Alex Blandino was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds out of Stanford in 2014. His career started out quite well. Between 2014 and 2015 at the Rookie and two A-ball levels he hit .287/.368/.464 in 908 plate appearances. The former 1st-round pick was posting numbers that you expected someone with his pedigree to produce and he was doing so while playing up the middle at shortstop and second base.
Late in the 2015 season the Reds promoted Alex Blandino to Double-A Pensaocla. The then 22-year-old played in 30 games at the end of the year with the Blue Wahoos and struggled, hitting .235/.350/.374. He walked 18 times with just 21 strikeouts at the level. That’s good, but he couldn’t find the hits in a small sample size of just one month of play.
In the 2016 season Alex Blandino returned to Double-A with the Blue Wahoos and things didn’t go any better. In fact, they got a little worse. He began the year on the disabled list, injuring himself in the World Baseball Classic qualifier. He only missed the first week of the season, but he never really seemed to put together any stretch of play that was above-average. Blandino was never able to OPS over .760 in any month and was under .660 in three different months of the season.
2017 began with more struggles in Pensacola for Alex Blandino. He hit just .182/.357/.236 in April. With 14 walks and 14 strikeouts in the month, the plate discipline was there, but there weren’t hits, or any power that came along with it. That made it seven straight months, over parts of three seasons, of struggles for Blandino in Double-A. Things weren’t looking good.
Everything seems to have changed beginning in May for Alex Blandino. The now 24-year-old has gone on a tear. In 42 games between May and June of 2017 with Double-A Pensacola he’s hit .287/.384/.529 with 18 doubles and five home runs. His OPS of .913, while playing half of those games in a very pitcher friendly home ballpark in Pensacola, is far-and-away the best stretch he’s had at the level. He’s showing some power, he’s walked 18 times and he’s only had 33 strikeouts. Offensively, he’s doing things he’s never done at the level before. It may be coming at the perfect time for him, too. There are two very good prospects a level below that play the same positions that he does.
Is a promotion coming for Alex Blandino?
The Blue Wahoos have clinched a playoff birth in the first half. The Cincinnati Reds tend to make mid-season promotions in the minor leagues and there are several guys in Daytona that are deserving of being moved up. While a rough April still has Alex Blandino’s overall line looking just “good”, what he’s been doing for a majority of the first half has been significantly better than that. Perhaps it’s time for a promotion to Triple-A for him to see if he can carry forward his production.