Quate moved up to Double-A Montgomery for 2011 and didn’t have such good luck to begin the year. Through the end of May, Quate had just a 4.28 ERA despite an outstanding 22-6 strikeout to walk ratio and only 2 home runs allowed in 20 appearances and 27.1 innings pitched. But something went wrong in his next appearance as Quate, known for his control, walked 4 batters in 2 innings on his way to allowing 3 runs. From that game until July 29th, Quate’s ERA was amazing a 2.12, but his strikeout to walk ratio had slipped to just 11-10 in 18 appearances and 22.1 IP. His overall ERA was a solid 3.44 and on the year Quate found himself with a 6.0 K/9, a 2.9 BB/9, and a 0.7 HR/9 in 38 appearances and 49.2 innings pitched, so things didn’t look that bad and maybe he had just gone through a rough stretch. But then Quate completely imploded to end the year, allowing 11 runs in just 9 innings of work with a 6-4 strikeout to walk ratio. Quate had been so good previously that something just had to be wrong. Sure enough, Quate underwent offseason elbow surgery that the Rays hoped would help him get back into form for 2012.

On May 23rd, Quate finally made his season debut for Montgomery agains the Jackson Generals. The Biscuits had hoped to ease him back into the flow, but circumstances dictated otherwise. After Mariners top prospect Danny Hultzen and Rays prospect Joseph Cruz dueled to begin the game, the contest went into extra innings with the score tied 1-1. In the 11th inning, Quate entered the game hoping desperately to keep the game tied and give Montgomery a chance to win. Quate immediately realized that he had nothing, with his fastball sitting in the high-80′s and his slider not having nearly its usual sharp break, but he battled. In 2 innings of work, Quate allowed 3 hits and 2 walk but was able to escape jams in both innings. He was rewarded with the win in the game when the Biscuits won in a walk-off. But following the game, Quate quickly went back on the disabled list, this time for a shoulder issue. He would miss the rest of the season.

This year, Quate is healthy and pitching for the Biscuits for the third year in a row. But the results have remained entirely out of whack. Quate has had his moments, striking out 2 in a perfect inning on May 2nd, the first such inning he had put up since May 16, 2011. However, he has struggled through two horrific outings, allowing 5 runs in a third of an inning on April 28th and 6 runs in two thirds of an inning on May 7th, to put his ERA at 18.90 overall. He has struck out 6 and walked 6 as well in 6.2 innings, allowing 2 home runs as well. He is just hoping for babysteps, hoping to rebuild his confidence, but it’s taking quite a while. After seeing how good Quate could be when healthy, the Rays will continue to wait hoping that Quate will eventually put it all together again.

When healthy and going strong, Quate features a fastball in the low-90′s with good late life that he throws for strikes and does a good job commanding down in the zone to force weak contact. His best pitch, though, has always been a sharp low-80′s slider from the same arm slot with tight late brake that, for a while, forced hitters to just flail endlessly. Quate has never really taken to a changeup, which had led to some struggles versus lefties, and he was probably never going to be closing out games in the major leagues. However, Quate’s fastball-slider combination was death on right-handed batters when he was on and the Rays hope that will be the case in the major leagues someday. Quate is just 25 years old now and still has potential. Now, the question will be whether he can ever stay healthy and get himself together enough to put his upside within reach once again.

Seitzer made his pro debut at Rookie-level Princeton in 2011 and his power returned as he managed a .285/.407/.498 line with 14 doubles, 11 homers, and a 46-43 strikeout to walk ratio in 64 games and 268 plate appearances. However, he was playing against younger competition and still had much to prove. But the Rays did have enough confidence in him to move him up two levels to Low-A Bowling Green the following season and he has another nice year, albeit without any power once again. He managed a .307/.386/.429 line with 36 doubles, 4 homers, 54 RBI, and an 83-55 strikeout to walk ratio in 488 plate appearances. He played well and was at the right age for his league, but we still couldn’t be sold on him because he showed just so little power for a first baseman. But then the Rays decided to do something very interesting this spring training: they skipped Seitzer over the High-A level and made him Double-A Montgomery’s starting first baseman. Why did they do that? Partially for Seitzer’s merits, but it may have been more because they had an organizational gap and needed someone to fill it. Bowling Green had two first base prospects in 2012, Seitzer and Jeff Malm, and the Rays decided to give the more highly-touted Malm more time to develop while rushing Seitzer and just hoping for the best. But whatever the motivation behind sending Seitzer up to Double-A, the move was worked out perfectly for everyone involved.

To begin 2013, all Seitzer has done is basically keep his 2012 numbers at Low-A going. He has managed a nearly-identical .304/.396/.430 line with 8 doubles, a triple, 10 RBI, and an 11-10 strikeout to walk ratio in 21 games and 91 plate appearances. And while those numbers didn’t attract much attention in the lower minors, Seitzer doing that at Double-A as a player a year younger than the league average is a reason for the Rays to begin getting excited about Seitzer. He may not be a superstar or anything along those lines, but he is a real prospect and it will be interesting to see what he can do the rest of this year.

Seitzer, 6’5″ and 220 pounds, is a lefty-hitting first baseman who stands out most for his bat speed and plate discipline. Seitzer has not flashed consistent home run power so far as pro, but he shows a quick stroke with the ability to hit the ball hard all over the field. He bat speed is complemented by excellent patience and pitch recognition as he does a great job working deep counts and finding pitches he can handle. So far in his career, Seitzer has been the rare lefty who has hit lefties better than righties in his career, managing a .331/.462/.476 line in 159 plate appearances compared to a .293/.378/.445 line in 688 PA’s against righties, but that mark against righties isn’t too shabby either. One area in which Seitzer can improve and maybe find some more power is to be a little more aggressive when he sees a pitch to hit early in the count. It’s great that he has such great patience, but he gets into trouble because he tries too hard to work deep counts, letting too many hittable pitches go by and doing a lot of his hitting when he shortens his stroke with two strikes. Seitzer has the bat speed to hit for power if he can adjust his approach at least slightly, and if Seitzer keeps hitting like this in the minors, you have to think that the Rays will work with him to try to do that. Seitzer also needs more work on his defense at first base, but he should be fine moving forward. Seitzer is far from a prototypical first base prospect given his lack of power, but he still has the all-around ability to be a big leaguer and maybe even a good one if just serviceable power comes along.

At this point, it looks like Seitzer’s upside is a James Loney-type who does a much better job hitting lefties or a first base version of his dad with a little more power. The elder Seitzer managed a .295/.375/.404 line with 32 doubles and more strikeouts than walks per full season but only 8 home runs, and his son has a chance to be that same type of player. Seitzer just keeps on hitting and the questions will be whether this can continue and whether his bat speed and outstanding approach at the plate well even translate into the 15-20 home runs he needs to be a starting big league first baseman. Cameron Seitzer’s future is still up in the air and no one is going to consider him one of the Rays’ top prospects. At the same time, though, the more Seitzer has kept this going, the more attention he has attracted, and before we know it, he could end up as the Rays’ first baseman of the present and maybe even the future.

Jake Thompson

When a pitcher’s ERA nearly doubles from year to the next, that is never a good sign. It’s impossible to spin Jake Thompson‘s ERA going from 2.90 in 114.2 innings in 2011 to 5.56 in 124.2 IP in 2012 in a positive light. But while there’s plenty of reason for continued concern, he also made a good deal of progress and 2012 might even be looked back upon someday as the turning point in his career. Thompson, a 6’3″, 225 right-hander, was selected by the Rays in second round of the 2010 Draft out of Long Beach State (of course, Evan Longoria‘s alma mater) as the “safe pick” to balance out the riskier selections of high school products Josh Sale, Justin O’Conner, and Drew Vettleson in the first and supplemental rounds of that draft. Thompson’s upside wasn’t nearly as high as that trio, but he was expected to become a 4th or 5th starter or a middle reliever in the major leagues and make that happen pretty quickly. Things have not gone as planned. In 2012, Thompson made it to Double-A at just 22 years old, but it did not go well as he went 7-12 with a 5.56 ERA, a 6.5 K/9, a 4.0 BB/9, and a 0.9 HR/9 in 25 starts and 124.2 innings pitched. While those numbers are ugly, though, they hide the progress that Thompson made over the course of the season. That becomes more apparent when comparing them to his 2011 season, when he went 5-7 with a 2.90 ERA, a 4.4 K/9, a 2.9 BB/9, and a 0.3 HR/9 in 22 starts and 114.2 innings pitched at High-A Tampa.

Jake Thompson has always featured a very good repertoire, ranging from 92-94 MPH with his fastball, and also throwing a changeup that has shown flashes and a solid slider. But the issue for him has been controlling and command his pitches, especially his fastball. When Thompson is going strong, his fastball can hit as high as 97 MPH with run away from right-handed hitters. But unable to locate his fastball at that type of velocity consistently, Thompson started throwing his fastball more often in the 90-92 MPH range in 2011, helping him throw it for strikes but preventing him from missing many bats at all. His changeup features great arm action and late downward movement when he’s been able to get on top of it, but as he struggled to command it he began to abandon it and throw his fastball more and more often. And while even his slider has been overbearing in the high-80′s at times, Thompson was content to throw it more softly and use it as more of a groundball pitch because it was just too inconsistent. But while Thompson was able to ride his toned-down arsenal to solid results in 2011, that was never going to work for him against higher-level hitters. In 2012, Thompson suffered through a disastrous year, but at least he did so while working on his pitches instead of continuing to stand on thin ice with his diminished stuff. His fastball missed the zone more often, but also finally was able to force some swing-and-misses. He had some trouble with his changeup when it got too straight and got hit hard, but it also looked like a plus pitch at times, especially against left-handed batters. And even though his slider was enigmatic, he was able to put a lot of work in on it, and he could be on the verge of a breakthrough. Thompson needs continued work locating his pitches, and until that happens, his results could be ugly. But Thompson certainly had his moments, setting his career-high with a 7-strikeout game before breaking it with an 8-strikeout performance a few starts later, and his 4.38 FIP on the season suggests that while Thompson has a long way to go, he is making progress. As Thompson heads back to Double-A in 2013, he finally is starting to get his feeling for his pitches where it needs to be, and all of his frustration will be worthwhile if this can be the season that things finally start to come together for him.

Matt Buschmann

Matt Buschmann is best known for something that has very little to do with his actual ability as a pitcher: he was David Price’s roommate when both were at Vanderbilt. But while the connection to the Rays’ ace certainly could not have hurt Buschmann’s chances of being acquired by the Rays last April for cash considerations and re-signed this offseason, the Rays have to be most excited about what Buschmann can do as a pitcher. Buschmann, a 6’3″, 210 right-hander who turned 29 in February, is coming off a season that saw him go 7-8 with a 3.98 ERA, a 7.1 K/9, a 3.2 BB/9, and a 0.9 HR/9 in 24 starts, 2 relief appearances, and 151.1 innings pitched, with all but 2 starts coming with the Biscuits. His groundball rate was also an impressive 48.7% per Minor League Central. But why does any of this matter? He was a 28 year old playing against younger competition!

The truth is that there’s very little chance that Buschmann could possibly put up a season like that in the major leagues. However, while his stats may be somewhat of a mirage, his stuff is real. Buschmann works primarily with a sinker in the 88-90 MPH range that he did an excellent job commanding down in the zone in 2012, and his money pitch is a sharp low-80′s slider that he used to get most of his strikeouts. Buschmann also threw a decent changeup, although it’s quite a bit behind his other two pitches and it may never develop at this point. Buschmann’s sinker-slider combination was overpowering against right-handed batters as he held them to just a .203/.264/.317 line with 72 strikeouts against just 20 walks, and while his performance versus lefties was a great deal worse (.320/.397/.420 with a 39-28 strikeout to walk ratio), Buschmann clearly has the type of arsenal could be very effective in a middle relief role against right-handed hitters, especially considering his fastball velocity might pick up. Buschmann will head to Triple-A Durham and the Rays will see if they can improve his changeup to the point where he’ll have a chance to start (after all, the changeup is an emphasis of their organization), but more likely Buschmann will be converted to a reliever, a role in which he has the ability to find quite a bit of success. At 29 years old, Matt Buschmann is not really a prospect. But he’s at an age where a productive career as a big league middle reliever could be getting started, and that’s all the Rays are asking Buschmann to do.

Joseph Cruz

Somewhere inside Joseph Cruz, all the ability is still there. Just two years ago, Cruz went 13-6 with a 2.85 ERA and a 131-39 strikeout to walk ratio in 142 IP at High-A Charlotte. And while the last two years have been disastrous, the Rays will keep waiting hoping that Cruz can somehow get back on track. Cruz, 24, is a projectable 6’4″, 190 with a fastball that can be as impressive as any in the system when he’s right. But the last two years almost could not have been worse. Cruz managed just a 6.27 ERA in 74.2 IP in 2011, and 2012 was not much better as he went 6-6 with a 4.60 ERA, a 7.4 K/9, a 6.2 BB/9, and a 0.8 HR/9 in 15 starts, 3 relief appearances, and 78.1 innings pitched. Both seasons were derailed by shoulder injuries, with Cruz missing from June to August of 2011 after surgery on his shoulder and then watching his season end in July of 2012 when he heard two pops in his shoulder and fell to his knees on the mound before departing from the game. But when he has been healthy, Cruz continues to show flashes. In a game on May 23rd, Cruz showed just how good he can be as he went neck-and-neck with Mariners top prospect Danny Hultzen, going 6 innings allowing just 1 hit, striking out 8 while walking 2, in a game the Biscuits won 2-1 in 12 innings. While his 2012 numbers were bad, take out three games where Cruz walked 6 or more batters and he actually managed a much more reasonable if far from acceptable 4.8 BB/9. And after the Biscuits moved Cruz to the bullpen for his final three appearances before his injury, he allowed just 1 hit in 4.1 innings, striking out 6 while walking none.

When healthy, Cruz’s fastball stays in the 92-93 MPH range and touches as high as 96 MPH with some movement away from right-handed hitters. He complements it with a solid curveball in the low-70′s and a halfway-decent changeup. Cruz’s current arsenal and injury issues severely limit his upside. However, his career is far from over and if Cruz can simply stay on the mound, he could have considerable potential out of the bullpen. The Rays continued to be tantalized by Cruz’s ability even as they have watched him fight through seemingly unremitting frustration the last two years, and the Rays hope that 2013 is the season that he stays healthy and finally gets himself back on track.

Alex Colome

If not for injuries, Alex Colome would have finished the 2012 season in the Rays’ bullpen and could have made quite an impact. Although he didn’t make his Triple-A debut until August, Marc Topkin reported that the Rays talked about calling Colome up and pairing him with Chris Archer to give them two dynamic up-and-coming right-handers with the ability to be weapons in short or long relief. Instead, Colome saw his season end from a lat strain in his right throwing shoulder and 2013 will be the season where he looks to crack the Rays’ MLB roster. Signed by the Rays as a 17 year old out of the Dominican Republic back in 2007, Colome had a big season primarily at Double-A Montgomery for the Rays in 2012, going 8-4 with a 3.44 ERA, an 8.8 K/9, a 4.2 BB/9, and a 0.8 HR/9 in 17 starts and 91.2 IP. Everything but his last three starts came with the Biscuits. Colome’s groundball rate was a nice 44.5% and he was especially good against right-handed batters, holding them to .219/.303/.299 line.

Colome, a 24 year old 6’2″, 195 right-hander, has wowed evaluators for years with his electric arsenal. Colome’s fastball consistently hits the mid-90′s, topping out as high as 97 MPH, and when he’s able to get on top of it, it features great sink and late bite. He pairs it with a sharp 11-to-5 curveball that can be overpowering when he can sell it as a strike and he also throws a decent mid-80′s slider. But the most intriguing part of Colome’s repertoire at this point may be his changeup, a pitch that Colome still needs to do a better job working into his arsenal but that also features the same arm slot as his fastball before featuring great late sink when he has it right. The root of Colome’s inconsistency in his career has been a tendency to overthrow his pitches as he focuses too much on strikeouts, keeping his fastball up in the zone too much and making his curveball head into the dirt before the hitter even thinks about swinging. At the same time, though, he has much better baseline control than a pitcher like Alex Torres even if his command comes and goes (his BB/9 has never gotten above 4.2 the last four years) and Colome’s feel for pitching continues to get better and a shift in his mentality on the mound could make all the difference. Colome got hit hard in big league camp for the Rays this year, allowing 8 runs, 5 earned, on 9 hits and 4 walks in 4.2 innings, striking out just 1, and that highlights how getting his control and command better on a consistent basis will be the key to figuring out his future role. However, with a pair of plus pitches in his fastball and curveball, another one coming along smoothly in his changeup, and a decent fourth pitch in his slider, the Rays are excited to see what Colome can do and Colome’s upside ranks up there with any of the Rays’ pitching prospects anywhere the major leagues. Colome has what it takes to be a number two starter at best and a fireballing late-inning reliever at worst, and as he begins his first full season at Triple-A in 2013, he enters a key crossroads that will go a long way at determining whether his future lies in the rotation or the bullpen.

Colome is a pitcher who has ranked among the Rays’ best pitching prospects for years at this point, but he’s far from alone among the Biscuits pitchers with the ability to make an impact in the major leagues for the Rays over the next couple of seasons. Buschmann isn’t really a prospect but still could turn into an excellent low-profile pickup for the Rays as an impact reliever in the major leagues and Thompson and Cruz have both fallen off as prospects but still have electric and salvageable arms. The Rays have become renowned throughout baseball for their ability to develop frontline pitching prospects, but the value of the lesser prospects that can still contribute for the Rays in the near future can’t be understated. With Colome at the forefront and the others trailing not too far behind, the pitchers from the 2012 Montgomery Biscuits could be playing a big role in the Rays’ pitching staff before we know it. We’ll continue next time with more interesting pitchers from the Biscuits’ 2012 roster.

For more of our analysis of the Rays prospects at each level of their system, check out our Minor League Affiliates Analysis page here at RCG.