RR Express
Team Results
If there’s one skill Express hitters have shown they’ve mastered in the early going, it’s the ability to strike out. Apparently all are following the example of a certain leadoff hitter. The Round Rock hitters have collectively reached double digits in strikeouts in 8 of their 11 games, during which RR has compiled a 5-6 record. Perhaps coincidentally, the club’s record in those double digit whiff games is just 2-6. RR hitters lead the PCL in strikeouts by a wide margin: 118 (10.7 per game) versus the next closest club, Memphis, with 103. The team doesn’t fare well in other offensive statistics either: next to last in BA at .247, 11th (out of 16 teams) in average runs scored per game.
The pitching staff has been doing the job in the early going. RR ranks 5th with a 3.45 ERA. That’s a bit surprising, what with the recent turnover due to injuries and promotions.
Maximum Overdrive
RHP Chris Sampson. The ex-shortstop would’ve started the season in the bullpen but injuries and promotions have killed that idea for now. Has been excellent in his two starts (1.00 ERA, 1.11 WHIP).
OF Mike Rodriguez. Off to a nice .394/.400/.485 start, the injury couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Stuck in Neutral
OF Charlton Jimerson. If you look just at the .265/.280/.592 numbers, you might be scratching your head as to why Chewy’s on this list. But it’s the numbers in the K column that are raising a stink. His strikeouts this season (22 in just 49 ABs) are absolutely abysmal. Hell, his whiff rate in ’06 makes his strikeout rates the last couple of seasons actually look Tony Gwynn-like in comparison. The golden sombrero may as well be permanently lodged in Jimerson’s locker as he’s already done it twice this season.
INF Joe McEwing. Joe ain’t so super to this stage as his .154/.389/.154 numbers and 3 errors in 5 starts attest.
INF Royce Huffman. His start this season (.189/.279/.216) is beginning to mirror last year’s woeful beginning.
Among the PCL Leaders
Rodriguez is 9th in BA.
Jimerson leads the league with 3 triples.
Sampson is tied for 10th in ERA while reliever and RHP Brandon Puffer is 8th with an 0.83 ERA.
Other Persons of Interest
1B/DH Alan Zinter. In what has been primarily a bench role to date, Zinter has 2 HRs and 6 RBIs in just 6 games. He now has 240 career minor league home runs.
Team Results
A favorable schedule (the first 9 games at home) undoubtedly was a boost to the Hooks starting the year 5-5. But they should have enough pitching over the long haul to ensure a fairly successful season. The starting rotation, especially, looked strong even before the season started and in the first couple of pass-throughs the results matched the expectations. Prior to Sunday’s fiasco in Midland, the starters had a combined 2.83 ERA and overall the Hooks led the Texas League with a 3.11 ERA. The CC results are just the opposite on the offensive side. A sputtering offense ranks dead last with a .218 BA (again, that’s prior to Sunday’s bloodbath which lifted BAs just as it inflated ERAs).
Maximum Overdrive
RHP Juan Gutierrez. Probably the best performance by any pitching prospect to start the season. While his numbers (0.75 ERA) lag slightly behind those of Albers and Patton, he’s doing something the other two are not: making a 2-level jump. Going from Lexington to Corpus Christi (he did make a couple of appearances last season for Salem) is a heckuva jump, but the 22-year old Venezuealan product is showing he can handle it.
RHP Matt Albers. The two starts for Albers couldn’t really have gone much better (0.69 ERA, 0.92 WHIP). Given his off-field history, he’ll bear close watching but everything’s kosher to this point.
OF Hunter Pence. His .385/.400/.795 bashing in the early going merely solidifies his position as the top position prospect in the organization.
C J.R. House. This sure as heck isn’t the look of a guy who sat out last season so he could play quarterback for West Virginia. The former Pirate prospect has hits in all 10 Hooks’ games. His .429/.442/.667 numbers are damned impressive for anyone but especially nice for a catcher. And to think, there’s another catching J.R. in the organization whose numbers are even better! Now if only this J.R. can stay healthy…
Stuck in Neutral
CF Josh Anderson. The .194 BA in a return trip to AA pretty much tells it all. Well, maybe not quite all. The leadoff hitter has drawn just one walk in 8 games amid questions going back over the last several years as to his ability to get on base. The speedy Eastern Kentucky-ex (who did recently turn an ankle) has yet to get a swipe, but then how can you steal if you never see first base?
SS Ben Zobrist. It can only get better for the former Dallas Baptist player as he goes .222/.256/.278 in his initial exposure to AA. A bit of a surprise for the man with the .437 career OBP is that he’s drawn only two walks thus far. Defensively, he’s already committed 5 errors.
RHP Dave Rollandini. His joining the organization was apparently the result of having pitched for manager Matt Galante in the World Baseball Classic as a member of the Italian team. He’s given up runs in each of his 3 appearances for the Hooks.
Among the Texas League Leaders
House is tied for 1st in BA and tied for 2nd in runs scored with 10.
Pence is 3rd in slugging, T2nd in home runs with 4, and 3rd in RBIs with 12.
Albers and Gutierrez are 1st and 3rd, respectively, in ERA.
Reliever and RHP Paul Estrada, who has struck out 13 in just 7.1 IP, is tied with Gutierrez for 3rd in the league in K’s. Albers is tied for 5th with 12.
Other Persons of Interest
Jared Sandberg was originally scheduled to be in the starting lineup at first base. However, with the injury to Mark Saccomanno, he was shifted over to third base which has then opened up playing time for John Fagan.
Team Results
A team that plays half their games in Salem Memorial Stadium is likely never going to lead the Carolina League in home runs. Nonetheless, the fact that the Avalanche has hit only 3 longballs in the 1st 10 games (to the opposition’s 11) might at first blush be a tad disconcerting, particularly since only 3 of Salem’s games have been played at home. Offsetting the lack of home runs, however, is the fact that the club has belted out 20 doubles which is 2nd-most in the league. That in turn has led to 43 runs scored (4th in the 8-team CL) and has allowed Salem to achieve a not bad under the circumstances (given the heavy road schedule) 4-6 record.
Although there has been some very good individual performances out of the pitching staff, overall the hurlers haven’t really distinguished themselves. Those gopher balls (the next highest HRs allowed in the league is 
are the primary reason Salem ranks 5th in the league with a 3.95 ERA. A couple of pitchers have yet to see action due to injury, and once they return the rest of the staff may benefit (if for no other reason giving some added rest to those in the bullpen).
Maximum Overdrive
1B/3B/DH Neil Sellers. Has definitely opened some eyes with his .441/.548/.618 start after being jumped 2 levels to begin this season. While some might scoff at that and point to the .344 he hit at TRC last year, the fact that he did it at the advanced age of 23 made it less than convincing to us. But at this rate (and even though at age 24 he’s also old for the Carolina League), we are becoming a bit intrigued. Whether he can keep it going when surrounded by so much mediocrity in the Salem lineup remains to be seen.
RHP Jimmy Barthmaier and LHP Troy Patton. Both are off to the kind of starts you would expect out of Top Ten prospects: a 1.93 and 0.00 ERA respectively. Barthmaier’s control has been a tad shaky early on (5 walks in 9.1 IP), but nothing else to quibble about regarding these two.
Stuck in Neutral
OF Matt Cunningham. The 36th-rounder from last June has started the season 1-13. Nevertheless, he has managed a .368 OBP as a result of working 3 plunks and 3 walks.
RHP Felipe Paulino. Chicks don’t dig the gopher ball: with 5 longballs surrendered in just 9.1 IP, the 22-year old Venezuelan fireballer with just 24 innings at low-A ball under his belt (though in his 5th professional season) finds the Carolina League challenging in the early going.
RHP Robert Stiehl. A 2.05 WHIP over his 1st 4 appearances. ‘Nuff said.
OF Frankie Caraballo. One of only a handful of outfielders in the system with any power (his 25 longballs ranked 3rd last season behind only Pence and Luke Scott), the 22 year-old Venezuelan is just 2-23 in his last 7 games and has yet to go deep.
Among the Carolina League Leaders
With the exception of HRs and RBIs, Sellers is among the top 5 in the league in just about every major offensive category.
C Lou Santangelo is tied for 7th with 8 RBIs.
OF Beau Torbert is tied for 3rd with 4 doubles.
2B Drew Sutton has drawn 10 walks to pace the circuit. Not surprisingly, he’s 7th in the CL in OBP at .450.
RHP Evan Englebrook (1.00), Patton and Barthmaier are among the early leaders in ERA.
Patton and Barthmaier are tied for 3rd with 13 K’s.
Other Persons of Interest
Barthmaier, Patton and Paulino were obvious locks for the starting rotation. The 4th and 5th starters were a bit more murky. You may see a number of different pitchers in those roles throughout the year: Ronnie Martinez (who has yet to pitch due to injury), Chad Reineke, Englebrook and Rory Shortell are the most likely candidates. 8th-rounder (2004) Englebrook is doing everything he can to cement his stay in the rotation with two solid starts to begin the season
Although he wasn’t held back in extended ST and started the season on time with the Avalanche, reliever Rodrigo Escobar apparently arrived late to spring training due to visa problems. Sure hasn’t affected him, though, as he’s off to a quick start with a 1.35 ERA through 4 appearances out of the bullpen.
Team Results
When you start the season 8-3, you’re pretty much doing everything a bit better than everyone else (or at least better than the league average). The Lex pitching staff tossed a couple of shutouts over the first week and a half of the season and has a 2.97 ERA, good for 4th in the 16-team South Atlantic League. The hitters aren’t doing quite so well, but are still above average with a 7th-best .251 BA and rank 8th in the SAL in runs scored.
Maximum Overdrive
C J.R. Towles. His .480/.536/.760 start might, just might, be his way of telling the organization he belongs in Salem. And if it weren’t for a guy named Santangelo, we’d agree. Isn’t it nice to have multiple catching prospects pushing one another for promotion?
1B Ole Sheldon. Perhaps the biggest surprise of any player in the organization in the early going. Those .414/.538/.552 numbers, if only for an 11-game period, are unexpected for a guy who hit .259/.338/.368 last season in Lexington in his 2nd year of pro ball. Sheldon did show a nice bat while in college at OU but those numbers evaporated in his transition to wooden bats. While the early season surge is welcome, we note that it hasn’t been accompanied by a sudden increase in power (just a double and a homer among his 11 hits). The ability to reach the fences has always been a question mark about Sheldon and, given the position he plays, is critical to how far he advances.
RHP Sean Walker. The 23-year old Baylor-ex put up pedestrian numbers (4.93 ERA, 1.69 WHIP) in his first year of pro ball last season at TRC, but part of that may be a result of still trying to overcome prior knee surgery. He’s started off 2006 with a bang with 2 excellent starts for the Legends.
Stuck in Neutral
SS Tommy Manzella. You know things are going bad when you have more errors (4) than hits (2). Even worse in relation to hits is the atrocious 13 strikeouts. It would be hard to imagine a more dismal start for Mr. Manzella. Coupled with the not exactly record-setting year at the plate (.232 BA) in his debut last season at TRC and the early returns from this 3rd-rounder are disappointing. The questions about his bat coming out of Tulane were there from the beginning but obviously have now become a bit more pronounced.
OF Ryan Reed. Reed, like Manzella, just wants to hit rewind on the start of the season. The 21st-rounder (2004) is 5-25 at the plate but the real horror show is defensively. He’s been charged with 2 errors and has misplayed at least 2 flyballs into base hits.
Among the SAL Leaders
Sheldon is 4th in BA and 3rd in OBP.
Towles would be leading the league in BA, 4th in OBP and 4th in slugging had he a few more plate appearances to qualify.
Walker is 6th in the SAL with an 0.82 ERA.
Other Persons of Interest
3B Koby Clemens. He made the jump to Lexington when many were expecting an assignment to SS Tri-City, so the .192 BA in the early going isn’t surprising to us. We find it very encouraging, in fact, that he’s managed to lead the team in RBIs with 9 despite having just 5 hits.
OF Mitch Einertson. The .206/.229/.471 numbers aren’t gonna remind anyone of two seasons ago, but we do note that he has at least in the early going cut down some on the strikeouts that plagued him so much last year at Lex. Whether making better contact eventually leads to good things remains to be seen, but it’s gotta be a step in the right direction.