Tag Archives: allmississippibaseball

18 Dec

recalculating

Now that the old Negro Leagues are being formally recognized as major leagues and players’ stats included in MLB records, one has to wonder: Where does Cool Papa Bell fit in among Mississippi natives on the all-time charts? The Hall of Famer from Starkville, a legendary speedster, played in the Negro Leagues for 21 years between 1922 and ’46. According to seamheads.com, the foremost authority on Negro Leagues numbers, Bell batted .324 for his career. That would be tops among Mississippians. The leader was Buddy Myer, an Ellisville native who played from 1925-41 and hit .303 (.3028 to be precise). Bell’s career stolen base total of 297 would trail only Billy Hamilton’s 305; Jarrod Dyson drops to third at 256. Bell’s best single-season steal total was 52 in 1929, when he played 102 games. That would rank second on the Magnolia State chart. Hamilton stole 59 in 139 games in 2017. Bell banged out 82 career triples, which trails only Myer’s 130 on the state list. Bell was credited with 1,636 hits, well short of Dave Parker’s 2,712, though, again, Bell played far fewer games. In 1,273 games, Bell also scored a remarkable 1,208 runs. That ranks a close third behind Parker’s 1,272 (in 2,466 games) and Ellis Burks’ 1,253 (2000 games). … William (Bill) Foster, a Hall of Famer and one of the greatest Negro Leagues pitchers, isn’t a Mississippi native but did move to Rodney as a child and grew up there (see previous posts). His numbers are worthy of a look. The left-hander, a former Alcorn State player and coach, won 150 games (per seamheads.com) between 1923-46 with a 2.59 ERA and 1,263 strikeouts. Only three Mississippians rank above him in wins: Guy Bush (176), Roy Oswalt (163) and Claude Passeau (162). Only Oswalt (1,852) had more K’s, and only Reb Russell (2.33 from 1913-19) had a better ERA.

17 Dec

friendly confines?

The competition for innings was fierce in the New York Yankees’ bullpen in recent years. Jonathan Holder might find more opportunity with the Chicago Cubs, who have signed the Mississippi State product as a free agent. The deal is for one year and $750,000, according to the Chicago Tribune, if Holder makes the roster in spring training. Holder was non-tendered by the Yankees after posting a 4.98 ERA in 18 games during a rollercoaster 2020 season. The Gulfport native, 27, has a 4.38 career ERA in 157 big league appearances, all with New York, since 2016. A standout closer at State, Holder has no career MLB save chances. Holder’s competition in Chicago could include former George County High star Justin Steele, who has been in the Cubs’ system since 2014 but has yet to make his big league debut. Left-hander Steele was actually drafted a round ahead (the fifth) of Holder in ’14.

16 Dec

on the list

On a windy April day at Frontier Field in Rochester, N.Y., in 2019, Mississippi State alumnus Brent Rooker hit a home run. He has hit a lot of those as a pro, including one as a big leaguer in 2020, but this April 13, 2019, homer is significant because it was one of 15 balls that flew out of the park that day in a record-setting Triple-A game between Lehigh Valley and the host Red Wings. Pitchers and perhaps purists might cringe at this, but the folks at milb.com picked that game as the sixth-best of the decade (2011-19) in the minor leagues. Lehigh Valley won it 20-18, though the Iron Pigs were out-hit 22-21 by the Red Wings. Rooker went 3-for-6, and the homer was his third of that young season. … The No. 1 game on milb.com’s top 10 list also involved a Mississippi college product — and also featured a lot of offense. Ex-Ole Miss star Ryan Rolison started for Class A Lancaster (Calif.) on Aug. 14, 2019, and allowed one earned run over five innings against visiting Lake Elsinore. He departed with a 3-2 lead. But the young left-hander would get no win this day. Down 13-3 in the ninth, Lake Elsinore scored 10 times with two outs to tie it and then won 14-13 with a 10th-inning tally.

15 Dec

looking (way) ahead

Five of the top 50 draft prospects for 2021 will be based in Mississippi, according to mlb.com. Seven months out from the MLB draft, a new Top 100 draft prospects list features Ole Miss ace Gunnar Hoglund, Mississippi State’s projected weekend rotation of Christian MacLeod, Will Bednar and Eric Cerantola and Madison Central High two-way star Braden Montgomery. Hoglund, a 6-foot-4 right-hander who was drafted 36th overall out of high school in 2018, is ranked No. 30. MacLeod, a big lefty, and Bednar, a righty, are Nos. 40 and 41 and Cerantola, a 6-5 righty from Canada, is No. 50. Checking in at No. 44 is Montgomery, a switch-hitting, righty-throwing outfielder/pitcher who has signed with Stanford. Montgomery reportedly impressed at the Perfect Game All-American Classic in September. … Cerantola tops the latest prospectslive.com draft list at No. 22. Hoglund, MacLeod and Montgomery are also in that site’s top 50 along with Ole Miss left-hander Doug Nikhazy. Another site, prospects365.com, projects Cerantola, MacLeod and Hoglund all going in the first round next summer. … The draft, expected to be 20-30 rounds in 2021, is set for July 11-13 in conjunction with the MLB All-Star Game. A new element in play for 2021 is the MLB Draft League, a six-team loop for draft-eligible college, juco or prep players who might want more exposure.

14 Dec

feed the monster

The Green Monster beckons for Hunter Renfroe. The former Mississippi State standout has signed as a free agent with Boston, where the iconic left-field wall has been an inviting target for many a right-handed slugger. Renfroe, 28, who reportedly got a 1-year deal worth $3 million-plus, hit two of his eight homers in 2020 at Fenway on Aug. 13 while playing for Tampa Bay. One of those bombs cleared the Monster. Renfroe has 97 homers in an MLB career that began in 2016. He hit just .156 for the Rays this season, dragging his career average down to .228. A good defender, he could be a fit in right or left field for Boston. The Red Sox actually drafted Renfroe in the 31st round in 2010 out of Copiah Academy, but he chose to go to State, where he became a first-rounder with San Diego in 2013.

11 Dec

change of scene

Change was in the wind for several Mississippi-connected players on Thursday. On the big league front, ex-Mississippi State star Nate Lowe was traded from Tampa Bay to Texas, which has an apparent affinity for first basemen from MSU. In the Rule 5 draft’s minor league phase, three Mississippi college products changed organizations, with Ole Miss’ Errol Robinson and Southern Miss’ Chuckie Robinson going to Cincinnati and Itawamba Community College’s Tyreque Reed to Boston. Lowe, a lefty slugger who hit 11 homers in 71 games for the Rays over the last two seasons, projects as Texas’ first baseman in 2021. “I told him to expect competition, but we made this deal anticipating he would win the job and be our first baseman,” Rangers GM Jon Daniels told mlb.com. Former State star Rafael Palmeiro spent 10 of his 20 MLB seasons with the Rangers, and Will Clark manned first base for Texas for five years (between Palmeiro’s two stints there). Mitch Moreland, currently a free agent, spent the first seven of his 11 MLB seasons with the Rangers. … Errol Robinson, a shortstop, went from the Los Angeles Dodgers to the Reds in the first round of the Rule 5 Triple-A phase, and Chuckie Robinson (no relation), a catcher, moved from Houston to the Reds in the third round. Errol is a .262 career hitter in four pro seasons and has reached the Triple-A level. “He’s a really good athlete. He’s extremely versatile,” Rob Coughlin, Cincinnati’s director of pro scouting, told mlb.com. Chuckie is a .249 hitter over four pro seasons and played at the Class AA level in 2019. He has a 15-homer season on his ledger. Reed, a storied slugger at Houlka High and ICC, was plucked out of the Texas system by the Red Sox in the first round of the Triple-A phase. “(W)e really believe in the power potential, so we’re excited to bring him into the organization,” Boston’s VP of professional scouting Gus Quattlebaum told mlb.com. Reed, a first baseman, is a .281 hitter with 41 homers in three pro seasons. He played high-A ball in 2019.

10 Dec

whatever happened to …

Trent Giambrone, former Delta State standout, doesn’t appear to have lost his hitting stroke despite many months away from facing live pitching. Giambrone, a Chicago Cubs farmhand currently playing in the Roberto Clemente (Puerto Rican) League, went 2-for-5 with two homers and four RBIs for Caguas on Wednesday. The 26-year-old infielder is 3-for-9 in two games since the league got under way. Giambrone was lighting up the Cactus League last spring, batting .458 with a homer and 12 RBIs in 15 games for the Cubs. Then, in mid-March, baseball came to a screeching halt. When MLB resumed in July, Giambrone was not among the 60 players in the Cubs’ pool for the 2020 season and thus never got any at-bats even in the team’s alternate camp. A 25th-round draft pick out of DSU in 2016, the 5-foot-8, 175-pound Giambrone reached Triple-A Iowa in 2019 and hit .241 with 23 homers and 17 steals. He’s a good glove man, having won a national defensive player of the year award at DSU. He isn’t on the Cubs’ 40-man roster, so he’s eligible to be plucked in today’s Rule 5 draft.

09 Dec

comes a time

With Carlos Santana officially out of the picture, the first base job in Cleveland for 2021 is open. Former Harrison Central High star Bobby Bradley figures to get a shot in spring training but will face stiff competition. Bradley, Jake Bauers and Josh Naylor are all young, left-handed power hitters. Naylor, 23, acquired from San Diego last summer in the Mike Clevinger trade, is the only one of the three to play for the big league team in 2020. (He made a splash in the postseason, going 5-for-7 with a homer.) Bradley, 24, and Bauers, 25, spent the entire season in the Indians’ alternate camp. What that says about their status, who knows? Bradley, the Indians’ No. 13 prospect, is a decorated minor league player who has demonstrated big power with 147 home runs since 2014. He is a .254 hitter who strikes out a lot. And that can be a problem. In a brief MLB stint in 2019, he fanned 20 times in 45 at-bats while hitting one homer. Bradley is about to enter his eighth pro season. If he’s going to stick in the big leagues, 2021 has got to be the year, if not in Cleveland then somewhere else.

08 Dec

lunch pail dude

Lance Lynn’s 104-71 career record is impressive, as is his 3.57 ERA. The ex-Ole Miss star has averaged 8.9 strikeouts per nine innings over a nine-year big league career. But perhaps the most impressive thing about the newest member of the Chicago White Sox’s rotation is his tenacity. He shows up for work and gives all he’s got. He made 13 starts for a last-place Texas team in the 60-game 2020 season, went 6-3 and averaged 6.5 innings per. On one memorable occasion, Aug. 14 at Colorado, the 33-year-old right-hander came into the Rangers’ dugout after the eighth inning, sitting at 98 pitches with a 3-2 lead, and proclaimed, “I’m finishing it.” He did, a complete-game two-hitter. From 2012-19, he made at least 29 starts each season, excepting 2016 which he missed after Tommy John surgery. Traded by the Rangers late Monday for two prospects, Lynn joins former East Central Community College standout Tim Anderson and Ocean Springs High alum Garrett Crochet on a White Sox team that could be scary good in 2021. P.S. Onetime Mississippi Braves outfielder Mel Rojas Jr. earned Korean Baseball Organization MVP honors for 2020. He hit .349 and led the league with 47 homers and 135 RBIs in 142 games for the KT Wiz. He fell five batting average points short of winning the Triple Crown. This was his fourth season in the KBO. He is reportedly looking for an MLB offer.

03 Dec

take a free ride

Another Mississippian hit the MLB free agent market on Wednesday when ex-Mississippi State standout Jonathan Holder was not offered a 2021 contract by the New York Yankees. Holder, 27, a right-handed middle reliever, has a 4.38 career ERA over 157 games since his 2016 debut. His best season was 2018, when he put up a 3.14 in 60 appearances, but he has not been as effective the last two years. The Gulfport native, a sixth-round pick by the Yanks in 2014, piled up 37 saves at State and another 19 during his brief time in the minors. But he never got a single save opportunity with New York. Perhaps he’ll find that opportunity with another club. … Holder joins fellow former Bulldogs Mitch Moreland and Hunter Renfroe, Southwest Mississippi Community College product Jarrod Dyson and Taylorsville’s Billy Hamilton as veteran free agents. Ex-Southern Miss star Brian Dozier, released in August by the New York Mets, is also on the market. Moreland finished last season in San Diego, which did not pick up his option for 2021. He’ll have plenty of suitors. Renfroe was cut loose by Tampa Bay; his right-handed power should be attractive to some teams. The market for Dyson, Hamilton and Dozier may be tighter. Dyson, an outfielder, is slowing down at 36. Hamilton, 30, also a speed-and-defense outfielder, has been woeful at the plate the last several seasons. Second baseman Dozier is 33 and seems to be fading.