FFA – Week ending 4/8/18 – Angelo Mora and Brock Stewart

Phil Gurnee ♦ April 8, 2018 ♦ Leave a comment

I had no idea who Angelo Mora was, but he was playing shortstop and batting fourth for the Tulsa Drillers, and by the end of the week he had sewn up the first Farm Factory Award of 2018 by going eight for twelve with five extra-base hits. Looking towards google we found a write up on him by Eric Stephen back in Dec when he was claimed in the minor league portion of the Rule Five draft.

Signed by the Phillies out of Loma de Cabrera in the Dominican Republic in February 2011, Mora has primarily played the middle infield in his minor league career. In 2017 Mora started 47 games at at second base, 24 games at shortstop, 21 games at third base, and one game each in left field and right field.

In 2017 Mora hit .303/.344/.496 as a right-handed batter and .287/.330/.409 as a lefty.

Mora won the Larry Rojas Award in 2016, given annually to the prospect who has “a love and respect for the game of baseball, an outstanding work ethic and pride in being a member of the Phillies organization.”

The pitcher of the week is a known commodity. Brock Stewart is a major league pitcher pitching in AAA until a spot opens up for him. Brock will be competing with Walker Buehler for that spot and while they both pitched well, it was Brock who had the best game this week. Brock got seventeen outs, gave up only two hits, zero runs, two walks, and struck out six.

Other Notables:

• DJ Peters slugged two solo home runs on Sunday
• Walker Buehler got twelve outs, gave up three hits, one run, one walk, and struck out five.
• The Dodgers are alternating Keibert Ruiz and Will Smith between catching and designated hitter. The 19-year-old Ruiz didn’t find AA pitching any problem in his first week collecting five hits in just thirteen at-bats.
• Dennis Santana got fourteen outs, gave up just four hits, one earned run, walked zero, and struck out seven. If not for Broc Stewart, Dennis Santana would have gotten FFA pitcher of the week. Dennis became one of my favorite prospects last year and looks primed to have another great season.
• Brian Moran pitching in relief in AAA has struck out four of the five batters he has faced so far.
• One prospect I liked but no one else seemed to was Omar Estevez. Omar is repeating A+ ball this year but is still just twenty. He has gotten off to a hot start with seven hits in seventeen at-bats including three doubles.
• Cristian Santana had exactly the same numbers as Omar Estevez playing for the same team. The only difference was that Cristian only had one double instead of three.
• Connor Wong has blasted off with Rancho, hitting two doubles and two home runs in his first twelve at-bats, on his way to a robust 1.700 OPS.
• Aneurys Zabala pitching in relief for the Great Lake Loons struck out six of the seven batters he faced on April 5th.