Haseley Debuts in Baseballtown

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Last night’s mission took me to Reading as the Phillies took on Baltimore’s affiliate from Bowie. The misson: Adam Haseley’s debut in AA. While Haseley was the headliner, a couple of other recent promotions were of interest as well in first basemen Austin Listi and Darick Hall. The position players were the one’s I was watching the most last night, so with Tyler Viza on the mound for Reading, it gave me the opportunity to capture video of the open side of the left-handed hitters (Haseley, Hall, Cornelius Randolph). While Reading held a 5-1 lead entering the 9th, Jeff Singer and Luke Leftwich could not hold on and allowed six runs, five of them coming with two outs, en route to a tough 7-5 loss for the home team. So what caught my eye Thursday in Baseballtown?

  • Adam Haseley – The eighth overall pick in last year’s draft did not have an eye-popping start to the 2018 season in Clearwater, but it’s been an impressive 6-8 weeks stretch. Through May 8th, Haseley was hitting at a .250/.262/.339 clip (126 PA). He managed only eight extra-base hits (one home run) and he walked just twice (1.6%). The one thing that was somewhat encouraging was that he wasn’t striking out at an absorbent rate (19% K). On May 9th, he would begin a 33 game on-base streak and has been rolling ever since. Since the start of that streak leading up to his promotion this week, Haseley put up a .330/.388/.461 line with 15 extra base hits (four home runs), a 7.5% BB and 13.2% K. In his debut, Haseley faced the Bowie lefty Brian Gonzalez in all four of his trips to the plate. In his first at-bat, Haseley appeared to have checked his swing but would be called out on the appeal. In his second at-bat, he took a 1-1 pitch down the middle and lined it into rightfield for his first AA knock. In the 5th inning, Haseley got a 1-1 fastball down the chute and drove the ball to the leftfield track. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing in straight from RF and made the ball tail and die about two feet short of the wall. He might have had extra bases, maybe a home run off that hit. In his last at-bat he ended up getting jammed and broke his bat on a groundout to 2B. Haseley’s approach and swing suggest big league regular, but he has to tap into more power. Right now he goes evenly to pull and opposite field. But if he’s going to tap into more power, he’s going to have to pull the ball a bit more. Fly balls are occuring more this year (33.2%), but most of them are to the opposite field. Part of me wonders if he should try to narrow his stance a bit to get a better load with the leg lift. He’s got a quick bat and that’s good, but the stance limits his power.  It’s partly why I think he’ll be more in the 15-18 home run range, instead of the 20-25 per year Johnny Almaraz suggested following the selection (Of course as I was writing, Haseley hits two home runs in his first two at-bats Friday night). All in all, I still see a regular corner outfielder who can hit in the .280-.290 with a .450-.460 slugging percentage and a low strikeout rate.
  • Darick Hall – Hall probably had the best individual performance at the plate by either team last night, going 3/4 with a solo home run and two RBI. The home run he hit to leadoff the 6th was his tenth in 36 games at AA and 21st overall on the season. Hall has has put up some big power numbers since being drafted in the 14th round in 2016. In 262 games he has slugged 59 home runs. While his walk and strikeout numbers aren’t horrendous during his career (6.3% BB, 22.7% K), he has been facing a lot of pitchers younger than him up until this point. And going back to last year, he struggled to get to any low off-speed pitch and laying off it. On Thursday, he did not have much of a problem with the lefty Brian Gonzalez, who didn’t show anything special.  Hall is a big bodied individual (6’4″, 236 lb) and will likely be limited to first base defensively and likely would have to be a DH to have some sort of potential big league career. But really I see a career minor leaguer.
  • Austin Bossart – Bossart has essentially played the backup role since being selected in the 14th round in 2015 out of Penn. Even though he’s in a limited role, he sure hasn’t been playing like a backup this season. In 132 plate appearances, Bossart has hit a crisp .306/.344/.540 with seven home runs and a 7/23 BB/K. Last night he cleared the bases on a double in to the left-center gap in the 2nd inning, and didn’t do much else at the plate after that. Now Bossart doesn’t really walk much (3.9% career) but he doesn’t whiff a big amount either (16.2%). His home/road splits show equal power in about the same amount of at-bats (.537/.544), but I can’t imagine he is anything more than him having below average power. What’s impressive about him is his defense behind the plate. In the 6th, he ended the inning throwing an absolute strike to Canelo’s glove, which was perfectly placed low and in front of the bag, to nab the runner and end the inning. In the 8th, he tracked down a spiraling foul ball by the Bowie dugout, showing good athleticism. Bossart maybe nothing more than a backup catcher, but he’s left quite an impression on me with his level of play behind the plate and his knack for coming through in big situations this season.