Below are the top Runs Created* totals in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ farm system from the last week. The rankings include every hitter who had an at-bat for a Pirates’ minor league affiliate, not including DSL teams, and with no limitations on whether the hitter has prospect eligibility. Players who spent time at different levels are counted multiple times, once for each level, rather than combining their stats. Notes on the top ten players from the last week can be found below the chart.
*Runs Created is a stat created by Bill James used to estimate how many runs an individual contributes to his team. There are many formulas for runs created. For these purposes the basic formula is used. That formula is ((H + BB) * (1B + (2*2B) + (3*3B) + (4*HR))) / (AB + BB).
Andrew Lambo has been on fire all year. The outfielder was promoted to Indianapolis this month after hitting for a .291/.351/.559 line in 220 at-bats. He has been even better in his time with Indianapolis, hitting for a .314/.410/.700 line in 70 at-bats. In the last week he went 9-for-18 with a double and three homers to be the top hitter of the week. On the season he has 21 home runs, which is the most of any Pirates minor leaguer since Brandon Moss hit 22 in 2010. Lambo was named the International League Player of the Week for his strong numbers.
Josh Harrison was recently called up to the majors, but before his promotion he went 8-for-15 with three doubles, three triples, and a homer last week. Harrison had a great month of June, hitting for a .356/.385/.654 line in 104 at-bats.
Willy Garcia has been hitting for a lot of power lately, and continued that this past week by going 10-for-29 with two doubles and three homers. That was enough to take the third best spot on this week’s list.
Altoona had some hot hitters in the last week, with the team playing ten games total on the week. Drew Maggi went 9-for-23 with four doubles and a homer. Justin Howard went 10-for-21 with three doubles. Alex Dickerson went 10-for-30 with three doubles and two homers. Dickerson is the big prospect of the group, and has been hitting well for the last month and a half.
West Virginia also had three guys in the top ten, with Raul Fortunato finishing seventh, and Barrett Barnes and Max Moroff finishing ninth and tenth. Fortunato went 6-for-13 with a homer. Barnes went 10-for-34 with a double and a homer, and he’s been showing signs lately of heating up against low-A pitching. Moroff went 7-for-22 with a double and a triple.
Candon Myles got off to a great start with the GCL Pirates this past week. The speedy outfielder went 10-for-24 with a double, taking the ninth spot on the list. Myles has been hitting well in the early part of the season, currently with a .448 average.
