Individual highlights from Wednesday:

CLE AA Rodriguez, Nellie 1B 4 0 1 1 .217
CLE AA Diaz, Yandy 3B 3 1 1 0 .268 BB (11)
CLE AAA Gonzalez, Erik SS 5 1 1 1 .317 2B (2)
CLE HiA Paulino, Dorssys LF 1 1 1 0 .229 BB (7)
CLE HiA Chang, Yu-Cheng DH 5 2 2 2 .255 2B (4), HR (3)
CLE HiA Papi, Mike RF 4 0 1 0 .302 BB (12)
CLE HiA Mathias, Mark 2B 5 1 2 1 .250 2B (6)
CLE HiA Bradley, Bobby 1B 4 1 1 3 .217 HR (3), BB (7)
CLE LoA Castro, Willi SS 4 0 1 1 .340
CLE LoA Mejia, Francisco DH 5 2 3 1 .429 2B (5)
CLE LoA Krieger, Tyler 2B 4 1 1 0 .313 BB (8)
CLE MAJ Naquin, Tyler CF 3 1 1 0 .333
CLE AAA Clevinger, Mike 4.1 6 5 5 2 3 4.40

Franky Mejia has quietly been having a great season so far. Not a lot of power but on base all the time.

Yandy looks to finally be hitting.

Mejia gradually improved his offense in 2015 but at age 20 not surprising he returned to Lake County. Catchers are rarely rushed through the system. Assume he could get a promotion to Lynchburg at some point, but probably not until mid-season even if does keep hitting 400.

Last year's splits:
[I'll get these in a bit]

While looking for Mejia stats ran across Baseball Prospectus prospect ratings, of the Tribe's they say:

"The State of the System: Stupid-good drafts and one-sided trades have turned this system from a bottom feeder into one of the deepest in the American League"

They said of Mejia:

Previous Ranking(s): #2 (Org.), #84 (101)
2015 Stats: .243/.345/.391, 9 HR, 4 SB in 446 PA at Low-A Lake County
Future Tools: 70 arm, 55 glove
Role: 50—Average starting catcher

Mejia drops seven spots in this year’s edition—and yes, some of that is due to his struggles in Lake County—but there were certainly some moments that teased at an exciting future. He possesses a smooth swing from both sides of the plate, and his approach—while far from perfect—has taken steps forward. There’s raw power from both sides, and it started to show up in games last year. Pitch recognition is still an issue, and his flawed approach leads to him swinging at pitches outside the zone and ending at-bats early with disappointing results.

Defensively, Mejia still looks like a Guy, to steal a phrase from that one guy. The arm is an easy double-plus, with a quick, accurate release and velocity to spare. Both his feel for the position and ability to block pitches have improved significantly. The defensive projection lends itself to a big-league backup profile, and if he can improve the approach through repetition he can become an everyday backstop.

Bret Sayre’s Fantasy Take: The bat hasn’t quite developed as fantasy owners would have hoped over the last two years, but with the defensive chops still there, Mejia should get the opportunity to prove that he does carry that 20-25 homer power projection.

[NB: Pitch recognition, as least as observable in K/BB numbers is drastically improved in 2016]

The monthly splits show a terrible April 2015 and from then on some months higher average, some more power, actually did better with walks in May and June than the end of the year.


April 2015 155/222/276/498 5bb/8k
May 2015 250/364/393/757 12/19
June 2015 232/333/391/724 10/11
July 2015 278/313/354/667 3/15
Aug 2015 305/400/354/754 8/18
Sept 2015 105/100/105/205 0/7 [4 games]

April 2016 429/489/595/1084 5/4

BA highlights from Thursday games:

CLE AA Frazier, Clint RF 4 0 1 0 .286
CLE AA Zimmer, Bradley CF 3 0 1 0 .255 2B (3), BB (6)
CLE AAA Gonzalez, Erik SS 4 0 2 1 .333
CLE HiA Chang, Yu-Cheng SS 3 1 3 0 .296 2B (5), BB (4), CS (1) [hot bat from another of our SS prospects]
CLE HiA Bradley, Bobby 1B 4 0 1 1 .220
CLE LoA Mejia, Francisco C 4 2 2 0 .435 2B (6) [still at it]
CLE MAJ Naquin, Tyler CF 4 1 1 0 .318
CLE AA Kaminsky, Rob 6 8 5 5 3 2 6.60 L (1-2) [9 walks and 3 strikeouts in 15 innings. ugh plus]

Second BA Prospect Hot Sheet out today. We have some serious candidates. Let's see how they fare.

No one makes their 20-man list. I suppose F. Mejia's lack of power production kept him off, his offensive line wasn't bad:
24-6-11-5 .458 5 doubles give his a SLG of .667 Just 1 walk, so OBP merely .480. OPS 1147. 1 K for the week.

Friday highlights:

wins for Columbus and Lynchburg [Hillcats now 13-3!]; 1 hit in a 2-0 Akron loss, Captains fall too

Aguillar 4th homer, double, but only hitting 180 with 5 RBI; homers also by Grossman and Urshala. 2 singles for Gonzalez
House 5 inning, 3 runs; Adams 2, 0 runs; Armstrong 1, 2 runs.

Frazier only Akron hit, also 3K. Zimmer 3 walks and 2 steals. Kime a fairly typical start: 4-2-2-2-6-1. For the season 10 1/3 innings, 5 K, 13BB.

Sheffield 5-3-2-2-1-6 [and the 2nd run was mostly reliever's doing]
Allen single, walk. Bradley 3K [27K in 55AB, 7BB, 3 HR]; 2 hits each for Paulino and Santander; and for C Danny Salters whose 441 average; Papi double and walk.

Mejia hitless drops to just over 400, so Salters now leads in catcher hitting. Krieger single and walk.

BA version of prospect report for Friday:

CLE AA Frazier, Clint RF 4 0 1 0 .283 2B (7)
CLE AAA Gonzalez, Erik 2B 4 0 2 0 .347 2B (3)
CLE HiA Allen, Greg CF 4 2 1 0 .296 BB (16)
CLE HiA Papi, Mike RF 3 1 1 0 .292 2B (6), BB (15)
CLE HiA Paulino, Dorssys LF 5 1 2 1 .228
CLE LoA Krieger, Tyler 2B 3 0 1 0 .314 BB (9)
CLE MAJ Naquin, Tyler CF 3 0 1 0 .320
CLE AAA Armstrong, Shawn 1 1 2 2 2 1 4.50 Sv (1)
CLE HiA Sheffield, Justus 5 3 2 2 1 6 2.45 W (2-0)


Looks sort of familiar

3 wins on Saturday, including 10th straight for Minors' best club so far, Lynchburg Hillcats.

Columbus wins 7-1 on only 6 hits. Urshela with 2 of them has finally got his bat back. Grossman with 2nd homer in 2 days. Fine job by Ryan Merritt, a lefty-Tomlin-wannabe: 6-5-1-1-1-4 solo homer. Tommy Hunter 2 shutout innings. Rule 5 returnee Josh Martin 2.

Great pitching for Lynchburg too. Mitch Brown has been struggling with his control, until yesterday. His line: 5-3-0-0-1-9. Anderson Polanco, a lefty, followed in kind: 4-1-0-0-0-6.
Mark Mathias singled and doubled. Greg Allen singled and stole 2 bases: his total is 16 which leads all minor league baseball. He has been caught only once [well, actually a couple more were ruled pickoffs]. Papi singled and walked: he and Allen lead at least their league with 16 walks. Chang also singled and walked, after a slow start he's hitting 279

Lake County is 11-6 after 12-0 win on the road. Here the effective starter was Casey Shane although his line was sloppier: 5-1-0-0-5-4. Interesting development for Australian RH 3 rounder Kieran Lovegrove who has struggled routinely in 4 years in short season ball; awful control particularly. Now he's at the back of the bullpen and his totals are: 7-7-3-2-0-10.
Tyler Krieger another middle IF like Mathias drafted last year was hurt and didn't play in 2015 so he's starting a level below. Won't stay long. 5 hits yesterday: 368/459/436. Mejia 2 hits. 3 hits each by a couple non-prospects Anthony Miller and Sam Haggerty.

Only Akron [10-6 record] lost. And Adam Plutko left in the second with an injury. Frazier and Zimmer each doubled.

Pitching leads red-hot Hillcats past Keys

Amid all the day’s celebration surrounding the Lynchburg Mets reunion, Lynchburg Hillcats pitchers took the mound to remind everyone that there’s some pretty darn good ball being played today in the Hill City.

Mitch Brown and Anderson Polanco combined to throw a four-hit shutout Saturday night, holding Frederick hitters off-kilter to the tune of 15 strikeouts.

The 3-0 decision was Lynchburg’s 10th straight victory.
“The team is emotional. Everybody, they have energy,” said Polanco, who earned his first save of the season. “My energy is good because this team is together with everybody.”


Polanco allowed just one hit in his four shutout innings. He struck out six, but the Dominican left-hander said he drew his momentum from the starter, Brown.
“I was feeling good because Mitch was good today with nine strikeouts,” he said.

Both pitchers had pinpoint control; Brown surrendered the only Lynchburg walk.
Hillcat pitching has allowed runs in only three of their past 40 innings, a string of dominance Polanco again credited to teamwork.

“We stick together with the same plan,” he said. “We’re working together on how to approach hitters. … We communicate with each other about what’s going to be the plan.”


Lynchburg took its lead in the third inning when Greg Allen singled, stole second and third and scored on a throwing error by Frederick catcher Jonah Heim. Allen leads all of Minor League Baseball with 16 steals; the speedy center fielder has been caught just once.

The Hillcats struck again in the fifth when shortstop Yu-Cheng Chang singled home a run, and Lynchburg added insurance again in the sixth with Mark Mathias’ RBI double.

Frederick’s Lucas Long was saddled with the loss despite allowing just one earned run over five innings.
The Hillcats look to make it 11 in a row and a four-game sweep of Frederick this afternoon at 2 before hitting the road for series at Winston-Salem and Carolina.

Trenton’s Dan Fiorito hit a 2-run home run off Plutko in the bottom of the second inning. Two batters later, Plutko (1-2) was struck in the right forearm by a line drive off the bat of Sebastian Valle. Plutko was immediately removed from the game as a precaution

Afternoon baseball for the organization with the best minor league record of the 30 teams. [that's a reasonable supposition not a proven fact]:

2-0 win for Columbus, [9-7 record]. Roberts 7 shutout innings. Gorzelanny retired 1 of 3 he faced. Jeff Johnson retired 5 of 6 for the save.

5-0 shutout for Akron [11-6]. Shawn Morimando remains hard to hit, but control is unreliable; 5 2/3-1-0-0-4-5. Ben Heller finishes with 1 scoreless, 1 walk 1 K.
Nellie Rod hot today with single, double, homer, 4 rbi; 226/292/484
Zimmer a pair of doubles and a walk. Yandy Diaz 3 singles, his 5th steal. Frazier off today.

Hillcats [14-3] win streak in jeopardy, trailing 5-2 in the 8th,. Luis Lugo as usual overly generous with homers, 2 today; that's 5 in his 20 1/3 innings.
Bradley 2 singles, 2 more strikeouts. Catcher Dan Salters 2 singles and a walk: 472/524/500 [no power obviously]

Lake County on way to win No. 12 vs 6 losses, 11-5 in the 8th. Backup catcher Martin Cervenka has a homer and 5 rbi. Leadoff man CF Nathan Lukes a double and a pair of walks [another good hitter with no power, his 2nd XB hit]
Hentges not so hot: 3-4-2-2-3-5

Combined record will end the day at 46-23. Hard to imagine any teams' clubs are doing better

SUMMARY
Home runs by Austin Wynns and T.J. Olesczuk on consecutive pitches in the fourth inning turned a 2-0 Hillcats advantage into a 3-2 deficit, and Lynchburg never recovered in a 5-2 loss at City Stadium Sunday afternoon. It marked the Hillcats' first loss since April 13, snapping a 10-game winning streak.

QUICK CHANGE
Lynchburg claimed a 2-0 lead in the second inning on four consecutive hits. Daniel Salters started the two-out rally with a base hit, and Taylor Murphy singled to right field. Claudio Bautista legged out a comebacker, which plated Salters for the first run of the game. Ivan Castillo singled to center to bring home Murphy, but Bautista was thrown out trying to advance to third to end the inning.

In the fourth, things changed suddenly on two pitches. With one on and two out, Austin Wynns hit a two-run homer over the left field fence to tie the contest, 2-2. On the next pitch, T.J. Olesczuk hit a ball in nearly an identical spot to push Frederick in front.

KEYS PAD THEIR LEAD
Frederick added a run in the fifth and a run in the eighth to lead the final outcome. In the fifth, three straight singles by Erick Salcedo, Josh Hart, and Steve Wilkerson resulted in a run and helped knock Luis Lugo from the game.

Lugo (1-1) suffered the loss after giving up four runs on seven hits in 4 2/3 innings. He struck out five and walked one.
SHORT HOPS
Taylor Murphy stretched his hitting streak to 10 games on a 1-3 day at the plate…Mike Papi walked in his final plate appearance to push his season-opening on-base streak to 16, which ranks second in the Carolina League…This represented the first loss for Lynchburg after scoring the initial run of the game. The Hillcats had been 12-0 when scoring first this year…Greg Allen did not score a run for the first time in 10 contests…He still leads the Carolina League with 20 runs in only 16 games played.

ON DECK
Lynchburg has its first Off Day of the season Monday before hitting the road Tuesday for a two-city, six game trip. The Hillcats will open the road swing with a three-game series at Winston-Salem Tuesday night at 7 p.m. Fans can listen to the action on 93.3 FM and 1320 AM as well as http://www.lynchburg-hillcats.com, beginning with the Hillcats On-Deck Show at 6:45 p.m.