Jay Blue: Who's hot and who's not on the Buffalo Bisons?
Jacob Waguespack has been the best starting pitcher for the triple-A Buffalo Bisons this season. Photo: Jay Blue
April 25, 2019
By Jay Blue
Blue Jays from Away
With Montreal-born Vladimir Guerrero Jr's call up to the major leagues, we'll call that a signal that we're through the first part of the minor league season, as we come to the end of April. We're going to take a look at who's hot and who's not and look at some of the performances that pop out when we look at small sample sizes.
Who's Hot
Cavan Biggio - Biggio is hitting a whopping .415/.500/.642 after his 3/5 performance that included a home run and a walk in Wednesday's game.
Jacob Waguespack - Wags is pitching really well in Buffalo with a 3.54 ERA and 1.28 WHIP over 20 1/3 innings. He's struck out 23 batters and is keeping the ball on the ground pretty well. This is important because, as J.J. Cooper has reported, home runs are way up in triple-A since they adopted the major league baseball before this year started.
Dusty Isaacs - Isaacs hasn't given up a run in 11 2/3 innings, striking out 16 and walking only two with four hits against, giving him a 0.51 WHIP to go with his 0.00 ERA.
Who's Not
Anthony Alford - Alford has been struggling to start the season, hitting just .143 with a double, a triple and two home runs in 56 at bats. He also has 24 strikeouts, giving him a 39.3% strikeout rate. That's just rough. Was it the yanking around that he had when the Jays brought him to Toronto to play one game? Is he struggling with a let down after heading back to the minors? Have pitchers figured him out? We'll need a larger sample size to know for sure.
Jordan Patterson - Patterson was acquired at the end of spring training to give the Jays a little more depth in the outfield and after hitting 26 home runs in each of the past two years in triple-A Albuquerque, he's off to an ice cold start in the more-pitcher-friendly International League with a .167/.216/.313 slash line and just one home run in 13 games.
Danny Young - Young, a side-arming lefty, has gotten into five games and has given up six runs walking six and striking out six. He's got a 12.46 ERA and a 2.54 WHIP and he'll need to pitch better to help the Bisons.
Shawn Morimando - While the club was high on Morimando after he came to the club last year, he hasn't pitched particularly well since 2019 started. He's got the highest ERA on the team (13.03) and has given up 14 runs in 9 2/3 innings and has been relegated to the bullpen after starting three games to start the year. One the bright side, he's struck out 13 batters in 9 2/3 innings and has five walks meaning that the problem isn't finding the strike zone, it's probably getting too much of it.
Sean Reid-Foley - SRF has been hurt by bad innings and lack of command despite having big league stuff. He's got 15 walks in 15 innings with 22 strikeouts but has also allowed 20 runs for a 12.00 ERA. Reid-Foley has known struggle before. The question is whether or not he can find the form that had him dominant in the minors last year.
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