Jesse Winker took home the Arizona Fall League Player of the Week for his first week where he hit .455 and slugging .909 with seven RBI and four walks. Last night didn’t go so well for the Cincinnati Reds position players as they went a combined 1-12 with Seth Mejias-Brean getting the lone hit of the trio that also included Winker and Kyle Waldrop.
That game was available to watch on MLB.com, though the promotion of that was pretty poor as I hadn’t heard about it until the third inning. The game was played in Salt River which is where the games are using the experimental time clocks, replay and several other rules. There were several automatic balls given to hitters as the pitchers failed to throw a pitch in time. While it was just one game, it flew by, being completed in 2:14. It was a low scoring game though as Salt River won 1-0. It will be interesting to see how the rest of their home games go and if the rules in place do indeed help speed up the games.
Baseball America had an article up on defensive catchers yesterday where they looked at passed ball and caught stealing rates and compared them with others in the league. The Reds had several catchers show up on the leaderboards. Tucker Barnhart showed up at #8 on the Triple-A leaderboard by showing positive numbers in both passedballs and caught stealing rates. Yovan Gonzalez came in at #7 in the Advanced-A level rankings. He was slightly below-average in the caught stealing category but well above-average in the passed ball rates. Joe Hudson topped everyone in the Low-A levels by being slightly above-average in the passed ball category and otherworldly in the caught stealing department. Hudson showed off outstanding pop times during the season. From the Baseball America article:
Who’s No. 1?
One of the top defensive catchers available in the 2012 draft, Dayton’s Joe Hudson (Reds) has proven to be an easy plus defensive catcher in pro ball. The former Notre Dame backstop, a sixth-round pick, draws praise for his blocking, receiving, leadership, quick transfer and arm strength. After hitting .226/.315/.369 at two levels this season, though, Hudson’s bat requires a lot of polish if he’s going to reach his ceiling as a big league backup.
Baseball America released their International League Top 20 Prospects today and the Reds/Bats were shut out of the rankings.