Sunday Notes: Jared Koenig Took a Meandering Route To Milwaukee

Jared Koenig’s path to big-league success was anything but smooth. The southpaw didn’t throw his first pitch in affiliated baseball until he was 27 years old, that coming in the Oakland Athletics organization after three seasons on the indie-ball circuit. And while he made his MLB debut the following year, he appeared in just 10 games, logging a 5.72 ERA and losing three of four decision. That was in 2022. Subsequently signed by San Diego, he put up nothing-special numbers in Triple-A and was cut loose by the Padres midway through the 2023 campaign.

The Brewers gave him another opportunity. Milwaukee inked the 6-foot-5 left-hander to a contract prior to last season, and they’re certainly glad they did. Working primarily out of the bullpen — he served as an opener on six occasions — Koenig made 55 appearances for the NL Central champs, putting up a 2.47 ERA and a 3.28 FIP over 62 frames. Moreover, he was credited with nine wins and one save. Seemingly out of the blue, he’d come into his own as a 30-year-old rookie.

How he go from relative obscurity to providing quality innings for a playoff team?

“A lot of stubbornness and perseverance,” Koenig told me toward the tail end of the regular season. “With support from the family, I was able to keep the dream alive; I was able to play while not making a lot of money in the indie-ball scene. The goal was always striving to get better, and I was able to do that.

“I met my trainer, Matt Rossignol, who runs Rossy’s Training in Scotts Valley [California],” continued Koenig. “My head coach with the San Rafael Pacifics — that was my third indie-ball team — Matt Kavanaugh, set me up with Matt in the winter of 2018. I’ve been training with him ever since.”

Koenig has gained velocity in recent years, and he’s also both tweaked and added to his arsenal. A “true cutter” has become a big pitch for him, as has a curveball — “the goal had been a sweeper” — that now gets more side-to-side movement. He considers his sinker his best pitch, even though “metrics-wise it’s not going to look all that great.” A changeup and sporadically-thrown four-seamer round out his repertoire.

Which brings us back to how he got his first shot at affiliated baseball. The story involves a team he never played for, a disappointing phone call, and toeing the rubber on another continent.

“I had a good year in 2018 with San Rafael, then signed with the Milwaukee Milkmen that winter,” Koenig said. “They traded me before spring training 2019, to the Lake Erie Crushers. I had another good year there, and was considering going to Australia or New Zealand to play in the ABL. One of my teammates was talking with D.J. Carrasco, who was the pitching coach for [the Auckland Tuatara], but he decided to go to a different ABL team. I said, ‘Hey, give me his contact information.’ I talked to him, and ended up going over.”

The break he’d been long been waiting for came while he was down under.

“A scout out there — he was an Aussie scout — saw me,” Koenig explained. “It was Dan Betreen, with the A’s. He told me, ‘Hey, I like you; I’m going to submit your name.’ I was like, ‘Cool, great.’ The next week, he called me back and said, ‘We don’t have room for you. Sorry.’ Two days later, I had another good outing and he called back to say, ‘Hey, we are going to sign you.’ The teams worked out the details, and I signed. Then COVID hit. Luckily, I’d signed a minor league deal, not a free agent deal, so I didn’t get axed.

“In 2021, I went to spring training, expecting to go to High-A. My first bullpen, the High-A pitching coach said, ‘Why am I watching you?’ I think he recommended… he didn’t tell me this, but at the end of camp I was going to Double-A. Then I just pitched. I did my job, trying to get better every day. Come 2022, I got to debut with the A’s. Now here we are.”

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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Mark Koenig went 22 for 58 against Dizzy Dean.

Mark Kotsay went 21 for 36 against Jamie Moyer.

Kevin Kouzmanoff went 11 for 19 against Bronson Arroyo.

Paul Konerko went 10 for 20 against Roger Clemens.

Corey Koskie went 10 for 21 against James Baldwin.

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Creed Willems is one of the more intriguing prospects in the Baltimore Orioles organization. An eighth-round pick in the 2021 draft out of Aledo (TX) High School, the 21-year-old catcher has plus raw power, but also rough edges to smooth out. Unpolished behind the plate — Eric Longenhagen has cited blocking and receiving as areas in need of improvement — he likewise needs to fine-tune his left-handed stroke. As our lead prospect analyst wrote back in June, Willems “takes a big uppercut hack” that produces high exit velocities, but he is prone to striking due to “chase and the in-zone holes in his swing.”

The stocky backstop — Willems carries 230 pounds on his just under six-foot frame — answered in the affirmative when I asked if he has an aggressive high-effort swing.

“I definitely do,” Willems said during the Arizona Fall League season. “That’s one thing I’ve been trying to control. I’ve talked with some of our hitting coordinators, and they’ve been like, ‘You can swing it. Your 70% is going to produce the same speeds that other guys’ 100% would produce.’ There are definitely times where I go 100% swing, but there are also times that I try to tone it back and just control the barrel through the zone.”

He has been doing a better job of putting the bat on the ball. After fanning at a 26.7% clip in 2023, he improved to 20.5% this past season. Moreover, his contact rate rose from 65.3% to 72.4%. Luis Arraez he’s not, but that isn’t what his game is all about. Willems goes up to the plate looking to do damage, not set tables with singles.

One of the 17 home runs he hit in 2024 is especially memorable.

“I hit it 116 [mph] with a 21 [launch angle],” recalled Willems, who logged a 121 wRC+ between High-A Aberdeen and Double-A Bowie. “It was on a slider on the inside part of the plate. It was one of those that just kept carrying and carrying. How far, I couldn’t tell you, but it was in Aberdeen. We have our bullpen, and then a shed, and it was a little bit to the right of the shed. It probably would have ended up hitting the shed, but it went just inside the foul pole. There is a street probably 20-30 feet behind the wall, and I think it hit that and bounced down the hill.”

In other words, he can juice a baseball.

“I try to,” Willems said in reply to that observation. “I consider myself a power hitter, but at the same time, I don’t sell out for power. I just try to hit the ball hard.”

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A quiz:

Sammy Sosa (four times) and Hack Wilson (once) are the only players in Chicago Cubs franchise history to hit 50 or more home runs in a single season. Another player just missed that mark, finishing with 49. Who was it?

The answer can be found below.

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NEWS NOTES

The Tacoma Rainiers (Triple-A Seattle Mariners) have hired Rylee Pay as their new lead broadcaster. Pay, who had been doing play-by-play for the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs, replaces Mike Curto, who announced his retirement in November after three decades behind the mic. Pay becomes the first female lead broadcaster in Triple-A.

Bruce Bochy, Ivan Rodríguez, and Chris Young will be among the speakers when SABR holds its annual convention in Dallas-Fort Worth from June 25-29. More information can be found here.

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The answer to the quiz is Andre Dawson, who went deep 49 times for the Cubs in his 1987 MVP season. Next on the list are Dave Kingman (48 in 1979) and Ernie Banks (47 in 1958).

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Kyle Teel went from being Boston’s catcher of the future to Chicago’s, the White Sox having acquired the 22-year-old, left-handed-hitting backstop from the Red Sox in the multi-player Garrett Crochet deal. Count Bubba Chandler among those who have been impressed by the 2023 first-rounder.

“I faced him in the Futures Game this year,” said Chandler, who ranks among baseball’s top pitching prospects. “I’d faced him for two at-bats earlier, and made two great pitches. I threw a changeup that, if he hadn’t swung, would have spiked into the dirt. He literally got down on a knee and hit a double down the left field line. I’m like, ‘OK, well, that’s unbelievable.’ In the other at-bat, I threw him a back-foot slider and, again, if he hadn’t swung… I mean, it would have hit him in the back foot. He hooked it down the right field line for a double.”

The two-hit game the high-profile Pittsburgh Pirates prospect referred to was in August 2023, when both player were in High-A. Teel’s only hit against Chandler this past summer came in the Future’s Game.

“I threw a changeup, front-hipped him,” Chandler said of their 2024 matchup. “Perfect. That set up a back-foot slider, which he swung and missed. I was like, ‘Now we can go inside with a heater.’ I threw a heater, top of the zone, inside, and if he’d have swung and missed, it probably would have broke his wrist. Instead, the dude hits it, breaks his bat. and it’s a double down the left field line. If I face him in the big leagues and there’s a man on third, I might as well just walk him. He kind of has my number.”

A full interview with Chandler will run later this month during our annual Prospect Week.

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The Canberra Cavalry captured this year’s Australian Baseball League title, beating the Perth Heat in the best-of-three championship series. Canberra won the opener 10-8, then secured the Claxton Shield with a 5-0 win in Game Two. Colten Davis, a 25-year-old right-hander who has spent the past two seasons with the Atlantic League’s Fargo-Moorhead Redhawks, allowed five hits over eight-and-two innings in the clincher.

Alex Wells was honored as the ABL’s Most Valuable Player. The 27-year-old former Baltimore Orioles left-hander went 6-1 with a 1.55 ERA for the Sydney Blue Sox.

The Dominican Republic has won each of its first two games in the Caribbean Series, beating Venezuela 2-0 on Friday, and Japan 12-1 on Saturday. Brooks Hall and Johnny Cueto were the pitchers of record for the Albert Pujols-managed squad. Mexico has also won its first two games, beating Puerto Rico 8-1, and Venezuela 2-1.

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A random obscure former player snapshot:

Paul Noce has the rare distinction of having been caught stealing twice in the same inning. In the third inning of a June 26, 1987 game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Chicago Cubs rookie infielder was charged with a CS trying to swipe second base, a play on which he reached safely thanks to an E-6. Noce then attempted to steal third and was tagged out before reaching the bag — this time with no error to save him. His playing career was otherwise unremarkable. Noce batted .228 over 192 plate appearances that year, then appeared in one game for the Cincinnati Reds the following season. Somewhat ironically, he went on to become a roving base-running instructor for the Pirates in 1992 and 1993. Noce later spent 20 years as the head baseball coach at Hillsdale (MI) College.

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A great piece of trivia courtesy of reader Kyle McGivney:

Mark Buehrle pitched three complete games in which he faced just 27 batters. One was his perfect game on July 23, 2009. Another was his April 18, 2007 no-hitter, in which he walked one batter, then promptly picked him off. The other was on July 21, 2004, when he surrendered a pair of singles, with both runners erased on double plays.

Per McGivney, Buehrle is the only pitcher in MLB history with as many as three 27-batter complete games. Sandy Koufax had two.

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

The Score’s Travis Sawchik wrote about the ever-increasing number of foul balls.

MLB.com’s David Adler wrote about how three Dodgers have cornered the market on baseball’s nastiest pitch.

At The Guardian, Leander Schaerlaeckens wrote about how the high of sports gambling has ensnared young men.

At Bless You Boys, Brandon Day delved into the present and future of 24-year-old Detroit Tigers shortstop Trey Sweeney.

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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

Shota Imanaga went 4-0 with a 0.51 ERA over 35 innings with the Canberra Cavalry in the 2018-2019 Australian Baseball League season.

The last triple-header in MLB history was played on October 2, 1920 with the Cincinnati Reds winning two of three from the Pittsburgh Pirates at Forbes Field. The third game, which was won by the home team, was called due to darkness after six innings.

Babe Ruth had 2,174 runs scored and 2,214 runs batted in.
Henry Aaron had 2,174 runs scored and 2,297 runs batted in.

The Detroit Tigers signed Ivan Rodriguez as a free agent on today’s date in 2004. The Hall of Fame backstop made four All-Star teams and was awarded three Gold Gloves in his four-plus seasons as a Tiger.

The San Diego Padres signed Mickey Lolich as a free agent on today’s date in 1978. The 37-year-old, erstwhile Tigers workhorse — he tossed 376 innings and threw 29 complete games in 1971 — went on to log a 3.43 ERA over 84 innings in two San Diego seasons.

Players born on today’s date include Wes Ferrell, who logged 50.1 WAR — 38.2 on the mound and 11.9 WAR at the plate — while playing for six teams, primarily the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox, from 1927-1941. One of the best hitting pitchers in MLB history, Ferrell had a .797 OPS and 38 home runs to go with a 193-128 won-lost record and a 116 ERA+. Moreover, he had 20 or more wins six times, including 25 on two occasions. Unlike his brother, Rick Ferrell, a catcher who logged a .741 OPS, 28 home runs, and 27.7 WAR, the right-hander isn’t in the Hall of Fame.

Also born on today’s date was Mutz Ens (his given name was Anton), whose big-league career comprised three games and six hitless at-bats for the Chicago White Sox in 1912. His younger brother, Jewel Winklemeyer Ens, played for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1922-1925, then went on to manage the team from 1929-1931.

Bill Kennedy went 28-3 with a 1.03 ERA and 456 strikeouts in 280 innings for the Coastal Plain League’s Rocky Mount Rocks in 1946. The southpaw went on to play for five MLB teams from 1948-1957, going 15-28 with a 4.73 ERA.

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