Good read on Corbin Martin: Drew French, the Pitching Coach for Buies Creek, was effusive in his praise for Martin, "He was the John Wayne of our staff when in Buies Creek. His mentality and ability to compete pitch in and pitch out really stood out. He has three plus off-speed pitches that he can throw to either bat side. The curveball was really improving during the short time he was here, being able to land it in zone and expand with two strikes. His changeup is a great weak contact pitch that he can locate down and started to become a two-strike weapon before his promotion. His slider is a wipeout pitch that got a ton of swing and miss. He started getting more comfortable hitting with it early in the count and then going to a better location with two strikes. He has options for sure when it comes to his offspeed. It is no surprise that he is continuing to put his game together and flourishing in AA." .... Corpus Christi Pitching Coach Bill Murphy appreciates Martin's progress, "Corbin has been a pleasure to work with this year. Its been exciting to watch his development from last year to this year. He's just working on consistency of his curveball and slider with his daily work. He has taken some great strides in this area throughout the season. He's a great human being who I look forward to seeing continued growth from." https://whattheheckbobby.blogspot.com/2018/07/getting-to-know-astroshooks-rhp-corbin.html
The dip in his K% since his promotion to CC has been a little disappointing but hopefully that will come around as he gains experience at that level. He also looks to be pretty skilled at inducing GBs, something he has sustained in Corpus.
Yeah, he's still a long shot to ever making the show, but that kind of arm strength makes him interesting enough. If he ends up being James Hoyt or something, that's still a win considering they probably signed him for like $10k.
Final line 7IP 3H 1R 1ER 1BB 13K, with the walk, one of the hits and the run coming in his final inning. His last 3 games: 16 IP 11H 3R 2ER 1BB 27Ks. Looks like he's turning a corner after a so-so start to his high-A career.
LHP Javier Navas was released. He had been on the GCL roster. Decent sized bonus DSL guy from a few years ago. The short season teams seem to be really short on left-handed pitching. Jonathan Bermudez was the only LHP they drafted this year.
As stated before I work at a driver license office. The first customer I helped this morning was this tall young cuban guy. In order for him to be one of the first to be seen he had to have been waiting in line since 6:00am. He had on baseball pants. He mentioned something about sleeping in his car. He had all the right documents and was able to get his Florida driver license switched over to Texas. I wanted to ask him more about sleeping in his car, but I don't know but so much Spanish and he didn't know much english. He said he was in Houston for a try out with the Astros on the 25th. He said he played catcher. I didn't know they had catchers that tall. The guy was 6'5". I mentioned Yuli Gurriel and he smiled and gave me thumbs up. He said he was good friends with Yuli and with his brother as well. As we were ending the transaction I wished him buena suerte. We shook hands and he left. I had his name, but I've since forgotten it. I hope everything goes well for this guy.
Is the DSL considered 'complex league?' If so, I need to recalibrate the definition I have been working with.
DSL is in the Dominican ("Summer League"). "Complex League" is in Florida at the Spring Training facilities, typically the guys they want to keep working out with supervision but don't want to send to an actual team, also the usual first step once they leave the island as teenagers and/or HS draftees.
