Is that all you got, kid...?

I was curious about the pitcher that let up the homerun for some odd reason….. here’s a story on him.. 5^th round draft choice in 2009….drafted as a 1^st base/pitcher.  This looks like his first year on the mound, last year  he was in AA playing the field, hit 5HR and batted .258.   Shows what a grind it can be in the minors, at least the kid got some pretty decent bonus money. 600K plus. Now 6 years later he is going to the mound.

from draysbay.com

"If Phil Wunderlich is a good bet to be a good big league first baseman, Jeff Malm is the wild card. Malm looks like a potential superstar first baseman at 6’3″, 225 and was drafted by the Rays in the 5th round in 2009, signing for a well over-slot $680,000 bonus. Thus far as a pro, Malm has shown flashes of greatness and flashes of ineptitude. Malm made his pro debut with 7 games with the Rookie-level GCL Rays in 2009, hitting .240 as an 18 year old, before starting his first pro season in 2010 at Advanced Rookie Princeton. That’s where we saw the bad.

In 2010, Malm appeared in 68 games for Princeton, accumulating 223 plate appearances, a solid sample size. The results were disastrous. He posted a .220/.296/.310 line with 9 doubles, 3 homers, and 25 RBI, striking out 46 times (20.6% of his PA’s) while walking just 17 times (7.6%). He also took his frustration to the field, posting just a .984 Fld% at first base. The Rays were undoubtedly worried and had no idea what to expect from Malm in 2011 as he was brought up to Short Season-A Hudson Valley (replacing Wunderlich).

In 2011 for the Renegades, Malm started off pretty slowly, posting a .244/.367/488 line with 4 doubles, 2 homers, and 5 RBI in 12 June games. He was showing power, matching two-thirds of his 2010 home run total in just 12 games, but he wasn’t hitting for average at all and he was hitting way too many groundballs, 48.4% of his batted balls compared to the 44.6% league average (according to MLC). Anxiety remained in the air. But then suddenly, Malm caught fire. In July, Malm improved astronomically, posting an insane .314/.435/.608 line with just 3 doubles, 9 homers and 27 RBI in 28 games. He was hitting everything hard and in the air as his groundball percentage dropped to just 34.6%, and 33.3% of his batted balls were flyballs to the outfield, and a nice 23.1% were line drives compared to the league averages of 16.2% and 27.3% respectively. Everyone following Malm got excited. He was finally harnessing his potential. But then poof, it was gone. In the final 33 games of the year, Malm posted just a .208/.336/.311  line with 8 doubles, 1 homer, and 15 RBI. His ISO dropped from .294 in July to just .103 in August and September. Instead of hitting line drives and flyballs to the outfield (he posted a 15.8% LD% and a 27.6% OFB%), Malm was hitting the ball on the ground once again, with groundballs accounting for 40.8% of his batted balls, and to compound his problems, he was popping everything up as 14.5% of his batted balls were pop-ups compared to the league average of just over half that, 7.3%. Malm’s strikeout rate also jumped from 19.4% in July to 24.2% the rest of the season. Malm’s roller coaster of a season ended on a sour note.

Overall in 2011, Malm’s number were solid because of his incredible July as he posted a .257/.382/.462 line with 15 doubles, 12 homers, and 47 RBI in 73 games. Malm led the New York Penn League in homers and ranked 5th in ISO at .205. He also posted a .993 Fld% at first base. But nobody is any more sure about Malm as a prospect. After his power surge in July, Malm was coming to the plate every at-bat swinging for the fences even when it was ill-advised, and his numbers suffered the rest of the season. Between his power, his plate discipline (12.6% walk rate), and his line drive rate (18.4% of his batted balls), Malm showed transient glimpses of his outstanding potential. But he has to put together more consistent performance before we can trust him at all as a prospect. Malm will head to Low-A Bowling Green as a 21 year old in 2012 and look to do just that."