Best at Both Keeping Ball in Park and Limiting Free Passes? Ray Medrano Ranks High

[MikeB]

How impressive was Ray Medrano’s rookie season? When it comes to pitchers with the best ratios for walk and home runs per nine innings in 2031, the San Juan hurler was the only one who appears in the top five on both lists.

Medrano went 3-0, 1.44, in the regular season and then went 3-1 with two saves in the postseason, taking over closer duties in the Imperial League Championship Series. The 6’2” 26-year old has one of the best curves in the game to go with a deceptive fastball, effective at just 94 mph because he can hit the corners.

Home Runs Per Nine Innings Pitched

Player IP HR HR/9
Juan Castro, Madison 73.2 1 0.1
Alec Jordan, Bakersfield 50.1 1 0.2
Ray Medrano, San Juan 75 2 0.2
Warren Manning, San Antonio 70.2 2 0.2
Randy Zimmerman, Florida 69.1 1 0.3
Eric Elliot, Amsterdam 109.2 4 0.3
Enrique Vázquez, West Virginia 208 8 0.3

To single out the top HR/9 pitchers, the filter is set at 50 innings or more. If you include players with less than than that you get outliers like Jorge Luna, who allowed just one home run in 42.2 innings (0.2) but is 1.1 over his seven-year career. There is Anthony Cain, who also allowed just one in 42.3 IP but his rookie season ended in June with a torn UCL so he’s not a good baseline either. Scouts are less convinced on his ability there and the same can be said for Jin-hyun Park, one home run in 38 IP.

Setting the baseline at 50 innings pitched with Alec Jordan (1 HR allowed) gets us into guys who are more proven in the category. Jordan didn’t allow a homer at all in his rookie season (47.1 IP) and scouts believe that will be a mainstay for him.

With that determination, Juan Castro tops the list. Castro was a 34-year old rookie last year who had spent his entire career in the Mexican Leagues. While it is difficult to compare, Castro has had similar, though not quite as good, home run numbers before.

Jordan and Medrano tie for second at 0.2. Medrano actually would lead the PEBA among pitchers who threw 75 innings or more. Jordan is tough to hit in general, opponents .173 batting average being third worst against all PEBA pitchers.

Warren Manning and Randy Zimmerman follow at 0.3 with just two home runs allowed. After being prone to the long ball over five seasons as a starter, Manning turned his career around in relief last year. Meanwhile, Zimmerman, who broke in as a 22-year old in 2026, has seen his e.r.a. drop in the 2.20s the last two years as hitters have taken him deep less.

Eric Elliot and Enrique Vázquez, who round out the 0.3s, set the pace for starters. Elliot has been up-and-down over six seasons, movement on his pitches saving his poor control, whereas Vázquez’s movement is merely another component in a Hall of Fame-calibre arm.

Accolades should go to Havana’s Ryobi Kobayashi was the only pitcher with more than 30 innings pitched to not allow a home run last season. Kobayashi is a 33-year old with just 55 IP in the PEBA but seems to throw better in his short stints in the majors than any other levels since SA ball.

Walks per Nine Innings Pitched

Cutting this to pitchers who have thrown at least 11 innings (in fact no one between 11 and 74 innings makes the cut anyway), Medrano also qualifies as one of the top five control pitchers in the league in 2031.

Player IP BB BB/9
Dean McNeil, Crystal Lake 207 14 0.6
Jorge Medina, New Orleans 213 17 0.7
Dylan Mcintosh, Toyoma 206.2 18 0.8
Matt Brown, Hartford 76.1 7 0.8
Ray Medrano, San Juan 75 7 0.8
Kyoichi Gato, Amsterdam 177.2 17 0.9

Dean McNeil, coming off back-to-back 18-win seasons heads the list at 0.6. McNeil, who always had good control, around age 29 became elite.

Rocky Medina, next at 0.7, is a top of the rotation starter although considering he also has kept the ball in the park pretty well (0.5 HR/9) it hasn’t translated into wins quite as much, just 50 over his four full seasons.

Dylan Mcintosh, the first of three at 0.8, is a solid workhorse type, whose overall numbers improved dramatically when Toyama improved.

Closer Matt Brown can make a case to having both the best fastball and knuckle curve in the game but Zippy also has managed to improve his control steadily over his seven seasons, culminating in a league leading 45-save performance last year and a 0.94 e.r.a.

When it comes to Medrano, while his two home runs in 75 innings were not out of character for him – he allowed just two in 83 in AAA last year – to find a comparable year for his seven walks you have to go back to when he was a junior at the Univ. of Minnesota (seven in 67.1 innings). And, largely as a result, his e.r.a. was his lowest since A-ball (1.16).

“That’s the kind of rookie performance you dream happening,” said San Juan General Manager Mike Best.

There had been concerns in San Juan since his 2030 call-up couldn’t have gone worse. He was rocked for seven home runs in 14 innings and got himself in trouble with walks as well. As the nervousness settled down, though, the major league numbers dropped to what he looked like in the minors and what people expected of him as the #11 pick. The concerns weren’t unfounded since Medrano had struggled in AA for half a season.

Kyoichi Gato rounds out the list of those who averaged less than one walk over a full game. He broke out as a 29-year old last season going 14-8, 2.53. Control has never been his issue though. Long a rising prospect, he got rocked hard as a rookie in 2029 and then failed to adjust well to a relief role last season, his only experience in the pen as a pro.

As for Medrano’s future, Best says, “Our next hope for him is to get the strikeouts up. Every level of the minors, his strikeout ratios went up dramatically his second year.”

Medrano only whiffed batters at a 6.7 K/9 pace last year but at A ball he went from 5.5 to 10.7, AA from 5.2 to 10.7 and AAA from 7.2 to 11.4, although he was initially used as a starter at those levels.

[Leones]

An interesting read. Medrano really broke out in 2031. He looks like an asset for a very good San Juan club.

[Denny]

Those Lucky Rodent alums always come up aces!