I’ve spent the last couple of weeks visiting family in Burlington, Iowa. When I do that during the baseball season, it always includes a trip to the hometown minor league team. I went out to see five games and three teams in that timeframe. Unfortunately, none of those teams are the Kane County Cougars (the Cubs’ Midwest League affiliate – low A), but I still got to see some interesting performances, both good and bad.
The team playing in Burlington are the Burlington Bees, who are the Los Angeles Angels’ low-A affiliate in the Midwest League. First, the Bees played the Dayton Dragons (Cincinnati) and then this week, they played the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (Milwaukee). So, while I didn’t get to see the likes of Yasiel Balaguert, Paul Blackburn, and Jacob Hannemann, who are among the highlight players to see at Kane County for the Cubs, I saw a few of the future stars for division rivals Cincinnati and Milwaukee.
I’m going to break down comments based on the teams that I saw, but for reference, here are the box scores for the games that I attended:
- April 11: Dayton at Burlington (Box Score)
- April 12: Dayton at Burlington (Box Score)
- April 22: Wisconsin at Burlington (Box Score)
- April 24: Wisconsin at Burlington (Box Score)
Dayton Dragons (Cincinnati Low-A)
Dayton features a couple of the top ten prospects in the Reds organization (via Baseball Prospectus), but not many. That is partially due to the fact that most of their prospect talent lies at or near the major league level. Their top prospect, Robert Stephenson, pitches for AA Pensacola and is looking at being on the team by the end of the season, especially if the Reds continue to have injury issues with their pitching staff. Billy Hamilton (#2 in the organization) is already in Cincinnati. Most of their other top prospects play in Pensacola and high-A Bakersfield. In Dayton, OF Phillip Ervin (#3) and LHP Ismael Guillon (#9) are both playing and both likely have varying futures. Ervin was drafted in 1st Round in 2013 from Samford University (Birmingham, AL), while Guillon was acquired as an international free agent in 2008 from Venezuela.
– Phillip Ervin: Ervin is the Reds #3 prospect, according to Baseball Prospectus, Baseball America, and MLB.com. He’s also ranked #63 overall by BP. He was drafted in the first round of the 2013 first-year players draft with the 27th overall pick by the Reds and played last season with their rookie league team (batting 0.326/0.416/0.597) before moving up to low-A to play for Dayton. At Dayton, he remained dominant, batting 0.349/0.451/0.465, including two doubles, a home run, and 6 RBIs, while holding a 10/8 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He was struggling coming into the series (0.167 average with 2 doubles and 11 strikeouts in 6 games). His profile has him as a power hitter with some speed and he currently plays centerfield, although he’s probably better suited for one of the corner outfield spots, especially if Billy Hamilton sticks at center for the Reds. Even given his struggles, he carried himself confidently in the batters box in the two games I saw him. He put together some impressive at-bats and read pitches pretty well. He wasn’t flailing at pitches and didn’t make many bad swing attempts at the plate. The results weren’t completely there in Burlington, but he did pick up a double, RBI, and run scored on the 10th and a single and run scored in four at-bats on the 11th. If he can break out of his early-season slump, he should move up to high-A still this season and getting him to Cincinnati in 2016 wouldn’t be a long shot.
– Ismael Guillon: Guillon is the Reds’ #9 prospect, according to BP, and the #10 prospect for MLB.com, but doesn’t crack the top 10 for Baseball America. That’s not too surprising considering what his performances have been like the last few seasons. He is a left-handed pitcher who was picked up as an international free agent from Venezuela in 2008. He’s still only 22, but I’m sure the Reds would prefer for him to be higher than low-A this far into his minor league career. Why is he still at Dayton? He has almost no command of the strike zone. His pitches (fastball, curve, change-up) looked good and he threw a really effective change-up throughout the game, but he didn’t have great control of his curveball or fastball, especially further into the game. His first inning looked good, with two strikeouts and a caught-stealing, but he opened the second inning with four straight walks. Yes, four straight walks. He only gave up a hit and two runs, but both of those runs came directly due to the walks in the second inning. Even with that, he had a great game by his standards. Last season, he walked 95 hitters in 121.3 innings (27 games, 26 started). That measures up to 7.0 walks per nine innings. That’s unbelievable and nobody makes it to the major leagues pitching like that. I can barely wrap my head around a pitcher having those kind of numbers in the single season in the minor leagues. If he develops better control of his pitches, he still has the stuff to get to the big leagues, but unless those numbers change drastically, I’d be stunned to see him in anything better than a middle relief role.
Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (Milwaukee Low-A)
The Timbler Rattlers lack any real attractive players from a prospect stand-point. They don’t feature a single top 10 prospect in the Brewers system. In fact, the only top 25 prospect for the Brewers that they feature is catcher Clint Coulter. Coulter is listed as the Brewers #12 prospect for MLB.com and is one of the better offensive options at the catcher position in the minor leagues. He still has some work to do defensively behind the plate, but didn’t have any issues with his defense in the two games that I attended. Offensively, he was easily the shining star for Wisconsin in those two games. He went 2-for-4 with a strikeout on April 22nd, then went 3-for-3 with 2 doubles, a RBI, and a walk on April 24th. That marked Coulter 15th RBI on the season, which makes him the team leader in RBIs and easily the best offensive threat that they had.
Burlington Bees (Los Angeles Angels Low-A)
With the Angels being the major league team affiliated with the Bees, it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise that the team doesn’t have many standout prospects. They just added former Cub prospect Trevor Gretzky to the team, but he wasn’t in Burlington when I was attending games. That left MLB.com’s #19 and #20 prospects, Michael Fish (who was taken out of the first game I attended after only a single at-bat) and Kody Eaves. The big bonus that Burlington has (and probably part of the reason they’re playing well early in the season) is their manager. Bill Richardson is in his first year with the team, but has plenty of experience with the Angels and was the manager for the Mesa team in the Arizona Fall League last season, where he managed (among others) Kris Bryant, Albert Almora, and Jorge Soler. When you’re trusted by multiple teams to work with their best prospects, it’s a good sign for your ability to coach young players to improve.
– Kody Eaves: Eaves was drafted in the 16th Round in 2012 and plays second base for the team. He went 2-for-4 with an RBI double in the first game I attended, then failed to get anything going in games two and three, before going 2-for-4 with 2 doubles and a RBI in the final game I attended. He’s a somewhat typical leadoff option for the team and showcases some speed, but it’s his ability to get on-base and some improved power that can really help him down the road. Coming into the games, he was batting 0.222/0.290/0.370. That was improved by the final game, when he was batting 0.242/0.338/0.333. If he can get on-base and use his speed, he will keep moving up through the system. He also is showing a little doubles power, which will also help his future. His defense is still a work-in-progress, but he has shown improvement and looked comfortable at second base.
– Ranyelmy Mendoza: In the games that I saw, the stand-out player offensively was Mendoza. He was signed out of the Dominican Republic and is only 19, but looked comfortable at the plate and showed some sneaky power. At 6′ 2”, 175, he doesn’t look like a typical home run hitter, but he ended up with 2 home runs in the four games that I saw, and his second didn’t look like it was going to carry that far off the bat, nor did it have the crisp sound that makes everybody salivate over Javier Baez. They marked his first two of his first three home runs in the season. Mendoza plays right field for the Bees and the next couple seasons could define what he’s going to be in the future.
The Cubs Way 