Tag Archives: Southern Miss

16 Aug

soaring ever higher

Third time was a charm for Hurston Waldrep, not that his first two MLB appearances this season were clunkers. The Southern Miss alum (3-0) hurled six shutout innings Friday night in Atlanta’s 2-0 win against Cleveland. The rookie right-hander gave up a run — just one — in each of his first two games and now has a 1.02 ERA over 17 2/3 innings. A 2023 first-round draft pick out of Florida who pitched well for the Double-A Mississippi Braves in 2023-24, Waldrep made two rocky starts in Atlanta last season and then went back to the minors. He spent the first four months of this season at Triple-A Gwinnett, refining his breaking stuff. That work appears to be paying dividends. “He’s a pitcher who knows who he is,” Braves catcher Sean Murphy said in an mlb.com piece. Featuring a brilliant splitter among other effective pitches, Waldrep allowed two hits with two walks and seven strikeouts vs. the Guardians. On the season, he has 17 strikeouts, five walks and an 0.79 WHIP. Waldrep went 7-2 with a 3.21 ERA in 27 games at USM in 2021-22, then helped Florida reach the CWS finals in ’23. … On the topic of former Golden Eagles pitchers: Nick Sandlin, on the injured list for Toronto since July 8, has begun throwing again, per reports, after a setback in his rehab work. In 19 games with the Blue Jays, Sandlin has a 2.20 ERA. … Dalton Rogers improved to 4-3 with a 4.43 ERA at Double-A Portland, yielding one run in 5 1/3 innings Friday against Somerset. Left-hander Rogers is in his fourth season in the Boston system. … Justin Storm, a 2023 draftee, notched his third hold of the season with two scoreless innings for High-Class A Beloit (Miami). The 6-foot-7 lefty has two wins, five saves and a 3.71 ERA. P.S. Ex-USM outfielder Matthew Etzel was promoted to Triple-A Jacksonville by Miami but did not play in Friday’s game. Etzel is batting .236 with five homers, 36 RBIs and 18 steals this season, having already played for three different teams and at two levels. The lefty-hitting Etzel, who goes 6-2, 211, was traded by Tampa Bay to Miami in July. Drafted by Baltimore in 2023, he was traded by the Orioles to the Rays last summer. It’s not like he can’t play: He is a .268 career hitter with 84 bags in 210 minor league games.

12 Aug

prospecting

Major league clubs that went prospecting in Mississippi in the July draft turned up some intriguing talent. Nine players picked in this year’s draft have landed on the Top 30 prospect list in their respective organizations; MLB Pipeline has updated its rankings to include new draftees. JoJo Parker, drafted eighth overall out of Purvis High, is No. 2 on Toronto’s list, and Southern Miss alum Jake Cook (third round) checks in as the Blue Jays’ No. 11. J.B. Middleton, the 2025 Ferriss Trophy winner at USM and a second-round pick, is No. 6 on Colorado’s chart. Landon Harmon, former East Union High ace and a third-round pick, is No. 6 on Washington’s list, and ex-Lewisburg High star Talon Haley, a 12th-rounder, was slotted in at No. 14 on the Los Angeles Angels’ list. Mason Morris, Luke Hill, Nick Monistere and Pico Kohn also cracked the new Top 30s. … A pair of first-rounders from the 2024 draft, Jackson Prep’s Konnor Griffin and Madison Central alum Braden Montgomery, are ranked No. 1 in the Pittsburgh and Chicago White Sox systems, respectively. Griffin is the overall No. 1 minor league prospect. Cooper Pratt, a 2023 draftee out of Magnolia Heights, is up to No. 3 on Milwaukee’s chart. Dakota Jordan, a Jackson Academy and Mississippi State product drafted in 2024, remained No. 6 in San Francisco’s system. … Of note: Liam Doyle, who pitched at Ole Miss before transferring to Tennessee, is ranked second on St. Louis’ list; he was the fifth overall pick in July. P.S. A pair of Mississippi high school products went to the bump as starters in the big leagues on Monday. Only one got a good result. Will Warren (Jackson Prep) threw 6 2/3 strong innings for the New York Yankees to beat Minnesota 6-2; Warren is 7-5 with a 4.34 ERA. Garrett Crochet (Ocean Springs) was pulled after four innings — his shortest stint of the year — and took a loss as Boston fell to Houston 7-6. Crochet (13-5, 2.48) yielded a season-high five runs. … Ex-MSU standout Adam Frazier, a trade acquisition last month by Kansas City, went 3-for-4 with an RBI in the Royals’ 7-4 win against Washington on Monday and is batting .333 with nine RBIs and eight runs in 18 games for his new club. K.C. is 59-60 and hanging around in the American League wild card battle.

11 Aug

transaction watch

Veteran big leaguer Kendall Graveman, a Mississippi State product, has been designated for assignment by Arizona. The 34-year-old Graveman, coming off 2024 shoulder surgery, has a 7.13 ERA in 19 games this season. He has a 4.03 ERA in 299 career MLB games and posted a 1.64 in nine games for Houston in the 2021 postseason. … Houston Roth, a former Ole Miss star, was designated for assignment by Baltimore, removing the minor league right-hander from the 40-man roster. He got a brief call-up to the big club but never made an appearance. He has a 2.08 ERA, five wins and two saves in 26 relief appearances between Double-A and Triple-A this season. If he clears waivers, it’s likely the Orioles will want to keep him in their system. … Luke Hill and Will McCausland, 2025 draftees out of Ole Miss, have been assigned to Low-Class A Lynchburg in the Cleveland organization. Infielder Hill was a fourth-round pick, righty McCausland a seventh-rounder. (Most of this year’s draft picks have been sent to spring training facilities and will take part in Instructional League next month.) … Logan Forsythe, a D’Iberville native who spent a couple of years at Mississippi State, is now on the roster at Low-A Augusta in the Atlanta chain. The right-hander was drafted this year out of Louisiana Tech. … Southern Miss alum Matthew Etzel was activated from the injured list on Saturday at Double-A Pensacola and went 0-for-3 in his first game. He was traded by Tampa Bay to Miami in July for Ole Miss alum Nick Fortes. Etzel is a .267 career hitter with 84 steals in three seasons. … Bryson Ware, a Germantown High product who also passed through Pearl River Community College and Auburn en route to pro ball, recently was promoted to Double-A Reading by Philadelphia. He is 5-for-14 in three games, though all five hits came in one game last Saturday. The third baseman was batting .229 with eight homers in High-A ball this season. Ware’s brother Conner, also a Germantown and PRCC alum, was drafted out of LSU this year — and signed — by the New York Mets. P.S. Former USM standout Landon Harper was named the Double-A Southern League’s pitcher of the week (Aug. 4-10) after throwing a seven-inning one-hitter on Aug. 7 for Columbus. Harper had a perfect game for 6 2/3 innings and is now 3-6 with a 3.67 ERA in his second Double-A season. He joins a lengthy list of Mississippians to win POW awards this season (see previous posts).

10 Aug

worth noting

Hurston Waldrep sure knows how to capture the moment. Last Sunday, the ex-Southern Miss and Mississippi Braves standout was the winning pitcher for Atlanta in the historic Speedway Classic. On Saturday, he threw six strong innings to get his second career MLB win in the first game of a twinbill, which also happened to be the debut for Jen Pawol, the first woman to umpire an MLB regular season game. (She’ll be behind the plate today.) Waldrep is 2-0 with a 1.54 ERA and — probably? — has earned a spot in the Braves’ rotation. … Former M-Braves Michael Harris II and Drake Baldwin combined for eight hits and eight RBIs as the Braves swept Miami on Saturday at Truist Park. … M-Braves alum William Contreras and ex-Biloxi Shuckers star Brice Turang homered — 10th of the season for each — and Milwaukee beat the New York Mets for its eighth straight win. … Jacob Gonzalez, former Ole Miss All-American, homered for the second straight day and went 2-for-3 with two walks and three RBIs to power Triple-A Charlotte (Chicago White Sox system) to a victory. … Chuckie Robinson, Southern Miss product, put up a 2-for-4 — eight hits in his last five games — scored twice and threw out a base-stealer for Triple-A Oklahoma City (Los Angeles Dodgers) in a win against El Paso. … K.C. Hunt, ex-Mississippi State standout, threw six shutout innings for his seventh win as Double-A Biloxi (Milwaukee) beat Knoxville. … Konnor Griffin, the No. 1 prospect out of Jackson Prep, banged out three hits and scored three times as High-Class A Greensboro (Pittsburgh) rang up 27 runs against Asheville. … Emaarion Boyd, the speedster from South Panola, stole his 40th bag, drove in a run and scored one for High-A Beloit (Miami) in a 2-1 victory against Quad Cities. P.S. Kevin Roberts Jr., a Meridian native now playing at Jackson Prep, will play in the MLB-sponsored High School All-American Game on Tuesday at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The game features players, many of them top draft prospects, from the prep class of 2026. A Florida commit, Roberts hit .406 for Prep in 2025.

08 Aug

they also serve …

Dave Clark and Travis Chapman won’t throw a pitch or swing the bat this weekend, but they’ll be on the field at Yankee Stadium and involved in the action. Clark, the former Jackson State star from Shannon, and Chapman, a Mississippi State alum, are first-base coaches for Houston and the New York Yankees, respectively. Those teams, rivals with a history and 2025 playoff contenders, will face off in a three-game series. With the likes of Jose Altuve and Aaron Judge and Carlos Correa and Jazz Chisholm taking hacks in this series, Clark and Chapman figure to be plenty busy playing traffic cop at first base. They are among a sizable group of former players with Mississippi connections who now work in managerial or coaching roles in the big leagues. At one time in 2018, there were seven major league managers with a Mississippi tie, either a school alum or a player or manager for Jackson’s old Texas League club. Today, Brian Snitker, 2005 Mississippi Braves skipper, and Ray Montgomery, who played for the Jackson Generals in the 1990s, are the only two. Snitker is retiring after this season on the heels of a great run in the ATL, the 2025 season notwithstanding. Montgomery is the interim manager for the Los Angeles Angels, presumably just keeping the seat warm for the return of Ron Washington next year. For the Milwaukee Brewers — MLB’s hottest team — Chris Hook, a former Biloxi Shuckers coach and a Jackson Generals pitcher, serves as pitching coach for an outstanding staff, and Starkville native Julio Borbon is the Brewers’ first-base coach. The Crew is hosting the New York Mets this weekend. John Gibbons, former Jackson Mets catcher, is the Mets’ bench coach, and Antoan Richardson, who starred for the Mississippi Braves, is their first-base coach. Laurel native Bobby Dickerson is the infield coach for Philadelphia. Marcus Thames, the Louisville native and East Central Community College star, is the hitting coach for the Chicago White Sox. Jim Hickey, a former Jackson Generals pitching coach, is the longtime pitching coach of the Washington Nationals. The Colorado staff includes Clint Hurdle, skipper of the last JaxMets team in 1990, as bench coach and ex-JaxMets first baseman Ron Gideon as first-base coach. Chris Truby, who manned third base for the Jackson Generals in the mid-’90s, is now a coach for Pittsburgh. P.S. Former Southern Miss standout Landon Harper came within one out of a seven-inning perfect game Thursday for Double-A Columbus in Atlanta’s system. Harper finished with a one-hitter and improved to 3-6 with a 3.67 ERA after the 2-0 win over Rocket City. … Former Jackson Prep star Konnor Griffin homered — his 15th overall this season — for High-Class A Greensboro (Pittsburgh). The minor leagues’ No. 1 prospect is batting .332 with 64 RBIs, 87 runs and 50 steals in 92 games over two levels of A-ball. … Blaine Crim, Mississippi College alum, hit his 19th homer of the year, his first for Triple-A Albuquerque since Colorado claimed him off waivers from Texas. The bomb came against his former team, Round Rock, and erstwhile big leaguer Craig Kimbrel. … The Los Angeles Dodgers reportedly will call up Justin Dean, who played center field for the 2021 Double-A South champion M-Braves. … The North Delta Dealers, behind the two-hit pitching of Eli Akins, won the Cotton States League championship last Sunday, beating regular season champ Tallahatchie 2-1. Hayden Short and Patrick Mangels drove in runs for North Delta. Akins, a 6-foot-6 righty at Delta State, went 6-1 in the New Albany-based college summer league. Tallahatchie finished 14-5-1 this season and led the loop in hitting and pitching.

05 Aug

just doing his thing

Minnesota Twins management may have waved the white flag on this season, purging the roster at the trade deadline, but Matt Wallner is still out there battling, doing Matt Wallner things. The Southern Miss product — the school’s all-time home run leader — hit his 15th homer on Monday night. The sixth-inning shot at Detroit’s Comerica Park gave the Twins a brief lead before they ultimately fell to the first-place Tigers 6-3. It was the Twins’ fifth loss in six games and they now stand 52-60. If the club is fading away, Wallner is not. The 6-foot-4 lefty slugger, at .217 on the season, is batting .368 over his last seven games and has four homers in his last eight. He is one of those proverbial “three true outcome” players: In 259 plate appearances this season — he missed a chunk of time early on with an injury — he has struck out 75 times and walked 32 (with four HBPs) in addition to his career-high homer total. He has 44 career bombs in 240 games. When Wallner hits the ball, he hits it hard: Of his 48 hits in 2025, 28 are for extra bases. In Monday’s game, his homer off Casey Mize carried 436 feet to center field. Wallner also walked once and struck out once. And, oh yeah, he has a cannon for a right arm; USM used him as a closer at times. Playing right field on Monday, he threw out two Tigers on the bases. The Minnesota native may give disheartened Twins fans something to cheer about down the stretch. P.S. Wallner is tied for third in the all-Mississippi home run derby for 2025. Brent Rooker leads with 23, followed by Austin Riley at 16 and Wallner and Nathaniel Lowe at 15. Jordan Westburg — hitting .419 in his last seven games — belted his 13th homer for Baltimore in a losing cause on Monday. … On the topic of homers, ex-Ole Miss star Ryan Rolison yielded a bomb in Colorado’s blowout loss to Toronto at Coors Field and has now allowed 10 homers in 34 2/3 innings this season, his first in MLB.

04 Aug

there and here

Kemp Alderman, former Ole Miss star and Decatur native, has been named the Double-A Southern League’s player of the week (July 28-Aug. 3). The 2023 Ferriss Trophy winner had nine hits — two of them homers — eight RBIs and three runs for Pensacola in the Miami chain. He hit both homers on Sunday against ex-Mississippi State hurler K.C. Hunt in the Blue Wahoos’ 8-4 win over Biloxi. It’s the second time this season Alderman has won the league’s POW award. He is one of 11 Mississippians to win the top player award in various minor leagues in 2025, joining Connor Hujsak, Konnor Griffin, Blaze Jordan, Tyson Hardin, Jurrangelo Cijntje, Niko Mazza, Braden Montgomery, Rowdey Jordan, Blaine Crim and J.T. Ginn. … Cijntje, the switch-pitcher out of MSU, has been promoted to Double-A Arkansas in the Seattle system. He was 4-7 with a 4.58 ERA in 19 games at the High-Class A level in what is his first pro season. … Atlanta has placed DeSoto Central High product Austin Riley (abdominal injury) back on the 10-day injured list. Former Mississippi Braves infielder Nacho Alvarez was recalled. … Baltimore sent Houston Roth back to Triple-A Norfolk without getting the ex-UM standout into a game. He has a 2.21 ERA, four wins and two saves in 24 relief appearances between Double-A and Triple-A this season. … The Mississippi Mud Monsters, hitting the road Tuesday for a six-game, two-city trip, have revamped their roster in recent days, adding right-hander Braden Forsyth (a Magnolia Heights, Meridian Community College and Ole Miss alum); first baseman Jack Holman; LH Ben Riley Flowers (a Southern Miss product); 7-foot RH Brenton Thiels; and RH Carl Brice (Callaway High alum). RH Heath Mann was signed and then released. The independent club is 35-36, fourth place in the West Division of the Midwest Conference of the Frontier League. The regular season ends Aug. 31. Eight teams qualify for the playoffs, four from each conference, in the 18-team league. … Ole Miss alum Anthony Calarco, who had 10 hits and seven RBIs in last week’s six-game series vs. the Mud Monsters, is batting .335 with a league-best 20 homers and 92 RBIs on the year for Schaumburg, one of the FL’s best teams. He played in Oxford in 2023.

04 Aug

feel-good moment

In his fifth game since being promoted to Triple-A by Baltimore, Reed Trimble had himself a day. The Southern Miss alum from Tupelo went 3-for-5, drove in the tying run in the bottom of the ninth and scored the game-winner in Norfolk’s 10-9 victory Sunday over Memphis. A switch-hitting outfielder, the 25-year-old Trimble is batting .228 over four levels this season; he is 5-for-21 at Norfolk. Drafted 65th overall by the Orioles in 2021 — after hitting .345 with 17 homers that season at USM — Trimble has had trouble staying on the field. He has made at least six trips to the injured list and played in just 192 games over his five minor league campaigns. A .240 career hitter with 17 homers and 51 steals, he has slipped off the MLB Pipeline Top 30 prospect list in the Baltimore system. But he is getting a shot at the Triple-A level, and Sunday’s effort was certainly a feel-good moment. … Trimble upstaged former DeSoto Central High standout Blaze Jordan, who got his first hit (in his second game) for Memphis since being traded to St. Louis by Boston. P.S. And the winning pitcher of the first major league game ever played at a NASCAR track in Tennessee is: Hurston Waldrep. The USM alum and ex-Mississippi Braves standout threw 5 2/3 impressive innings for Atlanta in the 4-2 win Sunday against Cincinnati. The Speedway Classic was suspended in the first inning on Saturday night. Waldrep caught a ride in Sunday morning from Lawrenceville, Ga., where he was slated to pitch for Triple-A Gwinnett. In Bristol, he allowed just one run on three hits and two walks with four strikeouts for his first career win in his third MLB appearance. Eli White got the MVP award after hitting two homers, but what Waldrep did was just as valuable. “I’m happy to be here. It’s just been an unbelievable day,” he told mlb.com postgame. Alas, he was optioned back to Gwinnett today. The right-hander, a 2024 first-round pick (out of Florida), endured two rough MLB outings in 2024 and was 7-8 with a 4.42 ERA this year at Gwinnett, where had pitched well in his last several outings. … The Braves’ Austin Riley (DeSoto Central grad) felt abdominal pain after making a diving tag on Sunday, left the game and is likely to miss at least a couple more. … Former Mississippi College star Blaine Crim was claimed by Colorado off waivers from Texas and optioned to Triple-A Albuquerque. … Dakota Jordan, the former Ferriss Trophy winner at Mississippi State, put up a 5-for-6 with a homer for Low-Class A San Jose in a 15-7 win Sunday vs. Stockton. San Francisco’s No. 6 prospect, bucking for a promotion, is hitting .315 with 12 bombs.

03 Aug

three stars

Colt Keith: The Biloxi High product went 3-for-5 with a home run — for Detroit’s first run against Zack Wheeler — as the Tigers beat the Phillies 7-5 in a showdown of aces (Tarik Skubal vs. Wheeler) and first-place teams. Keith is batting .258 with nine homers and 33 RBIs and is hitting .316 over his last seven games.
Brandon Woodruff: The ex-Mississippi State standout allowed one hit (a homer), one walk and two runs over six innings and punched out eight to lead first-place Milwaukee to an 8-2 win against Washington. In five starts since coming off the injured list, Woodruff is 3-0 with a 2.22 ERA and 37 K’s in 28 1/3 innings.
Christopher Sargent Jr.: The former Southern Miss slugger drove in two runs with a double for Ogden in the independent Pioneer League and boosted his season RBI total to 101, best in the league. He is batting .381 with 25 homers.
P.S. Ex-Ole Miss star Ryan Rolison was recalled to the big leagues by Colorado; he had a 7.34 ERA in 22 games in his first stint for the woeful Rockies. … J.P. France, an MSU product, allowed four runs on two hits and four walks in a rehab start for Triple-A Sugar Land in the Houston system. … Blaine Crim, Mississippi College alum, was designated for assignment by Texas on July 31 and is in roster limbo. He is batting .284 with 18 homers at Triple-A Round Rock; he went 0-for-11 in The Show. … Mississippi native Lance Barksdale is on the umpiring crew for the historic MLB Speedway Classic in Bristol, Tenn. The Atlanta-Cincinnati game was suspended by rain and will be resumed today in the first inning.

01 Aug

catching up

The week’s trade winds — trade storms? — have subsided, and a handful of Mississippi products have landed in new places. To recap:
Khal Stephen: The former Mississippi State standout is now in the Cleveland system, assigned to Double-A Akron. A 2024 draft pick, he was 9-1 with a 2.06 ERA over three levels in the Toronto chain. Traded straight up for big leaguer Shane Bieber, the 6-foot-4 Stephen is slotted in as the Guardians’ No. 7 prospect by MLB Pipeline.
Victor Figueroa: The lone Mississippi Valley State alum in affiliated ball, he is now in the Baltimore organization, having been dealt by San Diego as one of the six prospects sent to the Orioles for major leaguers Ryan O’Hearn and Ramon Laureano. Figueroa, who played at Valley in 2023, was at Low-Class A Lake Elsinore, where he was batting .262 with seven homers. The Florida native, a 6-foot-5, 240-pound lefty hitter, hit .400 with eight homers and 14 steals at Valley in 2023 before transferring to a Florida juco. He was an 18th-round pick last summer.
Blaze Jordan: The slugger from DeSoto Central High is now in the St. Louis system and has been sent to Triple-A Memphis, 15 minutes from his Southaven home. A 22-year-old corner infielder, he is batting .308 with 12 homers and 62 RBIs between Double-A and Triple-A in his fifth pro season. He has 55 career homers.
Nate Dohm: The 6-4 right-hander, drafted out of MSU in the third round in 2024, also has moved to the St. Louis system and was placed on the High-Class A Peoria roster. He was 3-5 with a 2.87 ERA as a starter in A-ball in the New York Mets’ organization.
Nick Fortes: The ex-Ole Miss catcher was dealt to Tampa Bay by Miami and already has played in three games for the Rays. A fifth-year big leaguer, Fortes, known for his defense, is batting .231 with two homers and 10 RBIs on the year.
Matthew Etzel: The former Southern Miss standout went to Miami from Tampa Bay in the deal for Fortes. Etzel, currently on the injured list, was assigned to Double-A Pensacola. He is batting .230 with five homers, 34 RBIs and 17 steals this season, his third in the minors.
P.S. MSU product Adam Frazier, traded from Pittsburgh to Kansas City on July 16, is hitting .261 with two doubles, an RBI and three runs in eight games for the Royals, having played four different positions. … Ex-Ole Miss standout Tim Elko homered again Thursday — No. 18 — for Triple-A Charlotte; he is on a rehab assignment with the Chicago White Sox. … Former USM star Justin Storm threw two shutout innings for his fifth save as High-A Beloit beat Peoria 3-0. The 6-foot-7 lefty, in his third pro season, has a 4.08 ERA in 31 games.