FFA for Week of 8/14 – 8/20

Phil Gurnee ♦ August 20, 2017 ♦ 2 Comments

The contenders are:

Dennis Santana/AA/Tulsa – Santana finally pitched a gem after three straight bad starts. He went six inning, five hits, one earned run, one walk, and ten strikeouts.  This was his best game in AA and hopefully a sign of things to come for the rest of the month.

Yadier Alvarez/AA/Tulsa – The top pitching prospect coming into 2017, Yadier had done little to keep that title, but on Saturday night got sixteen outs for the first time since 6/26. This was the first time since late May he did not give up an earned run. He went six innings, three hits, zero earned runs, two walks, and five strikeouts.  This was the best game of the year stat wise for Alvarez.

Ibandel Isabel – A+/Rancho – Ibandel had nine hits in five games, but the reason he’s here is that he had four hits, two home runs, and eight runs batted on Friday Night. 

“I can’t recall a moment in my little career in baseball where I’ve seen a guy knock in eight runs and hit two balls probably a combined half a mile,” Rancho Cucamonga manager Drew Saylor said. “It was pretty special to be able to see that.”

Isabel leads the California League with twenty-six home runs. DJ Peters is second with 24. DJ Peters also leads the league in strikeouts with 172, and Isabel is 3rd with 149. Great power comes with a great price.

Gavin Lux – A-/Loons – had twelve hits in twenty-seven at-bats. Lux has definitely gotten hot, but only one of those twelve hits was an extra-base. He has moved his OPS to .696 just a shade below .700 with an OPS in August of .944.  Nice to see the 2016 number one pick get it going offensively.

Keibert Ruiz – A+/Rancho – Keibert also had twelve hits but in only 23 at-bats, with two doubles, and one home run.  Keibert had seen his average drop to .312 from a high of .377 but by the end of the week, it had climbed back to .353.  The only troubling thing is that he had zero walks, and has zero walks in his last ten games.  One of the nice things about Ruiz with the Loons was his increasing patience.

And the winner of the Farm Factory Award for August 13 – 20th is Ibandel Isabel. 

Farm Notes:

Wilmer Font finally pitched a bad game getting knocked around on Sunday. I guess he got tired of waiting for that call to the major leagues that never came. Has to be frustrating to be the best pitcher in a hitters league but spend the whole season while pitcher after pitcher get the call instead.

Tim Locastro had a hot week just not hot enough.

Sopko and Sborz both had good games last week on the same day as each won their part of a doubleheader.

Jeren Kendall has struggled with the Loons but he does have four triples in just 79 plate appearances.

Starling Heredia also struggled in his first month with the Loons but had a nice week last week. His walk rate is sterling, so once the balls start dropping for hits, we are going to have a nice prospect.  Just like Kendall, contact is an issue right now.