P2Daily: Prospects Chasing League Accolades Down The Stretch

We are just a day away from the last month of the minor league schedule, and with that are officially down the final stretch. Monday I talked about each team’s playoff chances, so today we will talk about some players chasing some personal accolades.

Florida State League

The only player of note really stings when you think about it. Tsung-Che Cheng has been on a tear as of late, and at the end of Tuesday’s games was 13 hits behind the Florida State League leader in the category. With how he has played as of late, you have to wonder how the race would be going if he hadn’t missed about three weeks in late June, early May.

Jase Bowen was very much in the thick of the home run race for the league, but was promoted to Greensboro.

South Atlantic League

There are several players of note chasing some personal accolades for the Grasshoppers in the South Atlantic League. Jared Jones trails only Shane Drohan in strikeouts but barring anything unforeseen he should take the lead at some point as the latter has been promoted to Double-A.

Dariel Lopez trails the home run leader by four, currently sitting at 19. He played in just two of the six games last week against Rome, and didn’t play against Winston-Salem on Tuesday and had been in a slump recently.

The ERA doesn’t look pretty at face (4.14) but being with the league favoring hitters, Nick Garcia actually ranks fourth in the category among qualified pitchers.

Eastern League

Jared Triolo is known mainly for his glove, but he has the chance to do something special with the bat for the second consecutive season. Last year with Greensboro, Triolo led High-A East in hits and had the second highest average among qualified hitters. The leader, Matt Fraizer, finished the year in Altoona, so Triolo had the highest average among players who finished the season in that division.

It looked like he was going to have a chance to pull that off two years in a row but was placed on the injured list on Tuesday. He currently leads the Eastern League in hits, and trails only Brett Batty in average. Batty of course has made his way to the majors, but should still qualify at the Double-A level technically based on his amount of plate appearances. He should keep his batting average eligibility but Christian Koss and Jose Tena trail him by two when it comes to hits.

Luis Ortiz is in the top five in strikeouts, but trails the leader Reese Olsen by 18, so it’s not likely he will catch up with him. Aaron Shackelford has 24 home runs, four behind the league leader Orelvis Martinez.