Tag Archives: Joe Gray

06 Dec

changing course

Having stalled in the low minors in Milwaukee’s system, ex-Hattiesburg High star Joe Gray Jr. will get a fresh start in 2024 with Kansas City. The 23-year-old outfielder was the first pick in the minor league phase of today’s Rule 5 draft. A second-round pick in MLB’s amateur draft in 2018 and a top 10 prospect with the Brewers as recently as 2022, Gray has batted .218 with 51 home runs and 66 steals in five pro seasons, only briefly reaching Double-A. Promoted to Biloxi in May of this past season, Gray went 2-for-37 with 17 strikeouts and one walk in 10 games before being sent back to A-ball. Gray is listed on Kansas City’s Triple-A Omaha roster but is likely to be tested at Double-A Northwest Arkansas in the Texas League next season. … Former Southern Miss star Dustin Dickerson and Magee High product Brennon McNair played in A-ball in the Kansas City chain in 2023. P.S. Former Moss Point High and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College standout Tony Sipp is among the ex-major leaguers already committed to play in The East-West Classic: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues All-Star Game in Cooperstown, N.Y., next May 25. Scott and Jerry Hairston Jr., grandsons of Crawford native and former Negro Leagues star Sam Hairston, also are on the initial rosters. The National Baseball Hall of Fame will open “The Souls of the Game: Voices of Black Baseball” exhibit on Memorial Day weekend.

04 May

farm livin’

After four-plus seasons of grinding in the low minors, former Hattiesburg High star Joe Gray Jr. received a promotion to Double-A Biloxi on Tuesday. Gray, a second-round draft pick by Milwaukee five years ago, was batting .247 with a homer, 12 RBIs and five steals at High-Class A Wisconsin when the Brewers moved him. Two games into the big jump, he is still looking for his first hit, having started 0-for-9 with four strikeouts in a series at Montgomery. The 23-year-old outfielder, considered a 5-tool player in high school, has fallen off the Brewers’ prospect charts; he is a .212 career hitter though he has flashed some power and speed. It’s time to put it all together. … The Colorado Rockies, currently 11-20, look like a team that could use some help. Maybe they’ve got an eye on what Hunter Stovall is doing at Triple-A Albuquerque. The Mississippi State product is batting .381 in 17 games. He was on base six times in the Isotopes’ 22-4 win over Sugar Land on Wednesday, hitting his first home run of the season, scoring three runs and knocking in two. The middle infielder, 26, is in his fifth year of pro ball. … Jordan Westburg is clamoring for a call-up from Baltimore. The ex-State star went 3-for-5 with a homer and three RBIs for Triple-A Norfolk and is at .337 for the year with six bombs. He has played five different positions this season, though second base might be where he fits best. … Southern Miss alum Chuckie Robinson is batting .414 with three homers and 12 RBIs in 20 games at Triple-A Louisville. If or when Cincinnati needs a catcher, he looks ready for a second MLB stint. … Pitching exclusively out of the bullpen this season, former MSU ace Ethan Small has done solid work for Milwaukee’s Triple-A Nashville club. The lefty, the Brewers’ No. 13 prospect, tossed three scoreless innings Wednesday, trimming his ERA to 2.70 in nine appearances. His brief big league looks as a starter in 2022 didn’t go well, but he’ll get another shot in this new role. … Hoping to become the first Mississippi College alum to play in the majors since Harry Craft in 1942, Blaine Crim just keeps banging in the Texas system. Crim, a first baseman, went 2-for-5 for Triple-A Round Rock in a Wednesday doubleheader to boost his average to .300 with two homers and seven RBIs. He is a .304 career hitter over four minor league campaigns. P.S. Taylorsville native Billy Hamilton, the speedy MLB veteran, is back in The Show with the Chicago White Sox and in two appearances as a pinch runner, he has a run and a stolen base. The White Sox won both games.

28 Jul

clearing ahead?

A corrective lens in his right eye may have put Joe Gray Jr. back on track in his fourth pro season. The Hattiesburg High product, a second-round pick by Milwaukee in 2018 and a highly regarded prospect in the system ever since, got off to a slow start this season at High-Class A Wisconsin. The right-handed hitting outfielder went through a miserable 1-for-48 slump in June before finally realizing something was wrong with his vision, according to a story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Gray had Lasik surgery in the off-season, but the vision in his right eye somehow got worse. “It just sucked that it took me half of the season to figure that out,” he told the Journal Sentinel. The Brewers’ No. 13 prospect was hitting .163 before getting the corrective lens; he is up to .191 as of today with a seven-game hitting streak. He has 12 home runs and 16 stolen bases. Coming off a year in which he batted .252 with 20 homers and 23 steals, Gray, only 22, had hoped to make Double-A Biloxi this season. Now that he is back to, in his words, “having fun,” he still might get that promotion before the Southern League season ends in mid-September.

04 Mar

local flavor

Heads up, Biloxi Shuckers fans. A home-grown player appears headed that way next month. Joe Gray Jr., the ex-Hattiesburg High star, said in an mlb.com article that Double-A Biloxi is where he’s aiming to launch his 2022 season and build on the big year he had in A-ball. “That’s going to mean a lot,” Gray said of not just reaching the game’s pivotal level in his fourth pro season but playing close to home. Beset by illness and injuries in his first two seasons and shelved by the pandemic in 2020, Milwaukee’s second-round pick from 2018 broke out in 2021, batting .252 with 20 homers, 90 RBIs and 23 steals at two levels of A-ball. He also got an Arizona Fall League assignment. “So long as I’m on the field, stuff is going to happen,” Gray told mlb.com in a very interesting interview that covers his childhood on a farm in Carson (outside of Hattiesburg), why he chose baseball over football and his difficult bout with pneumonia in 2018. Minor league roster decisions are a long way off, but there is a strong chance the 21-year-old Gray, the Brewers’ No. 9 prospect, will be in center field when the Shuckers open April 8 at Pensacola. The team’s first game at MGM Park is set for April 12 against the Mississippi Braves. P.S. Madison Central alum Spencer Turnbull is throwing again and is optimistic he’ll pitch for Detroit sometime in 2022, according to a Detroit News report. Turnbull had Tommy John surgery last summer. The right-hander, 29, went 4-2 with a 2.88 ERA and tossed a no-hitter on May 18 last year. … Former Loyd Star standout James Beard was named the best defensive prospect in the Chicago White Sox system by MLB Pipeline. The speedy Beard, a center fielder, was a fourth-round pick in 2019. His bat is still a work in progress; he hit .192 with five homers and nine steals at Low-A Kannapolis in 2021. Mississippi State and Jackson Prep alum Jake Mangum (see previous post) was pegged as the top defensive prospect in the New York Mets organization.

14 Aug

prospect watch

It has taken some time, but Joe Gray, Jr., the highly touted Hattiesburg High product, has started to shine in the Milwaukee system. MLB Pipeline recently identified a “surging prospect” for each big league team, and Gray was pegged among the Brewers’ farmhands. “Gray’s speed, outfield arm and power potential always made him a prospect, but it was an open question whether he would hit enough. He seems to have found a good blend of power and flexibility at the plate, leading to more impactful contact,” they wrote. Gray, a second-round pick in 2018 and Milwaukee’s No. 30 prospect, is now in High-A ball. The right-handed hitting outfielder went 4-for-5 for Wisconsin on Friday night and smacked his fifth home run. On the year, at two levels, he has 17 homers and 18 stolen bases. Look for him to reach Double-A Biloxi in 2022. … Ex-Mississippi State and Jackson Prep star Jake Mangum, the New York Mets’ No. 30 prospect, is batting .479 this month at Double-A Binghamton. For the season with the Rumble Ponies, Mangum is hitting .287 with five homers, four triples, 19 doubles and nine steals. … Southern Miss alum Matt Wallner, the No. 13 prospect in Minnesota’s organization, hit his 10th homer Friday and is batting .274 at High-A Cedar Rapids. P.S. Mississippians in the majors got a little homer happy on Friday. DeSoto Central product Austin Riley hit No. 24 for Atlanta; he ought to be getting consideration for MVP. (Two other former Mississippi Braves went deep in Atlanta’s comeback win at Washington: Ozzie Albies and Dansby Swanson each hit his 21st bomb of the season.) MSU alum Hunter Renfroe hit his 20th for Boston and also made a homer-robbing catch; he ought to be getting consideration for comeback player of the year. Ex-State standout Brent Rooker hit his fifth homer as part of a 4-for-5 night for Minnesota; he’s got his average up to .187.

26 May

minor matters

Joe Gray Jr. had a day, perhaps one of his best, for Low-A Carolina in Milwaukee’s system on Tuesday. The ex-Hattiesburg High standout went 3-for-6 with a grand slam, six RBIs, four runs and a stolen base. A second-round pick in 2018, the 6-foot-1, 195-pound outfielder scuffled in his first two pro seasons, batting under .200, but is at .239 with five homers, 18 RBIs and five bags for the Mudcats. Over his last four games, Gray is 7-for-20 with three bombs. Once ranked among the Brewers’ top 10 prospects, he has dropped off the mlb.com chart. Only 21, he is certainly capable of a resurgence. Missing the 2020 season didn’t help. Gray hit .182 with two homers in 24 games in the rookie Arizona League in 2018 and .164 with three homers in 31 games in the advanced rookie Pioneer League in 2019. … Jake Mangum, the former Mississippi State and Jackson Prep star, has made a smooth adjustment to Double-A pitching. Moved up as part of the injury-riddled New York Mets’ roster shuffling, Mangum is batting .385 in three games at Binghamton in the Double-A East. He homered and drove in four runs Tuesday. He was hitting .206 in A-ball. … Delvin Zinn, the Itawamba Community College product from Pontotoc, is batting .275 with eight RBIs, 13 runs and 14 steals, tops in the High-A Central, for South Bend in the Chicago Cubs’ system. Zinn swiped 30 bags in 2019. (He was involved in a rare benches-clearing brawl that led to four ejections on Tuesday in a game against Fort Wayne; Zinn was not ejected.) … Ex-MSU standout Hunter Stovall, back in Colorado’s system after a brief detour with Philadelphia, is hitting .264 with a homer and nine RBIs for High-A Spokane. … Jordan Westburg, the 30th overall pick out of State last summer, is raking at a .373 clip with three homers and 18 RBIs for Baltimore’s Low-A Delmarva team. He might not be long for that level.

25 Feb

whatever happened to …

Joe Gray, the ex-Hattiesburg High star, made his first appearance in an MLB spring training game on Monday and showed out. Gray, inserted mid-game as the DH for Milwaukee, went 2-for-2 with a double, an RBI and a run in the Brewers’ Cactus League loss to Oakland at Mesa, Ariz. Gray, a second-round pick by the Brewers in 2018, has labored rather quietly through two pro seasons at the lowest levels of the Brewers’ system. A 6-foot-1, 195-pound outfielder, he hit .182 with two homers in 24 games in the rookie Arizona League in 2018 and .164 with three homers in 31 games in the advanced rookie Pioneer League last season. He remains a highly rated prospect – MLB Pipeline has him at No. 9 in the Milwaukee system – based on his power potential and defensive abilities, most notably his arm. Gray, still only 19, has struck out 61 times in 187 at-bats, so more consistent contact is likely key to his advancement. He is probably a couple of years away from reaching Double-A Biloxi. P.S. Also making their big league spring debut on Monday at Mesa were Ethan Small, the Mississippi State product who was the Brewers’ first-round pick last summer, and Ole Miss alum Thomas Dillard, Milwaukee’s fifth-round selection in 2019. Left-hander Small worked a scoreless inning with a punchout and a walk, while Dillard, playing right field, went 0-for-1. … In the Brewers’ other split-squad game on Monday, a win against the Los Angeles Angels in Phoenix, former MSU star Brandon Woodruff, the staff ace, threw a scoreless first inning, opening some eyes when his first pitch hit 98 mph. “So, I needed to tone it down just a hair,” Woodruff told mlb.com.

26 Aug

that’s the ticket

Chicago White Sox scouting and development folks had to be smiling Sunday when they got the report on James Beard. Batting leadoff and playing center field for their rookie Arizona League club, the fourth-round pick out of Loyd Star High went 3-for-5 with a double, a triple, three runs and a stolen base. Beard, the first high school player picked out of Mississippi, was widely regarded as the fastest player in the 2019 draft. How much he would hit in pro ball was the great unknown, but Beard has flashed some bat skills of late. In his last four games, the 5-foot-10, 170-pounder is 7-for-20 with three RBIs. For the season, in 31 games, he is at .213 with two homers, 12 RBIs, 19 runs and nine bags (in 12 tries). Beard was compared to Taylorsville High product Billy Hamilton in pre-draft buzz, though, as MLB Pipeline’s scouting report now says: “Beard shows the potential to make much more impact at the plate than Hamilton.” Beard is rated the White Sox’s No. 21 prospect. … Joe Gray, the top prep pick from the state who signed in 2018, is rated the No. 10 prospect in Milwaukee’s system, but the ex-Hattiesburg High star is, like Beard, more of a project at this stage. Gray, also a center fielder, is batting .191 with two homers, six RBIs and three steals in 20 games at Rocky Mountain in the rookie-level Pioneer League. A second-round pick last year, the 6-1, 195-pound Gray batted .182 with two homers and six steals in the AZL last summer. His best tool might be his arm.

22 Jan

crowded field

There are eight outfielders, including Hattiesburg High product Joe Gray, listed among Milwaukee’s top 30 prospects by MLB Pipeline. Trying to fight his way through that crowd is Zach Clark, an unrated former Pearl River Community College star about to enter his fourth pro season. A 19th-round pick in 2016, the 6-foot-2, 200-pound Clark just completed a solid campaign in the Australian Baseball League. He hit a three-run homer in his final game for Auckland over the weekend, finishing the 40-game season with six bombs, 19 RBIs and a .237 average. Clark batted .338 with 11 homers and 24 steals as a sophomore at PRCC and was bound for Alabama before the Brewers drafted him. He played at low Class A Wisconsin in 2018, batting .246 with eight homers. His ETA in Double-A Biloxi would be 2020. … Gray is rated the Brewers’ No. 6 prospect and is expected to advance quickly in the system. A power hitter with a strong arm, he was a second-round pick last summer and hit .182 with two homers and six steals in limited play in rookie ball. MLB Pipeline projects Gray’s big league arrival as 2022.