DBack to the Future - Minor League Report

I was thinking, if I were a baseball fan in Reno, I would not be a happy man. At the beginning of the season, eight of the top ten prospects in the Diamondback system were below AAA, Valdez and Buckner being the exceptions. A Reno fan would naturally have assumed they'll get to see some of these prospects this year or even next. Well, so far this year, no less than 5 players were called up to the majors straight from AA. The same thing happened with Reynolds and Upton two years ago. To make things even worse for Reno fans, the GM said the other day something along the lines of "Parker will stay at AA this year, and pitch for a spot in the rotation next spring". I don't have the stats, but this skipping of a development stage can't be very good. Anyway, on to this week's report.

Reno:

The Aces went 3-5 last week and are currently on a 4 game losing streak. Their 23-30 record is good for third place in the division, 9.5 games back.

At the plate:

• Alex Romero keeps hitting well, going 10-25 with 5 walks for the week to improve his line to .340/.412/.470
• Ruben Gotay has been hot of late, going 9-23 with 7 walks this week. His line is .289/.404/.425.

On the mound:

• Cesar Valdez had his best start of the season on Friday, throwing 8 shutout innings, allowing only two hits and a walk along with six strikeouts. His ERA in six May starts was 3.09 and his overall ERA is at 4.21.
• Bryan Augenstein had a "quality" (the dumbest stat alive) start this week, going six innings and allowing 3 runs. He now has 10 strikeouts and only one walk in 12 AAA innings.
• Jason Urquidez was called up from AA (that happens as well) last week and he has impressed so far. He allowed 2 runs in 7 innings of work, with 5 strikeouts and a walk. He threw 20 innings in mobile with a 3.15 ERA, 20 strikeouts and 6 walks.

Mobile:

The Bears have been white hot of late, having a nine game winning streak stopped on Monday. In all, they went 5-2 this week to improve their record to 32-22, 3.5 games behind first place.

At the plate:

• Cyle Hankerd just keeps hitting. He went 7-18 with six walks to improve to .363/.435/.531. He is the league top three in OPS and wOBA. I wonder at what point is enough enough when it comes to Chris Young. Does he need to hit .170 over 500 AB to get benched or demoted?
• Chris Rahl is another outfielder doing well, going 12-29 on the week, with 4 multi hit games. His line for the year is .293/.380/.471
• Orlando Mercado has 6 multi hit games in his last ten, and he's hitting .323/.408/.451 on the year.
• Pedro Ciriaco has improved his hitting since he was moved to the top of the order. He went 9-30 this week, but his line is still a mess: .261/.294/.320. He does have 11 stolen being, and was caught only twice.

On the mound:

• Matt Torra threw a complete game three hitter on Sunday, walking just one and striking out four. Add that to his last outing, and he now threw 16 scoreless innings to lower his ERA to 4.04. He was named the league's pitcher of the week.
• Cody Evans flirted with perfection yesterday, taking a perfect game into the seventh inning. His final line: 7 IP, 1H, 0BB, 4K and his ERA on the season is 4.58.
• Jarrod Parker's start this week was more of the same: 6 innings, two runs allowed, but he walked four again, and he has 20 walks and 20 strikeouts in his last four starts (20.2 IP). The GM said he needs to learn how to be economical with his pitches and we're just not seeing that of late. His ERA in 36 IP is 3.00, but major league hitters are going to punish those walk severely.

Visalia:

The Rawhide were 4-2 during the week and 33-19 record leads the division by three games.

At the plate:

• Not a good week for Visalia hitter, and I couldn't find anyone with an above average line

On the mound:

• Bryan Shaw started two games last week, allowing a combined one run over 11 innings, with three walks and seven strikeouts. His ERA on the year is down to 4.43.
• Josh Collmenter took the mound twice last week, with impressive results. He followed a complete game on Wednesday (1 ER, 7K) with 5 scoreless innings on Monday. In his last three outings, he has allowed one run in 21 innings with four walks and 15 strikeouts.

South Bend

The Hawks went 3-3 on the week and they are at .500 for the season, at 25-25, 6.5 games back of the lead.

At the plate:

• Alberto Diaz is on a 10 game hitting streak, going 8-25 and adding 2 home runs to lead the team with 7. His line on the season is a pedestrian .246/.284/.399.
• Justin Parker was 6-19 with 4 walks on the week to improve his line to .312/.401/.439

On the mound:

• Brett Moorehouse had two starts this week, and they were both good. He threw seven innings on Thursday, allowing three runs on 9 hits with 1 strikeout, and another seven innings on Tuesday, allowing only one run on five hits with seven strikeouts. He didn't walk a batter in either start.
• Randy Rodriguez began his season in mid May due to injury, but his first four starts have been good. He allowed 5 earned runs in 23.1 innings for a 1.91 ERA.

That's all for this week's report. It should be a very interesting week for our system with the draft, so we'll see what happens next.