Cleveland Sports Forum

Here are the box scores:

http://www.milb.com/scoreboard/index.js ... d=20130819

Also noteworthy 19 year old RH Caleb Hamrick with another solid start in Mahoning Valley. In his last 4 starts he's gone 5 or 6 innings each time, each time yielding one run.

Game starts at 7 PM EDT tonight, even though it's in LA

Vick left the Midwest League with the second highest on base pct, 413, and 25 steals in 32 tries. Good numbers but at age 22 he was above the avg for the level. He had 23 doubles, 3 triples, 5 homers. I doubt he'll rate as anything more than marginal prospect; Naquin and Frazier are the OFs of the future. Carlos Moncrief may be on the edge of serious status, although he's dropped off in the closing weeks of the season.

As a result of his slowdown, Nellie Rodriguez no longer leads the NYPL in any offensive categories but remains in top half dozen in categories such as slugging, OPS, total bases. At age 19 for a mostly college league that's still pretty good. We'll see what managers think when the league top 10s come out shortly.

In fact he's youngest of the OPS Top 10, only other one of whom is 19, two are 20 and the rest are old enough to buy drinks.

Wednesday games:

http://www.milb.com/scoreboard/index.js ... d=20130821

Good starts by MattPacker, Ryan Merritt, Dylan Baker, Mitch Brown
Good hitting by Moncrief, Jordan Smith, Tony Wolters, Levon Washington, Francisco Mejia

Some of those Wednesday lines:

Packer 7-3-1-1-4-5 11-8 3.45
Merritt debut with Carolina 5-2-1-1-1-4 possibly prospect lefty
Baker 6-6-2-2-2-7 I guess he'll stay at Lake County until 2014
Brown 5-6-2-2-1-6 he was a starter at LC with Merritt and Baker but with ERA of 11.00 he went back to Arizona. He's been inconsistent.
Luis Gomez MV debut 4 2/3-2-3-1-4-4; Ben Heller in relief 1---------------2k, 0.84

AA: Carlos Moncrief single and double; while Ramirez and Naquin both go 0-5
High A: Jordan Smith 3 hits, double, walk; Tony Wolters 3 singles
Low A: Levon Washington single, double, walk, caught stealing. Still at Lake County.
Rookie: Francisco Mejia the 17 year old catcher 4-1-3-0 triple, .298 OPS 889; Frazier 0-3 walk, 2 k

Frazier on the Prospect Hot Sheet:

No. 7 Clint Frazier, cf, Indians
Team: Rookie-level Arizona League Indians
Age: 18
Why He’s Here: .400/.464/.800 (10-for-25), 2 HR, 4 2B, 4 RBIs, 9 R, 3 BB, 7 SO

The Scoop: The fifth overall pick in June and former Loganville (Ga.) High star, Frazier smacked six extra-base hits in six games this week, showcasing the type of power that has him positioned atop the Arizona League heap with a .531 slugging percentage. With 56 strikeouts in 40 games, he also ranks near the top of that list, but don’t hit the panic button until he gets instructional league and an offseason of work under his belt.

I haven't had time to post boxes and highlights lately, but Baseball America still sends their lines of the day. Besides the following, I note that Jesus Aguillar batted in his 100th run a couple days ago. Query: who was the last Indian minor leaguer to reach that level? I am unlikely to find time in the near future to research it, but I do have directories around the attic going back about a decade.

CLE AA Rodriguez, Ronny 2B 3 2 2 0 .268 BB (15)
CLE AA Urshela, Giovanny 3B 4 0 2 1 .273
CLE SS Schubert, Josh CF 4 2 2 1 .220
[a.k.a. Josh McAdams]
CLE AA Anderson, Cody 4 5 2 2 2 3 5.68
CLE AAA Lee, C.C. 1.1 0 0 0 0 3 2.65
CLE LoA Lugo, Luis 4.1 7 3 3 2 6 2.89
CLE MAJ Allen, Cody 1 1 0 0 1 2 2.20

Jose Ramirez (SS, Akron): 1-for-4, 2 RBI, 2 K. The steady Ramirez continues to produce and is one of four non-40 roster players in consideration for a big league call this September.

Aguilar Collects 100th RBI as Aeros Cruise by Mets

By David Wilson / Akron Aeros

Akron, OH - Aeros first baseman Jesus Aguilar will play many more seasons of professional baseball, hopefully helping the Cleveland Indians to many future wins, but he may never again accomplish what he has done this year for the Aeros.

Aguilar, the Aeros' 23-year-old slugger, went 1-3, with an RBI sacrifice fly to net his 100th RBI of the season during Akron's 6-2 victory over the Binghamton Mets Sunday afternoon at Canal Park.

The win completed a series win for the Aeros (64-69), who took three out of four against the league's top team. The B-Mets (82-52) have already clinched the Eastern Division championship. The Aeros have won eight of their last 10, and will now prepare to face the second-place Erie SeaWolves on Monday night at 7:05, also at Canal Park. The SeaWolves lost at Harrisburg Sunday to fall a half-game behind the Senators in the EL West race.

Aguilar continued to add to his own Aeros record when he lifted a deep fly to left field in the second inning to score Ronny Rodriguez from third base to reach the 100-RBI mark. He managed to the feat in just his 125th game of the season. He leads the EL and the Indians organization in RBI, and is one of only three players in the minor leagues with 100 or more RBI. The other two players are in Class-A.

Monday boxes:

http://www.milb.com/scoreboard/index.js ... d=20130826

Pestano faced one batter and struck him out, but due to two very poor outings his AAA stats are not very impressive 9 2/3-12-5-5-3-10. Blake Wood put two on base while retiring 3, 2 on strikes. 2.30 AAA era

Brett Meyers a perfect inning, with 2 strikeouts; Trey Haley a more perfect inning, faced 3, struck out 3. Tejada ERA down to 0.69. Jose Ramirez 3 hits, 38th steal, .277. Naquin 0-4 239 in Akron.

Shawn Morimando cut down on the walks, 6 1/3-5-4-1-1-7. 4 errors get in the way. Tony Wolters singles, doubles, walks, 283, and .312 since the first of June.

Best start of the day by 21 year old Dylan Baker in Lake County: 6 innings 2 hits 1 run 2 walks 5 k. After a slump a few weeks back he's been back on track in his last six starts: 35IP 28H 9ER 10BB 30K 2.31 era. Dorsyss Paulino flirting with 250 before the season ends, 1-4 is at 248 with a few games to go.

Jose Ramirez (SS, Akron): 1-for-4, 2 RBI, 2 K. The steady Ramirez continues to produce and is one of four non-40 roster players in consideration for a big league call this September.

Selective posting is OK, but I'd like to know who this source says the other three are. One I believe is Aguillar. Who else and who's the poster?

BA highlights these lines:

CLE AA Ramirez, Jose SS 5 0 3 0 .277 SB (37); EL's fastest baserunner in best tools voting [also "best baserunner"]
CLE HiA Wolters, Tony DH 4 0 2 0 .283 2B (13), BB (41)
CLE AA Haley, Trey 1 0 0 0 0 3 4.28
CLE LoA Baker, Dylan 6 2 1 1 2 5 3.63

Season over for Indians top prospect Lindor

By Jordan Bastian / MLB.com | 8/27/2013 7:45 P.M. ET

ATLANTA --

With only seven games remaining on the schedule for Double-A Akron, the Indians do not feel it makes sense to take any chances with shortstop prospect Francisco Lindor.

Cleveland has decided to shut Lindor down for the rest of the season due to a lower back injury, which has kept the organization's top prospect sidelined for much of the past three weeks. The Indians believe that rest, and not surgery, is all that the 19-year-old requires for recovery.

"There's no need to push it," said Indians assistant director of player development Carter Hawkins. "For any player, when they get hurt, it's frustrating. They want to help their team win, but he also understands that there's a process he just has to go through.

"This is just another thing that he'll have to work through to get to the big leagues. The good thing -- if there is any silver lining -- it's that the timing is pretty good for it."

Lindor, who was selected with the eighth overall pick in the 2011 First-Year Player Draft, will get an early start to his offseason, using the first couple months to rest his back in preparation for next year. Hawkins noted that there was not one incident that caused the injury, but that it developed gradually over time this season.

In 104 games between Class A (high) Carolina and Double-A Akron this season, the switch-hitting Lindor posted a slash line of .303/.380/.407 to go along with two home runs and 34 RBIs. Along the way, he collected 22 doubles, seven triples, 25 stolen bases and 65 runs, ending with more walks (49) than strikeouts (46).

Lindor hit .289 with five extra-base hits, five stolen bases, seven RBIs and 14 runs in 21 games after being promoted to Double-A.

"He had an outstanding year," said Hawkins, who is with the Indians in Atlanta. "It was great. It was great to see how well he did when he got to Akron, too."