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The Durham Bulls dominated the minor leagues in strikeouts

The Rays MiLB affiliate showed a ton of promise this season.

By Daniel Russell
MLB: Tampa Bay Rays-Media Day
Ryan Yarbrough, y’all
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

The Durham Bulls dominated Triple-A in 2017, winning the International League and the Triple-A crown. The Rays even left the vast majority of their star prospects in Durham to help make those life experiences a possibility.

As such, the Soon-To-Be-Rays had one hulluva time striking dudes out under the tutelage of recently promoted pitching coach Kyle Snyder.

Nowhere is this as easy to visualize as in a recent graph shared by Daren Willman, MLB’s Director of Research & Development (read: Statcast).

Look at that Triple-A share in the light blue on the graph. The Durham Bulls have the lion’s share not only in the Rays column, or across Triple-A, but across any level.

And here’s that graph in full:

The only group holding the Rays back from top-five recognition appears to be a weaker showing of strikes at High-A Port Charlotte, otherwise the baby-Rays struck ‘em out at every other level.

Kyle Snyder’s next season will bump him up to the major league level, taking over for long-time coach Jim Hickey — who has now followed Joe Maddon to the Cubs.

You can read more about all the above here:

And for those interested, here is the Durham Bulls pitching roster filtered for strikeouts in 2017:

Durham Bulls 2017

Name Age ERA IP TBF HR BB SO
Name Age ERA IP TBF HR BB SO
Ryan Yarbrough 25 3.43 157.1 645 20 39 159
Brent Honeywell 22 3.64 123.2 522 11 31 152
Yonny Chirinos 23 2.74 141 546 10 22 120
Jacob Faria 23 3.07 58.2 242 7 22 84
Andrew Kittredge 27 1.45 68.1 265 2 16 78
Jeff Ames 26 3.98 63.1 274 6 35 78
Blake Snell 24 2.66 44 187 5 15 61
Ryne Stanek 25 1.21 44.2 174 0 16 60
Diego Castillo 23 3.37 42.2 178 2 13 58
Chih-Wei Hu 23 3.06 61.2 249 9 12 57
Hunter Wood 23 4.39 53.1 230 8 20 47
Ryan Garton 27 1.64 33 128 2 16 46
Adam Kolarek 28 1.65 43.2 184 0 16 46
Neil Wagner 33 3.07 44 182 3 14 41
Michael Roth 27 5.08 44.1 193 11 11 37
Chaz Roe 30 3 21 88 1 5 35
Austin Pruitt 27 2.55 24.2 93 2 2 33
Yoel Espinal 24 5.96 22.2 108 2 23 28
Jose Alvarado 22 3.93 18.1 81 1 13 26
Jaime Schultz 26 3.86 11.2 50 1 4 21
Burch Smith 27 1.65 16.1 60 2 4 19
Mike Broadway 30 0.6 15 52 1 2 18
Diego Moreno 29 1.1 16.1 60 0 3 17
Justin Marks 29 4.6 15.2 64 1 9 15
Jose De Leon 24 6.75 12 54 1 6 14
Taylor Guerrieri 24 2.89 9.1 39 0 2 12
Kyle Winkler 27 7.2 10 46 3 7 10
Chase Whitley 28 13 9 41 6 4 8
Brad Boxberger 29 2.45 3.2 18 0 5 7
Matt Andriese 27 2.08 4.1 17 0 0 6
Hunter Adkins 26 9 9 43 4 6 5
Mike Franco 25 0 4.1 20 0 6 4
Danny Farquhar 30 7.36 3.2 16 0 3 4
Edwin Fierro 23 11.81 5.1 28 1 2 4
Brandon Lawson 22 0 2 7 0 1 3
Jonny Venters 32 0 1 5 0 1 2
Kyle Bird 24 0 3.1 13 1 1 2
Chris Pike 24 4.91 3.2 16 1 2 2
Johnny Field 25 20.25 1.1 9 0 2 1
Michael McKenry 32 58.5 2 21 2 4 1
Kean Wong 22 0 0.1 3 0 2 0
Drew Smith 23 0 1 3 0 0 0
Durham Bulls pitching results, 2017

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