Alex Verdugo has little left to prove in AAA

Phil Gurnee ♦ June 18, 2018 ♦ Leave a comment

Alex Verdugo is tearing up AAA right now but the Dodgers are so loaded with major league outfielders there doesn’t seem to be any room for the talented outfielder. Over his last ten games, Verdugo is hitting .476. The table below is courtesy of www.milb.com.

Over those ten games, Alex had multiple hits in seven of them while striking out only one time in his last 42 at-bats. That is a skill set you don’t see much anymore.

The problem for Alex Verdugo and Andrew Toles is that unlike the Dodger rotation, the Dodger outfielders are staying healthy with nary a DL stint since Puig came back in Mid-May.  Healthy and productive.

This is a good time for Verdugo to get smoking hot as the trade talks will start going into high gear over the next six week and the hotter Alex and Toles can get, maybe the more the Dodgers can get for them if the Dodgers decide to trade from the outfield strength. It would have made some sense to expect Matt Kemp to have hit the DL by now but Matt is defying all odds as he continues to make his case to represent the Dodgers in the All-Star game along with Ross Stripling and Max Muncy.

Other minor league notes:

Matt Beaty joined the OKC team on May 25th and after a period of adjustment seems to have gotten it figured out and finished the week with a four-hit effort on Sunday. His OPS is now up to .836 and will probably continue to climb from here.

25-year-old infielder Angelo Mora has hit .486 with eight walks in his last ten games for OKC.

The Dodgers signed Drew Hutchison last week after he was released by the Phillies. Drew once looked like a promising young pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays back in 2014/2015. Drew made his 1st appearance for OKC yesterday and picked up the win though his numbers weren’t impressive.

The highly ranked catchers for Tulsa aren’t doing much with the bat these days. Will Smith is hitting .161 over his last ten games, and Keibert Ruiz is hitting just .216 in his last ten games.

Jeren Kendall hit home runs in back to back games capping a good week for the 2017 number one pick.  Jeren almost managed to have more hits than strikeouts but it ended up a tie at 7. With 81 strikeouts in just 211 at-bats at this level (a+) it is hard to imagine any kind of major league future for him other than as a defensive replacement/speed option.  Not something you want from your number one pick.

Dustin May has pitched two games in a row without allowing a run. In those two starts, May has gone 11 innings, given up six hits, zero runs, four walks, and struck out twelve.

I haven’t written much about Dean Kremer but he has been on a strikeout tear for the Quakes. Over his last four starts, Dean has thirty-five strikeouts in just twenty-two innings with just six walks. The 14th round pick in 2016 is just 22 years old.