Prospect News: Six For Sixto

Well, we’ve had quite a week, eh? Lots of sexy promotions. Being a prospect writer is a touch bittersweet. It’s like watching a child grow. Once they graduate to the bigs in real life, they kinda graduate here too, moving up in the world of blog posts from minor league reports to the Grey League. Good luck Keston and Austin…I know you’ll make us proud. Back in the minors, our good friend Sixto Sanchez got a promotion to Double-A. His debut went swimmingly – even for a Marlin – striking out seven batters in six shutout innings. I was conservative in my ranking of Sanchez in the preseason, so if he continues to pitch well in the upper minors he’ll be a big riser when the midseason rankings come out. Despite the early promotion, I don’t think we’ll see Sanchez pitching meaningful innings for the Marlins this summer, if only because he hasn’t built up enough innings in previous seasons and the Marlins have other options such as Zac Gallen and Jordan Yamamoto in hand. Next year, Sanchez could be a very interesting flyer though. Here’s what else is happening around the minor leagues…

Alec Bohm, 3B | PHI – 3-for-4 and currently riding a four-game multi-hit streak. Since his promotion to High-A, Bohm is hitting .345 with a pair of homers. I’d love to see the Phillies continue pushing the 22-year-old, perhaps giving him a look at Reading by the end of the summer.

Nolan Gorman, 3B | STL – 2-for-3 with a triple and a homer for Single-A Peoria. That gives Gorman nine long balls on the year, which leads the Midwest League. I know nine doesn’t seem like much compared to the video game numbers Triple-A specs are putting up, but as commenter Tigersharkz pointed out a couple of weeks ago and I’ve since reiterated, the new ball being used in Triple-A is substantially different. Consider this yet another warning (of many to come) not to compare stats between leagues this year. Gorman is about as solid as they get with the bat, and I’m confident the 19-year-old will also make the adjustments to bring his current 28% strikeout rate down a few ticks.

Kyle Tucker, OF | HOU – 2-for-4 with a homer, his third in the last five games. Tucker had a terrible start, hitting just .173 in the month of April. He has officially righted the ship though, hitting a smooth .368 so far in May. He also has six homers this month, already surpassing the five he hit in all of April. Yordan Alvarez is crushing it too, but Tucker is on the 40-man, while Alvarez is not. I just wrote about why this is a factor to consider. Tucker could still end up beating Alvarez to the majors through all of this, which is kinda crazy after it looked like Alvarez would run and hide from him.

Xavier Edwards, SS/2B | SDP – 3-for-5 with a pair of walks, hitting .368 for Single-A Fort Wayne. Edwards is doing about what you’d expect, walking more than he strikes out with 11 steals on the season. My only concern in the early going is his success rate. He’s been caught seven times in 18 attempts. At 19 years old, Edwards has plenty of time to learn the fine art of base stealing.

Seth Beer, 1B/OF | HOU – 2-for-3 with a walk and another homer, giving him nine on the season. I was fairly high on both Bohm and Beer in the preseason, so I’m glad to see them hitting well. Beer is slashing .336/.419/.616 for the High-A Fayetteville Woodpeckers. Minor league team names are too fun. I think we need to do a bracket for best MiLB team name. Anyway, the Astros farm is an embarrassment of riches again.