A beautiful box score to behold in Double-A Mobile tonight. The BayBears had four of Arizona's top-20 prospects (by my list, not counting 2011 draft picks) penciled into tonight's lineup card and saw all of them put up stellar performances. South Bend is great, but a big part of me wishes that Notre Dame were located closer to Southern League (or Cal League) baseball. Unsurprisingly, the best performance of the night came from the man who seems to be a mortal lock to unanimously rank as a top-5 prospect in the D-backs' system:
Snakelet of the Day / Your Daily Goldschmidt:
Paul Goldschmidt (Double-A): 2-4, 2B, HR (24th of the season), K
Triple-A: After having yesterday's get-away game postponed, Reno was traveling to to Salt Lake City for a four-game set beginning on Thursday.
Double-A: Mobile 9, Montgomery 0. (42-35) Goldschmidt's dominance has been mentioned time and again, but I want to take a deeper look into his numbers now that we're just over halfway through the season. A typical big-league season for a stud everyday position player is somewhere in the 155 game range, almost exactly two times the amount of games Mobile (and Goldschmidt) have played this year. So as a fun (though mostly meaningless) little exercise, let's go ahead and double Goldschmidt's raw numbers thus far and see what line we come up with:
154 games, .318/.439/.643 line, 1.081 OPS, 176-554, 32 doubles, two triples, 48 home runs, 356 total bases, 180 extra bases, 142 RBI (for those of you into that kind of thing), 118 runs scored, 126:118 K:BB ratio, 14-18 in stolen base attempts (78%).
That OPS is only beaten by one other hitter in the Southern League in the last five years. Feel free to start submitting guesses. Jayson Heyward, you say? Incredible (particularly when you consider that he was 19 years old...), but falling a tad short with his 1.057 OPS (.352/.446/.611). Perhaps The Justin Upton (also 19 years old when he hit Double-A in 2007) was better? Not quite, as his .309/.399/.556 line added up to a measly .955 OPS (with Evan Longoria two slots lower in the league leaderboard at .930). Surely, then, one of Joey Votto or Ryan Braun was the one to top Goldschmidt's lofty total? Off again, as Votto and Braun tied for the league-lead with a .956 OPS in '06 (both were a 22-year-olds), falling short by over 100 points.
The only better line the league has seen in recent memory is the .313/.442/.729 throttling Mike Stanton unleashed on SL pitchers in 53 games with Jacksonville in 2010 before his promotion to the Marlins. Needless to say, Goldschmidt isn't the type of prospect any of those guys were, particularly when it comes to age-relative-to-league, but those are some nice names to be ranked alongside.
Oh, yeah, I have a farm round-up to write... and there were plenty of other great nights for Mobile that need documenting. Lefty Wade Miley continues to get himself back on track, having suddenly learned how to defy the entirety of DIPS theory sometime in early June. Miley threw seven scoreless innings in this contest, striking out only two batters but surrendering only three hits and two walks while racking up 12 ground-ball outs to keeps the Biscuits offense stagnant. Over his last four outings, Miley has an underwhelming 14:8 K:BB ratio in 29 innings of work, but somehow has managed to surrender just three earned runs in that span (though with another three unearned runs). Color me confused.
Elsewhere in the lineup, A.J. Pollock continues to thrive as Mobile's leadoff hitter, boosting his season line to .298/.356/.425 with a 2-4 night that included a triple. Ryan Wheeler went 2-4 with a homer - his tenth of the year - for the second straight game, and is really starting to stand out as one of the top prospects in the system. In the power-starved Southern League, the soon-to-be-23-year-old Wheeler now has a .173 ISO, a mighty impressive total, and a .291/.358/.464 overall line. Josh Ford also homered for Mobile, his fourth of the year.
Hi-A: Visalia 9, Inland Empire 3. (35-41) Visalia received a quality start from Diogenes Rosario, who gave up just two runs through 5.1 innings, striking out five and walking a pair. However, it was the offense that really brought the thunder in this one, led by Keon Broxton, who went 3-4 with a triple and a stolen base, though he did also strike out. David Nick and Brent Greer homered, and Matt Davidson went 2-4 with a double to provide additional pop for the Rawhide, who collected 12 hits in this contest.
Low-A: South Bend 1, West Michigan 2. (37-38) It's a shame the Silver Hawks offense decided not to show up for this game, collecting just four hits, all of which were singles, because starter Jeff Shields put in a solid outing for South Bend. Shields struck out four, walked two and collected 12 ground ball outs on his way to giving up just two runs in seven innings of strong work, earning a loss for his efforts.
Short-Season A: Yakima 4, Spokane 7. (4-9) The good news is that the Bears offense is showing sparks of life, receiving a pair of home runs in this game to go with strong performances at the plate from Jimmy Comerota and Raul Navarro. Comerota went 2-4 with a triple and a stolen base, while Navarro - the best prospect on the Yakima roster - finally turned in a solid performance by reaching base three times on a double, a single, and a walk. The pitching didn't go so smoothly, as starter Adam Kudryk gave up eleven hits in his six innings of work, leading to five runs crossing the plate. The 6'6" left-hander struck out three and walked one, keeping his K:BB ratio at a steady 15:5 on the year.
Advanced-Rookie: Missoula 12, Great Falls 5. (4-6) Missoula's bats and bullpen showed up strong in support of starter Dexter Price. Price struggled through four innings of work, posting a 3:1 K:BB but giving up ten hits, including a homer, en route to surrendering five runs. The offensive attack was very well-balanced, as Missoula collected nine hits but didn't have any individual player collect more than two. Even the extra-base hits were nicely distributed throughout the lineup - Ryan Court, Jeremia Gomez, Jon Griffin, and Eric Groff each doubled, Josh Parr chipped in a triple, and Roidany Aguila and Stephen Cardullo homered.
Low-Rookie: Diamondbacks 2, Dodgers 11. (4-4) Wagner Mateo was big in this game, hitting his second home run of the year and collecting two walks with just one strikeout and scoring both of the team's runs. Geoff Blum continued his rehab, going 2-3 and playing third base - I personally wonder if he'll see any games at shortstop on this rehab assignment, as Blum could make the offensively-inept Willie Bloomquist expendable if he can play a useful shortstop every now and then. The pitching wasn't pretty, as Cesse De Jesus, Austin Platt, and Cody Geyer combined to give out eight free passes and allow all eleven AZL-Dodger runs (though two of the runs allowed by De Jesus were unearned).
DSL: Diamondbacks 2, Twins 5. (10-16) Infielder Jesse Liriano's double was the only extra-base hit the DSL-Diamondbacks mustered, and the offense was unable to get even a single run across the plate until the ninth inning of this contest. 19-year-old right-hander Juan Valdez was brilliant on the mound, striking out ten with no walks or home runs allowed in six innings of work, though he somehow gave up seven hits and three runs, one of which was unearned. Ronny Mejias walked twice.