Mormon Baseball

Posts Tagged ‘Nik Turley’

If it is hard to adjust to professional baseball from college for some players, then how hard must it be for players drafted from High School? Mason Smith, who graduated this summer from Rocky Mountain High School in Meridian, Idaho, was selected in the 4th round of this summer’s draft (118th overall) by the San Diego Padres. After signing he was sent to the Padre’s Arizona League affiliate (the AZL Padres), where he struggled to adjust.  While Smith initially did well at the plate, he fell into a bit of a slump in July, and his batting average dropped to a low of .154. But since then he has adjusted and started hitting. In August he hit .303, and last week he was 4 for 11 (.364) with 2 rbis and a stolen base. No doubt Mason will suffer slumps from time-to-time in the future, but the past month shows he has adjusted to the minors, and may be ready for promotion next year.

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The Sacramento River Cats’ Shane Peterson is hot once again. After all but taking over spring training as a personal showcase, he cooled down during the season, settling into a sub-.250 batting average. But this past week Peterson has become hot again. In games against Albuquerque and Round Rock Peterson has exploded, going 10 for 22 with a home run, 5 rbis, 4 runs scored and six walks. In the process he has raised his season average to .241. With Oakland leading the AL West and expecting to make the post-season, they will want another hot bat on the bench when the roster expands to 40 on September 1st. Will Peterson be ready?

Another 40-man roster candidate is the Yankee’s Nik Turley, currently playing in the AA Eastern League for the Trenton Thunder. Turley has steadily improved over the past few weeks and could also be ready for the expanded roster on September 1st. This past week he was stellar, giving up just 1 run in 11 innings (0.82 era), striking out 9 and posting a WHIP of 1.00. For the season the lefty’s era is down to 3.77 and his WHIP stands at 1.31, and given the doubts about the Yankee’s pitching, he may make his first appearance in the majors this Fall.

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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.

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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.

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The Dayton Dragons’ Jeff Gelalich (pronounced JELL-ah-litch) is pretty good. Among the various Mormon prospects inthe minors, he now has the best batting average (although he is playing in the single A Midwest League). He also has scored 31 runs, walked 21 times and stolen 12 bases in 172 at bats. So should he be promoted to AA?

Unfortunately, he’s not so good that he is on the Midwest League’s leader boards, which might be a signal that he should be promoted. But he might be good enough for promotion, if there was a need. And it is the “need” part of the equation that is hard to judge in the minors. If the players in AA all have more potential, surely the management won’t send them down to make room for Gelalich. And those players may be in AA for the same reason — there are already strong AAA prospects, who are also waiting for something to happen to make the majors—in this case the Cincinnati Reds. Unfortunately, its not just about how good you are, its also about other players and how well they are playing. So everyone in the minors waits and watches and tries to play their best so that when the need is there they can be promoted. Still, with Gelalich’s numbers, especially with his .360 average last week, a promotion to AA later this year seems possible.

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Matthew Neil

Former BYU pitcher Matt Neil was promoted by the Marlins to their AAA club, the New Orleans Zephyrs, and pitched well in his first AAA start, lasting six innings while giving up just 2 hits and 1 run. The move puts Neil on the same team with vetran pitcher Mitch Talbot (also Mormon), who has returned to the U.S. after playing in Korea. Talbot is currently on the DL, and hasn’t played since April 7th.

Neil’s pitching performance was matched by another prospect, but in the AA Eastern League. Nik Turley, currently with the Yankees’ affiliate Trenton Thunder, also lasted 6 innings and gave up just 1 run, but Turley struck out 6 and walked 2 in his outing. And with Turley on the Yankees 40-man roster, he seems more likely to make an appearance in the majors.

Also pitching well this week was the Blue Jay’s Josh Johnson, who lasted 3 innings in a rehab assignment with the Dunedin Blue Jays (Florida State League, A+) and gave up just 1 run while striking out 5.

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Yankees prospect Nik Turley got the call to move up a level last week, from the Trenton Thunder (AA) to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Railriders (AAA), and although his pitching has been somewhat mediocre this year (4.46 era), he rose to the occasion. In a 6-inning start Turley gave up just one run and two hits (1.50 era), but ended up with a no-decision. But, despite a great performance, Turley was sent back to AA this week—apparently the Yankees don’t need him in AAA yet.

Turley pitched for the Yankees in spring training and is on the major league team’s 40-man roster, making him one of the more likely prospects to be brought up. But overall Turley’s AA performance says that he isn’t quite ready yet.

He isn’t the only Mormon in the minors on a major league 40-man roster. Oakland A’s prospect Shane Peterson, who is currently with the AAA Sacramento River Cats, is on the major league team’s 40-man roster and has already been brought up to the majors briefly, to cover an absence due to parental leave. And unlike Turley, Peterson, and outfielder, is playing very well. Not only does he have a .298 era, he is 8th in the Pacific Coast League in on base percentage and tied for 8th in runs scored.

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The A’s outfield prospect, Shane Peterson, ended a post-majors slump last week in a big way. He went 8 for 19 for the week (.421) while hitting 2 home runs and stealing 3 bases, and in the process raised his season average past .300. He was once again the Peterson we saw in Spring Training. Peterson’s slump came right after he spent two games in the majors, substituting at 1st base for Brandon Moss, who was out for paternity leave.

Peterson wasn’t the only Mormon in the minor leagues whose bat woke up last week. Both Stephen Parker (AAA Nashville Sounds) and Marcus Littlewood (A Clinton Lumberkings) hit .286 last week, although Littlewood did it in just 7 at bats while Parker went 8 for 28. Parker also had a home run and 3 rbis.

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Somewhat surprisingly, the story of  Mormons in the minor leagues last week was a pitching story. The assumption I ususally make is that pitchers need time to warm up to the season—they often don’t perform well for the first few games of the year. But the Mormon pitchers in the minors were split 50/50 for the past week—half pitching well and half poorly.

[Most of the Mormons (9 of 15 players) we know about in the minors are pitchers—likely because we don’t have a very complete list.]

Perhaps the strongest performance last week was from the Lansing Lugnuts’ Taylor Cole, who struck out 7 and blanked the Lake County Captains over 6 innings for a win. But not far behind Cole was the veteran Mitch Talbot, currently with the New Orleans Zephyrs, who notched a win in 5 innings, also without giving up a run. And reliever Bryan Harper (Bryce’s older brother) earned a 0.00 era in 1 1/3rd innings of relief last week.

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