ball5podcast/Aggies in the Pros/Production over Batting Average

In this episode of the Ball5 Podcast, I check in on the 39 Aggies currently playing professional baseball—from the big leagues through every level of the minor leagues. We’ll talk about where they are, how they’re performing, and which Aggies are making their mark in pro ball.

I also break down how evaluating hitters has changed since my playing days. Batting average used to carry a lot more weight, but today the focus is increasingly on overall production: getting on base, slugging, driving the baseball, and creating runs.

Aggies in the pros, baseball analytics, and real perspective from someone who played the game at the highest level—it’s all inside this episode of the Ball5 Podcast.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:16

Hey everybody, thanks for joining the Ball Five Podcast. I'm your host, Scott Livingstone. And in this episode, I wanted to uh well you know talk since the major league baseball season's pretty much it's over halfway over. The minor league baseball season has about a month and a half left. So I saw something the other day about Aggies in the big leagues, and so I was curious about you know how many Aggies we had in Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball. So for this episode, I want to uh mention who they are, where they're playing, the nicknames of their teams. I mean, honestly, I was a Toledo Mud hen, I didn't really know what a Mud hen was. I still don't think I do, but they got some crazy names out there, so it's pretty cool. But just to give you an update of where they are, um maybe some of their stats and how they're doing, and just anything else that may be relevant. And the other thing that's pretty cool is you obviously the big league guys, you can see them on Major League Baseball TV, their stations, and follow their teams. Minor League, you know, we back in the day used to have always follow them, you know, you had to be there or read the newspaper. But now they have this MILBTV.com. It's a streaming service, and I think you can get it through Major LeagueBaseball.com. Um, I can't remember how I picked it up, but I mean it's a monthly service, obviously, everything costs money uh that you can subscribe to. But I think they have a free trial. And the thing that's cool about it is you can go out and see every every game, every player. They got a list there of who's playing, uh, what team, where they're playing, what time. And it's just really cool because I mean I can go, I can flip on my computer and watch Gavin Gorhovac hit and then flip to another screen and watch Caden Sorrell hit, or somebody pitch, or Jace Live You Led hit a home run, or you know, I'd get a text message or a Instagram something on uh my phone that Jace hit a home run. I boom, I can pull it up and play it back and look at it. So I think that's pretty cool to be able to do that, and uh it's just the access, it's awesome. And I would just go see it because actually the camera views are pretty good, which I was kind of surprised. I started a little bit last year following, but the camera, they've gotten better, everything's getting it's getting better, and the streaming service is pretty good. So if you're curious about watching the guys play, want to just see them play a game, having it bat, I I would go to that Milb TV.com and and and check it out. So uh, so getting into that. Well, first of all, I want to mention that if you haven't gone to our Ball Five Clubhouse YouTube channel, go check it out, man. Because even if even if you're not a YouTuber, you can subscribe, not subscribe, but if you subscribe, you'll get notifications of our content. And we're loading all sorts of different stuff up there, uh, just different than what's on here. And I just think it's some pretty cool content that you might want to check out. Uh, we can we have a community where you can ask questions and we can have conversations. So it's it's a pretty neat deal. I enjoy doing it. And right now we've got a four-part series out that kind of started, well, did start around the Major League Baseball draft, and it's a series about my drafts and drafts, yes, with an S. I had four of them that I was drafted four times, and it's each part is each draft with each team, how I was notified, who it was, what round, what was the money, what were the conversations, uh, what were all the you know the circumstances around that that time, where I was, what I was, where I was playing, summer ball, whatever, the whole nine yards, um, why I turned them down, and why I just kept turning them down for three years, and I finally went in my fourth year. But I think three parts are out right now. The fourth one's gonna drop this week, so it's not you know where you have to listen to the whole thing and just watch as much as you want. But I don't know, I just think it's it's kind of cool. Uh, like I said, it's a four-part series, and I I think you'll enjoy the content. And, you know, the other we're getting some pretty good reviews on it because, you know, I have to mention it. My wife is a co-host. And I get it, listeners. I know you want more of Emily in the in the content, and I get it. And that's gonna happen. It's gonna happen a lot more uh because it's been asked that they really like the format, but she's really good at asking the questions and stuff like that. It's kind of funny when we when we first get started up here in the podcast room, if you will. She's like, Okay, when are we gonna get going? Let's go. Are you ready? And da-da-da-da. Next thing you know, when the lights go on, she's like, Oh, and man, she pops into character, and I think she's awesome. So, yes, there's gonna be more of Emily in there. But anyway, I think it's uh it's pretty neat, it's good content, and I think you enjoy it. So, all right, let's take a look at these players. Now, don't give me you know too much business about this because I had to, you know, get a little cheat sheet because I found out there's 39 players in minor leagues and the big leagues combined. Eight of them are in the minor leagues, and 31 are in the minors. So I'll roll through these at a decent pace so uh we can just keep keep this moving. First of all, we got Brandon Garcia. Some of you probably remember him. He's with the Arizona Diamondbacks. These are the big league guys. He's 0-1 with a 2.18. So, I mean, he's doing pretty good. Michael Hellman, uh, he's on the 60-day DL. IL, they call it now. Sorry. Uh he's hitting 167, one home run. He kind of struggling with his offense a little bit. Steven Kolick, 60-day DL, too. Uh, there's Tommy John surgery notes in here. Uh, he's with the Royals. Uh Hellman's with the Rangers. Don't know if I said that or not. Uh Bryce Miller, man, he's had a great career. He's with the Mariners right now. Uh right hand pitcher. You got a lot of you guys know him, and uh you've heard of him, obviously. AJ Mentor, left-handed pitcher. A lot of you guys know him, obviously. He was traded from the Mets to the Minnesota Twins. So that's I don't know if you want it out of New York or not, but Minnesota's not a bad place to go. Uh Braden Montgomery, some of us know him. He's hitting 239, four home runs with the Chicago White Sox. And I tell you what, he's he's kind of burned up all the minor leagues. He's gone through every level, and that's why he got there so quick, because they he's just a super talent, and he can he can just really, you know, hit, especially being a switch hitter. That's huge. And he's got power, so you know, we'll get into it that the average doesn't really matter that much anymore. Uh, Brooks Rayleigh been around for a little while. Uh, he went from the Mets to the Philadelphia Phillies. He's 5-5 with a 2.28. It's funny. Whenever I see something about the Philadelphia Phillies, I think about when I was with the Padres, and we'd always go into Philadelphia, and uh just like Boston, you could there was guaranteed to be a fight. There was always gonna be a fight on the field. I mean, I'm sorry, not on the field, but in the stands. And usually it was the fans pulling for the same team as Philadelphia people against Philadelphia people, Boston people against Boston people. It's just funny. You always knew when you went to those two towns there was gonna be a fight in the stands. It's pretty, pretty, pretty something good to look forward to, right? Uh Michael Waka, nice career, all-star game. Uh man, he's done really well. He's like 5'8 with the 3-4-4. He's with the Royals, but he's done a great job. I mean, you know, he he's he's had one of the best careers in the big leagues of those guys. So, all right, so Aggie's in the minor leagues. A lot of these names you guys know. It's just gonna go alphabetical order right here. Uh, Jackson Appell, he's he's been hurt for a long time. He had he's on the 60-day uh injured list. He's got 19 at bats this year. He's at double A with the White Sox. That's in Wistam, Winston, Salem, Dash. That's their name. Dash. Uh, he's only got 19 at bats, so not a lot of time there. Evan Oschenbach, man, hate to see it. He's been out for the year with the Cubs. He's in uh high A with the Cubs. Ollie Camarillo, he's with the Lansing Lugnuts, High A Athletics. He's hitting around 280s, got seven home runs, so having a pretty good year. I've seen a lot of stuff of him on uh Instagram. He posts, and I mean, the kid's working hard, man. He's working really hard. Uh, Chris Cortez, a lot of us know that guy. He's with the Los Angeles Angels, double A, Rocket City Trash, Pandas. I don't know, man, but that's what it's called. Four and three with a 5.74. Uh Micah Dallas. So I'm gonna go ahead and mention Micah Dallas, Nathan Detmer, and Will Johnston. All three of those guys are on the Midland Rockhounds in double A. And, you know, they're doing pretty good. The last game I saw Nathan threw Detmer. He threw six and a third, uh, three hits, nine K's, nine K's anywhere is great, and zero walks. So having a pretty good year, and he's been, I think he's been through three levels this year. So Will's doing pretty good, four and three with a 3.6. So those three guys with the athletics, with the Rockhounds. Uh Jake Dewar, he's was currently in that ACL Diamondbacks League, which is that Arizona complex league where they go after they get drafted. And I don't think he moved on from anywhere from there. So he's probably just chilling, getting ready for spring training. Gavin Grahovac, he's with the Los Angeles Angels. Sorry, I'm used to saying Anaheim Angels. He got moved from that ACL league to the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, which I've actually been there. I don't know if they have a new stadium or not, but I was on a rehab assignment from San Diego. I mean, he's hitting about 180-ish. He's had very few at bats, he's got a home run, his first hit of his minor league career, which was cool. Um, so you know, batting average doesn't matter because when you go from like that ACL or the FCL, which is the Florida Complex League, when you're when you're going from there, um they just want you to get at bats because you have you're there for a very short period of time. So you're not really, you're kind of getting your feet wet. They're seeing how you can do to see like what are we gonna do, which I think is a great situation for him, Sorrell, Copian, you know, uh the guys that are getting a jump on the programs and getting to know everybody and being starting at another level instead of just staying in the complex league and staying there. I think it's good to get that experience and the teams get to know you, coaches get to know you. I think it's huge. So uh big deal for Gavin to be going up to uh A-ball with Rancho. Uh Chris Kopien got healthy. I think he's healthy, somewhat healthy. Uh he played his first game yesterday and went one for three. He's with the Wilmington Blue Rocks, Washington Nationals organization. Bear Harrison, my man, Tampa Tarpins with the New York Yankees. That's A-ball for those guys. He's only got 10 at bat, so not a lot. Hint butt 200. I saw, I think he had a double or triple for his first first hit of the first hit of his pro career. So, you know, guys are doing pretty well. Uh, Nolan Hoffman, I never really saw him pitch. He's with Kansas City triple A. Uh, they are the Omaha Storm Chasers, which that kind of sounds right with the you know, the storms going through there, I guess. He's kind of been up and down, right-handed pitcher. Luke Jackson, he's with the Charleston River Dogs. Uh, that's Tampa Bay, that's Tampa Bay Rays. Let's see. He is he's got a 2-6 ERA, and he recently threw two innings with 5K. So I think he's relieving. I don't know if he's starting, but he had a little a little injury, I think, but he's come back from it. And it was, I'm telling you, when I talk about that minor league baseball TV streaming service, I clicked on it just to see. I clicked on Charleston River Dogs just to see how he was doing and see if I could find anything about. And he was being interviewed about his his uh outing that he had, that he had all the strikeouts. So it was pretty cool to see him and see him interviewed. And so, like I said, that thing's pretty cool. You can see different things. Uh, Tanner Jones, some of you guys remember him. He's with the Kansas City Royals, Quad Cities River Bandits. He was on the 60-day uh injury list last year, so probably trying to work his way back, but he's four and six with a 4.75, and he recently had an inning. Um, I'm sorry, an outing of five innings and six K's and no walk. So that's that's that's pretty that's really good, actually. So, all right. Uh next up, I got Caden Kent. He got traded, man, from uh the Yankees to the San Francisco Giants, his dad's old team. That's pretty cool. He's the playing high A with the Eugene Emeralds. And he's always been around kind of 300, but he's on the seven-day DL right now, or IL, they call it now. Uh he's he's doing pretty well, playing pretty steady. So I I like his chances of getting to the big leagues. I really do. Uh Justin Lampkin, he's he's uh 60-day DL right now from last thing I saw. He was 3-1 with a 2.04, and he got moved up to double A within the Royal Situ uh, you know, uh organization. So it's pretty cool uh to see him get up to double A, but you know, he has good arms, doing good stuff. And the next guy, Jace Lavulette, congratulations, got promoted yesterday to double A. Uh, Jace was hitting around 230 with 19 bombs from the Cleveland Guardians. He was at Lake County, they were the Lake County captains, and I think now they're the Akron something runners. I'm not sure. I don't remember, but kudos to him, man. I mean, he's really been hitting some bombs. I mean, 19 home runs, he's gonna hit 20. He would hit 20. He'll probably hit 20 once he gets to, you know, Akron. But uh, big deal for him to move up. And I know the Guardians had a lot of movement inside the organization. They moved some guys up to AAA, they moved some guys up to double A. Some of the guys that got drafted this year got moved to that A-ball. So to make room for everybody, it, you know, you got it's just everybody just got to keep moving up the ladder, and that's what he's doing. So it's pretty cool. Uh Corbin Martin, I never really knew him that much, but he's with the Chicago Cubs, uh, Iowa, the triple A team. He's on the seven-day DL. Too many injuries, man. What's going on? Uh, Jack Moss, he's hitting 322 with five home runs. You know, he went with the Reds, ended up getting let go by the Reds, but then he caught on with the Astros. How cool is that? Um, he's now playing with the Ashefield Tourist in high A, and I mean, he's banging the ball around, hitting 322. And so understand that a lot of these numbers could be the shuffling between both teams, uh, the shuffling between A-ball, double-A, being traded. Um could also be, you know, that Arizona Complex League is added in there. So it's just, it's, it's like a combination of the whole year, is what most of that is. So he's doing pretty well, getting his hits. Weston Moss, no stats. He was in that Florida, Florida league with the Washington Nationals, that complex league. So he probably, you know, it's like Sedeo, who's coming up. They is just probably resting their arm. No reason to go down there and throw anymore. No reason to go join another team or anything like that. So they've probably seen them enough and want them to get healthy. Jacob Polish, um, you know, he got to the Big Leys with uh with the White Sox last year. I think they needed a pitcher or something. They moved him up and he threw one inning, three hits, two earned run, uh, two runs, two earned. One wasn't a great outing, but hey, he got the big leys. He's back in double A now. He's 3-8 with a 5-4-9 with the White Sox, like I said. Miles Patton, man, bummer. Injured full season. Uh, he's with the Salem Ridge Yaks. I don't know what that is. That's the Boston Red Sox organization. Ryan Prager, man, our left-handed gym. Uh, he's with the Hill City Howlers. That's also Cleveland Guardians. And his last outing was six and two-thirds with nine K's. Like I said, man, I think Detmer got nine K's and somebody else did. I mean, that's pretty good, man. That's pretty good. That's that's the old Ryan Prager we know, right? Uh, Christian Roa looks like he's kind of bounced around a little bit. He's kind of been a free agent. He's been to different places. Uh, he's got a couple big league innings this year. He's with the Sugarland Space Cowboys. Sugarland Space Cowboys. Uh, that's the Houston Astros. Uh I mean, it's I guess I can I understand the space part. Uh Brad Rutis, he caught on with the Twins, the free agent signing. They are the Fort Myers mighty muscles, not these muscles, ones in the water, ones in the ocean. Uh, he's got an inning pitch, one hit, one K. So good to see he caught on. Mentioned earlier, Shane Sedeo. He um was in that Florida complex league with the Mets, and so he's had enough innings. Arms good. They're gonna wait till spring training. Braden Shoot Make, a lot of you guys may know. He's kind of bounced around a little bit, but then he caught on with the Astros. So uh I think I think he went like Milwaukee, uh Houston, Milwaukee, Houston. So there's a bunch of different kind of transactions that he's gone through this year. I think he had a home run off Otani, if I remember correctly, this year. Uh right now he's three for 14, 158. So probably just still trying to get his legs underneath him. Uh Caden Sorrell, like I said, I watched him on that that MILBTV.com, that streaming service. So you can go check him out there. Um he is in, you know, Chicago, Myrtle Beach Pelicans. That I mean, that sounds kind of legit, right? Uh he's 7 for 22, 318, one home run. So he doesn't have a lot of at bats either, but you know, putting the ball in play and doing doing some good things. Stanley Tucker, there's a name from the past, right? He's with the Boston Red Sox, Greenville Drive, high A. That's their high A team. Greenville Drive. Uh he's hitting 266 over the course of the season with different groups, seven home runs, but he's got 28 bags, man. 28 stolen bases. So that's got to open up some eyes somewhere. Uh Trevor Werner, he's with the Kansas City Royals, uh, Quad Cities River, you know, third baseman, first baseman, outfielder. It you know, he's hitting around 215. He's got seven home runs, but also mentions that he's on the development list. And I wasn't really sure what that was because I I don't know if it was around when we were there, but it's kind of interesting. So I looked it up and it says it's a roster designation that allows healthy players to temporarily step away from active game lineups to focus on maybe uh mechanical adjustments or workload management if they're playing too much, or maybe they have a little small injury, they need a little time to get over it. Maybe it's not seven days, so it's not a timeline thing like the 15-day IL, 60-day IL. It's just time to, you know, kind of maybe reset or something like that. I don't I don't know his reason for it. Sneaky suspicion, they may like him as a pitcher because you could see his arm. I mean, golly, he throws bullets across the line from I mean, across the field from third base. So I think it'd be, you know, pretty, pretty cool to have him pitch. I don't know. I just think he's got a he's got a rocket arm. Caden Wilson, bummer, another guy injured for the full season with the Miami Marlins. So I don't know, man. It's just a lot of injuries on these guys, but you know, it's it's been a lot of uh it's been a lot of fun following them. And I think you guys just you need to go check out that that channel and and it catches up, you know, catches you up with the guys. You can see uh how they're doing, just different teams. And one thing you'll notice is there's not a lot of people in the stands. I mean, it's an adjustment to the minor league game. It really is because now you're playing every day. You're not just playing Tuesday and Friday, Saturday, Sunday. You know, they they get Mondays off in the minor leagues. We may have always done that, I'm not sure. But um, those are their days off. They travel and they play. They travel, they play. There's no days off except for that Monday. And uh that's if you ever watch Bull Durham, you know, that's why they love those rainouts and they try and soak the field themselves so they can get a day off and recover. But it it's not the same as playing at Bluebell Park. I mean, I'm sure the guys will be the first ones to tell you. You look in the stands, they're not full, you know, there's no ball five chant. Um, it's just a it's just a different game, and it's a it's a it's a different different way of having to try and get used to it not being as loud. How do you pump yourself up? Because, you know, the Bluebell Park crowd, I mean, they can pump you up, right? And they can get your juices flowing. And I mean, people talk, you know, all the players talk about it in the stands, but it's totally different. And now the fields are better. I don't know what the clubhouses are like. I'm sure they're sure they're really nice. Uh, they weren't that nice when I played. We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches between doubleheaders. I don't know, they may have shrimp now, but uh I it's just a different situation, whether it's you know the minor leagues now or the minor leagues then. It's just it's different than college. And as the more that I watch, I agree with the guys. I I'm watching some of this A ball stuff, and I agree with the guys that come back and say SEC is comparable to double A. Because I don't know if you're seeing the arms in A ball that you saw in the SEC. Um you know, I mean, SEC was tough, and I feel it's weird because I feel like our guys were so in tune and so sharp against tough pitching. And now, yes, you do have tough pitchers in A ball. Don't get me wrong, they have you know good pitchers there, but as a whole, I mean it's almost like you got to kind of change your thinking of how do I hit this guy that's not SEC? But then you got to flip it back to maybe double A when this guy's gonna be SEC. SCC type caliber player and make those adjustments. So to me, baseball is uh hitting is all about adjustments and being able to adjust to where you're playing, uh, you know, the elements, the rain, the cold, wherever it is. Some fields are good, some fields are bad. They're, I mean, I would say probably the college fields are probably better than the A-ball fields. Maybe not. I mean, they play in good stadiums now, but and you know, the the Florida Florida League and the Arizona League, those complex leagues, when you go over there and play, I mean, they're the minor league. I mean, I'm sorry, they're the they're the spring training fields, so they're probably in good shape too, but it's just different. And uh it's just it's it it is, and so it's tough for these these guys to get going. And you know, and on another thing on that is I get asked about the the batting averages and players now and then, and you know, how can a guy be in the big leagues hitting 215, but he's got 30 bombs? I mean, that's the name of the game, it's 30 bombs, right? So batting average is kind of taking a back back seat. So if you see somebody like let's I mean, Jace, for example, 238, still pretty good for a power hitter, be great in the big leagues, and he's got 19 jacks. That's the main thing that they're looking for is the power, the production, um, on base percentage, and how are you are you producing runs, right? And when you look at batting average, it really wasn't a good judge according to the teams now, because if you walked, you got on base, but there was no credit for that in your batting average. It wasn't like it jumped you five points for a walk or something like that. So that's why they've kind of made the change to where strikeouts don't really matter. It's just let's get on base. And you could strike out two times and get on two times, you know, you're on base half the time. It's pretty good, right? So that's kind of where everything's been going. And I I I don't mind it, but I appreciate what we did back in the day because, like Tony Gwynn used to say, we had to be surgical, and I like that, you know, because you think about this. I had to Greg Maddox, who is the master of throwing pitches all over the place, master of movement, he would throw balls that would start down the middle and break to the outside part of the plate, or start it on the outside part of the plate against me, left-hander, and break it to off the plate. And the difference is now with the ABS system, you really get to know the strike zone. If you look back at some of these old tapes that I've put on the YouTube channel, and the umpires, they call these balls, they were this far off the plate. I mean, they the umpiring wasn't that great. And uh it's just it got in a situation where now it's shrunk and it's kind of the real strike zone. But back then we still had to hit it, no matter what. No matter what they called, we still had to hit it and figure it out. So if Maddox was throwing me one and I saw and I was started my swing, and I'm like, I'm gonna take this ball up the middle, and then right as it gets to me, I start to see it kind of tail to the right, down in a way. I have to adjust my swing plane, change my bat path in the middle of the swing. So as I'm starting, it's an adjustment in that swing. So that's kind of how we had to do it. Plus, they would call those pitches off the plate, so you had to be able to hit them. Now it's basically turn and burn, which is okay. I mean, people, you know, back in the day, I think Greg Maddox and Tom Glavin had a commercial that said chicks dig the long ball about Mark McGuire and Sosa when they were doing their thing. I just I just think it's uh that's where the game's gone. I would like to see a little more situational hitting, some guys bunt and just you know play the game of baseball, but we're in this metrics world right now, and that's where it is. So those of you that are wondering about the batting averages, it they don't matter because the guy hit 300. I think they had one or two, 300 hitters last year. And back in our day, we probably had 100, maybe 150, and some around 299. But if you just you know put them all together, you know, it's about production, and that's what it's that's what it's about, you know, this exit velocity and stuff like that. And and uh, I mean, is it good for the game? Of course it is. I mean, chicks dig the long ball, man. People love the long ball, and you know, they love to see home runs. So, you know, guys are bigger and stronger, their pitching's gotten better um than what you know. We faced some really good pitchers, don't get me wrong. Man, we had some tacticians like Greg Maddox, and then you had the hard throwers like Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan and Mark Wollers, and just you know, the list goes on, and they're hard throwing guys. A lot of the hard throwing guys weren't starters, they usually came out of the bullpen, but they could bring it, and so now you're seeing starters. I mean, so from the get-go, you got to be ready to turn and burn on those fastballs. But I don't know, it's it's changed. I don't mind it. I think it's it's good for the game. If it goes back to, you know, guys hitting the ball, flipping the ball to left field. And I was a flipper, I was a power hitter in college, but then I had to learn how to hit that that sinker away that it was gonna be called a strike. So I had to figure it out, and it was an adjustment because then you think about it. Now I I do that the whole game, and now I face a closer who's throwing 99 miles an hour or whatever, it's turn and burn. So I got to know how to do both, right? And so it's just constant adjustments, and that's what I liked about it. So anyway, uh I hope you've enjoyed it. Hope I didn't get too long-winded. Go check out the Ball Five Clubhouse YouTube channel, and you'll get to watch Emily, you know, give me the business about some things and probably enjoy it. And and I know she enjoys it too. So go check it out. Anyway, all right, that's it. Thanks for listening. Until next time.