Astros Players and Pitchers of the Month for June

Narrowing down the list for Pitchers and Players of the Month is always a difficult prospect and it doesn't get any easier now that the short season teams are in full swing!

First up let's look at the nominees for Player of the Month. In order to level out the playing field with some of the short season teams playing fewer games than the full season teams last month, I went with a minimum of 20 games played in order to be nominated. Here are my nominees in no particular order.

1B Marc Krauss (Oklahoma City)
23G .341/.440/.553
17R 9-2B 3HR 21RBI 15BB 21SO

OF Domingo Santana (Oklahoma City)
27G .324/.420/.510
20R 7-2B 4HR 16RBI 3SB 0CS 17BB 30SO

IF/OF Kiké Hernandez (Oklahoma City)
28G .383/.415/.608
24R 8-2B 2-3B 5HR 15RBI 2SB 2CS 8BB 15SO

SS Gregorio Petit (Oklahoma City)
24G .370/.389/.609
11R 5-2B 3B 5HR 18RBI 2BB 10SO

OF Teoscar Hernandez (Lancaster)
23G .293/.377/.576
19R 10-2B 6HR 20RBI 8SB 3CS 12BB 29SO

1B Jon Kemmer (Quad Cities)
21G .362/.450/.478
9R 6-2B 3B 7RBI 1SB 1CS 8BB 12SO

3B Tyler White (Quad Cities)
22G .324/.447/.632
13R 4-2B 3B 5HR 14RBI 10BB 12SO

1B/3B Christopher Luciano (DSL)
24G .301/.425/.462
16R 7-2B 3B 2HR 24RBI 1SB 2CS 17BB 27SO

1B Connor MacDonald (DSL)
24G .311/.426/.456
19R 8-2B 3B HR 17RBI 1SB 2CS 14BB 24SO

IF/OF Rodrigo Ayarza (DSL)
22G .325/.449/.416
17R 3-2B 2-3B 20RBI 7SB 0CS 19BB 10SO

All excellent performances, but my winner was not only operating on a different level, I think he may have been on a different planet altogether! He hit safely in 22 of 24 games in June and is currently on an 18-game hitting streak.

1B Conrad Gregor (Lancaster)
24G .396/.464/.719
28R 11-2B 3B 6HR 25RBI 1SB 0CS 12BB 8SO

JUNE PLAYER OF THE MONTH: 1B CONRAD GREGOR

Conrad Gregor - July 2013

Photo by Jayne Hansen

As a reminder, Players of the Week for June were:
Dan Gulbransen

Matt Duffy

Kiké Hernandez

Conrad Gregor

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Next up, we look at Starting (Tandem) Pitchers who had good great starts this month. Some of these performances were so dominating that I literally considered simply flipping a coin. Here are my nominees. I think you can see why the choice was darn near impossible! (Again, I established a cut off line based on innings pitched. There have been some tremendous outings on the short season clubs, but I went with those pitchers who had pitched a minimum of 19 innings.)

RHP Edison Frias (Quad Cities)
4 Games/3 Starts 19IP 3-0 record
1.89 ERA/1.000 WHIP 3BB:15SO .191 BA

LHP Evan Grills (Quad Cities)
4 Games/2 Starts 19IP 0-2 record with 1 save
0.95 ERA/1.000 WHIP 2BB:17SO .254 BA

RHP Erasmo Pinales (DSL)
6 Games/6 Starts 29IP 1-0 record
2.79 ERA/1.069 WHIP 6BB:14SO .216 BA

LHP Cristhopher Santamaria (DSL)
6 Games/5 Starts 28.2IP 1-1 record
2.20 ERA/0.942 WHIP 5BB:25SO .208 BA

LHP Tommy Shirley (Corpus Christi)
5 Games/4 Starts 28IP 1-1 record
2.25 ERA/0.786 WHIP 3BB:23SO .186 BA

LHP Josh Hader (Lancaster)
4 Games/3 Starts 21IP 2-0 record
1.71 ERA/0.952 WHIP 5BB:13SO .197 BA

LHP David Rollins (Corpus Christi)

5 Games/4 Starts 23IP 1-1 record with 1 save

2.35 ERA/0.870 WHIP 2BB:21SO .212 BA

LHP Luis Cruz (Corpus Christi)

4 Games/4 Starts 21IP 1-0 record

1.29 ERA/0.857 WHIP 4BB:21SO .184 BA

I think you can see my dilemma. How does one chose a winner out of that group? Well, ultimately I went with the pitcher who pitched the most innings. In only one of his five starts did he not go at least seven innings.

RHP Nick Tropeano (Oklahoma City)
5 Games/5 Starts 35.2IP 4-0 record
2.02 ERA/0.869 WHIP 7BB:34SO .195 BA

JUNE STARTING (TANDEM) PITCHER OF THE MONTH: RHP NICK TROPEANO

Nick Tropeano - March 2014

Photo by Jayne Hansen

As a reminder, the Starting Pitchers of the Week for June were:
Jordan Jankowski
Austin Chrismon
Troy Scribner
Elieser Hernandez

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Now for our Relief Pitchers. Again, the nominees are in no particular order. (The cut-off for this one was a minimum of 10 innings pitched. There are a ridiculous number of pitchers with 0.00 ERAs for the month, but on limited innings.)

RHP Jorge de Leon (Oklahoma City)
9 Games 14IP 1-0 record
2.57 ERA/1.214 WHIP 6BB:10SO .212 BA
4 inherited runners/0 scored

LHP Kevin Chapman (Oklahoma City)
10 Games 11.2IP 1-1 record
0.77 ERA/1.029 WHIP 5BB:14SO .171 BA
5 inherited runners/1 scored

LHP Pat Urckfitz (Corpus Christi/Oklahoma City)
9 Games 11.2IP 0-0 record with 1 save
1.54 ERA/1.029 WHIP 2BB:5SO .270 BA

8 inherited runners/2 scored

RHP Tyson Perez (Corpus Christi)
8 Games 13.2IP 2-0 record with 2 saves
0.66 ERA/1.463 WHIP 9BB:9SO .239 BA

3 inherited runners/0 scored

RHP Tyler Brunnemann (Quad Cities)
5 Games 11.2IP 0-1 record with 1 save
0.77 ERA/0.943 WHIP 3BB:9SO .195 BA
2 inherited runners/2 scored

RHP Abdiel Saldana (DSL)
6 Games 16.2IP 2-0 record
1.62 ERA/1.080 WHIP 6BB:17SO .190 BA
2 inherited runners/2 scored

The key to my heart (and probably to a the hearts of a few pitching coaches) when it comes to relief pitching is the ability to get out of jams, in particular jams that aren't of his making. In other words, the ability to strand runners makes this blogger very happy. Our winner stood out in that regard. In six of his eight games, he inherited multiple runners and he managed to keep most of them from scoring. This 19-year old is now officially on my radar.

RHP Josue Uribe (DSL)
8 Games 11.2IP 1-1 record with 2 saves
2.31 ERA/1.029 WHIP 6BB:5SO .143 BA
13 inherited runners/3 scored

JUNE RELIEF PITCHER OF THE MONTH: RHP JOSUE URIBE

As a reminder, the Relief Pitchers of the Week for June were:
Patrick Urckfitz
Frederick Tiburcio
Tyson Perez
Jordan Mills

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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 has gotten off to a fantastic start for the Greeneville Astros. In his first eight games catching for the team he has a 1.000 fielding percentage, an 8.75 range factor, zero passed balls and sports a 56% caught stealing percentage (5 of 9). Jacob Nottingham, come on down!

JUNE DEFENSIVE CATCHER OF THE MONTH: JACOB NOTTINGHAM

Jacob Nottingham

Photo Courtesy of Bryan Green

I didn't have to look far to find a catcher who can hit. There were several outstanding performances at the plate, but the DSL's Gabriel Bracamonte managed to put on a nice show in the month of June. In 14 games, he hit .357/.460/.452 with two doubles, a triple, six walks to nine strikeouts, four RBI, nine runs scored and he stole a base too!

JUNE OFFENSIVE CATCHER OF THE MONTH: GABRIEL BRACAMONTE