Jake Reed - 2015

[Guest]

Jake Reed  (Jacob Hubert Reed)
Age: 22
Born: September 29, 1992 in LaMesa, CA
Height: 6’- 2”
Weight: 190 lbs

Right-handed relief pitcher with a mid-90s fastball, a strong slider, and a changeup that is a work in progress.

 

Jake was selected by the Twins in the 5th Round of the 2014 draft out of the University of Oregon, after a junior season where he transitioned from starter to relief pitcher and went 4-1 with 13 saves and a 1.95 ERA in 31 appearances.  He received a $350,000 signing bonus.

 

Jake’s 2014 was simply impressive.  After the solid spring season at Oregon, he began his professional career with Elizabethton, where he quickly earned a promotion after demonstrating he was no match for rookie league competition.  In 6 innings of work, Jake had 3 saves, 8 Ks, gave up one hit, but no walks and no earned runs.  His success continued with 25 strong innings at Cedar Rapids (3-0, with a 0.36 ERA, 31Ks, only 3 BBs, and a .116 opponents AVG).  It is pretty rare that a club drafts a player in June and then like enough of what they see to invite him to the Arizona Fall League, but that is exactly what happened with Jake.  Even up against the minor leagues’ top prospects he faired pretty well, earning Pitcher of the Week for the league’s opening week.  All told, he pitched 12 2/3 fall innings (0.71 ERA) with 10 strikeouts and 3 walks.

 

The Twins’ confidence in Jake Reed was further evident in the fact that he skipped directly from low A to AA Chattanooga to start the 2015 campaign.  He is projected to continue moving quickly through the system, though he will need to be added to the 40-man roster before debuting with Minnesota.

[Guest]

Jake Reed has struggled early for the Lookouts.  His gotten hit pretty good in his first week of AA.  In his last three appearances, he's thrown 3 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, and has allowed a couple of inherited runners to score as well.  Doesn't appear to be having control issues - just one walk and a 2:1 strike-to-ball ratio.  But opposing batters hit nearly .400 against him this week.  

 

Go Jake!  Here's to hoping he can make the adjustments necessary to get back to dominating everyone.

[Shane Wahl]

Been almost 6 weeks, so here is an update:

 

20 IP, 4.05 ERA, 22 K, five walks, 1.350 WHIP.

 

Reed has been substantially better over the last few weeks and looks like he is back on track. No chance before September for a Twins call, though, in my view.

[Guest]

After struggling the first month at Chattanooga, Jake Reed has turned things around nicely.  Through his first ten innings of relief appearances (9 games), Jake had a 7.20 ERA, 1.9 WHIP, a .326 AVG against, and a blown save.  He was giving up many more fly balls than he had last season.  Despite those several rough outings, Jake was still striking out batters at a 9.9K/9 rate and getting the ball over the plate at a 2:1 ratio.  In his last ten innings (in 6 games since May 3rd), Jake has a 0.90 ERA, a 0.8 WHIP, a .194 AVG against, and converted his only save opportunity.  He has been getting more ground ball outs, has maintained a 9.9K/9 rate and has increased his strike percentage to 73%.

 

The trouble with relief pitchers is the very small sample size; we are still talking only 20 innings pitched.  However, there is reason to hope Jake has overcome his early-season scuffling, and has gotten back to owning his competition.

 

That said, I agree with Shane that Jake will not be a Minnesota Twin before rosters expand.  With the 40-man roster crunch coming this fall and the fact that Jake does not need to be added to be protected from the Rule 5 draft, I think it is highly unlikely he makes his debut in 2015.

[Guest]

Apparently the yesterday's praise functioned as a jinx.  Tonight, Jake could not throw the ball over.  46 pitches thrown, only 20 strikes.  He gave up 9 runs (5 earned), three singles, two doubles, and three walks, and had one hit batsman and a fielding error while only recording three outs.

[Guest]

Jake has made another six appearances with mostly solid results since struggling mightily on June 1st.  In these 7.2 IP, he gave up 3 ER (on his first two long balls of the season) but owned a 0.91 WHIP, a 8.2 K/9 and a .208 AVG against.

 

His season line: 3-2 with a 5.74 ERA in 28.2 IP, 29K, 10 walks, and a 1.46 WHIP.

[Guest]

Over the last month, Jake has only made six appearances with mixed results.  Over 10.1 IP, he gave up 8 runs (6 earned), had a 1.26 WHIP, a 5.2 K/9 and a .230 AVG against.  His season line now stands at 4-3 with a 5.31 ERA over 39 IP, with 35K, 14 BB, and a 1.41 WHIP.

 

He isn't exactly tearing it up in AA this year, as he did across a couple of levels last year.  However, a couple of rough nights notwithstanding, there has been steady improvement since a poor start in April. 

[goulik]

.230 average against is nice, so how is he giving up that many runs? Is he giving up a lot of xbase hits?

[Guest]

 

.230 average against is nice, so how is he giving up that many runs? Is he giving up a lot of xbase hits?

In 3 of those 10 innings pitched, he gave up 7 of the 8 runs, 2/3rds of his hits, 1/2 of his walks, and was victimized by two errors.  So, it's mostly to do with stringing the hits and walks together.  He hasn't given up very many extra base hits...only 1 2B that I saw in this past month.  He's only given up 2 HR all year. 

 

His AVG against is somewhere in the .215 range since June 5.

[Guest]

A week ago, Jake was demoted to Fort Myers.  The move was certainly warranted, as three of the last four appearances in Chattanooga were downright ugly.  In those 4.2 IP, opponents were suddenly hitting him well (.400), and Jake couldn't find the strike zone (6 walks, 2 games with a 40% strike rate) for a whopping 3.00 WHIP.  He was also only able to strike out one batter.  

 

Since being sent down, Jake has pitched 5 effective innings. 4 hits, 0 BB, 4K, and a .250 AVG against.  

 

It will be interesting to see whether his K/9 rate rebounds.  After hovering around 10K/9 well into June, he has missed far fewer bats the last two months.  During a nearly month-long stretch beginning in mid-July, Jake struck out only 3 batters in 12 IP across 9 appearances.  He struck out 3 in his last 2 inning appearance - hopefully an indication of breaking out of the funk.