Not Just Conforto Anymore
An infielder by trade, he was converted into a pitcher during his final season in college. His long hair hangs in thick tuffs from underneath his baseball cap almost touching his shoulder. Jacob deGrom, the rookie phenom pitcher of the New York Mets? Not so. He’s Cameron Griffin, a relief pitcher turning some heads with his work for the Brooklyn Cyclones.
I made the trip to Troy anxious to get a look at two highly regarded Brooklyn Cyclone baseball prospects, Amed Rosario and Michael Conforto. Although Rosario and Conforto did little to disappoint me and flashed some tantalizing potential on the baseball field, I left Joe Bruno Stadium talking about two other Cyclones, middle reliever Cameron Griffin and catcher Adrian Abreu.
My daughter accompanied me to the game and the first thing she commented about when Cameron Griffin entered was his hair. Cameron’s long locks hung from beneath his Cyclone cap giving him a very Jacob deGrom like appearance.
From there were few physical similarities between the two young pitchers. Unlike the tall and lean deGrom, at 6’3 and 200 pounds, Griffin solid and compact, has the build of a football linebacker. Griffin goes about his work on the mound with a noticeable air of confidence.
Why not. The right-handed reliever pounds the lower dimensions of the strike zone with a fastball that sits comfortably in the high 80’s but can touch the low 90’s if needed. In addition, Griffin commands a low to mid 70’s, 12-to-6 curveball that literally flummoxed Tri-City batters during his two plus innings of relief.
The 23-year old reliever mixed his pitches well, striking out two batters and walking only one and allowing one hit in 2.2 innings of work. That effort lowered his season’s ERA to a scant 1.08.
Griffin, a 34th round pick in the 2013 draft, started his year playing rookie ball where he appeared in just two games for Kingsport. After his elevation to Brooklyn, Griffin has worked in 12 games with a combined 0.96 ERA and a 0.91 WHIP. Opposing batters have hit only .174 against the Cyclone reliever with Griffin striking out 17 men in 18.2 innings of work while walking only five.
Griffin was the starting third baseman at Columbus State College in Georgia where he slugged six HR’s and hit .301 in his freshman year. His offensive numbers slid backwards in each of his next two collegiate seasons with Griffin finally converted into a relief pitcher in 2013 during his junior year. He went 2-1 in 20.2 innings with a 1.31 ERA and fanning 23 in his only time on the hill for Columbus State in 2013.
I was basically, unfamiliar with his name and statistically, his batting numbers were nothing much to speak of, but watching the Cyclones last night it was hard to take your eyes off of Adrian Abreu. A fierce competitor, Abreu is not the prototype of a professional baseball catcher.
To begin with he is the lead-off batter for the Cyclones. That could be because he has mature plate discipline in the batter’s box. The Cyclone catcher has walked 24 times while striking out only 29 times this summer for Brooklyn. Last year in Kingsport and the previous season in the Dominican League, Abreu drew more base-on-balls than he fanned.
At the moment, Abreu is hot going 8-for-25 over his last six games with two doubles. I loved the fact, that Abreu dropped a gorgeous bunt down the third base line and was caught by only a whisker on a great barehand play by the Tri-City third sacker.
But, it was Abreu’s work behind the plate that most fascinated me. Defensively, from a results standpoint, his game was a mixed bag. He gunned down a ValleyCats player that was trying to steal second, then picked a runner off first base, but threw two balls into center field. Yet, Abreu has catlike quickness and a quick trigger release from behind home plate. The Cyclone catcher almost dares opposing runners to run and shoulders full responsibility when he fails to gun down a runner stealing. He is all business behind the plate and seems to relish his time spent behind the dish.
Griffin and Abreu were not the well known talents that drew me to Joe Bruno Stadium to watch Brooklyn take on the Tri-City ValleyCats last night. Those names were Rosario and Conforto. But, it was the lesser known Griffin and Abreu who stoked my interest and had me itching for more.
Photo Credit: Rob Abruzzese
