
PIRATES
When a player repeats a level and puts
up big numbers, it introduces skepticism.
Is the player performing well because he
has grown accustomed to the level? Or is
the success a sign of an adjustment that
worked?The Pirates aggressively pushed middle
infielder Rodolfo Castro to low Class A
last year at the age of 19, but he hit just
.231/.278/.395 in 105 games. He returned to
the level this year and his performance had
turned a complete 180 degrees.
Through 43 games at Greensboro, Castro
had hit .272/.318/.589 with 13 home runs
and 11 doubles. His .316 isolated slugging
percentage was by far a career high.
Castro, who signed out of the Dominican
Republic in 2015, said that he hasn’t made
any adjustments to his swing. He attributes
his success to work that began last season
when he transitioned away from being a
free swinger and started planning for spe-
cific games and matchups.
Wyatt Toregas, who was Castro’s man-
ager in 2018, discussed the work Castro has
put in.
“It’s the first time in his career where I
had to show him heat maps,” Toregas said.
“I’m like, ‘Look, they have this. They know
what you hit well. They know what you
chase at.’ I had to show him a stat pack.
‘Look, right here it says a lot of strikeouts,
not a lot of walks. They know you’re swing-
ing.’ “
Castro, who plays second base and
shortstop, embraced this. He started show-
ing better power results at the end of the
2018 season. While Castro was still striking
out a lot this year, the reports this year indi-
cate that he is laying off more pitches that
he used to chase and doing a better job of
putting the barrel to the ball.
“Last year he swung a lot,” Toregas said.
“He’s aggressive. He’s a young kid who
wants to hit. I think this year he’s turned
into more of a hitter.”
—TIM WILLIAMSST. LOUIS
CARDINALS
When the Cardinals needed a starter
in late May, they checked the reports
and ran the radar readings on lefthander
Genesis Cabrera’s recent starts for Triple-A
Memphis. They had a stone-cold read on
what he was going to throw in the majors.
Trouble is, so did the opposing hitters.
In two starts with the Cardinals—both
losses—Cabrera allowed 13 hits and four
walks in 8.1 innings, and in his second out-
ing he did not get a swing and miss.
With an above-average curveball from
the left side and a Carlos Martinez-like
sinker that leaves his hand at 96-98 mph,
Cabrera’s results didn’t line up with his stuff
until manager Mike Shildt explained how
he was “volunteering some pitches.”
Translation: the 22-year-old Cabrera was
tipping his pitches.
“He’s got plenty of stuff,” Shildt said. “If
you’re able to pitch like he did, and theyCONTINUED FROM PAGE 57
Pirates second baseman Rodolfo Castro was chasing less out of the zone and barreling more as he repeats low Class A.BRIAN WESTERHOLT/FS; BILL MITCHELL