Top Ten Hitters and Pitchers for Week 17 of the Minor League Season

With the full-season minor league teams having every Monday off this year, we get to do weekly recaps based on the action from Tuesday to Sunday each week. Below you’ll find a list of the top hitters and pitchers for the Pittsburgh Pirates over the last week. The batters are sorted by OPS and they each had at least 20 plate appearances last week. The pitchers are sorted by ERA and they pitched at least four innings.

Top Hitters

1. Jonah Davis, Greensboro – Davis had the best week due to three homers, a double and five walks, giving him a .400/.591/1.067 slash line in 22 plate appearances. He has hit 13 homers this year, but the strikeouts have been a major issue, even this past week with eight of them. He has 124 strikeouts in 296 plate appearances this season, which was mostly spent in Altoona.
2. Jared Triolo, Greensboro – Triolo hit .500/.577/.864 in 26 plate appearances, with five doubles and a homer. He now has an .847 OPS in 92 games this year, with 14 homers and 22 steals.
3. Endy Rodriguez, Bradenton – He hit .444/.565/.611 in 23 plate appearances, with three doubles and five walks. Rodriguez has an .848 OPS in 82 games, with 20 doubles, ten homers and 44 walks. Among the 21 players in the league with 299 plate appearances (three players actually have 299 right now), Rodriguez ranks second in OPS. He is fourth in the league in doubles, eighth in homers, 14th in walks.
4. Nick Gonzales, Greensboro – Gonzales had a huge Sunday, which put him on this list. When you hit three homers in one game (and drive in eight runs), you don’t have to do much else the rest of the week to get here. He hit .296/.345/.815 in 29 plate appearances last week. While he was 4-for-20 before Sunday, those hits included two doubles and a homer. He has 14 homers on the season. Gonzales ranked third in last week’s article.
5. Jack Herman, Bradenton – Herman ranked fifth in last week’s article, so he’s consistent. In 28 plate appearances, Herman hit .440/.500/.600, with a double, homer and three walks. He had a .321 OPS in 15 games with Greensboro early this year. He put up a 1.168 mark in the FCL at the start of that season, followed by an .880 OPS in 38 games so far with Bradenton.
6. Jackson Glenn, Bradenton – Glenn was the top hitter in last week’s article, which was his first full week in the system. This didn’t come close to that amazing first week, but he still hit .409/.481/.591 in 27 plate appearances, with four doubles and four walks.
7. Calvin Mitchell, Altoona – Mitchell finished tenth in last week’s article, one of five repeats for the hitters. His week in last week’s article was basically an average week, just a few points off from his season OPS. This past week was much better, even though he basically just hit a lot of singles. He batted .524/.545/.524 in 22 plate appearances.
8. Liover Peguero, Greensboro – He hit .333/.394/.667 in 33 plate appearances last week, highlighted by three homers, giving him 14 homers on the season. The 20-year-old Peguero is hitting .266/.324/.455 in 77 games, with 31 extra-base hits and 19 steals.
9. Ji-hwan Bae, Altoona – He had a week similar to Mitchell, fueled by a high average and not much else. I’m sure people will take a .474/.565/.474 slash line every week from him. He has a .766 OPS in 66 games for Altoona this year.
10. Lolo Sanchez, Greensboro – Sanchez finished sixth in last week’s article and second in the previous week. He hit .368/.458/.474 in 24 plate appearances last week. On the year he has an .815 OPS in 89 games, with 14 homers and 28 steals.

Top Pitchers

1. Osvaldo Bido, Altoona – Bido gets the top spot here due to his seven shutout innings on Thursday. He allowed two hits, one walk and three strikeouts. He’s been inconsistent this year, while also taking a break mid-season to pitch for the Dominican Republic in an international competition. He’s had a strong August though, with a 2.77 ERA in 26 innings, with an 0.88 WHIP.
2. Quinn Priester, Greensboro – Priester had a career day during his start last week, striking out the first nine batters and retiring the first 15. He finished with one hit and 13 strikeouts over six shutout innings. He now has a 2.86 ERA and a 1.15 WHIP, with 87 strikeouts in 85 innings.
3. Eddy Yean, Bradenton – He pitched twice in relief, sort of. When rain delayed the game on Wednesday for too long after the top of the first inning, starter Nick Garcia had sat around too long to pitch, so it became a throw day for him and Yean took over. He went four shutout innings on one hit and four strikeouts. Then on Sunday, Yean tossed another two scoreless innings, giving him six shutout innings for the week on three hits, one walk and seven strikeouts. He has been very inconsistent this year, but he still has a .209 BAA and 62 strikeouts in 59 innings.
4. Omar Cruz, Altoona – Cruz had a nice outing last week, throwing five shutout innings on three hits, two walks and four strikeouts. Between Altoona and Greensboro this year, he has a 3.51 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP in 84.2 innings, with 82 strikeouts. His strikeout rate was much higher at the lower level.
5. Justin Meis, Bradenton – This year’s tenth round pick probably had the worst week you will see in one of these articles, which actually makes me feel good about how I decide who shows up in these articles. He didn’t allow an earned run in four innings over two appearances, but he gave up three unearned runs on five hits and five walks. He’s only thrown 10.1 innings so far, but he does have 14 strikeouts.
6. Cody Ponce, Indianapolis – Ponce had two appearances last week, both of them consisting of two shutout innings. He allowed two hits, two walks and had three strikeouts. These were his first two appearances since being sent back to the minors after spending the previous three weeks with the Pirates.

Instead of lowering the innings qualifications or including players who didn’t do that well, which was a lot of the starters, I ended the pitching list early. I spent more time trying to figure out who to include than it would have taken to write them up. Lots of canceled/shortened games last week led to minimal work, especially in the FCL, where they only played Thursday-Saturday and the Black vs Gold game on Friday was shortened to 4 1/2 innings due to rain.