Thursday, September 4, 2014

Astros Minor League Players and Pitchers of the Month for August/September

WTHB won't be handing out Player and Pitcher of the Year Awards until the post-season is finito. In the meantime, I give you your stars for the month of August (plus a day).

In addition to the following nominees for Player of the Month, Lancaster OF Jon Kemmer DEFINITELY deserves a big shoutout for what he did in August before an injury on August 24th ended his season. Kemmer led the Astros system (for anyone with significant playing time) in Slugging Percentage in August with a .659 mark. He hit six doubles, one triple and SEVEN home runs in August. And a number of the home runs he hit after his July 11th call up to Lancaster were on the road so don't be quick to attribute them to the "Lancaster effect." According to a tweet from his girlfriend, he had surgery on his leg this week. We wish him a swift recovery! Also, a shoutout is in order for Quad Cities' J.D. Davis who led the Astros minors in home runs during the period with eight and Corpus Christi's Delino DeShields with his 20 walks!

Now for my nominees in no particular order ~

1B/3B Tyler White (Lancaster)
29G .293/.432/.596
18R 9-2B 7HR 17RBI 19BB 13SO

OF Brett Phillips (Lancaster)
29G .328/.410/.560
20R 8-2B 2-3B 5HR 11RBI 15BB 20SO 5SB 4CS

OF Preston Tucker (Oklahoma City)
29G .324/.357/.528
19R 10-2B 4HR 30RBI 13BB 31SO

1B/3B Matt Duffy (Oklahoma City)
29G .342/.362/.453
22R 5-2B 3B 2HR 18RBI 6BB 22SO 0SB 1CS

Sometimes the decision is difficult because one is often judging different types of players against each other, but this month, the decision was easy. Joe "Super Joe" Sclafani was such a complete player in August, hitting for average, getting on base at a great clip, hitting for good power, drawing a few walks, stealing a few bases ... just terrific well-rounded offensive output for the month.

IF Joe Sclafani (Oklahoma City)
28G .361/.444/.509
23R 6-2B 2-3B 2HR* 16RBI 15BB 11SO 5SB 0CS
*Including a Grand Slam

AUGUST PLAYER OF THE MONTH: IF JOE SCLAFANI

Joe Sclafani - April 2014
Photo by Jayne Hansen

As a reminder, Players of the Week for July were:
Brett Phillips
Terrell Joyce
Colin Moran
James Ramsay
Brandon Meredith/Tyler White

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Next up, we look at Starting (Tandem) Pitchers who had particularly good outings in August. Honorable mention goes to Elieser Hernandez who performed extremely well after his promotion to Greeneville in August. In limiting the nominees to those who pitched a minimum of 20 innings, a couple DSL pitchers are getting squeezed out so honorable mention also goes to Edgardo Sandoval (3 starts: 17IP 0.00 ERA/0.706 WHIP/.161 BA) and Albert Abreu (3 starts: 14.2IP 0.61 ERA/0.955 WHIP/.173 BA) from the DSL teams.

My nominees are ~

RHP Erasmo Pinales (DSL)
4 Games/4 Starts 21IP 1-0 record
0.86 ERA/0.619 WHIP 3BB:17SO .137 BA

RHP Agapito Barrios (Greeneville)
5 Games/3 Starts 23.1IP 2-0 record
0.77 ERA/0.557 WHIP 4BB:22SO .118 BA

RHP Jordan Jankowski (Corpus Christi)
5 Games/4 Starts 24IP 2-1 record
1.50 ERA/0.708 WHIP 4BB:38SO .149 BA
(And, no, that 14.3 SO/9 is not a typo!)

Some may argue that Jankowski deserves the nod for August and I couldn't argue with you very hard. But my winner did something he needed to do this season. He needed to prove to the naysayers that he was 100% healthy and could be the effective workhorse pitcher that was envisioned of him when he was drafted in the first round in 2011. With no further ado, your winner ~

RHP Joe Musgrove (Tri-City)
5 Games/5 Starts 30.2IP 3-0 record
1.17 ERA/0.685 WHIP 3BB:26SO .173 BA

AUGUST STARTING (TANDEM) PITCHER OF THE MONTH: RHP JOE MUSGROVE

Joe Musgrove - July 2014
Photo by Jayne Hansen

As a reminder, the Starting Pitchers of the Week for August were:
Salvador Montano
Michael Feliz
Joe Musgrove
Agapito Barrios
Jordan Jankowski

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Now for our Relief Pitchers. First, I have a ton of honorable mentions to hand out: Corpus Christi's Mitch Lambson; Quad Cities' Raul Rivera; Tri-City's Vince Wheeland, Brandon McNitt and Bryan Radziewski; Greeneville's Gerardo Juarez and Ambiorix de Leon; and the DSL's Diogenes Almengo and Luis Ramirez. In particular, I would like to take note of Tri-City's Ryan Thompson for his SEVEN saves during the month.

Three players stood out from the crowd for me, though. My runners-up are ~

RHP Derick Velazquez (Tri-City)
9 Games 12.2IP 2-0 record with 2 saves
0.71 ERA/0.711 WHIP 0BB:13SO .205 BA
5 inherited runners/0 scored

RHP Tyson Perez (Corpus Christi)
12 Games 11.1IP 1-0 record with 4 saves
0.79 ERA/0.529 WHIP 2BB:11SO .100 BA
3 inherited runners/0 scored

My winner kind of sneaked up on me. I didn't realize just how fantastic a month he was having until I put it all together. He was absolutely lights out!

RHP Eric Peterson (Greeneville)
8 Games 8IP 0-0 record with 5 saves
0.00 ERA/0.250 WHIP 1BB:9SO .040 BA

AUGUST RELIEF PITCHER OF THE MONTH: RHP ERIC PETERSON


Eric Peterson
From MiLB.com

As a reminder, the Relief Pitchers of the Week for August were:
Antonio Almonte
Jorge de Leon
Derick Velazquez
Raul Rivera
Gerardo Juarez

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If you remember, I decided to create separate categories for catchers since they generally play in fewer games and are judged as much if not more by their defensive contributions as they are by their offense.

My Defensive Catcher of the Month is someone who has long intrigued me and who definitely doesn't get the attention that he deserves for his defensive contributions. When I was in Quad Cities in June, Manager Omar Lopez told me that having this catcher on his team was like having an extra coach. Brett Booth caught in 15 games in August and in five of them was tasked with the unenviable job of catching knuckleballer Blaine Sims. Four of the five passed balls he allowed n August were from when he was catching Sims. For the season he has a .991 fielding percentage and a 9.05 range factor. His caught stealing percentage for the season is 40%, but he actually caught the would-be thieves 53% of the time in August, an excellent showing by the 2013 34th round pick.

AUGUST DEFENSIVE CATCHER OF THE MONTH: BRETT BOOTH

Brett Booth - June 2014
Photo by Jayne Hansen

On the offensive side, the clear standout was Max Stassi. In 18 games in August (plus a day), he hit .338/.373/.521 with four walks, four doubles, three home runs, 10 RBI and nine runs scored. There was, however, the matter of his 20 strikeouts, but we'll let that one go for now.

AUGUST OFFENSIVE CATCHER OF THE MONTH: MAX STASSI


Max Stassi
Photo Courtesy of Bryan Green


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