It was only natural that Pirates shortstop Alen Hanson would cool off after his blistering April, when the 19-year-old ranked second in the entire minors with a .410 average for low Class A West Virginia. Hanson’s hitting a more modest .263/.317/.474 so far in May, but he’s already put himself solidly on the prospect radar.

A night after taking home a golden sombrero, going 0-for-4 with four strikeouts on Tuesday, Hansen righted the ship by going 3-for-5 with a double and a homer, his sixth of the campaign. Hanson raised his slash line back up to .358/.397/.617. He ranks second in the South Atlantic League in average and slugging and leads the circuit in hits (58) and doubles (16).

The blight on Hanson’s spring has been his defense, as he’s made 17 errors in 32 games, easily the most of any SAL shortstop. He made four errors on Wednesday, all of them fielding errors. Hanson’s throwing arm is expected to be the biggest obstacle to him staying at shortstop, but just three of his 17 errors have been of the throwing variety. His errors have also tended to come in bunches. Wednesday was his fifth multi-error game, and he committed seven in his first 11 games at shortstop in April.
 

Reading down the names in low Class A Charleston’s lineup, you see a who’s who of many of the Yankees’ top offensive prospects. Start at the top with center fielder Mason Williams, and follow him with shortstop Cito Culver, third baseman Dante Bichette Jr., first baseman Tyler Austin and catcher Gary Sanchez—five players accounting for over $6.2 million in signing bonuses. That premium talent was firing on all cylinders Wednesday, as those five players combined for nine hits and the team pounded out 14 runs on 16 hits against Savannah.

Williams went 3-for-4, while Bichette and Culver, who’ve each had their struggles early in the season, both had two hits. Austin, the South Atlantic League’s home run leader, had only one knock but made it count, smacking a two-run homer in the first inning, his 12th long ball of the year. But Sanchez was the biggest star. The catcher, who was DHing on this night, collected a career-high six RBIs as part of a 2-for-5 night. Though Sanchez recently had a 10-game hitting streak snapped, he’s still hitting a robust .333/.380/.483 in 120 at-bats. He also homered on Wednesday, his second in his last five games after going the first month of the season without a long ball.

While Garin Cecchini’s younger brother Gavin, a likely first-round pick next month, has been getting more of the limelight lately, the elder Cecchini sibling has been rolling for low Class A Greenville in the Red Sox’s system. Cecchini went 2-for-5 and hit a walkoff two-run double with two outs in the bottom of the ninth for the Drive on Wednesday, capping off a 5-4 win against Asheville.

Cecchini has rebounded from a slow start, which was really just a bad first week, to be one of the South Atlantic League’s most productive hitters over the last month. The 21-year-old started the year 3-for-27 (.111) before a 3-for-5 outing on April 13, and he’s hit .349/.408/.495 in 109 at-bats since, posting the fifth highest average in the SAL over that span. The missing ingredient has been power, as he has only one homer and is slugging a modest .434 on the season, but there’s reason to hope he’ll hit more long balls in time as he gets stronger and learns to turn on balls more consistently.

His power hasn’t arrived yet, but Cecchini’s hit tool is advanced for his age. He’s been consistently productive when healthy, hitting .298/.398/.500 against older competition in the short-season New York-Penn League last year and .301/.367/.434 so far this year. Injuries have been an issue, as a torn ACL cost him his senior year of high school and contributed to his not being drafted until the fourth round, and a broken right wrist truncated his 2011 season. He hasn’t shown any ill effects though, going 14-for-16 stealing bases despite lacking above-average speed and cleaning up his defense at third base. He made 10 errors in 26 games there last year, having moved over from playing shortstop in high school, but he’s committed just four in 28 games at the hot corner this year.

Jose Iglesias won't make the majors because of his bat. He's a glove wizard who only has to hit enough to justify keeping his plus-plus glove in the lineup. ut every now and then, Iglesias can have a big night. For the second time in 204 games as a pro, Iglesias homered on Tuesday night. It was part of a 3-for-5 night that raised his average to .262 with Triple-A Pawtucket. Iglesias is on quite the hot streak. He was hitting .185/.196/.258 on April 29, but since then, he's had eight multihit games in the past 12 games.

The play of Mike Aviles has been adequate enough that the spring training talk of whether Iglesias should be the Red Sox's starting shortstop has abated. That's probably the best thing that could happen for Iglesias, as he's getting the chance to work on his hitting in a much less pressured environment. The 22-year-old still has less than 1,000 at-bats since he arrived from Cuba, so while he's not ever going to be a batting champ, there is still reason to hope that he could prove to be a big league regular.

The Rangers are generally acknowledged to be the best team in the majors right now, even if they don't have the best record in baseball. Texas also ranked as Baseball America's No. 1 farm system heading into the season, and there is little that has happened in the early going to change that assessment.

No. 1 on the Rangers' prospect list coming into the season was shortstop Jurickson Profar. With the top four prospects on our Preseason Top 100 now in the majors, Profar, ranked No. 7 on the preseason Top 100, is in the conversation for the best prospect currently in the minors. Double-A Frisco's shortstop extended his hitting streak to 25 games with a 3-for-5 night against Midland. Profar also stole his sixth bag of the season in six tries.

While Profar was extending his hitting streak, Frisco starter Barrett Loux improved to 8-0 in eight starts this year. While wins are not the most useful stat to measure a pitcher's success, Loux's eight wins have been largely deserved. He hasn't allowed more than three runs in any start and currently has a 2.70 ERA. [...] Continue Reading »

When the Yankees drafted Dellin Betances back in 2006, the scouting report on the tall righthander explained that he combined sometimes plus stuff with a difficult to repeat delivery that meant he had poor control.

It's been seven years, but that scouting report is still pretty accurate. Betances can blow hitters away with his plus fastball, but he all too often is missing the strike zone. The strike zone has been jumping on Betances more and more in 2012. On Tuesday, Betances failed to throw strikes on 50 percent of his pitches for the fourth time in eight starts. It was also the fourth time in eight starts that Betances walked six batters. He needed 104 pitches (50 strikes) to go 3 2/3 innings, as he allowed three earned runs. All three runs came on Brad Eldred's 16th home run of the season.

Betances did strike out seven batters as well–so when he was able to put three strikes together, he was hard to hit.

The Yankees have been very patient with Betances over the past seven years, but there may be a point where the Yankees have to accept that Betances will never have even average command. The question then comes down to whether his command issues are better solved in the rotation or in the bullpen.

A year ago on May 15, Xavier Avery had batted .224/.278/.252 (33-for-147) with four doubles and an 8-to-43 walk-to-strikeout ratio for Double-A Bowie. This year he's in Baltimore after leveling out his walk-to-strikeout ratio (20-to-29) and belting 13 extra-base hits in the 33 Triple-A International League games. The lesson: Fortunes can change dramatically for prospects in one year.

The 22-year-old Avery started in left field last night for the Orioles and collected his first two career hits, a double and a triple, both off Yankees starter Ivan Nova. In concert with injuries to outfielders Nolan Reimold and Endy Chavez, Avery forced the Orioles' hand by raking in his final nine games for Triple-A Norfolk, batting 15-for-35 (.429) with three homers, four doubles and four strikeouts. His big league callup follows quickly on the heels of his first Prospect Hot Sheet appearances last Friday, which also happened with Red Sox third baseman Will Middlebrooks about a week earlier.

With the caveat that the season still has a long way to go, Avery does appear to have made fundamental changes to his game. Compare his performance in Double-A last season with his early showing in Triple-A this year and note that he batted leadoff almost exclusively in both seasons. Notice the Arizona Fall League line placed between the two regular seasons, because one can almost see the light bulb clicking on for Avery, a talented athlete who nevertheless entered this season with a career batting line of .265/.324/.355 in nearly 1,950 plate appearances.

[...] Continue Reading »

The Dodgers announced on Tuesday they were promoting corner outfielder Brian Cavazos-Galvez to Triple-A Albuquerque, a move which brings the 24-year-old full circle.

Cavazos-Galvez, who turns 25 on Thursday, was born in Albuquerque and played two years of college baseball for New Mexico, which plays its home games in Isotopes Park. Cavazos-Galvez’s connections to the Isotopes run even deeper than that though. His father Balvino Galvez came up through the Dodgers system in the 1980s and played parts of two seasons (1986 and ’92) for Albuquerque’s Triple-A franchise, known as the Dukes at the time.

[...] Continue Reading »

Tampa Bay's best prospects are struggling.

Just among their Top 10, Matt Moore is scuffling with the big league club, Chris Archer, Alex Torres and Enny Romero are having trouble locating the strike zone, Hak-Ju Lee isn't hitting well, Tim Beckham is suspended 50 games for drugs and outfielders Drew Vettleson and Mikie Mahtook aren't off to great starts either.

One bright spot has been high Class A Charlotte shortstop Derek Dietrich. The 21-year-old had his best game of the season today, hitting a home run and two triples in a 3-for-5 game that bumped his season line up to .273/.365/.484 in 34 games.

Dietrich, the Rays' No. 13 prospect entering the season, has above-average power and ranks fifth in the Florida State League in slugging, and if he can keep the swing and miss in check, he could be an everyday infielder, though he's a likely candidate to end up moving to second or third at some point.

Wil Myers' career-best season for home runs was his first year in pro ball, when he hit 14 between low Class A Burlington and high Class A Wilmington in 2009. It looks like he's going to need maybe six or seven weeks of the 2012 season to break that mark.

Myers went deep twice today for Double-A Northwest Arkansas, giving him 13 home runs on the year to tie him for second in the minors. Myers, 21, has always shown a keen eye at the plate but a knee injury stalled him last year and hampered him when he did play. Myers did strike out twice to give him 41 whiffs in 34 games, but it's hard to take issue when he's hitting .346/.419/.746.

For the second straight game, Myers even spent the first two innings at third base before moving to center field for the rest of the game. Most likely is that Myers won't end up at either position and will find his way back to right field, where he has the offensive ability to become an all-star.

Dylan Bundy arguably had the worst start of his professional career tonight. The results: five innings, one run (it was unearned), two hits, no walks and three strikeouts.

That's how spectacular the Orioles righthander has been this year for low Class A Delmarva. Bundy's two hits allowed were a season-high, as were the five innings he threw. Bundy, 19, still has a flawless 0.00 ERA (with two unearned runs allowed) in 25 innings with two hits, two walks, a hit batsman and 36 strikeouts of the 82 batters he's faced.

With Bryce Harper, Mike Trout and Matt Moore all in the big leagues, it's a more open debate about who is the best prospect in the minors right now. Bundy certainly has a strong case.

Presented here are the top 10 runs created tallies for position players from weekend series, May 11-13. Players must appear in the 2012 Baseball America Prospect Handbook.

• Astros center fielder George Springer homered in four consecutive plate appearances, spanning two games of a Friday doubleheader, and now owns a .350/.389/.700 batting line in 20 home games with high Class A Lancaster. He's the seventh minor league player to homer three times in one game this season. Wouldn't you know that three of those outbursts occurred in the California League? (The other two: High Desert third baseman Steve Proscia on April 19 and Stockton first baseman A.J. Kirby-Jones on April 18.)

• Lost a bit among the organization's plethora of power arms, Diamondbacks third baseman Matt Davidson is gaining serious prospect momentum this season in the Double-A Southern League, which he tops with eight home runs and 19 extra-base hits as part of a .318/.434/.583 batting line through 132 at-bats. The 21-year-old homered twice in a game versus Chattanooga on Sunday (once against Dodgers prospect Chris Withrow) and also went deep on Friday. [...] Continue Reading »

Presented here are the top 10 pitcher game scores from weekend series, May 11-13, by pitchers who appear in the 2012 Baseball America Prospect Handbook.

• Astros righthander Paul Clemens rebounded from a recent rough patch, commemorated with an appearance on the Prospect Not-So-Hot Sheet, to get back on track in Triple-A . . . and back on target for a callup to Houston later this season. He allowed just three singles in his Saturday start and retired the final 15 batters he faced. Nothing to worry about here: Clemens has gone 3-1, 1.57 with a 17-4 K-BB ratio in four home starts in Oklahoma City this year.

• One of the youngest pitchers in the Carolina League, 20-year-old Royals righty Yordano Ventura leads the league with 11.3 strikeouts per nine innings. He's been especially effective in his last two outings, striking out 12 in 13 innings while allowing three runs on 11 baserunners. [...] Continue Reading »

With few exceptions—say Mark Prior or Tim Lincecum or Stephen Strasburg—even the most talented college pitchers need time to transition to the grind of the professional game. The ball is different, the bats are different, the interval between starts shorter and the schedule more demanding.

The top college arms from the 2011 draft have not been exceptions to this point. Pirates righthander Gerrit Cole, taken first overall from a UCLA, boasts a nifty strikeout-to-walk ratio (3.5) for high Class A Bradenton, but he's also pitched to a 3.18 ERA while allowing four homers in seven Florida State League starts. Mariners lefty Danny Hultzen, the No. 2 pick from Virginia, has allowed just 17 hits (one home run) in 37 2/3 innings for Double-A Jackson, but he's also walked 5.5 batters per nine innings. It's a similar story for Diamondbacks righty Trevor Bauer, taken third overall from UCLA, who has mitigated a strong strikeout rate (11.2 per nine) for Double-A Mobile with an elevated walk rate (4.8).

Whatever transpired early in the season, Cole, Hultzen and Bauer brought their best stuff to the mound this weekend. [...] Continue Reading »

High Class A Salem center fielder Jackie Bradley failed to reach base on April 11, his fifth professional game, but the Red Sox prospect has gotten aboard via hit or walk in his other 30 games this season and leads the minors with a .507 on-base percentage. Not bad for a player who lasted until the 40th pick in last year's draft because he injured his left wrist while at South Carolina and slumped through his junior season.

Rain postponed Salem's Carolina League contest on Sunday, but the lefty-hitting Bradley went 5-for-5 on Saturday to raise his season average to .389, which ranks second in the minors only to Tigers third-base prospect Nick Castellanos, who's batting .403 for high Class A Lakeland. The 22-year-old Bradley has collected 11 stolen bases in 14 attempts as well as 14 extra-base hits (including three home runs) to prop up a .575 slugging percentage.

For more on Bradley's quick start, please see correspondent Alex Speier's recent Red Sox organization report (BA subscription required).

Following standout careers at the University of Connecticut, George Springer and Matt Barnes have met little resistance in the professional ranks thus far. Both 2011 first-round picks—Springer went 11th overall to the Astros; Barnes 19th to the Red Sox—emphasized that point with noteworthy performances this weekend at the high Class A level.

Springer, who plays center field for Lancaster of the California League, smashed three home runs in a game on Friday, May 11, joining six other minor leaguers to accomplish the feat this season. Though the outburst occurred in homer-friendly Lancaster, Springer stressed efficiency by going deep in each of his three plate appearances during doubleheader Game Two's seven-inning contest.

The 22-year-old Springer also homered in his final PA of the first game of Friday's doubleheader, giving him four clouts in a row and fattening up the day's batting line to 5-for-7 with four homers, seven RBIs, five runs scored and a stolen base. Through 147 at-bats for the JetHawks this season he had batted .313/.362/.571 with eight homers, six doubles, four triples, eight steals and a Cal League-leading 32 RBIs. He ranks third in the league in homers and fourth in slugging. [...] Continue Reading »

Paul Hoilman is no stranger to re-writing the record book. On Wednesday night, he broke another one by hitting safely in his 22nd straight game—a franchise record for the low Class A Peoria Chiefs.

Hoilman, a 23-year-old first baseman, went 2-for-4 with a triple in a 2-1 home loss to Beloit and extended his hit streak in his first at-bat by legging out an infield single to Beloit third baseman Miguel Sano—the strong-armed Twins’ top prospect. Hardly a speedster, the righthanded-hitting Hoilman hit a chopper behind the third-base bag and barely beat Sano’s throw to first.

“I knew he had a good arm so I was running as hard as I could,” Hoilman told the Peoria Journal Star.

Hoilman passed the Chiefs' previous mark of 21 shared by outfielder Kerry Robinson and infielder Jack Wilson.

Hoilman made his professional debut for Boise last season after being selected in the 19th round of the draft and set a franchise single-season record with 17 home runs despite playing just 71 games. During a four-year career at Eastern Tennessee State, Hoilman broke two Atlantic Sun Conference career records—home runs (73) and doubles (83).

In 2010, Hoilman won the inaugural TD Ameritrade College Baseball Home Run Derby in the final college baseball event at Rosenblatt Stadium. He hit .421 and tied for fifth in Division I with 25 home runs. The Rays selected him in the 49th round of the 2010 draft, but he elected to return to ETSU and finish his degree in math with a concentration in pre-med. As a senior, Hoilman’s ranked second Division I in both home runs (22) and strikeouts (72) as his average dipped to .313 amid college baseball’s new bat standards.

Also Streaking

• The Rangers have a pair of prospects with hitting streaks. Shortstop phenom Jurickson Profar, the Rangers top prospect entering this season, has hit safely in 19 straight games for Double-A Frisco. The 19-year-old has seen his average increase from .205/.280/.409 when the streak began on April 19 to .261/.318/.462 after going 1-for-4 with two RBIs yesterday against Midland. Second baseman Yangervis Solarte has a 20-game hit streak with Triple-A Round Rock. Solarte is a 24-year-old switch-hitter with a knack for barreling up the ball and was a minor league free agent pick-up by the Rangers this past offseason.

• Royals outfielder Wil Myers has a 15-game hitting streak with Double-A Northwest Arkansas. Myers has hit safely in 28 of 29 games this season. He had a 13-game hit streak snapped with an 0-4 outing against Arkansas on April 22 before starting his current run the next game. The Royals No. 3 prospect entering the season, the 21-year-old Myers is hitting .339/.394/.722 with 11 home runs in 115 at-bats.

• Padres prospect Alexi Amarista has a 17-game streak going with Triple-A Tucson. The 5-foot-8 utility player carries the streak over from Triple-A Salt Lake, as he was a part of the trade on May 4 that brought righthander Ernesto Frieri to the Angels.

Mets righthander Jenrry Mejia reached the major leagues as a 20-year-old in 2010, but it's been a long journey for him to work his way back there.

Mejia made five starts last year for Triple-A Buffalo, but he had Tommy John surgery that year in May and hasn't pitched in a game since then, until today. In his first start back, the 22-year-old Mejia allowed two runs in five innings, struck out one and walked two for high Class A St. Lucie.

In a perfect world, the Mets would probably like to have Mejia develop as a starter, but given his medical history and some mechanical issues he's still trying to sort his way through, his best fit may be in the bullpen. He has a high ceiling in either role, with a mid-90s fastball that has tremendous cutting action and chews up bats, even if he doesn't have the out pitch secondary offerings to miss them at a high clip right now at the major league level. Either way, a player with Mejia's upside shouldn't be forgotten, and it's possible he could be back in the big leagues in the near future.

Adys Portillo is no pop-up guy. The Padres gave the Venezuelan righthander $2 million when he was 16 back in 2008, a year that's produced a disturbing number of expensive flops.

Now 20, Portillo has filled out (6-foot-2, 240 pounds) and his fastball has gone from touching 93 mph to sitting in the mid-90s and flashing triple-digits, but until this year he hasn't shown much in the way of, well, getting hitters out.

That's changing this year. Coming off one of the best starts of his career in his previous start in which he threw seven scoreless innings, Portillo returned today to throw seven more scoreless innings for low Class A Fort Wayne, allowing only one hit and two walks to go with six strikeouts.

Pitchability and the breaking ball were scouts' concerns with Portillo since his amateur days, and he still has plenty of room to improve his control with 17 walks in 38 1/3 innings, but he also has 38 strikeouts and a 1.41 ERA. Even if he can't hone his ability to locate to the degree necessary to remain a starter, Portillo has a power arsenal that would play well in the bullpen.

When we talk to scouts about Dellin Betances, there's a reason we get such a range of opinions.

Coming into tonight's start, the Yankees 24-year-old righthander had been getting battered in Triple-A, walking six batters in three of his first six starts en route to a 6.35 ERA. Betances is neither smooth nor particularly athletic at 6-foot-8, 260 pounds, and when he overthrows, his mechanics get tangled and his location suffers.

Then he has days like today that remind scouts why there's still promise. Betances threw 97 pitches in an eight-inning, one-run performance, holding Columbus (Indians) to two hits and two walks while striking out seven.

There's still a ways to go for Betances to show he can string together more starts resembling this one, but when he's repeating his delivery and putting the ball in the strike zone, Betances reminds scouts of his upside, even if it comes with maddening inconsistency.