We don’t know if it will last beyond this season or not, though I would expect it to, but things are a bit different this year in Minor League Baseball. Every series is a 6-game, week long series. Every league but one has Monday off every single week. The Cincinnati Reds four full-season affiliates are off every Monday, which makes Tuesday morning a perfect day each week to check in on what’s happening on the farm here at Redleg Nation.
Louisville Bats (1-4)
Things did not go well for Louisville in the first week of the season. The team managed one home run between them in five games (one game was rained out and cancelled). It wasn’t just a lack of home runs, though – the team is 16th out of 20 teams in the league in OPS. Their pitching was considerably better, posting a 3.80 ERA.
Standout Position Player
Alfredo Rodriguez played in all five games this week for Louisville and hit .417/.588/.583 with four walks, a triple, a steal, and just two strikeouts.
Standout Pitcher
Vladimir Gutierrez threw 6.0 shutout innings with only one hit allowed in his first start of the year. He walked two batters and struck out six batters as he got the win for Louisville over Columbus.
Chattanooga Lookouts (4-2)
With the top three prospects in the organization – Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, and Jose Garcia, you would expect the Lookouts to be at least a solid team. In the first week they were certainly that and it came with big help from all three of those players.
Standout Position Player
While Jose Garcia posted a 1.168 OPS in the first week his performance pails in comparison to what catcher Mark Kolozsvary did for the Lookouts. In four games he hit .636/.750/1.545 with four doubles, two home runs, five walks, seven runs scored, eight RBI, and just two strikeouts. He leads the Double-A South in OPS by over 600 points.
Standout Pitcher
Hunter Greene struck out eight batters in 5.0 innings to open the season, but Nick Lodolo one-upped him the next night as he struck out 10 batters in his 5.0 shutout innings.
Dayton Dragons (5-1)
The Dragons lone loss in the opening week came in a rain-shortened game that they lost 1-0. Dayton leads the league in runs scored, home runs, is second in steals, and third in OPS. They have also posted a 2.88 team ERA and struck out 64 batters in 50.0 innings while giving up just three home runs.
Standout Position Player
Brian Rey only played in five games of the series but hit four home runs – more than six teams in the league managed to hit – and drive in 12. He’s slugging 1.000 and that’s also the number of strikeouts he has on the year – ONE.
Standout Pitcher
Lyon Richardson made two starts and struck out nine batters in 8.0 innings without allowing a run. His first outing was just 3.0 innings, but he went a full 5.0 in his second start of the season.
Daytona Tortugas (4-2)
It was a good week for Daytona. On offense they put up an .805 OPS as a team with nine home runs, 32 walks, and just 52 strikeouts. The team also posted a 3.33 ERA – second best in the league and nearly a full run better than than the third place team.
Standout Position Player
Center fielder Allan Cerda hit .389/.500/.944 with two doubles, a triple, two home runs, three walks, and a stolen base in five games played for Daytona. His 1.444 OPS is 4th best in the Low-A Southeast.
Standout Pitcher
James Proctor made one start and one relief appearance on the week and allowed one run over 7.0 innings with three walks and eight strikeouts.
Quick Notes
Week one saw plenty of good results from the pitching staffs in the farm system when it comes to preventing runs, but the walk rates were high across the board as the four teams combined for 126 walks in 194.2 innings. They did have 254 strikeouts, though.
The Louisville Bats managed just nine extra-base hits in five games played. They had 27 walks and 44 strikeouts in the series, but they simply didn’t hit. At all.
Alex McGarry didn’t play in the first four games of the season for Daytona. But when he made his professional debut on Saturday he homered. When he was back in the lineup on Sunday he homered against.
Unsolicited plug for RedsMinorLeagues.com
Any from RLN that haven’t checked it out—I can tell you Doug does a great job and it’s really fun to track the players coming up. Especially this season, because so far the Dragons are a juggernaut and Chattanooga is out to a great start also.
Several of the commenters there are or have been involved in scouting, and a couple have been hosts to players or part of the boosters, so sometimes you get some nitty-gritty!
I’ve been visiting the site since 2012-ish (maybe even longer) and hope you all can enjoy it as much as I do. It was the fact that I feasted multiple times daily on the fruits of Doug’s labor that led me to be a Patreon sponsor also
Cheers, Reds fans!
Agreed. RML is hands down the best minor league web site in MiLB. I too visit daily and support Doug’s site on Patreon. Check it out you and you’ll find wealth of information!
+1000
Wondering whether Mark Kolozsvary is a legit candidate to caddy forTyler Stephenson as backup catcher as soon as 2023? I believe I read or heard in the last week that MK has caught most of Hunter Greene’s professional innings to date. I’d guess if they have a solid working relationship that would not hurt the guy’s chance to make the show as Greene’s personal catcher and overall #2.
There is some thread discussion pursuant to this right here:
https://www.redsminorleagues.com/2021/05/10/mark-kolozsvary-goes-off-cincinnati-reds-farm-notes/
Just as a note: This column is going to happen every Tuesday, but it’s definitely a work-in-progress idea and probably won’t follow this exact format. I have some different ideas about how to go about it, but if you have some ideas of something you might like to see, feel free to drop a suggestion in the comments.
I would like to see concentration at the AA/AAA level with an emphasis on players who will impact the Reds soon and how they are doing, plus or minus. Garcia and Greene and Lodolo at AA and Santillan and Gutierrez or others you know that we don’t about it. Ryan Hendrix is a guy I didn’t know much about who came up and did a nice job after the bullpen meltdown with Arizona.
The Rocket City Trash Pandas are my new favorite minor league team. I don’t care much about low A or high A unless its a recent top Reds pick. Scrolling through the box scores I noticed former Reds minor league home run legend Ibandal Isabel buried in AA and batting .140. Haven’t heard Jose Siri’s name in awhile either. Neither player had skills that translated to GABP. Unless its a Reds first round or second round pick or a Cuban SS signed for $7 million, I don’t care about anything below AA.
Thanks for all you do.
Balanced hitting and plate discipline skills-that is, to justify a roster spot for the power of Ibandel or the speed and defense of Siri.
Ok. Is it time to bring up Lodolo and put him on a poster with Senzel and Castellano?
The Cincinnati REDNICKS!
Clever, but sounds like both beatnik and redneck.
Perhaps that’s what you were going for, however;-)
I thought Vladimir Gutierrez looked amazing in spring training. Good to see all the good arms in the pipe.
Thanks to this column I’m going to a Tortugas game next week while I’m visiting Florida. Looking forward to seeing some future Reds in action. Booked my tix today!
Thanks for the information.