White Sox Minor League Update: May 4, 2017

At the bottom of Thursday’s update, Larry posted an eyewitness account of Alec Hansen from Baseball Prospectus’ Jarrett Seidler. Hansen’s erratic performance at the University of Oklahoma looms over his profile, but the further he gets from it, the more he looks like a typical notable pitching prospect:

The worry here is, of course, command and repeatability. It would be an abstract worry even if Hansen had sailed through college into the low-minors, because he’s enormous and enormous pitchers tend to have problems finding and maintaining consistent mechanics. This all went completely sideways for Hansen during his junior year at Oklahoma; he walked 6.8 batters per nine and ended up back in the pen. It is an amazing testament to Hansen’s talent that he was still the 49th-overall pick given that, and a similar testament to both that talent and the strides he made after the draft that he also made our top 101. In my look at him, he repeated stable mechanics—albeit with some crossfire—showing a static release point and consistent arm speed. But that can come and go so quickly, with Hansen himself as a sterling example of the phenomenon. On command more broadly, Hansen had some of your typical A-ball pitcher issues. The fastball command got spottier as the game progressed. The breaking balls both didn’t always seem to end up placed right. Nothing out of the ordinary in terms of command, and given Hansen’s history that’s a pretty good thing.

Top prospects at a glance

• Yoan Moncada: 2-for-3.
• Michael Kopech: 6 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 1 HR, 2 HBP

Norfolk 10, Charlotte 5 (6¹⁄₂ innings, rain)

• Yoan Moncada went 2-for-3.
• Jacob May was 1-for-3 win his return to Charlotte.
• Nicky Delmonico, 1-for-3 with a double.
• Danny Hayes went 0-for-3.
• Adam Engel struck out in all three plate appearances.
• Tyler Danish: 5.2 IP, 7 H, 8 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 1 HR

Mississippi 3, Birmingham 0

• Eddy Alvarez went 3-for-4.
• The rest of the lineup went 0-for-26.
• Courtney Hawkins returned from the DL after striking out in eight consecutive at-bats. He went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts.
• Michael Kopech: 6 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 1 HR, 2 HBP

Kannapolis 5, Augusta 4 (6 innings, rain)

• Joel Booker went 0-for-2 with an HBP and a strikeout. He was caught stealing.
• Mitch Roman, 1-for-4 with two strikeouts.
• Micker Adolfo singled, struck out and was hit by a pitch.
• Yosmer Solorzano: 5.2 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 2 ER, 4 BB, 2 K

Winston-Salem at Salem PPD, rain