Bryan Torres<\/a>, 2B\/OF \u2013 28 (40 man roster)<\/p>\nStats: 29 G, 135 PAs, .330\/.440\/.500, 15.6 BB%, 13.3 K%, .170 ISO, .382 BABIP, 148 wRC+<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not going to say his ISO is misleading, but he\u2019s on pace for three less homers than last season with the same amount of PAs. He\u2019s only hit two homers. He\u2019s hitting more doubles. Which is great, but I don\u2019t really think his power has actually improved, you know? I would still like to see him at the MLB level. He definitely won\u2019t walk this much, I\u2019m more curious on how much he\u2019ll strike out. Because I think he\u2019ll walk as much as a player like him can, so his success at the MLB will hinge on if his K rate is 15% or 20%.<\/p>\n
Blaze Jordan, 1B\/3B \u2013 23 <\/p>\n
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Stats: 33 G, 140 PAs, .307\/.371\/.575, 7.9 BB%, 12.1 K%, .268 ISO, .304 BABIP, 141 wRC+<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, Jordan got hit by a pitch in his face yesterday and had to be removed from the game. Hopefully, nothing is seriously wrong, he can come back soon, and continue raking. To compare him to Crooks, Jordan\u2019s HR\/FB% is 29.6%, which is more than he\u2019ll have in the major leagues, but hopefully represents a genuine improvement in power. For most of his minor league career, he\u2019s been around 14%. Bump that up a few percentage points and his MLB picture certainly changes.<\/p>\n
Colton Ledbetter, OF \u2013 24<\/p>\n
Stats: 30 G, 127 PAs, .200\/.268\/.304, 7.1 BB%, 37 K%, .104 ISO, .324 BABIP, 48 wRC+<\/p>\n
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There is good news. He was on an epic slump from April 14th to April 24th, where he went hitless in six of his eight games played and in the two games he got a hit, he hit a single and that was it. But since April 25th, Ledbetter has a 9.5 BB%, 23.8 K%, a .164 ISO, and a 134 wRC+. Yes, he didn\u2019t hit a homer and yes he had a .444 BABIP in that stretch, so let\u2019s hope he gets home run power, but I am particularly encouraged by the K\/BB after his awful, awful start to the year.<\/p>\n
Ramon Mendoza, 2B\/3B \u2013 25<\/p>\n
Stats: 26 G, 107 PAs, .316\/.393\/.495, 11.2 BB%, 23.4 K%, .179 ISO, .403 BABIP, 134 wRC+<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think Mendoza is a part of the plan. He\u2019s not technically a starter. Blaze Jordan tends to be at 3B, Torres tends to be at 2B, the outfield is a combo of Nelson Velazquez, Baez, and Ledbetter while one of the catcher DHs. But he keeps hitting. He is forcing his way into more playing time. He hit his third homer yesterday. He exclusively plays 2B or 3B so I don\u2019t know how good his defense is, but he\u2019s a fun story.<\/p>\n
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Nelson Velasquez, OF \u2013 27<\/p>\n
Stats: 29 G, 114 PAs, .188\/.316\/.344, 14.9 BB%, 28.1 K%, .156 ISO, .233 BABIP, 76 wRC+<\/p>\n
I thought about not sharing his stats at all, but he is outfield depth on a team that regularly plays infielders in the outfield so it\u2019s possible he will get hot and become a factor later in the year, especially if Baez doesn\u2019t appear to be ready. With that aside, he is going to need to go on a real heater for that to be the case, because he has started very slow.<\/p>\n
Springfield<\/p>\n
Deniel Ortiz, 1B\/3B \u2013 21 (#18 VEB prospect)<\/p>\n
Ortiz suffered a wrist injury, and that\u2019s about all we know. Minor league injury information is very scant. He hasn\u2019t played since the first game of the year, when he went 0-5 with two strikeouts. Pretty unfortunate.<\/p>\n
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Chase Davis, OF \u2013 24<\/p>\n
Stats: 27 G, 118 PAs, .198\/.347\/.385, 18.6 BB%, 29.7 K%, .188 ISO, .250 BABIP, 95 wRC+<\/p>\n
That is one ugly average to look at, however I do think there\u2019s reason for optimism with Davis. Namely, the thing that got him drafted was his power and he\u2019s already hit half the homers he did last year. It remains to be seen if that\u2019s causing his low BABIP, but we\u2019re still in far too small sample territory. He wasn\u2019t going to be anything more than a defense-first outfielder with how he hit last year, if he can find power, maybe there\u2019s something here.<\/p>\n
Zach Levenson, OF \u2013 24<\/p>\n
Stats: 29 G, 119 PAs, .186\/.303\/.265, 14.3 BB%, 23.5 K%, .078 ISO, .247 BABIP, 58 wRC+<\/p>\n
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Levenson has the kind of hitting line that really makes you appreciate Chase Davis\u2019 line. Which says more about Levenson unfortunately. But not a whole lot in the numbers to get excited about here. He finished his season strong last year in Springfield, but in slightly more PAs this year, he has not been able to build on that quite yet.<\/p>\n
Jeremy Rivas, SS \u2013 23<\/p>\n
Stats: 27 G, 104 PAs, .247\/.365\/.376, 13.5 BB%, 21.6 K%, .129 ISO, .302 BABIP, 101 wRC+<\/p>\n
Very good start for Rivas. He did start hot last year too, so buyer beware. But Rivas is a defense-first shortstop who isn\u2019t considered a prospect, because of his bat. If he can hit at all, literally at all, he will be a major leaguer. He made it to Springfield very young, at 21, entirely on the strength of his defense, and he got close to an average hitting line, but it came with no power. Last year, he added sufficient power, but the strikeouts and BABIP made him a bad hitter. If, and it\u2019s a big if, he can have just enough power, strike out a normal amount, and still manage decent BABIPs, he might become an actual prospect.<\/p>\n
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Travis Honeyman, OF \u2013 24<\/p>\n
Stats: 27 G, 108 PAs, .293\/.398\/.391, 13 BB%, 17.8 K%, .098 ISO, .352 BABIP, 118 wRC+<\/p>\n
Honeyman still needs more power, especially at Springfield, but he hit his second home run yesterday. He hit two all last year. He was drafted in 2023, and then had 82 total PAs between the rest of 2023 and the 2024 season. He missed some time to injury last season too. It\u2019s entirely possible he will find enough power to make the rest of his profile work \u2013 because power is really the only thing missing.<\/p>\n
Miguel Ugueto, OF \u2013 23<\/p>\n
Stats: 26 G, 110 PAs, .283\/.351\/.434, 5.5 BB%, 14.5 K%, .151 ISO, .321 BABIP, 108 wRC+<\/p>\n
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Claimed in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft prior to last season, there was no reason to think anything of Ugueto, especially when he hit for a 67 wRC+. There probably still isn\u2019t, but he\u2019s made himself interesting. He has also, it\u2019s worth noting, stolen 16 bases to one caught stealing. This is a pretty stark difference from last season when he stole 9 bases to 5 caught stealing in Springfield.<\/p>\n
Ryan Campos, C \u2013 23 <\/p>\n
Stats: 27 G, 116 PAs, .295\/.414\/.484, 16.2 BB%, 23.4 K%, .189 ISO, .364 BABIP, 138 wRC+<\/p>\n
Oh boy you are in the wrong organization. That\u2019s right, we have a catcher who has always had a good eye but never had power come bursting out in the first month with power. He has hit more homers so far this season than his previous 527 PAs as a professional. He is a tiny, tiny guy, so there are still concerns, but do we have to start paying attention to yet another catcher? This is getting ridiculous.<\/p>\n
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Jon Jon Gazdar, 2B\/SS \u2013 24<\/p>\n
Stats: 24 G, 113 PAs, .227\/.333\/.361, 10.6 BB%, 12.4 K%, .134 ISO, .235 BABIP, 85 wRC+<\/p>\n
Springfield is just filled with guys who need to add power. They are in the right place. If Gazdar had a normal BABIP, he\u2019d have a really good hitting line. And it\u2019s tough to say if a hitter is unlucky or not in this small of a sample. But I\u2019d say this is good news more than bad news despite the below average hitting line.<\/p>\n
Well honestly, I ended up covering more players than I expected, so this one is going to have to be a two-parter on just the hitters. Memphis has a pretty stacked lineup, Springfield certainly is worse off than last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I think now is a very good time to check on the minor leagues. A month has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[6097,64,63,320766,320768,251672,173219,320767,53641,47486,591,1830,85,2366],"class_list":["post-664031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-aaron-judge","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-babip","tag-bryan-torres","tag-jimmy-crooks","tag-joshua-baez","tag-leonardo-bernal","tag-masyn-winn","tag-minor-leagues","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-mets","tag-sports","tag-st-louis-cardinals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}