Mormon Baseball

Posts Tagged ‘Adam Miller’

With the end of the minor league season this past week, it seems like some players let up and stopped playing as hard while others somehow excel. In the latter group this year is Elliot Johnson of the Columbus Clippers of the International League (AAA). Johson was 8 for 15 last week (.533) with a home run, 5 walks, 3 runs scored and 6 rbis. Johnson improved his minors record for the season to a .236 average over 314 at bats.

A bit behind Johnson last week was Brett Pill, who plays for the Kia Tigers of the Korean League. Pill was 10 for 22 last week (.455) with a home run (his 17th), 4 runs scored and 5 rbis. Pill’s season average is up to .317. Adam Law also improved last week, hitting 7 for 22 (.318), helping him finish with a .273 average.

Read the rest of this entry »

Often when minor league players are promoted from one class to another their performance falls off as they adjust to the new league. But occasionally that doesn’t happen, such as happened recently with Jacob Hannemann. The Cubs’ top-20 prospect arrived in the Florida State League this past week and promptly made a mark. Hitting 7 for 22 (.318), Hannemann also had 5 runs scored, 2 rbis, 2 walks and 3 stolen bases. And it is in stolen bases that Hannemann excels—an analysis at Fangraphs places him 5th in all the minor leagues, despite the fact that he is only now reaching the A+ level.

Hannemann’s performance last week is slightly behind that of Brett Pill, who plays in the Korean League. Pill, who once played for the Giants, was 8 for 23 (.348) last week with 5 runs scored, 3 rbis, 2 home runs and a stolen base. And his season record remains great; he is hitting .322 over 205 at bats, with 15 home runs.

Read the rest of this entry »

Returning from hip surgery, veteran pitcher Clayton Mortensen, who has spent parts of the last 5 seasons as a reliever in the majors, pitched two steller games last week. Over a total of 11 innings, Mortensen shut out his opponents while giving up just 6 hits and 3 walks and while striking out 10. He finished the week with a 1-0 record, a 0.00 era and a 0.82 WHIP. I’m sure he will be trying to keep up that level of play during the rest of the season.

Mortensen wasn’t the only stellar Mormon pitcher in the minors. Taylor Cole (Dunedin Blue Jays of the Florida State League — A+) also shut out his opponents in a 7-inning start, giving up just 3 hits and no walks while striking out 9. He remains at the top of the league in strike outs (with 82) and 3rd in the league in WHIP. His numbers are so good that it seems likely the Blue Jays are just waiting for a spot in AA to open up.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes a bad day can just hang around forever. That is certainly true when you talk about baseball statistics. Unfortunately, for Tyler Pill, its not just one bad start, but three in a row at the beginning of the season that are dogging his averages.

Pill’s first three starts were uniformly awful — 15 earned runs in 14 innings (9.64 era) and a 2.00 WHIP — putting him in a statistical hole. But since then, Pill has started 5 games and all have been stellar. His era for those 5 games is just 1.65, and his WHIP weighs in at an excellent 0.95. In the first three games he struck out 8 (5 per 9 innings), and in the last 5 he has struck out 25 (8 per 9 innings). But, still his season era is on the high side (4.35), as he tries to work it down. He will likely need another 4 or 5 games to get down to a 3.00 era.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week it was Adam Miller’s turn to lead the Mormon pitchers in the minor leagues. He pitched 5 innings of shut-out ball, earning his 3rd win for the season and brought his season era down to 2.67. The performance leaves Miller 12th in the Midwest League in era, with 10 earned runs over the 33.2 innings pitched (25th in the league). He has turned in a solid performance, one that may lead to promotion.

And Miller wasn’t alone in shutting out opponents last week. The Binghamton Mets’ Tyler Pill (Eastern League — AA) also earned a 0.00 era and a win for the week, but Pill is trying to work off some  poor outings, and his work last week only brought his era down to 5.16, while giving him a win to accompany his 5 losses this season. For Pill, last week was great, but he will need several more great weeks to bring his stats in line.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Round Rock Express’ Adam Rosales started to make the case for a return to the majors last week, going 8 for 18 (.444) at the plate with 7 walks. The walks alone are quite stunning—he nearly doubled the number of times he walked for the season, and jumped to 6th in walks in the AAA Pacific Coast League. For the season, he is batting .254 with 4 home runs, 13 runs scored and 10 rbis in 71 at bats—perhaps not enough to get him back to the majors immediately, but certainly the beginning of an argument for his return (should there be an opening).

Rosales isn’t the only Mormon in the minors who excelled at the plate last week. He was followed closely by the Beloit Snappers’ Jaycob Brugman, who was 9 for 23 (.391) with a home run and 4 walks, and by Rancho Cucamonga’s Adam Law (California League – A+), who was 11 for 30 (.367) with 7 runs scored and 3 rbis. For the season Law’s .325 average is close behind that of Marcus Littlewood, who continues to dominate the Midwest League (A) with a .395 average (1st in the league).

Read the rest of this entry »

After starting the season slow, the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes’ Adam Law stepped up his performance last week to something like what he did last year, his first after being drafted. Law was 9 for 20 (.450) in 6 games, with 7 runs scored, 5 rbis, 7 walks and 2 stolen bases. And Law raised his batting average for the season to .298, while planting a foot among the statistics leaders in batting average, on-base percentage and in stolen bases. Its the kind of performance Law was known for last year, when he tore up first the Arizona rookie league, and then the Pioneer league, leading to his promotion to the California League (A+) instead of an A-level league with those who were drafted the same time he was. Is it too much to expect him to reach AA by the end of the year?

Read the rest of this entry »

Former BYU Cougar Jaycob Brugman, who was drafted in the 17th round this past summer, is starting to make his mark in the New York-Penn League. After a slow start, Brugman’s stats are improving, and this past week he was stellar, hitting 9 for 27, scoring 3 times and earning 4 rbis.
This week he also reached the top of the league stats, when his 22 rbis reached the top ten.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yankees prospect Nik Turley, who planned to attend BYU before he was drafted, seems to be improving at the AA level, but his progress seems to come in fits and starts, a strong start followed by a weaker start. This past week Turley lasted 7 innings, while not giving up a single run. He gave up 5 hits, walked 2 (a 1.00 WHIP for the game) and struck out 4. But Turley’s previous start was a 5-inning loss with a 10.80 era. Still, overall he seems to be making progress, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to suggest that he may start in AAA next year.

Read the rest of this entry »