Griffin Conine Called Up! Prospect Breakdown & Setting Expectations | State of the Fish

for anybody that is possibly unfamiliar Griffin conine is the son of Jeff conine of Mr Marlin of the one that is still working with the Marlins organization at this point and had a brilliant Major League career conine his son krin has been with the Marlins org for over four years now he was drafted way back in 2018 by Blue Jays traded over for I'm curious how many people actually know this off the top of their head he was traded at the deadline 2020 in exchange for Jonathan VR despite the team being in contention they were willing to the the failed Jonathan VR experment they were willing to cut that short to bring in conine who at that point was still a far way away from the big leagues and since then he's been one of the most prolific home run hitters in the organization in his first full year actually his first minor league year period as a Marlins Prospect he was right up there with the minor league home run leaders overall 30 six bombs in 2021 between High a and dou a that and that to date is his best overall season as a Marlins Prospect it was controversial a couple years ago when he was eligible for the rule five draft and the Marlins left Griffin unprotected like any team could have claimed him and that that was a highly debatable one I remember at the time because he was so productive and he had that one standout tool in his power it is plus plus power and his power to all fields too you check back some of the stuff that we posted earlier in this year when he was he's had some hot streaks even this season where it really goes from foul line to foul line he could hit it out and when he really slugs it the top end exit velocities are right up there with a jake Burger type not quite I guess a smidge below Jesus Sanchez if you call him up well now that he's up with the team he is in that similar tier to those guys if not like a tiny Notch Below in the power Department here comes the pitch for Kai and he sends it Opposite field out to left Bernard looking and here's the pitch and it's hit in the air to left field a high drive Payton back he'll turn and watch and we are tied as conine has a home run right hander fires pitches swung on sent to Center Ortega with a long run back to his left up on the wall it's gone here's the one- one pitch High Fly ball deep to right field there it is again and Griffin co9 leaves no doubt his fifth straight day with a home run he's been in this organization a long time he has got his first taste of Triple A last year and then this year spent the entire season with triple A Jacksonville 112 games this year alone nearly 600 Minor League games overall in this organ in the Minor League Baseball period and there have been ups and downs as I mentioned he he uh he had a birthday last month in July and coincidence or not he went into a pretty deep slump during the few weeks right after that that brought his numbers back down to earth a little bit and they are calling him up coming off a high note where in last night's game droven four runs drew a couple walks in that one he's been better over these last couple weeks coming out of that slump that he was in previously over his last I'm looking at the last 10 games conine hitting 414 with an 1101 Ops I have to admit I was overlooking that a little bit I could not have told you off the top of my head whether he was particularly hot or cold lately because he has been so inconsistent that is part of it they are calling him off of a h streak at a time where as I alluded to earlier there's so many guys on this roster right now that aren't part of the future that were just claimed off waivers in recent weeks it really wouldn't kill them to squeeze them off the roster to make room for somebody else especially if it's somebody that is performing and that hasn't had his opportunity yet now he is 27 years old at this point which means you know and he's you got his Taste of tripa last year and repeating it this year the he's not on our top 30 prospects list let's just say that when we recently updated it a few weeks ago especially in um the current state of the the improved state of this farm system he gets buried a little bit despite being so close to the big leagues at the same time uh I I'll be curious to see exactly what the correspond responding move is but this is a move that because of how long he'd been in professional baseball conine was due to be a minor league free agent after the season like he was prepared to just be gone if he had not been selected to their 40-man roster at the very least and now in this case getting called up to the active roster as well as we await these corresponding moves might as well just see what you have in him right here to see if something sticks to see like he's not a lock to be a long-term piece of this organization in any role and quite frankly depending on how this stint goes he could be out of this organization by the end of the regular season if it doesn't go particularly well but this is the part of the Year where as a fan you're you're hoping you're just thinking to yourself why not give it a shot why are you running out I mean not to disparage any of the current position players on the roster but guys for the unknown is a lot more attractive than the known Commodities at this point and he at least has that one standout tool in his power he does have in my opinion solid defense in the corner Outfield spots if not slightly above average mainly due to his arm strength that's something there uh I I have not mentioned it yet but the reason why he's not a highly regarded Prospect at all is the strikeout issues that's what has held him back that is what has raised skepticism about him from from anybody that knows ball and follows this stuff he's has been striking out over the course of his minor league career more than onethird of his played appearances right around 34% 35 off the top of my head that's just untenable if you look across the big leagues at the major league level there are a very small handful of players that strike out around that level and are even close to being average players and the insinuation and I think the reasonable leap to make is that if he's striking out that much in the minor leagues against triaa pitching he's going to strike out a lot more in the big leagues against big league pitching and the improved stuff that they have up here so it will take a pretty big adjustment it would be honestly defying the odds if he had success here uh because of that because even though knows the strike zone relatively well it should be noted that strikeout rate in a volum in a vacuum doesn't tell you everything like he does draw walks at a above average rate pretty consistently including this season and you want to look at like the discrepancy between those numbers where if you walk more you're going to be getting on base at a certain clip and it helps offset the strikeout issues that he's had to this point in his career to some extent so that helps a little bit that being said uh there's just a lot of swing and Miss even on pitches in the strike zone or pitches near the strike zone where uh if he's having that much trouble with minor league pitching probably will in the big leagues as well with all that being said I'll go back to what I've been saying a few minutes ago you might as well find out you might as well give him a shot to prove you wrong and especially in this course of the season a pretty comfortable landing spot too getting called up right as the team is going to Kors field when they're playing a Rockies team that is just as bad as they are if not slightly worse so the talent level that he's going up against uh it's it should be a soft landing spot you would think as long as he's putting balls in play those balls are going to carry longer in cor field than they would anywhere else hopefully it's not that long of a wait for him to get that first hit to get that first home run and you would think at the very least as a courtesy to his dad that he's going to stick on this roster for the rest of the regular season right for these final five weeks even if he goes like 0 for 30 they're not going to cut him earlier than they have to I wouldn't think um but it's just great to see uh that somebody gets rewarded like this who's been this organization for so long