Tag Archives: minor league baseball

25 Aug

three stars

Time to play three stars again, a minor league version.
Austin Riley: The former DeSoto Central High standout is crushing it for the Double-A Mississippi Braves. He had two hits on Thursday at Chattanooga, extending his hitting streak to 10 games and raising his average to .305 in 37 games. He is batting .457 during his streak. The 20-year-old third base prospect has six homers and 20 RBIs for the M-Braves and 18 homers on the season. He has 50 career home runs in three pro seasons. Riley still needs to polish up his defense, but his star is definitely rising.
Brent Rooker: The Mississippi State product, drafted 35th overall by Minnesota in June, went 2-for-4 with his ninth home run in 35 games for Class A Fort Myers. Rooker is now batting .274 at the high-A level after hitting .282 with seven bombs in 22 games in rookie ball. The 6-foot-3, 215-pound outfielder should make Double-A next year.
Hunter Renfroe: The MSU and Copiah Academy alum went 3-for-4 and is now 7-for-12 in three games at Triple-A El Paso since his demotion by San Diego. Renfroe, who had 20 homers for the Padres, hasn’t gone yard for the Chihuahuas yet but has three doubles, a triple and five runs. Surely the woeful Padres will bring him back in September.

22 Aug

minor matters

It’s safe to assume Hunter Renfroe is on a mission to get back to the big leagues, and he is certainly off to a good start. Renfroe, the Mississippi State product from Crystal Springs, went 3-for-5 with a double and a triple Monday in his first game with Triple-A El Paso. The rookie outfielder was sent down by San Diego after hitting .230 with 20 home runs and 125 strikeouts through 111 games. … Ex-Petal High star Anthony Alford is on a similar mission. Alford, who got a brief call-up with Toronto in May, doubled, homered and stole a base Monday for Double-A New Hampshire. Alford is hitting .371 over his last 10 games and .322 for the season, with five homers, 23 RBIs and 15 bags. … Bobby Bradley, the former Harrison Central star and a top Cleveland prospect, also had a day: a double, a homer and four RBIs for Double-A Akron. Bradley, a lefty-hitting first baseman, has hit at a .389 clip over his last 10 games, raising his average to .246 with 21 homers and 82 RBIs. Not yet on the Indians’ 40-man roster, the 21-year-old Bradley may be a year away from the big leagues. … Ole Miss alum J.B. Woodman, a Toronto prospect in just his second pro season, went 2-for-5 with two doubles on Monday for Class A Lansing and is hitting .342 over his last 10 games. He’s at .255 with six homers and 42 RBIs this season.

15 Aug

progress report

Brent Rooker, the first Mississippian picked in the 2017 draft (35th overall), has proven to be a quick study in pro ball. The ex-Mississippi State standout has already advanced a level in Minnesota’s system and is batting .314 with four home runs over his last 10 games, raising his average at high Class A Fort Myers to .237 with seven homers. But Rooker has a lot of company in the fast lane. Each of the top 10 Mississippi-connected players drafted and signed in June is off to a good start, some a great start. Tyreque Reed (Itawamba Community College) is batting .350 with five homers and 26 RBIs in the rookie Arizona League, though he hasn’t played in over a week for the AZL (Texas) Rangers. Dylan Burdeaux (Southern Miss) hit .319 in short-season A for Detroit and was quickly bumped up to low-A, where he is batting .265 in 23 games. Taylor Braley (USM), the second Mississippian picked (sixth round, Miami), is 1-1 with a 2.89 ERA in four appearances in the short-season A New York-Penn League. It may feel like old home week at times in the NYPL. Other Mississippians in the league: Braley’s former teammate Kirk McCarty is with Cleveland’s affiliate and is 2-1, 2.05 in nine games; Ryan Gridley (MSU), an Oakland draftee, is batting .268 with 17 RBIs and five steals; and David Parkinson (Ole Miss) is 1-1, 2.84 for Philadelphia’s affiliate. Tate Blackman (UM), in rookie ball with the Chicago White Sox, is hitting .227 with two homers and 13 RBIs and is over .300 in his last 10 games. Bryce Brown (Jackson State) is batting .254 with 20 RBIs and 12 steals at the rookie level for Tampa Bay. Erstwhile East Mississippi CC quarterback Vijay Miller, a San Diego draftee who apparently has given up football, has a 4.00 ERA and 22 strikeouts in 18 innings in the rookie Arizona League.

20 Apr

farm livin’

Power is the tool that will carry Bobby Bradley upward, and the ex-Harrison Central High star has tapped into it again at Double-A Akron with home runs in his last two games. One of Cleveland’s highest rated prospects, the 20-year-old Bradley now has three homers and 11 RBIs, five of those collected on Wednesday. The lefty-hitting first baseman is batting just .184 with 16 strikeouts in 38 at-bats – but he has walked 11 times and has a .360 on-base percentage. … Austin Riley, the former DeSoto Central standout and a top Atlanta prospect, had a four-hit game on Wednesday, perhaps a sign that he is finding a rhythm. Riley, playing third base at high Class A Florida, is hitting .250 with two home runs and 11 RBIs in 14 games. … Petal High product Anthony Alford, one of Toronto’s top prospects, is rocking along at .475 with nine hits in his last five games for Double-A New Hampshire. … Mississippi State product Brandon Woodruff, Milwaukee’s minor league pitcher of the year in 2016, is 3-0 with a 2.20 ERA in three starts at Triple-A Colorado Springs. … Jacob Robson isn’t highly rated on Detroit’s prospect charts – yet – but the former State standout is surely getting some attention with his hot start at low-A West Michigan. The lefty-hitting outfielder, drafted last June, went 3-for-4 Wednesday to boost his average to .348. … Dakota Hudson, the first Mississippian picked in the ’16 draft (34th overall out of MSU by St. Louis), is 1-0, 2.31 at Double-A Springfield. He has 11 strikeouts and five walks in 11 2/3 innings. He worked only 13 1/3 innings in the minors last summer. … Ex-Ole Miss star J.B. Woodman, the second Mississippian drafted last summer (second round, Toronto), is off to a .267 start at low-A Lansing. … Angel Rosa and Wade Wass are familiar names on the roster of the Mobile BayBears, the Los Angeles Angels affiliate currently appearing at Trustmark Park in Pearl. Rosa, an infielder, is an Alcorn State alum, Wass, a catcher, a Meridian Community College product. Both played in Wednesday’s matinee, a 5-1 loss to the Mississippi Braves.

09 Apr

fields of dreams

You can imagine the conversation when a father takes his son – or a mother takes her daughter — to Trustmark Park in Pearl for the first time. “This is where Freddie Freeman used to play.” Or, “This is where Craig Kimbrel pitched before he made the major leagues.” Trustmark Park, in 12 seemingly short years, has established a tremendous legacy as the place where well over a hundred future big leaguers once starred in Double-A as Mississippi Braves. MGM Park in Biloxi, which opened in 2015, has only just begun to create a history as the Shuckers funnel players to Milwaukee. It has been 11 years since they played professional baseball at Jackson’s Smith-Wills Stadium, and none who called that park home are still playing in the major leagues. But the stadium still stands proudly out on Lakeland Drive, now used by Belhaven University as its home field. There are plenty of folks around who fondly recall the days of the Jackson Mets and Generals and the future MLB stars who played for them. “This is where Lance Berkman used to play.” But Mississippi’s minor league tradition goes back well beyond the opening of Smith-Wills in 1975. Nineteen different cities in the state have hosted minor league clubs since 1900, which makes you wonder: Whatever happened to the ballparks where those teams played? Jackson’s Legion Field, where a number of future major leaguers toiled, sat on what is now the Fairgrounds; it was destroyed by a tornado in 1953. In Gulfport, they had the Base Ball Grounds, where, according to baseball-reference.com, a team called the Tarpons played from 1926-28. Cleveland had Boyle Field. Meridian had Buckwalter Stadium. There was City Park in Vicksburg, Ginners Park in Clarksdale, Legion Field in Greenwood and Sportsman Park in Greenville. And there were others, in places like Tupelo and Hattiesburg and Brookhaven. Those ballparks certainly weren’t anything like the multi-million dollar stadiums in Pearl and Biloxi, but they were the fields of dreams in their time. Big league players passed through those old ballparks. … Makes you wish you had a time machine. And a scorecard. And some popcorn.

02 Dec

winds of change

So, former Ole Miss standout Chris Ellis is off to a third organization in three years, traded on Thursday by Atlanta to St. Louis in the Jaime Garcia deal. Ellis, who starred for the Mississippi Braves in 2016, his only year in the Braves system, started his pro career with the Los Angeles Angels. A bunch of other Mississippians could be changing teams this off-season. The current list of free agents (at both the major and minor league levels) includes position players Joey Butler, Chris Coghlan, Desmond Jennings, Tyler Moore, Mitch Moreland and Alex Presley and pitchers Aaron Barrett, Scott Copeland, David Goforth (designated for assignment by Milwaukee on Nov. 23), T.J. House and Jonathan Papelbon. D.J. Davis and Zack Bird have been mentioned as possible Rule 5 draft picks, and there are trade rumors swirling around Zack Cozart. P.S. Among the players feeling a little more secure is Ole Miss product Bobby Wahl, recently added to Oakland’s 40-man roster. Wahl is on a list – longer than you might think – of pitchers who hit 100 mph or better in the minors this past season, when he notched 14 saves between Double-A and Triple-A. Over his four pro years, the right-hander has a 3.90 ERA and 191 strikeouts in 161 2/3 innings. He is viewed as a potential big league closer.

12 Sep

waiting game

The El Paso Chihuahuas’ season goes on, which apparently means Hunter Renfroe’s much-anticipated big league debut is on hold. Former Mississippi State star Renfroe, the Triple-A Pacific Coast League MVP, hit a go-ahead home run on Saturday that propelled El Paso into the PCL Championship Series, which will begin on Tuesday. When San Diego traded Melvin Upton and Matt Kemp in late July, it appeared it was clearing space in the outfield for prospects like Renfroe, who is among the Padres’ most highly regarded. The 2013 first-round pick has had a big year with the bat in the hitter-friendly PCL: .306, 30 homers, 34 doubles, 105 RBIs, .557 slugging percentage. And he’s also a good right fielder with a plus arm. If the Padres wait until El Paso’s playoff run is over to promote Renfroe, he’d still have a couple of weeks to audition for a regular job in 2017. Eight Mississippians (natives or college alums) have debuted in MLB in 2016: Chad Girodo, Chris Stratton, Tim Anderson, Cody Reed, Adam Frazier, Mike Mayers, JaCoby Jones and Jonathan Holder. P.S. Former Southern Miss standout Bradley Roney got the save in Saturday’s clincher as Triple-A Gwinnett beat Columbus 5-4 to advance to the International League finals. Roney is 4-for-4 in save chances with a 3.57 ERA and three wins in 27 games for the G-Braves this season. He had a 2.82 in 17 games for the Double-A Mississippi Braves, who are now in the Southern League title series. Atlanta’s low-A Rome club reached the South Atlantic League finals, fueled in part by DeSoto Central product Austin Riley, who went 3-for-10 with four RBIs in the first round series. Riley, Atlanta’s top pick in 2015, is batting .270 with 20 homers and 80 RBIs.

08 Sep

that’ll work

Slumping Seattle tried something different on Wednesday. Slumping Seth Smith, the former Hillcrest Christian and Ole Miss standout, batted leadoff for just the second time this season. He responded with three hits, including his 13th homer, and three runs to help the Mariners beat Texas 8-3. The Mariners moved to 71-68 and are 5 games out of an American League wild card spot. Mariners manager Scott Servais told mlb.com that he was just trying to get Smith going by putting him in the top spot in the order: “He hasn’t really been the true Seth Smith in the second half.” The left-handed hitting Smith, who bats almost exclusively against right-handers, was at .280 with 10 homers on July 3. After going 3-for-3 on Wednesday, he is now batting .263. The homer was his second in as many nights, and he has 51 RBIs. Seattle, facing a steep climb in the postseason chase, needs his bat. … In another MLB game of note, former Pillow Academy star Louis Coleman was one of seven – count ’em, seven — relievers used by the Los Angeles Dodgers in a 3-1 win against Arizona. Coleman struck out the only batter he faced, was credited with his 10th hold and trimmed his ERA to 3.59. P.S. Minor highlights: Stone County High product D.J. Davis scored the go-ahead run in the 15th inning as Dunedin beat Tampa 8-4 in the Florida State League playoffs. Davis reached on a passed ball strikeout, went to second on a walk, took third on an error and scored on a wild pitch. Former Petal High star Anthony Alford had two hits and scored three times for Dunedin, a Toronto affiliate. … Southern Miss alum Bradley Roney struck out eight of the 10 batters he faced in a scoreless relief appearance, helping the Gwinnett Braves beat Columbus 5-4 in an International League playoff opener.

16 Aug

minor matters

Don’t look now, but former Ole Miss standout Lance Lynn pitched in a game Monday night. Lynn, nine months out from Tommy John surgery, threw 27 pitches for St. Louis’ Class A Palm Beach club. He allowed a hit and fanned two in 1 2/3 innings. Lynn, who won 60 games for the Cardinals the previous four seasons, just might be able to return to the big leagues in September. St. Louis is battling for a wild card in the National League. … As expected, Cincinnati sent Northwest Mississippi Community College product Cody Reed, the struggling left-hander, down to Triple-A Louisville. … Nate Lowe and Chuckie Robinson, 2016 draftees out of Mississippi State and Southern Miss, respectively, are slated to play in tonight’s New York-Penn League All-Star Game. Lowe is batting .277 with two homers and 29 RBIs for Hudson Valley (Tampa Bay system), and Robinson is at .291 with a homer and 13 RBIs for Tri City (Houston). MSU product Gavin Collins, also picked in the June draft, is batting .295 at Mahoning Valley (Cleveland) in the NYPL but didn’t make the All-Star rosters. … Ex-Southern Miss star Mason Robbins produced his third three-hit game in his last four on Monday and raised his average to .326 at Class A Winston-Salem (Chicago White Sox). He has five homers and 55 RBIs. … Madison Central High product Spencer Turnbull, beset by injuries this year, threw five strong innings for Class A Lakeland (Detroit) on Saturday and has a 3.22 ERA in eight games this summer. A second-round pick out of Alabama in 2014, Turnbull went 11-3, 3.01 at low-A West Michigan last year and stamped himself as a prospect. … Also at Lakeland is Southwest Mississippi Community College (and LSU) alum Kade Scivicque, a rising prospect at catcher who is batting .282 with six homers and 41 RBIs. … Ex-Petal High star Anthony Alford, finally looking fully healthy at Class A Dunedin (Toronto), has four two-hit games among his last five and is up to .244 with eight homers, 38 RBIs and 14 steals. … USM product Bradley Roney has a 3.62 ERA and four saves at Triple-A Gwinnett. Considering the jaw-dropping number of pitchers Atlanta has run out there this year, you have to wonder when Roney might get a big league shot. … Former Ole Miss standout Alex Yarbrough, trying to get his career back on track, is batting .268 with four homers, 47 RBIs and 10 steals at Double-A Arkansas (Los Angeles Angels). Yarbrough, 25, is in his fifth pro season. … Pascagoula’s Joey Butler, who was designated for assignment by Cleveland on July 31, returned to Triple-A Columbus’ roster and is batting .236 with eight bombs.

02 Aug

eye on …

Walker Robbins. The former George County High star is starting to rake. A fifth-round pick by St. Louis in June, the lefty-hitting outfielder has nine hits in his last four games, boosting his average to .232 in the rookie Gulf Coast League. He has six RBIs and six runs in 18 games. Robbins started his pro career 2-for-29. … Bobby Bradley. The ex-Harrison Central High standout hit his 20th home run on Monday for Class A Lynchburg. The lefty-hitting first baseman, a third-round pick by Cleveland in 2014, is batting .251 with 79 RBIs as a 20-year-old in a high-A league. … Colin Bray. The Vancleave High product is 9-for-22 with a homer and four RBIs since his return to high-A Visalia in the Arizona system. The switch-hitting outfielder started the season in the Cal League but was sent down in early July. His Visalia numbers are .242, four homers, 31 RBIs. … Blake Anderson. The ex-West Lauderdale High star, a supplemental first-round pick by Miami in 2014, remains on the disabled list with a reported shoulder injury. The catcher was 0-for-4 in his only game this year at short-season Class A Batavia and is batting .173 in 58 pro games overall.