Tag Archives: Braves

05 Nov

for pondering

As major league baseball slips into its “off-season,” here are a few Mississippi-related things to ponder over the coming weeks:
1. Where will Mitch Moreland land? The former Mississippi State standout, who has been with Texas his entire career, is a free agent. A good-fielding first baseman with left-handed power (110 career home runs), he should have plenty of suitors, including the Rangers.
2. Will Jonathan Papelbon find a new team? The ex-State star, released in August by Washington, remains a free agent. His numbers from 2016 (19 saves, 4.37 ERA) weren’t bad, but he is about to turn 36 with a lot of miles on his arm. And there’s that other stuff.
3. How will Lance Lynn’s comeback go? The Ole Miss product, who had Tommy John surgery last November, pitched a handful of innings in the minors in 2016 but was never activated by St. Louis. The Cardinals need a good year from the 29-year-old Lynn, who has a 61-39 career record.
4. Is Hunter Renfroe ready for duty? The former State star looked great during his late call-up with San Diego, batting .371 with four homers and winning a National League player of the week award. The expectations will surely ramp up heading into next season for a Padres organization that hasn’t been in the playoffs since 2006.
5. Can Brian Snitker keep Atlanta on the right track? The former Mississippi Braves manager, a really good guy who has been in the Braves’ organization since 1977, steered the team to a 37-35 record after the All-Star break. “Snitker is baseball’s version of the guy who started in the mail room and became chairman of the board,” wrote Baseball America’s Tracy Ringolsby. It feels like Atlanta made a good choice for 2017.
P.S. Mississippians Chris Stratton (Mississippi State) and Anthony Alford (Petal High) are slated to play in tonight’s Arizona Fall League Fall Stars Game, which will be televised by MLB Network at 7 p.m.

03 Nov

out of the zone

Control issues that plagued Chris Ellis this past season at Triple-A Gwinnett cropped up in the Ole Miss product’s Arizona Fall League outing on Wednesday. Ellis, pitching for Salt River, allowed four walks, four hits and seven runs in 3 1/3 innings and watched his ERA soar to 8.25. The 6-foot-5 right-hander is a top 20 prospect in Atlanta’s system and was outstanding (8-2, 2.75) for the Double-A Mississippi Braves to begin 2016. Promoted to Gwinnett, he scuffled, going 4-7 with a 6.52. He walked almost as many batters (52) as he struck out (65). He did rebound with 13 scoreless innings in two starts in the International League playoffs but hasn’t carried that success over to the AFL. He has yielded 15 hits and 11 walks in 12 innings. Ellis figures to be among the gaggle of young pitchers vying for jobs in Atlanta in 2017, but he’ll have some things to prove in the spring. P.S. The day after becoming a World Series champion, Chris Coghlan became a free agent. The ex-Ole Miss standout is on the long list of players declaring their freedom. Coghlan, 31, went 0-for-7 in the postseason for the Chicago Cubs, making one start in the Series. He batted .188 with six homers between Oakland and the Cubs this season. … Also on the new MLB free agent list: Jeff Francoeur, Blaine Boyer, Gregor Blanco, Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Charlie Morton, all former M-Braves stars.

17 Oct

familiar territory

JaCoby Jones is off to a good start – again – in the Arizona Fall League. The former Mr. Baseball from Richton High is 4-for-10 with a home run, five RBIs and three runs through five games for Salt River. Jones, a highly rated Detroit prospect, played in the high caliber AFL last year, too, and was doing quite well before being slapped with a drug suspension that lasted into his 2016 minor league season. Having spent some time in the majors this year, Jones is back for more seasoning in the AFL, older and presumably a bit wiser. “I think the biggest thing I learned in the big leagues was how to prepare myself before games,” Jones, 24, told mlb.com. A third-round pick (by Pittsburgh) out of LSU in 2013, Jones batted .257 with seven homers in Double-A and Triple-A in 2016 and got an August call-up from the Tigers. He hit .214 in 28 at-bats. Jones, 6 feet 2, 205 pounds, is a career .269 hitter in the minors with 47 homers and 58 steals and can play virtually anywhere in the field. P.S. Ex-Mississippi State standout Tyler Moore, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College alum Joey Butler, Ole Miss product Alex Presley and Starkville native Julio Borbon have become minor league free agents. Moore spent all of this past season at Triple-A Gwinnett in Atlanta’s system but played in only 25 games (.229, three homers) because of injuries. Butler also spent all of the season in Triple-A for Cleveland, while Presley (Detroit) and Borbon (Baltimore) did see some big league duty. … Hawtin Buchanan, the 6-8 former Ole Miss pitcher from Biloxi, has signed a minor league deal with Cincinnati. He pitched in the independent United Shore League this year after being released in spring training by Seattle.

17 Oct

top of class

In its annual MLB draft assessment issue, Baseball America picked a pair of precocious pitchers from Mississippi colleges to highlight for having had the best debut in their respective organizations. Wyatt Short, the ex-Ole Miss star from Southaven, and Zac Houston, a Mississippi State product, were among a number of Mississippians hailed in BA’s Oct. 21-Nov. 4 issue. Short, drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the 13th round in June, did not allow an earned run in 15 innings and notched seven saves in short-season A-ball. Houston, an 11th-rounder by Detroit, had an 0.30 ERA and four saves over 20 games at two levels, finishing in the Class A Midwest League. Also earning props from BA was ex-State standout Jacob Robson, an eighth-round pick by the Tigers who batted .267 in rookie ball and .316 in low Class A. Robson was labeled the Best Pure Hitter in Detroit’s class and was ranked among the five fastest runners drafted this year. Ole Miss alum J.B. Woodman, a second-rounder by Toronto, shared Best Defensive Player honors in the Blue Jays’ class. BA praised outfielder Woodman’s arm in particular. Woodman hit .272 with three homers, 24 RBIs and 10 steals in short-season A-ball and earned a promotion to low-A, where he batted .441 in 34 at-bats. The first Mississippian picked in June, State’s Dakota Hudson, who went to St. Louis in the first round, was recognized for his fastball: He tallied 19 strikeouts in 13 innings between the rookie level and high-A. Others to be singled out: State’s Nathaniel Lowe (Best Power, Tampa Bay), Bulldogs product Jack Kruger (Best Late-Round Pick, Los Angeles Angels), Itawamba Community College alum Delvin Zinn (Best Athlete, Cubs) and Starkville’s A.J. Brown (Best Athlete, San Diego). Brown, now playing football at Ole Miss, won’t make his pro debut before next summer. MSU fans lamenting what they lost in the draft can take some solace in the arrival of Graham Ashcraft, an Alabama prep star labeled The One Who Got Away in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ draft class, and Ole Miss fans can do the same concerning Grae Kessinger, the Oxford High product who passed on an offer from the Padres. Kessinger is part of a recruiting class ranked No. 1 by BA, which had seven of the new Rebels in its top 500 in the pre-draft rankings. … Atlanta and Milwaukee were ranked 2-3 in the Best Draft category, which bodes well for what we might see in Pearl and Biloxi a few years down the road.

08 Oct

a look (way) ahead

Here’s a way-too-early forecast – some six months before the first game — of what the 2017 Mississippi Braves might look like: One of the “star attractions” could be power-hitting second baseman Travis Demeritte, rated Atlanta’s No. 9 prospect. Demeritte was acquired by the Braves in a trade with Texas in mid-summer. A Ron Gant-type, he hit .266 with 28 homers and 70 RBIs on the year, which he finished at high-A Carolina (the team that will be in Florida next year). With Ozzie Albies ahead of him in the pipeline, Demeritte might be shifted to third base. Outfielder Braxton Davidson didn’t have a great year at Carolina — .224, 10 homers, 63 RBIs, lots of strikeouts – but the No. 24 prospect is still a logical candidate for a job in Pearl. Might as well challenge him in Double-A. It wouldn’t be a big surprise to see Jacob Schrader back at first base, Carlos Franco at third and Connor Lien, Joey Meneses and injury-plagued Sean Godfrey in the outfield. Infielder Johan Camargo played well enough (.267, six triples, 43 RBIs, 46 runs) to rate a promotion, but he’d be a nice fit as the regular shortstop in 2017 after bouncing around the infield this past year. At catcher, pencil in Kade Scivicque, the ex-Southwest Mississippi Community College star, and Joseph Odom. Both came up late in 2016, Scivicque after being picked up in a trade. Other candidates for promotion from the high-A club include infielders Luis Valenzuela and Ryan Gebhardt and outfielder Keith Curcio, who got some ABs with the M-Braves in the playoffs. The pitching staff could be manned by familiar faces like Max Povse, Patrick Weigel and A.J. Minter and Double-A rookies such as Touki Toussaint and Max Fried, all top 30 prospects from the Braves’ abundant stable of quality young arms. The M-Braves, who reached the Southern League Championship Series this season, will take up the next chase for that elusive second pennant on April 6. But take heed, fans: The 2017 season will be Year 13 for the team at Trustmark Park. P.S. Disappointing to see that Roger McDowell, the ex-Jackson Mets standout, won’t be back as Atlanta’s pitching coach in 2017. From all indications, he had done a good job over his 11 seasons in that role. The Braves have lot of questions about their pitching staff heading into next year. Apparently they want someone new to search for the answers.

29 Sep

another wow moment

The numbers are in. MLB’s Statcast numbers, that is, on Hunter Renfroe’s ginormous home run, the one that went where no ball has gone before – the roof of the Western Metal Supply Co. building beyond the left-field wall at San Diego’s Petco Park. Statcast put the distance of Wednesday night’s blast at 434 feet and the exit velocity of the ball off the bat at 109 mph. “I think we all know he’s got a ton of raw power. I wasn’t expecting that,” Padres manager Andy Green told mlb.com. Former Mississippi State star Renfroe, 6 feet 1, 220 pounds, now has four homers in 21 MLB at-bats, with 12 RBIs and six runs. No doubt there are some old Copiah Academy fans who are saying today, “Oh yeah, we saw this coming.” Renfroe hit a Mississippi private school-record 20 bombs for Copiah as a senior just six short years ago. He hit 15 homers his junior year at the Gallman school. He started slowly at State but flexed his muscles as a junior in 2013, belting 16 homers (while batting .345) and earning All-America honors. He also won the Ferriss Trophy that year and was drafted in the first round by the Padres. He hit 77 minor league homers before crashing The Show on Sept. 21. Elsewhere in MLB: Ole Miss product Seth Smith drove in two runs to help Seattle crush Houston 12-4 and hang 2 games out of an American League wild card berth. … Jarrod Dyson, the former Southwest Mississippi Community College star, got two hits, two runs and his 29th steal of the year as Kansas City beat Minnesota 5-2. But Ned Yost’s Royals were eliminated from AL wild card contention just the same. … The fingerprints of former Mississippi Braves were all over Atlanta’s 12-2 win against Philadelphia. The incredible Freddie Freeman extended his hit streak to 30 games; rookie Dansby Swanson – who can play a little, too – went 2-for-3 with two RBIs and three runs; Daniel Castro had three hits and three RBIs; Mallex Smith scored a run; John Gant threw a scoreless inning; and Rio Ruiz got his first big league knock, a triple. … And a blast from another past: John Jaso’s cycle was the first by a Pittsburgh player since former Jackson Generals star Daryle Ward turned the trick in 2004. Ward had five career triples.

24 Sep

isn’t this fun?

Of the 14 games with postseason implications played in the big leagues on Friday, the one deserving the most attention took place in Oakland. Mississippi State product Kendall Graveman threw six perfect innings for the A’s before Texas put together a rally in the seventh and went on to a 3-0 win that clinched the American League West title. Ex-Bulldogs star Mitch Moreland took an 0-for-3 for the Rangers, but we can assume that didn’t put a damper on his celebration. … In Chicago, former Ole Miss standout Chris Coghlan contributed an RBI double for the Cubs as they clinched home-field advantage throughout the National League playoffs by beating wild card contender St. Louis 5-0. … In Pittsburgh, the wild card hopeful Pirates, with State product Adam Frazier driving in two runs, knocked off Washington 6-5 in 11 innings, denying the Nationals in their bid to clinch the NL East. … At Tampa Bay, former Ole Miss star Drew Pomeranz worked five strong innings for Boston as the red-hot Red Sox, closing in on the AL East title, beat the Rays 2-1 for their ninth straight win. Pomeranz is now 3-5 for the BoSox. … In Detroit, Southwest Mississippi Community College alum Jarrod Dyson smacked his seventh triple of the year and picked up two RBIs, but Kansas City was dealt a crushing blow by Detroit in an 8-3 loss. Jackson Mets alum Ned Yost’s defending World Series champs appear to be toast in 2016. The Tigers, meanwhile, remain very much in the playoff hunt. … In Toronto, former JaxMets star John Gibbons watched his Blue Jays pummel the New York Yankees 9-0, and in Baltimore, ex-State standout Buck Showalter and his Orioles got a lift from Mark Trumbo’s walk-off homer in a 3-2 win against Arizona. And in Miami, Brian Snitker’s surging Atlanta Braves won their seventh straight, damaging the Marlins’ NL wild card chances with a 3-2 victory. Former Mississippi Braves closer Mauricio Cabrera got the save, with ex-M-Braves star Mallex Smith making a diving catch in left field to end the game. Snitker, who managed the first M-Braves team in 2005, has done a good job with the last-place Braves and is building a strong case for returning as manager in 2017.

21 Sep

he’s got name

There is something about the name that gets your attention: Delvin Zinn. Some clever headlines in that name. Of course, he’s got game, too. The Chicago Cubs certainly seem to think so, having drafted Pontotoc native Zinn twice. The 5-foot-10, 170-pound shortstop, who made his pro debut on July 28 for the Arizona League Cubs, is still in Arizona for the Instructional League season. His numbers in the AZL weren’t much to shout about. In just 11 games, he batted .182 with one extra-base hit. Zinn was chosen in the 23rd round in June out of Itawamba Community College, where he batted .411 as a freshman this past season with 34 RBIs, 41 runs and seven steals. Scouting reports rave about his defense. Drafted by the Cubs in the 28th round in 2015 out of Pontotoc High, Zinn opted to go to Mississippi State, where he took part in fall ball before transferring to ICC, where he was eligible to be drafted again after his freshman season. Zinn, just 19, isn’t yet among the Cubs’ rated prospects, but he is one to watch in an organization that appears to be set up for long-term success. … Also on the Cubs’ IL roster are left-handers Wyatt Short, drafted out of Ole Miss this year, and Justin Steele, a 2014 fifth-rounder from George County. Southaven native Short (see previous post) had a very good debut in the Northwest League. Steele, the highest-drafted prep pitcher from Mississippi since Matt Butler in 1999, went 5-7 with a 5.00 ERA in the Class A Midwest League this season. Scouting reports say the Cubs’ No. 23 prospect is still harnessing command of his three pitches. P.S. Former DeSoto Central All-Stater Austin Riley is on Atlanta’s IL roster; the third baseman is coming off a 20-homer year at low Class A Rome. Outfield prospect Braxton Davidson, who could be with the Mississippi Braves in 2017, also is in Florida, along with pitchers Carlos Salazar and Chad Sobotka, two other likely candidates for Pearl next year.

18 Sep

worth noting

Props to Ned Yost, the onetime Jackson Mets star, for notching his 1,000th win as a big league manager. Kansas City snapped a five-game losing skid on Saturday with a 3-2 win over the Chicago White Sox. The defending world champs remain in the picture in the American League wild card race. Former Southwest Mississippi Community College standout Jarrod Dyson went 2-for-4 with a run for the Royals. … Ex-JaxMets manager Clint Hurdle saw his Pittsburgh Pirates get back to .500 (74-74) with a doubleheader sweep of Cincinnati. The Pirates can’t be counted out in the National League wild card race just yet. … Can’t help but notice what former Mississippi Braves star Jose Peraza has done with the Reds: .326 with two homers, 19 RBIs, 17 runs and 16 steals in 59 games. Injuries to Mississippians Billy Hamilton and Zack Cozart have opened the door for more playing time for Peraza. … Craig Kimbrel, another former M-Braves star playing somewhere other than Atlanta, struck out all four batters he faced on Saturday as Boston beat the New York Yankees for the third straight day at Fenway Park. Kimbrel has 27 saves for the AL East leaders. … Ole Miss alum Drew Pomeranz gets the start tonight for Boston against the Yankees’ CC Sabathia in the ESPN game. Pomeranz is 2-5 with a 4.60 ERA for the Sox; he was 8-7, 2.47 with San Diego. … Atlanta has called up 2015 M-Braves third baseman Rio Ruiz, who becomes the 16th M-Braves alum to make an MLB roster this season. … Ole Miss product Chris Coghlan, trying to secure a spot on the Chicago Cubs’ postseason roster, hit his first homer for the NL Central champs on Saturday – he had five in Oakland – after going 3-for-4 with an RBI on Friday. The lefty-hitting Coghlan played first base on Friday and left field on Saturday; he can also play second and third base. … Former UM standout Seth Smith picked up his 56th RBI – three short of his career-high – in Seattle’s 2-1 loss to Houston in an AL wild card battle. … Hunter Renfroe, the ex-Mississippi State star, drove in two runs to help El Paso beat Oklahoma City 4-3 in 11 innings and claim the Pacific Coast League championship. UM product Auston Bousfield also played for the Chihuahuas. El Paso moves on to the Triple-A championship game.

16 Sep

in other news

There was a celebration at Trustmark Park on Thursday night, but it was the “bad guys” who threw down. The Jackson (Tenn.) Generals claimed the Southern League pennant with an 11-3 win against the Mississippi Braves that completed a 3-0 sweep. So … enough about that. In the Class A South Atlantic League, former DeSoto Central High star Austin Riley hit a home run – his 22nd of the year – to help the Rome Braves move to within a victory of the championship in the low-A loop. Rome beat Lakewood 2-0 on Thursday to take a 2-1 series lead with Game 4 set for tonight in New Jersey. “We’re ready to get after it,” Riley told milb.com. Riley’s star is rising. At age 19, in his first full pro season, he hit .271 with 20 homers and 80 RBIs for Rome, making Baseball America’s All-Low Class A team at third base. The 41st overall pick in 2015, he is currently rated Atlanta’s No. 6 prospect by BA and No. 13 by mlb.com with an ETA in the big leagues of 2019. “Riley has the makings of an impact run-producing hitter,” writes MLBPipeline. The 6-foot-3, 220-pound right-handed hitter could be in Mississippi sometime next summer. That should give M-Braves fans a little lift.