Prospect Trends — Week Ending 5/1

It was a tough week, as a couple of the system’s hottest hitters–Josh Harrison and Ramon Cabrera–missed time with injuries and few of the team’s top pitching prospects had good outings.  Still, Bradenton always seems to be good for some hot hitting performances.  I think I’ll give Matt Curry a rest, as hot hitting seems like it’ll be the norm for him until he moves up.

TRENDING UP

Jeremy Farrell, 3B (AA): After a 12-for-27 (.444) week, with five doubles and a HR, Farrell now stands at 329/396/524.  And he’s still healthy!

Brock Holt, 2B (AA): Holt started the week with a four-hit game and finished it with a three-hit game.  For the week he went 12-for-31 (.387) with two doubles and a triple.  He’s also stolen six bases in seven tries.

Robbie Grossman, OF (A+): After a 10-for-25 (.400) week, with two doubles and a HR, Grossman is now at 284/423/398 overall.  His walk rate is astronomical, with 21 in 24 games, but he’s not going to be able to sustain that against higher level pitchers, and it comes at the cost of strikeouts (one every four ABs) due to him falling behind in too many counts.  Grossman will need to keep hitting the ball with increased authority.

Jarek Cunningham, 2B (A+): Cunningham went 9-for-24 (.375) with a double, triple and three HRs, including his second two-HR game on the season.  He now leads the organization with seven HRs and has logged extra bases on 18 of his 24 hits.  Maybe more importantly, he fanned only once all week and is striking out once every 5.1 ABs on the year, after fanning once every 3.7 ABs last year.  He still isn’t drawing walks (none on the week and only four all year).

Zach Fuesser, LHP (A): Fuesser appeared twice in West Virginia’s quasi-piggybacking system.  He allowed no runs and no walks, with ten strikeouts in six IP.  For the year he’s fanned 18 in 16 IP, with an ERA of 1.69.

TRENDING DOWN

Chase d’Arnaud, SS (AAA): After a 5-for-26 (.192) week, d’Arnaud has slumped to 221/330/372 overall.  He started slowly in AA last year and never fully got untracked, and now the same pattern is happening again.  The good signs are that he’s walking enough to have a borderline OBP and showing some gap power (three of his five hits were doubles).

Pedro Ciriaco, UT (AAA): Ciriaco started coming around after a miserable start to the season, but now he’s slumped again, going just 4-for-27 (.148) on the week.  He’s hitting 145/154/211 overall, with one walk and fifteen strikeouts.

Rudy Owens, LHP (AAA): Owens had a rough start in his only outing, allowing nine hits and six earned runs in 5.2 IP.  After dominating in his first two starts, he’s allowed ten runs on sixteen hits in 10.2 IP in his last two.  It may take a little longer for him to get ready for the majors than it appeared a week and a half ago.

Jeff Locke, LHP (AA): Locke had a rough week, allowing seventeen hits and eleven runs in eleven innings over two starts.  Oddly, he fanned ten in five innings in the first start, then only one in six innings in the second.  Four of the five runs in the second game were unearned, but Locke got hit hard just the same.

Drew Maggi, SS (A): Maggi continues to appear overmatched by SAL pitching.  He went hitless in four straight games and was 2-for-22 (.091) on the week.  He’s drawing some walks, including three in one game, but overall he’s hitting 141/267/188.