Miguel Mendez

Miguel Mendez. Is this a name you should know?



He is a 20-year-old undrafted catcher who was just promoted from the Gulf Coast Pirates (rookie league). I suppose he was a Latin American signee. The Gulf Coast League is also called an "instructional" league, where only 60 games per season are played before almost no spectators. It is clearly a step below even the short-season New York-Penn League, which we can think of as "Low A" baseball.



However, Mendez was hitting an eye-popping .400/.477/.727 in the GCL, and has been promoted to fill Chris Simmons' roster spot as Simmons takes on his armed forces commitment (recall that he is an Ary graduate.) Mendez has received starts in both games since his promotion. Are Josue Peley and Mark Carver on the bench for good now? Mendez has started o-for-8, but it seems logical that following such a tear in GCL, he'll get a very long look, to the detriment of the other two catchers.



Hargrave, who hasn't yet had a mult-hit game, had his modest 2 game hitting streak snapped with an 0-for-3, and is still sitting in the low .100s, but is still playing just about every day at 2B. I guess you just don't have so many power-hitting middle infielders, and if you think you can develop one, it's worth giving it a real effort. On the other hand, Hargrave wasn't considered by many scouts to be a natural second baseman, that he would have to "find a position". If he's hitting .110, and can't play in the middle infield, I sure hope he can pitch.



Holt is Holt. During his last start, he struck out 14 batters in 6 innings (!!), claiming that guys were just swinging at the fastball low and away and missing it. OK, time to promote this guy. He's completely dominant at this level, and leads the entire league in strikeouts, even though his innings are being tightly controlled. I am beginning to expect some really big things for Bradley Holt.



Good news from Ottawa: Nate Hall is heating up! His average sat at .162 after Tuesday night's o-for-2. After riding the pine on Wednesday and an off-day on Thursday, Nate was 3-for-4 on Friday with 2 RBI, and 1-for-4 on Saturday with a SB and a Run scored, as the Rapidz swept New Jersey at home. Good going, Nate!