Tag Archives: Southern League

29 Oct

riding the wave

David Mershon was the 532nd pick in the MLB draft back in July. So far, that looks like a steal for the Los Angeles Angels. Mershon, an All-SEC shortstop at Mississippi State this year, is excelling in the Arizona Fall League after a productive start to his pro career this summer at the Double-A level. The 5-foot-7, 175-pound Mershon went 2-for-3 with two walks, a triple, an RBI and two runs for Mesa on Monday. The 21-year-old South Carolina native is batting .250 with a .451 on-base percentage, ranking second in walks (13) in the star-studded AFL. He has two triples, seven RBIs, 10 runs and four stolen bases in 13 games as one of just two 2024 draftees originally assigned to the AFL. Mershon hit .347 at State this season with six homers and 27 steals. The Angels nabbed him as a sophomore-eligible and promptly sent him to Double-A Rocket City, where he answered the challenge with a hit in his first pro game. He batted .254 (.326 OBP) with five bags in 29 games overall in the Southern League. … Ex-Ole Miss star Kemp Alderman (a Miami prospect) is batting .306 with six homers in nine games for Peoria in the AFL, and UM alum Tim Elko (Chicago White Sox) has three homers and a .225 average in 10 games for Glendale. P.S. Postseason flashback: Former Mississippi State standout Hunter Renfroe’s 94.9 mph outfield assist in Game 4 of the 2020 World Series remains the hardest throw for an outfield assist in the Fall Classic since such stat-tracking began in 2015. Los Angeles’ Teoscar Hernandez made a 93.9 mph throw — third on the list — to nab New York’s Giancarlo Stanton at the plate on Monday night. Renfroe, playing for Tampa Bay in 2020, registered two assists in Game 4 of the 2020 Series against the Dodgers, cutting down runners at second and third base. He also homered in that game, which the Rays won before ultimately dropping the series.

23 Sep

on center stage

The spotlight is a little brighter in the postseason, and Jacob Gonzalez is showing out in the Southern League playoffs. The ex-Ole Miss standout went 3-for-5 Sunday, including a three-run double that broke the game open in the seventh inning, as Birmingham beat Montgomery 7-2 in the opener of the SL Championship Series. Gonzalez, a lefty-swinging shortstop, is batting .538 with a homer, five RBIs and two steals in four postseason games for the Chicago White Sox’s Double-A club. The 15th overall pick ($3.9 million signing bonus) in the 2023 draft, Gonzalez was promoted from High-Class A Winston-Salem in late May and started hot for Birmingham before cooling down to a .225 average. On the year, he batted .238 with eight homers, 57 RBIs and 17 steals. He’s considered a good glove, but speculation is he’ll eventually move off shortstop. The California native had a stellar career at Ole Miss, helping the Rebels win the 2022 College World Series. Game 2 of the best-of-3 title series is Tuesday in Birmingham. … In the Double-A Eastern League Championship Series, Erie beat Somerset 9-5 in Game 1. Former Mississippi State product Colby White is a bullpen piece for Somerset (New York Yankees affiliate) and ex-William Carey star Patrick Lee a reserve infielder for Erie (Detroit). Neither played in the opener. … The Triple-A postseason begins on Tuesday. Ole Miss alum Doug Nikhazy pitches for Columbus (Cleveland) and MSU product Eric Cerantola for Omaha (Kansas City), who meet in the International League title series. Former State standout Konnor Pilkington pitches for Reno (Arizona), which takes on Sugar Land for the Pacific Coast League crown. P.S. In MLB, All-Star infielder Jordan Westburg returned to Baltimore’s lineup on Sunday, the ex-MSU star going 1-for-4 with an RBI in a loss to surging Detroit. … Emblematic of Kansas City’s struggles, MSU product Hunter Renfroe went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts as the Royals lost for the seventh straight time, 2-0 to San Francisco. The Royals managed three hits and fanned 13 times as they fell into a tie for the second American League wild card with Detroit. Renfroe, who has 13 homers, is in a 1-for-21 slump in his last seven games. … Southern Miss alum Matt Wallner had a hit in each game but couldn’t prevent Minnesota from being swept in a twinbill by Boston (8-1 and 9-3) and tumbling out of a wild card berth in the AL. … On Sept. 23, 2009, former Shannon High and Jackson State standout Dave Clark notched his first win as interim manager for Houston, which beat St. Louis 3-0. A longtime big league slugger and current first-base coach for the Astros, Clark went 4-9 in his lone managerial stint.

21 Sep

odds and ends

Garrett Crochet’s 2024 numbers, most of them, are pretty good. The Ocean Springs native, starting for the first time since his college days four years ago, has a 3.68 ERA, a 1.06 WHIP, a .220 batting average against and 203 strikeouts with just 32 walks in 142 innings. The tall left-hander, an All-Star back in July, struck out eight with no walks in a four-inning scoreless outing on Friday. His team, the mournful Chicago White Sox, lost again to fall to 36-118. Crochet’s record is 6-12. How’d he ever win six? … Ex-Southern Miss standout Matt Wallner went 2-for-6 with an RBI knock in the 12th inning as Minnesota beat Boston 4-2 at Fenway Park to climb to within a game of slumping Kansas City for second place in the American League wild card race. Detroit, which lost Friday to wild card leader Baltimore, is a game back of the Twins, and Seattle is a game back of the Tigers. Three wild card teams make the postseason. … Madison Central High alum Spencer Turnbull is slated for a rehab appearance at Triple-A Lehigh Valley on Sunday; the right-hander, on the injured list since late June, is 3-0 with a 2.65 ERA in 17 games for Philadelphia, which clinched a postseason berth on Friday. When he might return to the active roster remains unclear. … J.T. Ginn, the former Mississippi State pitcher from Brandon, worked five innings, allowing one run, for Oakland against the New York Yankees Friday but got a no-decision in a game the A’s would lose 4-2 in 10 innings. Rookie Ginn is 0-1 with a 4.40 ERA in seven games. … Ex-USM star Matthew Etzel went 1-for-3 and scored a run as Montgomery beat Biloxi to claim the Southern League South Division title. Former Magnolia Heights standout Cooper Pratt homered for the Shuckers. Birmingham won the North Division title over Tennessee with Ole Miss product Jacob Gonzalez going 2-for-3 with an RBI and a run. The SL Championship Series starts Sunday at Montgomery. … USM alum and erstwhile big leaguer Kirk McCarty is 5-2 with a 2.61 ERA in 11 starts for CTBC Brothers, which has the best overall record in the Chinese Professional Baseball League.

20 Sep

southern exposure

Behind a gem of an outing from former Mississippi State pitcher K.C. Hunt, Biloxi squared its Southern League Division Series at a game apiece with a 5-1 win against Montgomery on Thursday night. Hunt threw 7 2/3 innings, allowing just the one run on three hits and no walks with five strikeouts. A member of State’s 2021 national title team, Hunt was 8-3 with a 2.03 ERA over three levels in Milwaukee’s minor league system in 2024. Joining the Shuckers on Thursday was Cooper Pratt, the ex-Magnolia Heights star who celebrated his first game in Double-A by going 1-for-4 with an RBI. Shortstop Pratt, the Brewers’ No. 2 prospect, hit .277 with eight homers, 45 RBIs and 27 steals over two Class A levels this season. Southern Miss product Matthew Etzel drove in the only run for Montgomery, a Tampa Bay affiliate. The decisive Game 3 of the series is tonight at Montgomery’s Riverwalk Stadium. … In the other Southern League series, former Ole Miss standout Jacob Gonzalez went 2-for-4 with a homer and scored twice as Birmingham (Chicago White Sox) beat Tennessee (Cubs) 12-5 to even that series at 1-1. Gonzalez, a 2023 first-round pick, hit .238 with eight homers, 57 RBIs and 17 bags over two levels this year. P.S. MSU alum Jordan Westburg went 1-for-4 with a walk and an RBI for Triple-A Norfolk as he began a rehab assignment in the Baltimore system. A 2024 All-Star, Westburg (.269, 18 homers, 58 RBIs) has been on the injured list (hand) since Aug. 1. The Orioles are battling the New York Yankees for the American League East title. … Ex-USM star Nick Sandlin got the final two outs (via strikeout) in the fifth inning, halting a Minnesota rally, and Cleveland went on to beat the Twins 3-2 in 10 innings and clinch a playoff berth in the AL. Sandlin has a 3.93 ERA in 66 games. … Ole Miss alum Nick Fortes had a good view of a history-making event on Thursday. He was catching for Miami as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani went 6-for-6 with three homers, two steals and 10 RBIs, becoming the first player to record a 50-homer/50-steal season. BTW, Fortes hit his fourth homer of the year in the ninth inning of the Marlins’ 20-4 loss.

09 Sep

remember that time …

It wasn’t the kind of finale the Mississippi Braves would have hoped for. In the team’s last game at Trustmark Park, they lost 10-3. The last batter of the last game struck out. A crowd announced at 4,111 on a breezy, sun-splashed Sunday groaned at that last out but then gave the home boys a final round of applause. Just like that, 20 years — 19 seasons — of Double-A baseball in Pearl ended. The Atlanta affiliate sent scores of players to the big leagues. Won two league championships. Produced five no-hitters, a Southern League MVP, a pitcher of the year and a bunch of league All-Stars. There were shutouts and grand slams and walk-offs aplenty. Sunday’s game might not have been one for the scrapbook of memories, but there were plenty of those through the years for the more than 3 million fans who passed through the gates. Here’s one: On April 30, 2005 — the inaugural season — Brian McCann, the 21-year-old catching prospect just weeks from his first big league call-up, stepped to the plate in the bottom of ninth with the M-Braves down 1-0. West Tenn’s Rich Hill — yes, that Rich Hill — and three relievers had no-hit the M-Braves for 8 2/3 innings. Lefty Yorkin Ferraras was on the bump to face the lefty-hitting McCann with a man on first. As West Tenn manager — and Laurel native — Bobby Dickerson said after the game: “McCann is the one guy we didn’t want to face right there.” On a 2-2 pitch, Ferraras left a fastball out over the plate and McCann smacked it high and deep over the right-field wall for a 2-1 victory. “I’ve never had a feeling like that as long as I’ve been playing sports,” McCann said afterward. Nineteen years later, it still resonates. Baseball does that.

03 Sep

eye on …

David McCabe is rated 13th among Atlanta’s minor league prospects, but through 24 games with the Mississippi Braves he has yet to find his footing. The 6-foot-3, 230-pound McCabe, who missed the first four months of the season after Tommy John surgery, is batting .125 (10-for-80) and slugging .188 with a single home run, seven RBIs and 33 strikeouts. The switch-hitter is in the lineup tonight, batting third at DH, as the Double-A M-Braves begin their final — as in last ever — regular season homestand. Canada native McCabe was drafted in the fourth round in 2022 out of UNC-Charlotte, where he slugged .679 as a junior and hit 30 homers over his last two seasons. Power is his best tool. A corner infielder, he played at two Class A levels in 2023 and hit .276 with 17 homers and 75 RBIs and batted .278 in the Arizona Fall League. Before this season began, MLB Pipeline ranked him No. 6 on Atlanta’s prospect chart. He slipped in the most recent ratings. After all that time on the shelf, it isn’t terribly surprising that McCabe would start slow once he arrived in Pearl. But to have just one homer — on Aug. 9 — in 24 games has to be a little bit of a disappointment. … The M-Braves, riding a three-game win streak, are 30-27 in the second half and 61-64 overall, still in the running for a Southern League postseason berth. And they have a strong set of starters lined up to face Tennessee this week at Trustmark Park. Southern Miss alum Landon Harper (2-1, 1.32 ERA, in 20 appearances, three starts) is scheduled tonight and again in Sunday’s finale. Knuckleballer David Fletcher, the ex-big league infielder, Ernesto Mejia, Lucas Braun and Jhancarlo Lara have Games 2-5.

30 Jul

m-braves by number

24 — Home dates, starting with tonight’s game against Tennessee, that remain before the Mississippi Braves are gone to Columbus, Ga.
74,359 — Total reported attendance at Trustmark Park this season, just over 2,000 per home date.
15-12 — The M-Braves’ second-half record, good for second place in the Southern League South. The team went 31-37 in the first half.
4 — Top 30 Atlanta prospects on the M-Braves’ current roster.
178 — Stolen bases by the team, which ranks first in the league.
44 — Steals by Justin Dean, an M-Braves season record and the best total in the league. Three other M-Braves rank in the top seven.
45 — Home runs by the team, last in the league.
10 — Homers by Tyler Tolve, who leads the team and ranks 11th in the league.
3.69 — Staff ERA, which ranks fourth in the league.
1.28 — Staff WHIP, which ranks second-worst in the league.
7 — Wins by Ian Mejia (tonight’s starter), tied for second-most in the league. He also leads the club in ERA (2.70) and strikeouts (88).

26 Jul

not to be overlooked

Matthew Etzel might be the least-heralded of the three prospects Tampa Bay got from Baltimore in a Friday trade, but the Southern Miss product is more than a throw-in. Etzel, batting .297 in 113 minor league games, was shipped to the Rays along with Mac Horvath and Jackson Baumeister for big league pitcher Zach Eflin. A 10th-round pick last year, Etzel already had reached Double-A in the O’s system and was batting .261 with two homers and 10 steals at Bowie. Tampa Bay has assigned him to Montgomery of the Double-A Southern League. Etzel hit .307 and swiped 31 bases at High-Class A Aberdeen to start 2024. “The hit tool itself is really elite,” a Tampa Bay minor league coach recently told Baseball America. Etzel, 22, a lefty-hitting outfielder who goes 6 feet 2, 211 pounds, batted .317 with seven homers and 23 steals in his one year at USM.

22 Jul

spotlight on …

After making a smooth transition to Mississippi State and the SEC a year ago, Colton Ledbetter has moved seamlessly into the High-Class A level of pro ball in 2024. Ledbetter, a second-round draft pick by Tampa Bay last summer, is batting .268 with 11 home runs, 44 RBIs, 44 runs and 25 stolen bases at Bowling Green. He jumped to the South Atlantic League after playing just 18 games in Low-A last year. The 22-year-old outfielder, who bats from the left side, is ranked No. 14 on the Rays’ prospect chart by MLB Pipeline. An Alabama native, Ledbetter spent his first two years of college ball at Samford, a mid-level NCAA Division I program. He transferred to MSU in 2023 and batted .320 with 12 homers, 52 RBIs and 17 bags for the Bulldogs. Tampa Bay, reportedly impressed with Ledbetter’s all-around athleticism as well as his hit tool, made him the 55th overall pick in the 2023 draft. It might not be long before he jumps to Double-A. … Ledbetter ranks 13th in the SAL with his 25 steals, including one on Sunday. Former Southern Miss star Matthew Etzel had 31 steals for Aberdeen (Baltimore system) in the SAL and has added nine more at Double-A Bowie, a total (40) that tops all Mississippi products in the minors. Cooper Pratt, ex-Magnolia Heights star, has 22 steals for Carolina (Milwaukee) in the Low-A Carolina League. P.S. Right-hander Drue Hackenberg, Atlanta’s No. 9 prospect, struck out a club-record 16 batters in seven innings Sunday for the Mississippi Braves, who won at Pensacola 5-1 in 11 innings. Hackenberg, a 2023 draftee, has a 3.43 ERA in four Double-A starts. Tyler Tolve’s 11th-inning homer, his 10th of the year, was the game-turning hit. Justin Dean stole three bases for the M-Braves and leads the Southern League with 40.

25 Jun

choosing a side

A current Mississippi Braves player, say maybe Ian Mejia or Justin Dean, might put up some head-turning numbers before this season — the team’s last at Trustmark Park — is over. Still, it’s unlikely any of the 2024 M-Braves will crack this lineup of the club’s all-time best. (Note: This team is based on the player’s performance with the M-Braves, not his major league success.)
At pitcher: Todd Redmond (13-5, 3.52 ERA, as the Southern League pitcher of the year for the 2008 pennant winner).
At catcher: Shea Langeliers (.258, 22 homers as an SL All-Star for the ’21 pennant winner).
At first base: Ernesto Mejia (.297, 26 homers, 99 RBIs in 2011).
At second base: Tommy LaStella (.343, 41 RBIs and 32 runs in 2013).
At third base: Kyle Kubitza (.295, eight homers, 55 RBIs, 21 steals in 2014).
At shortstop: Tyler Pastornicky (.299, six homers, 50 runs and 20 steals in 2011).
In the outfield: Drew Waters (.319, 35 doubles, 63 runs, 13 steals as the SL MVP in 2019); Matt Young (.289, 10 triples, 81 runs, 42 steals in 2009); Brandon Jones (.293, 15 homers, 74 RBIs, 12 steals in 2007).
DH: Dustin Peterson (.282, 12 homers, 38 doubles, 88 RBIs in 2016).
Closer: Luis Valdez (28 saves in 2008).
Honorable mention: Outfielder Mycal Jones, who played parts of six years in Mississippi, batting .247 with 121 RBIs, 195 runs and 78 steals.
P.S. A team based on MLB success — considering that more than 170 players have passed through Pearl en route to the big leagues — is almost too easy. Here’s a quick shot: Morton, Kimbrel, McCann, Freeman, Albies, Riley, Swanson, Acuna, Heyward, Francoeur.