I’ll set the stage. Jeff Luhnow is on Let’s Make A Deal, dressed as Raggedy Andy. George Springer is injured. Will he take what’s behind door number one? That’s Kyle Tucker – the prospect extraordinaire who is hitting .364 with nine homers and four steals in May and is already on the 40-man roster. Hard pass. Okey-dokey. Let’s go for door number two! That’s Yordan Alvarez. *crowd goes crazy* Alvarez is hitting .374 with 19 home runs this season. Luhnow thinks hard. Nope. He wants to see what’s behind door number three!! It’s Derek Fisher! Not what we were expecting folks. Fisher’s been fine, hitting .314 with eight homers, but man we came oh so close to a really sexy call up. Here’s what else is happening around the minor leagues…
Colton Welker, CI | COL – 3-for-4 with a homer, his fourth of the year. Welker is hitting .309 this season for Double-A Hartford, and he’s one of the better corner infield prospects once you get beyond the studs. The Rockies are weird with their development and promotions, so I’d look at Welker as a deep league/NL-only piece for now.
Alex Jackson, C | ATL – 2-for-4 with two homers. Jackson has been around forever, and was always a risky prospect, but if you’ve held onto him this long, things seem to be settling with Atlanta. For one, he’s behind the plate again. Two, he’s showing some decent power with ten homers on the year. Strikeouts and average will be a liability. But in fantasy, especially at this position, we can stomach that for homers.
Blake Rutherford, OF | CWS – 2-for-4 with a double. Blake (pronounced buh-la-kay) still hasn’t lived up to his draft hype and is now hitting a cool .187 with three homers this season for Double-A Birmingham. Full disclosure, I bought low hoping to see him figure it out – and there’s still time – but he’s off to a poor start, with a strikeout rate that has spiked 6% to go along with the crappy counting stats.
Bobby Bradley, 1B | CLE – Three homers in his last three games, hitting .277 on the year for Triple-A Columbus. At this point I’m genuinely perplexed why Bradley hasn’t been added to the offense-starved Tribe roster, other than for the fact that he isn’t currently on their 40-man. If/when he gets the call, he could be a cheap source of power, so I’d stash in AL-only formats at this point.
Gavin Lux, SS | LAD – 0-for-4, snapping a ten-game hit streak in which he hit .444 with three homers. Lux is now hitting .321 on the season with 11 homers, and could force his way to Triple-A by the end of this season and LA by the end of next. I often get questions on who to stash for next year. Lux seems like a good candidate for that.
