The midseason Top 100 prospect update from Baseball America.

Francisco bounces back up to No. 25 and remains far ahead as the top catcher. [did someone else graduate to the majors who was ahead of him?]
Tristan moves up one spot to No. 32 after he's actually starting pitching.
Shane elevates himself dramatically again; from not on the list preseason, to 99 in May to 82 a couple weeks ago to No. 60 now and he'll no longer qualify much longer since he's not going back to Columbus again.
Perhaps if Bobby Bradley hits 5 homers a week for the next several weeks he can edge back onto to the bottom.

There used to be a catcher in the Cardinals organization that some rated ahead of Mejia. But he fell off the planet when he reach high levels. Mejia is the #1 catcher every where I've looked recently. But I don't subscribe to BA. Might be same thing there though.

Indians Prospective @indiansPro

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Clippers 10 Indians 6

Merritt 6(IP) 8H 3R 3ER 0BB 3SO
Mejia 4-5 2R 2B 2RBI
Rosales 2-5 2R 2HR 5RBI
Allen 5-5 R RBI SB

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Rubber Ducks 4 Curve 3

Civale 6 IP 7 H 2 ER 1 BB 3 K
Calica 2-4 R
Bradley 1-4 2B 2 RBI
Castro 1-3 HR R RBI

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Blue Rocks 3 Hillcats 0

Garza 6.2 IP 4 H 1 ER 5 BB 3 K
Longo 1-3 BB SB

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Captains 2 Tin Cups 1 (Nolan Jones with walk off single in 11th. 9 walk off hit win for Captains this year already!)

Vasquez 7 IP 3 H 1 ER 1 BB 3 K
Jones 1-5 RBI walk off single
Benson 0-4 3 K

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Black Bears 6 Scrappers 2

Freeman 1-4 (has a 10 game hit streak now)
Palacios 3-4 2 RBI
Reeves 1-4

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Both AZL teams were off

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DSL Indians 5 DSL Indians/Brewers 4

S.Rodriguez 3-5 RBI
Rocchio 3-5 R SB (this guy just doesn't stop)
Tena 2-4 R RBI 2 SB (had 2 steals and a caught stealing. feeling aggressive were we?)
Idrogo 1-4 RBI
Perez 2-4 R
Planchart 1-3 2B RBI BB
Maestre 1-4

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Congrats to the Akron RubberDucks as they had 5 players selected to the Eastern League All-Star team!
OF Connor Marabell
OF Andrew Calica
INF Willi Castro
INF Joe Sever
RHP Jake Paulson

Lake County Captains transaction
RHP Nick Sandlin promoted from AZL Indians 1

Indians Prospective @indiansPro

Columbus Clippers OF Greg Allen is currently on a 6 game hitting streak:
14-28 4R 1(2B) 1HR 4RBI 2BB 2SB .500 AVG .533 OBP #Indians

Columbus Clippers (C) Francisco Mejia season splits:
First 39 games: 27-152 12R 6(2B) 3HR 15RBI 9BB .178 AVG .236 OBP
Last 27 games: 47-106 14R 12(2B) 1(3B) 4HR 23RBI 7BB .443 AVG .478 OBP

Indians flew in and are hosting (7) top International prospects who can sign with the organization (Monday) July 2nd
SS Gabriel Rodriguez #6 by MLB Pipeline
SS Junior Sanquintin #12 by MLB Pipeline
SS Angel Martinez
SS Jesus Lara
INF Dayan Frias
OF Sterling Romero
OF Luis Osto

Good stuff there:

Two of the top 12 International prospects! That's impressive.
I like Palacios' start; he can hit!
Sandlin in Lake County: that was expected.

Vasquez 7 IP 3 H 1 ER 1 BB 3 K. I would like to know more about him. Gregori Vasquez. 20 year old 6-1 185 RH. Stats don't overwhelm. ERA 4.00 WHIP 1.21. K/IP .68. Maybe that's all there is to know.

I really like that Mejia had such a terrible start and worked his way through it. He's proved even better than ever that he is a top notch hitter, can adapt as necessary. Last year, his second half was a big drop off after a fine 1/2 with Akron.

Connor Capel drew 3 walks yesterday. He's dramatically improved his patience this year.
2016: 11 walks in 35 games.
2017: 43 walks in 119 games
2018: 36 walks in 64 games

Did you note Longo with another steal? that's 11, he walked once and singled

Longo: 287/340/414/754 basestealing: 11 in 15 tries.
Capel: 283/374/425/799 still a poor basestealer: 10/19 and that rate has been dropping over the season

Lol, just what we need on the big club next year.

Mejia - ANOTHER guy who starts off the year like crap!

Cleveland Indians set to sign several international free agents on Monday
Updated 12:11 PM; Posted 11:57 AM


By Paul Hoynes, cleveland.comphoynes@cleveland.com
OAKLAND - Seven international free agents are visiting Cleveland and are expected to sign with the Indians as soon as Monday when the signing period begins.

Shortstops Gabriel Rodriguez and Junior Sanquintin, ranked among the top international players in this year's class, are among the players in Cleveland to get their physicals. The Indians' bonus pool for 2018-19 is $5,504,500.

The Indians are expected to sign Rodriguez for just over $1.5 million, while Sanquintin will sign for about $1 million. Indians Prospective was first to report that the seven free agents were in Cleveland.

Rodriguez, 16, is a right-handed hitter from Maturin, Venezuela. According to mlb.com, he projects to be one of the best hitters in the class and is probably one of the most consistent all-around players available.



Sanquintin, 16, is a switch-hitter from Bani, Dominican Republic, the same hometown as Indians All-Star third baseman Jose Ramirez and top prospect Francisco Mejia. MLB.com says the 6-2, 182-pound Sanquintin shows power and bat speed and could end up at third base because he's not done growing.

Other players visiting Cleveland include shortstop Angel Martinez, Dominican Republic; shortstop Jesus Lara, Venezuela; infielder Dayan Frias, Colombia; and outfielders Sterling Romero, Dominican Republic and Luis Osto, Venezuela. The international signing period lasts from Monday through June 15, 2019.

The Indians signed at least 21 players in the 2017-18 international free agent class. They had a bonus pool of $5.75 million and spent $1.5 million on shortstop Aaron Bracho and $1.3 million on outfielder George Valera.

Valera is hitting .333 (6-for-18) .333 with one homer and six RBI for the Arizona Rookie League Indians.

Signing bonuses of $10,000 or less do not count against a team's bonus pool. The same goes for players who are at least 25 and have played at least six years in a foreign professional league.

Bracho's not playing yet?

By Chris Bumbaca / MiLB.com | June 29, 2018 11:25 PM ET




Francisco Mejia will be sad to see June end.

The Indians' top prospect continued his torrid month with a 4-for-5 showing Friday, doubling, driving in two runs and scoring twice in Triple-A Columbus' 10-6 win over Indianapolis at Huntington Park.

"He has a natural ability to hit. He has great hand-eye coordination," Columbus hitting coach Johnny Narron said. "Once we get him on time, he does the rest. He's done a great job over the last month being on time, being able to get that good pitch recognition and being able to get his 'A swing' off."

Mejia grounded into a double play in the first inning, but the 22-year-old slugger wouldn't be kept off the bases again.

He led off the fourth with a single off Indians starter and No. 26 Pirates prospect Brandon Waddell and scored on Adam Rosales' grand slam three batters later. That ignited a seven-run frame for the Clippers, and Mejia came to bat again with two outs. This time, he smacked a two-run double to center field, ending Waddell's night.

Leading off the sixth, the native of the Dominican Republic pulled a single to right. Two innings later, he singled for the third time and scored on Brandon Barnes' double.

Narron says he emphasizes being on time with Mejia. That, of course, refers to his timing at the plate and not him actually showing up to the ballpark in a timely manner.

"A lot of people reference being on time, or good timing, if they see the swing sequence match the velocity of the pitch just thrown," the hitting coach said. "They say, 'Well, he was on time. He had good timing.' But the way we approach being on time here with Cleveland is to make sure that their hands are set, their feet are set, they're in that good, strong launch position. The baseball is still out of over the grass, approximately halfway or a little bit closer than halfway from the pitcher. So they get good pitch recognition, they're in a launch position that they could accelerate and get their swing off in the appropriate time in a manner that's going to help them hit it, both the fastball and the offspeed pitches."

It was the seventh consecutive multi-hit game for Mejia and ninth in 10 contests. On Thursday, he went 3-for-3 with a homer, double and walk against Indianapolis. Since a brief promotion to the Majors on June 11 -- he did not play for Cleveland -- the switch-hitting catcher has hit in 15 of 16 games.

MLB.com's No. 16 overall prospect entered this month hitting .198; four weeks later, he sports a .287 batting average with seven homers and 38 RBIs. Friday was Mejia's eighth career four-hit game and first in 2018.

The work before and after games to nail down his timing has put Mejia in a position to succeed.

"Francisco's spent a lot of time in those drills," Narron said. "He understands how to be on time for the fastball and how to hold that firing position if it's an offspeed pitch."

Mejia has four homers, 12 doubles and 21 RBIs in June, with a .457/.480/.713 slash line to back up those numbers.

Columbus' Greg Allen was perfect at the plate in his first professional five-hit game. All five knocks were singles, three of them infield hits. He also stole a base. Narron gave plenty of credit to Indians hitting coach Ty Van Burkleo for cobbling together a program and routine for Allen in Spring Training.

"It's all encompassing for Greg," Narron said. "He's working on being on time. He's working on accelerating the bat head through the zone, working on using a lot of his lower-half, as far as syncing his lower half to the upper half. He's worked very hard at it. He's applied it to the games."

Allen has spent six weeks in the Majors this, which Narron says helped him tremendously and allowed him to keep working with Van Burkleo.

"The thing for me, is he's having good at-bats," Narron said. "He goes up there with a plan and an approach. Again, he's applying the information and it's transferring to the game."

Saturday starters:

Michael Peoples 0-2 16.88 Age 26 RH

Carlos Carrasco 0-0

Sam Hentges 4-5 3.63 Age 21 LH

TBD for Lake County [5 days ago was LH Age 20 Francisco Perez pitched 6 2/3 shutout innings. Should be his turn

Adoni Kery 0-1 5.63 Age 22 RH

TBD for both Arizona teams

Mejia out to clinch No. 1 position on the BA Prospect Hot Sheet. two doubles in his first 3 trips today. for the week since Monday he's hitting something like 650 with an OPS of about 1750. Eric Haase caught the fever and has drilled two homers and a double for 6 BI. And Greg Allen with a pair of hits in his first 3 tries after 5-5 yesterday;

Sam Hentges with a strong 8 innings, 1 run on 7 hits, no walks, no doesn't strike out a lot, just 3 today
Longo's one hit was a double and he walked.

The mystery pitcher for Lake County was indeed Perez. 6 =5-3-3-0-6.
Nolan Jones with an rbi double and his 16th error.
Will Benson with his best batting line in quite awhile. He didn't play. his average is now a laughable 177

Scrappers on their way to 11th win in 14 games. The three infielders at the top of the order with good days at the plate again.
Jose Fermin 2 singles and a walk. Now hitting 378. OPS 894
Tyler Freeman 2 singles. Now hitting 444. OPS 1012.
Richard Palacios single and a double. Hitting 421. OPS 926. He's the old guy of the trio, 21. The Two F's are both 19

Kid named Carrasco got a start for Ducks. 4 1 hit innings.

2 wins for our kids in the desert, 4-1 and 13-8. It does look like we are giving ourselves a slightly unfair advantage and perhaps making it hard to rate our pitching there. We are using a lot of college kids from this year's draft against lineups of mostly 17-19 year olds. But you can't knock successes like:

For Team 1:

Alex Royalty 3-3-0-0-1-3 Overall, 7 2/3 4-0-0-2-13 8th round 6-4 180 RH
Adam Scott 3-1-0-0-1-5 Overall, 7 1/3 4-0-0-1-13 4th round 6-4 220 LH

Would like to see them in Mahoning Valley.

The 2s were helped by 6 baby Angel errors. Henderson De Oleo tripled and singled He's at 357 with already 6 doubles 1 triple 2 homers. Slugging 690. Of the 28 outs he's made, 20 of them are strikeouts
Reynel Delgado a double in 6 at bats. Hitting 346 OPS drops to 991
Yandy's non-cousin Yainer Diaz doubled, singled. hitting 400 with 5 rbi, he's a catcher age 19
Jhon Torres, 18 year old RF, 2-5, he's hitting 344 OPS 932

Columbus Clippers transactions

LHP Shawn Morimando removed from 40-man and released

LHP Mark Rzepcynski added to 40 man and promoted to Cleveland

OF Tre Gantt promoted from Mahoning Valley

Tre Gantt must have been returned. Dorsyss Paulino was up from Akron in yesterday's Clippers game.

well Pauline makes much more sense. I was scratching my head over Gantt any way.