2006 NSBB Minor League Player of the Year

There are several players who have put up great '06 seasons. I narrowed my choice to Gallagher and Veal, both of whom have been exceptional this year and both of whom are excellent choices. I'm choosing Gallagher based on the following:

--he's continued to post silly numbers as he continues to rise through the system;

--he posts those numbers in advanced leagues in which he's among the youngest players if not the youngest player;

--he continues to trounce expectations and projections, which is amusing (at least to me); and

--a couple of other observations. :)

By The Numbers

Yr   Team     Level   IPs    ERA   WHIP   K - BB     OpAvg/OpOBP/OpSlg..OpOPS  
'05  Peoria   low-A   146    2.71  1.11   139 - 55   .206 /.297 /.317 ...615
'06  Daytona  hi-A     78.1  2.30  1.23    80 - 21   .259 /.318 /.341 ...659
'06  WestTen    AA     73.2  2.44  1.51    74 - 50   .234 /.356 /.303 ...658   

Rewind: Gallagher steamrolled the Midwest League last season at age 19. He started out the season with the 40.1-inning scoreless streak, which established the new team record but fell 4 outs short of the all-time league record; he no-hit the opposing team twice (lifted after 6 innings each time due to strict pitch counts -- the first became a 10-inning combined no-hitter with Walt Nolan & Jon Hutton; he finished tied for the league lead in wins and second in ERA among qualifiers. He was named the Cubs minor league pitcher of the year. It was an impressive first full season.

He followed up that season with another strong start in the Florida State League at age 20. He improved his K/BB ratio; he was equally brutal on RHBs and LHBs; and upon his June promotion to the Southern League, he was briefly the youngest pitcher in that league.

Gallagher won't qualify for the leaderboard in either the Southern League or the Florida State League due to the IP requirements, but the links will bring you to the respective leaderboards and show you how he compares. And he compares very well. A few other pitchers are in the same boat due to mid-season promotions -- like Homer Bailey and Yovani Gallardo.

The one concern since his promotion to AA has been the spike in his BB rate. This is primarily due to a spike in the BB rate to LHBs, who account for half of the BBs. He's never shown such a strong RHB/LHB split before this recent promotion:

Yr    Team     vs RHBs            vs LHBs
05    Peoria   .200/.275/.295     .213/.326/.338
06    Daytona  .250/.318/.320     .264/.302/.363
06    WestTenn .196/.302/.281     .287/.426/.343

Perhaps this indicates that he might need to break the slider back out of retirement. I haven't seen him pitch this season, but I have listened to most of the game broadcasts and he is throwing the changeup frequently for strikes during games now. It sounds from broadcaster descriptions like it's still under development but progressing nicely. The fact that his splits haven't been extreme in the past leads me to think that it's just another adjustment that needs to be made.

What's interesting to me is that he's been able to compensate for the BB spike by pulling a Z -- he's been absolutely brutal on RHBs and hasn't allowed hitters to hit their way on base. He's allowed 15 extra-base hits -- 13 doubles and 2 HRs, both solo -- in 73.2 innings. What is NOT to love about that oppo slugging %?

How is he adjusting to West Tennessee? He was promoted in mid-June. Here's a breakdown by month

(AA-only for June):

Month   IPs    hits/9   k/9    bb/9 
June    16.2   9.8      8.1    7.0  
July    35     7.7      8.7    5.9
Aug     22     5.3     10.2    5.7

So far in August:

4GS, 22IPs, 0.82 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 25K/14BB, .169 / .297 / .234 ... .530 OPS

That's awesome. He seemed to hit a wall for awhile last season at about the same time he was promoted to AA this season. He's turned on the after-burners over the last few starts, though.

The final decision for me came down to Gallagher and Veal. Here's a comparison. There's a lot to like about each. The difference to me came down to Gallagher being younger and putting up the stats at a higher level. Veal's stats from Milb.com (I'm getting error messages at minorleaguesplits.com for now).

Player       Yr  Team     Age  IPs    ERA   WHIP   K/BB     
Gallagher    05  Peoria   19   146    2.71  1.11   139/55
Veal         06  Peoria   21    73.2  2.69  1.16    86/40
Gallagher    06  Daytona  20    78.1  2.30  1.23    80/21
Veal         06  Daytona  21    69.1  1.82  1.13    67/36

Another slice at the Daytona '06 Numbers:

Player      IPs    hits/9   k/9    bb/9 
Gallagher   78.1   8.6      9.2    2.4  
Veal        63.2   5.5      8.7    4.7

Veal has been harder to hit in Daytona; Gallagher K'd more and walked fewer. Pick your poison.

But if you're concerned about those BB numbers in AA, consider that Gallagher was walking fewer than Veal in high-A.

By Age

I can pretty much just hit the refresh button from last year.

Gallagher is 20 years old (12-30-1985). He's the 3rd youngest pitcher in the Southern League,behind Homer Bailey (05-03-1986) and Yovani Gallardo (02-27-1986). That's pretty good company.

When Sean was promoted to the Southern League, he was briefly the youngest SL pitcher. He was promoted a week before Bailey & Gallardo, both of whom were also pitching in the FSL.

With a handful of games left in the SL, two shortstops have been promoted to the SL in August -- Reid Brignac (01-16-1986) (former SWM Devil Ray) and Jodam Rivera (02-04-1986) -- so Gallagher is now the 5th youngest player overall in the Southern League.

He's the youngest Cubs pitcher above Peoria; he has been the youngest pitcher to play continuously in full-season ball this season. Fabien Jimenez's (08/27/86) recent promotion to Peoria now makes him the youngest pitcher on a full-season team roster. Gallagher is the second youngest Cubs player above Peoria; Jonathan Mota (06-01-1987) in Daytona is the youngest.

To put this in perspective: if, instead of pitching in AA ball, Sean was pitching for the Boise Hawks, he'd be the 3rd youngest pitcher on that staff behind Mark Pawelek (08/18/86) and Jake Renshaw (04/29/86).

(This is per MiLB rosters)

Expectations

Gallagher didn't make BA's Top Ten Cubs Prospect List from last November.

He did slip into BA's Top Twenty Midwest League Prospect list last September with a lukewarm review:

Gallagher was the hottest MWL pitcher at the start of the season, going 5-1, 0.75 in the first two months. He leveled off and went 6-3, 4.66 in the final two months, and observers weren't quite sure what to make of him. Everyone agreed that he had better command, savvy and mound presence than most pitchers his age, though they differed on the quality of his stuff.

 

Gallagher had the league's best curveball. While some thought it was an above-average pitch, others saw it as loopy and slurvy and thought it stood out only because he could locate it so well. His 88-90 mph fastball and his changeup are fringe-average pitches and may not get much better because he doesn't have a very projectable frame at 6-foot-1 and 210 pounds.

They asked him about that loopy curve in an interview they did right around the time he was promoted to AA:

BA: The fastball aside, managers in the Midwest League rated your curveball as the best in that league last year. We've gotten varied reports on what kind of pitch it really is, so what is your overall assessment of that pitch at this point?

 

SG: Well, that's probably because I throw two different kinds. One is a loopy curve that I know I can get over for a strike when I need to. And it's not bad loopy, it's something that has been keeping hitters a little off balance, which is always good. The other one is a hard snapper I'll throw when I'm 0-1 or 0-2 in the count. My confidence in both of them is definitely there, but I really had a lot of trouble with it early on. I was using a slider a lot late in the season last year, and I tried to bring it back again this season. But when I started throwing the slider, I started to lose my feel for my curveball. I made the decision to scrap it completely and two starts later my curveball was all the way back to where it was before.

 

It's just been over the last couple starts that I've brought the slider back a little bit. I'll just drop it in there every now and then to get in a hitter's head.

Basically, the rap on Sean was that he was able to be successful in Peoria because

--low-A hitter have a tough time with breaking pitches

--he could throw strikes

--he knew how to pitch (see above)

but that he would get pounded as he moved up through the system.

There's been a lot of discussion about his increase in velocity on his fastball, which he attributes to better mechanics as well as some off-season workouts. That's definitely a factor here and BA has highlighted that.

A year ago it may have been difficult to find anyone who would assert that Gallagher would actually get more unhittable as he advanced, and that the one nitpick with him in AA would be the BBs.

As BA said, he continues to live the good life. :)

Other Stuff

An aside -- Sean picked up a win vs Mobile on August 15 which gave him his 25th pro win with the Cubs. He's 26-10 overall.

Gallagher secured his spot in the Peoria rotation by showing up at spring training in '05 after having worked out like a maniac in the off-season and then by pitching very well in spring training. He did the same thing this past off-season and once again showed up in AZ ready to pitch. I wish that some major league ballplayers who make millions could show the same commitment. There are a lot of really great guys who don't have the talent to succeed in baseball. That doesn't mean you can't appreciate someone with talent who stays dedicated to the goal.

Finally, I've got to wonder what a minor league pitcher needs to do win this if he can't win it. No-hitters, ERA Title Contention, WHIP / K / BB / Opponent Avg etc ratios and age relative to performance and league landed him in 2nd place last season.

BA gives their own awards out. This should be NSBB's award. It's probably the last year Sean will be eligible, since he'll hopefully be pitching at Wrigley at some point next season.

And hopefully he'll just keep on kicking butt. :)