We’ll change things up a bit this week and give special shout-outs to the Braves’ farmhand who are tearing it up in their respective leagues. For the most part, I’ll mention only the players cracking the leaderboards for their current team… that will, unfortunately, leave out several guys who have been promoted away from the league in which most of their damage was being done (Robby Hefflinger is the poster child for this group – destroyed baseballs at Lynchburg, but still getting on track at Mississippi).
But with that disclaimer…. here are the future offensive threats in the organization:
OF Victor Reyes (GCL Braves). 2nd in league in hitting (.357), 5th in OBP, 8th in OPS… was just promoted to Danville.
CF Cody Livesay (GCL Braves). 3rd in league in stolen bases – and caught just twice.
3B Johan Camargo (Danville). 3rd in league in hitting (.331). 13th in OPS (.807), 4th in triples (4).
3B Victor Caratini (Danville). 5th in league in hitting (.329). 2nd in OPS (.912). First in OBP (.432). First in doubles (18 – the second guy has 14).
SS Mikey Reynolds (Danville). 8th in league in hitting (.316). 6th in OPS (.835), 16th in steals (8). 5th in OBP (.414).
OF Kyle Wren (Rome) would be 4th in league in hitting (.319) – if he qualified. He’s still 12th in steals (23, caught 4 times), which is a league-high rate per game. He has more steals than strikeouts (16).
RF David Rohm (Lynchburg) is 8th in league in hitting (.298), 6th in doubles (28), 2nd in triples (7).
SS Elmer Reyes (Lynchburg) is 13th in league in hitting (.287), 16th in doubles (23).
CF Matt Lipka (Lynchburg) is 5th in league in steals (26, though caught 12 times).
3B Kyle Kubitza (Lynchburg) is 8th in league in OPS (.816); 14th in homers (10), 16th in doubles (23), 4th in triples (6),
RF Will Skinner (Lynchburg) is 4th in league in homers (16).
C Christian Bethancourt (Mississippi) would be 5th in hitting if he had enough ABs to qualify (.288). He would be in the top 8 in doubles. Yes – you read that correctly: Christian Bethancourt is hitting – and if you pro-rate his homers, that gets him into the top ten in the league.
- Published almost simultaneously to this report is a further discussion of Bethancourt’s hitting transformation this year: I recommend that you check that out here.
2B Tommy La Stella (Mississippi) would be (easily!) 1st in the league in hitting (.338) if he qualified. No qualifier is hitting above .290. He would also be 3rd in the league in OPS. He now owns the longest hit-streak in M-Braves history at 23 games.
RF Jose Martinez (Mississippi) is 5th in the league in hitting (.288).
SS Jaime Pedroza (Mississippi) is 6th in hitting (.287). He’s also reached base for a team-record tying 38 straight games.
OF Mycal Jones is 4th in the league in steals (29, caught 10 times).
3B Edward Salcedo (Mississippi) is 8th in league in doubles (22).
1B Christian Marrero (Mississippi) is 13th in league in doubles (21). He is also 8th in triples (5).
OF Joey Terdoslavich (Atlanta) is still listed as 2nd in the AAA league in hitting (.318). He’s also 2nd in league in OPS, 9th in homers (18), 18th in doubles... despite not being there for the past 30 games.
OF Todd Cunningham (Gwinnett) is 24th in league in hitting (.279), and is in the top 20 in steals (19, caught 6 times).
OF Jose Constanza (Gwinnett) is right behind Todd with 18 steals (caught 8 times).
1B Ernesto Mejia (Gwinnett) is tied for first in homers (28) with old friend Mauro Gomez (Buffalo).
With all of that, I could certainly envision the following Atlanta lineup by late 2016:
- LF Joey Terdoslavich (Justin’s contract is done at end of 2015)
- CF B.J. Upton
- RF Jason Heyward (requires an extension)
- 1B Freddie Freeman
- 2B Tommy La Stella
- SS Andrelton Simmons
- 3B Victor Caratini/Edward Salcedo/Kyle Kubitza
- C Christian Bethancourt
- 4th OF/Catcher Evan Gattis
- 5th OF Kyle Wren
- DH Robby Hefflinger?