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Farm Futures — Live from Surprise (3/21)

SURPRISE, AZ – On a day when top pitching prospects Michael Main, Martin Perez, Robbie Ross and Joe Wieland all pitched, it was the young man you are looking at right now who stole the show on the Surprise Stadium minor league fields.

There was nothing wrong with the performances that the more-heralded pitching prospects turned in today — each had more ups than downs (especially Wieland), and we’ll discuss all of them after the jump — but none were as dominant at Geuris Grullon.

You probably haven’t heard much — if anything — about the long, lean 19 year old lefty Grullon, but if today was even somewhat representative of what he’s capable of doing, you will most certainly be hearing a lot about him in the future.

Grullon came out to pitch the fifth in the Class-A Hickory game, inheriting a 6-0 lead, and unleashed a tailing fastball to get a first-pitch groundout. He came back to the second hitter with a hard-biting curve that induced a swinging first strike. The hitter caught just a piece of the second bender for a foul-ball strike two. He delivered a fastball high and tight for ball one and then froze the hitter with a late-breaking curve for a called strike three.

The third and final hitter Grullon faced was served a first-pitch fastball for strike one followed promptly by a curve for a called strike two. As he had done with the previous hitter, he wasted a fastball out of the zone on the 0-2 count and then came back with a fasball on the hands. The hitter managed to slap it right back at the mound where Grullon showed poise in fielding the ball cleanly and calmly tossing to first for the third out.

The whole half-inning took about six minutes.

Grullon’s 2008 numbers in the Arizona League suggest great stuff and poor control. He walked 17 in just 23.2 frames last year and uncorked five wild pitches (down from an unfathomable 17 plunks in 23 innings back in 2007). But he posted a solid 2.66 ERA, and held the opposition to a .216 batting average. He racked up an impressive 10.27 strikeouts per nine innings of work and induced 4.25 grounders for every one fly ball. High strikeout guys who have extreme ground ball tendencies are very, very rare.

Put Geuris Grullon squarely on your map.

Michael Main dominated the Rockies prospects with his fastball in the Advanced-A game, but struggled with his offspeed pitches. He worked a quick 1-2-3 first and started the second with a four-pitch strike out (all fastballs). He got the next hitter to line out to second in just two pitches (both fastballs). And then he faced two leftys in a row. That’s where the trouble started.

Main took the opportunity to work on his changeup (six in a row at one point), mixing in two curveballs (both of which possessed tremendous 12-6 break), but he simply could not command his change of pace and walked both of the southpaws. With those two on, he went back to his heater and dispensed with the next hitter on two fastballs, the second of which resulted in a weak popout to short.

Martin Perez blew the Rockies Class-A prospects away in the first as they couldn’t catch up to his lively fastball or his plus curve which he threw for strikes on three of four occasions.

But the best part of his perfect first was the fading changeup that ended the inning with a swing and a miss. If he can throw the change with that sort of action on a regular basis, it’s goodnight Irene.

The one knock on Perez’s 15-pitch first inning was that his fastball was up, but he got away with hit because the movement was so tremendous. In the second, there was clearly a plan to work low in the zone and Perez overcompensated, missing way low. He got the first batter of the second inning to ground out to second on the first pitch (another plus bender), but then he walked the next two while missing low much of the time. A sliver lining in this sequence was that the best pitch he threw to either of those two hitters was another fading change for a called strike.

You’ll never guess who drove over from the big league game to watch Joe Wieland pitch. A hint: he has seven MLB no-hitters and appears to have some sort of job with the Rangers. And it didn’t take long to see why Mr. Ryan is so taken with young Mr. Wieland: Wieland is a badass.

He loves to bust hitters way inside with his hard, heavy fastball. He backed one hitter off the plate by about five inches. And when they are starting to think about how bad it will hurt if he comes in any more, he works the outside corner (on one occasion with an excellent change). Wieland dropped a couple of promising curves with solid 11-5 shape as well, though he had trouble commanding that pitch.