This story is little old but interesting

Santander continues hot start for Scrappers
Outfielder rips four hits, including a homer, to lift early average to .500
By Tyler Maun / MiLB.com06/23/2015 1:44 AM ET
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Anthony Santander has only averaged 49 games played in each of the past three seasons. (Ken Inness/MiLB.com)
When he's on the field, Anthony Santander is an unquestionably dynamic talent in the Indians system. Though keeping him healthy has been a challenge through the outfielder's first four professional seasons, Santander is feeling good and playing like it in the early going of 2015.

Santander continued his scorching hot start to the New York-Penn League campaign, going 4-for-6 with a homer, two doubles, two RBIs and two runs as Class A Short Season Mahoning Valley outlasted Batavia, 15-11, on Monday night at Dwyer Stadium.

Through his first three games this season, Santander bookended a hitless middle contest with multi-hit performances to enter Monday night batting .417. Then he improved on that mark. The Indians prospect hit a two-out double to left field in the first inning, doubled to left and scored in the third and then blasted a two-run homer to left in the fifth, his third dinger in the short season.

"He's physically strong and puts himself in a good position to hit quite a bit," Scrappers manager Travis Fryman said. "As an organization, we put a lot of emphasis on putting yourself in a strong position to swing, trying to put your best swing on the ball. He certainly has done that."

In his final trip to the plate in the eighth, Santander reached on an infield single to lift his slash line to .500/.550/1.167 through four games.

Signed out of Venezuela at 16 years old in 2011, Santander debuted with an impressive showing in the Rookie-level Arizona League a year later, slashing .305/.381/.874 in 43 games. The next season, given an aggressive promotion to Class A Lake County at just 18, Santander suffered a right elbow strain that limited to 61 games that season and 43 a year ago at the same level. With the injury behind him, a healthy start to 2015 is a big one.

"The biggest challenge we've had has not been him being a good player, it's him being able to stay on the field," Fryman said. "He's been through quite a bit of rehab the last year or so. I think part of that is maturing, learning to appreciate being on the field. I think that heightened his focus a little bit.

"We always used to say it takes one good injury to make you a great player. What that means is you learn how to work and value your body a little bit more when you're injured, and you take the discipline that's necessary to take care of your body a little more seriously. I think all of that has culminated. He wants to play, he wants to perform well, and he wants to chase his dream as most young players do."

Of the Margarita, Venezuela native's nine hits so far this season, six have gone for extra bases (three doubles and three home runs). Santander has bashed left-handed pitching, going 5-for-6 with two homers against southpaws. His manager is excited about the task of getting Santander a full season's worth of healthy performances.

"Anthony's such a strong, physical young man, and his body had a hard time dealing with that, playing every day," Fryman said. "We learned that in the process. Here you have a very talented young hitter, a very talented young player, and we had to figure out how we have to move forward to keep him on the field. We're working through that. I'm going to have to be very disciplined with our rest and how we use him and communicate well with him, and he's got to communicate well with me. We'll do everything we can to keep him healthy.

"If he's healthy, he's an awfully impressive hitter."

kenm wrote:Remember when the Indians had a pipeline of hitters like Joey Jimmy Manny Brian Richie Russell-How many decades ago was that? Seems like multiple lifetimes ago. Then came the great signability pick Danny Peoples and the rest was poop!

Yeah, back when when Old drunk Charlie Manuel was handing out steroids to Giles, Thome, Ramirez, Alomar, and Belle. Those were the days !

BA notes from Thursday games:



CLE AA Moncrief, Carlos RF 4 2 1 0 .240 3B (2), BB (27) [not likely to save his spot on 40 man roster]
CLE AA Rodriguez, Nellie 1B 3 1 1 1 .097 HR (2), BB (3) [homers or nothing in AA for NRod]
CLE AA Rodriguez, Ronny 2B 4 0 1 0 .287
CLE AA Zimmer, Bradley CF 5 0 1 0 .269 2B (8)
CLE AAA Aguilar, Jesus 1B 4 0 1 0 .256 2B (24)
CLE AAA Ramsey, James LF 3 0 2 1 .237 2 2B (20), BB (49) [warming up?]
CLE LoA Bradley, Bobby 1B 4 1 2 0 .264 [two singles!]
CLE LoA Chang, Yu-Cheng SS 3 1 1 0 .236 BB (25)
CLE MAJ Urshela, Giovanny 3B 4 0 1 0 .235
CLE R Isaacs, Todd LF-CF 4 2 4 0 .185 [big day for a nobody]
CLE R Miller, Anthony 1B 5 0 1 1 .217 [slugger hoping to surpass Curtis Gay by a little]
CLE R Wakamatsu, Luke SS 4 1 2 1 .277 BB (7)
CLE SS Mathias, Mark 2B 5 0 2 0 .266 2B (13), SB (5)
CLE SS Tom, Ka’ai LF 5 0 1 0 .277

CLE AAA Merritt, Ryan 6 8 2 2 1 3 3.75 [about the same in AAA as he was in AA]
CLE HiA Lugo, Luis 6.2 4 2 2 0 6 4.40 L (7-10) [having a strong August rebound]
CLE SS Strode, Billy 0.2 0 0 0 0 1 1.45

I liked Santander when he first arrived with Paulino a few years ago but as the story said he's had lots of injury problems. He moved out of Mahoning Valley pretty soon this summer and has been having a solid month or two with Lake County.

BA refuses to post on their daily reports anyone who was not on a 30-top list preseason, although they include all sorts of nondescript current year draftees. So we get Santander on the reports.

So, I'll add to their update that Anthony was 1-5 yesterday.

They also chose to skip over Lynchburg games yesterday, one rain suspended game completed and another full 7 inning game. Total score for the 2 games was Lynchburg 2 runs, other guys 3. Hillcats were hitless in the nightcap.

Frazier for the two games, a walk and a single.
Paulino a double and triple.
Haase only caught the opener and had a single and a double

Jayson Aquino 3 innings, 1 run before the rain fell,

Once again an Indians prospect top the Hot List

1. Bobby Bradley, 1b, Indians


Team: low Class A Lake County (Midwest)
Age: 19
Why He’s Here: .409/.500/1.045 (9-for-22), 6 R, 2 2B, 0 3B, 4 HR, 9 RBIs, 4 BB, 7 SO

The Scoop: After dealing with injuries early in the year, Bradley has done little besides rake in his first full professional season, especially down the stretch. He has an OPS of 1.313 this month, and his 26 home runs lead his organization by a large margin. The total also puts him 10 ahead of Rays prospect Casey Gillaspie for the Midwest League lead.

Gabriel Mejia has been promoted to Mahoning Valley. David Speer promoted to Lynchburg. Silento Sayles promoted to Lake County.

Zimmer was 2-4 last night. And check out Hentges ...

Indians In Depth ‏@tpaquette_IID · 10 hours ago  Ohio, USA
Dodgers 3 AZL #Indians 2
@jonaswyatt22 3IP 2H 2ER 1BB 3SO
@SamHentges 5IP 2H 1ER 2BB 9SO
@_TIsaacs10 2-4 2R 1HR 1RBI

Indians In Depth ‏@tpaquette_IID · 11h11 hours ago  Ohio, USA
Arizona Rookie League #Indians LHP Sam Hentges over his last 6 starts:
- 31.2(IP) 24H 13R 7ER 8BB 34SO 1.99 ERA

Mejia's nickname in El Ladron. I had to look that up, I barely know English let alone Spanish.

Means "The Thief"

Fitting, very fitting.

Nellie hit a homer tonight. That's his 2nd homer the last 3 games.

Not much else to do flip flops over tonight.

Mejia with his first hit and first two steals for the Scrappers on Sunday.

Recent transactions:

Cleveland Indians
Recalled: RHP Josh Tomlin
Optioned to Triple-A: RHP Shawn Armstrong, 3B Zach Walters
Option transferred: LHP Ryan Merritt (Double-A to Triple-A)
Placed on 7-day DL: RHP Shaun Marcum, RHP Dustin Molleken, RHP Enosil Tejeda, RHP Jose Zapata, LHP Rob Kaminsky, C Ryan Ortiz, 2B Todd Hankins, 3B Justin Toole, OF Nathan Lukes, OF D’vone McClure
Reinstated from DL: RHP Will Roberts, C Jeremy Lucas, SS Yu-Cheng Chang, OF Tyler Naquin

Lower back tightness forced high Class A Lynchburg lefthander Rob Kaminsky to the disabled list after two Carolina League starts in which he ran up a 3.72 ERA and 1.86 WHIP. The Indians acquired the 2013 first-rounder at the trade deadline when they sent Brandon Moss to the Cardinals.

What BA saw on Sunday:

CLE AA Moncrief, Carlos RF 5 0 2 1 .241
CLE AA Rodriguez, Nellie 1B 4 0 1 0 .119
CLE AA Rodriguez, Ronny 2B 4 0 1 0 .277 CS (4)
CLE AA Zimmer, Bradley CF 4 0 1 0 .269 2B (9)
CLE AAA Aguilar, Jesus 1B 4 0 1 0 .254
CLE HiA Frazier, Clint CF 4 0 1 1 .286
CLE HiA Papi, Mike RF 2 0 1 0 .236 BB (72) [that's a lot of walks]
CLE HiA Paulino, Dorssys LF 2 0 2 1 .306 2B (7), BB (12), CS (2)
CLE LoA Bradley, Bobby 1B 4 1 2 1 .269 3B (4)
CLE LoA Mejia, Francisco C 4 0 1 1 .254
CLE MAJ Lindor, Francisco SS 5 1 3 1 .298 HR (7) [that's a lot of homers]
CLE MAJ Urshela, Giovanny 3B 2 0 1 0 .233 2 BB (14)
CLE R Isaacs, Todd LF 5 1 3 1 .218 2B (1)
CLE R Miller, Anthony DH 4 1 2 1 .219 2 2B (10)
CLE R Wakamatsu, Luke SS 5 0 2 0 .275 2B (4), 3B (3)
CLE SS Mathias, Mark 2B 2 0 2 1 .270 2 2B (15) [that's a lot of doubles]
CLE SS Tom, Ka’ai LF 5 2 2 0 .282 2B (10)

CLE LoA Sheffield, Justus 6 8 0 0 2 4 3.66 W (8-4) [that's a lot of many left on base]
CLE SS Hartson, Brock 5 3 3 1 3 3 1.21
CLE SS Strode, Billy 1.1 0 0 0 0 1 1.35 W (1-0)

That is a trend we've been seeing from Sheffield quite often. He gives up a lot of hits, has a lot of base runners, but finds a way to strand them more often than not. He seems to be a bend but don't break type guy.

That is a trend we've been seeing from Sheffield quite often. He gives up a lot of hits, has a lot of base runners, but finds a way to strand them more often than not. He seems to be a bend but don't break type guy.

Or he gets lucky.

I'd like to read a scouting report on how his stuff is developing. His numbers may not be as impressive as Hentges' but of course he is working in a more challenging environment.