Hold Yer Horses!

The usual story of our two protagonists, one struggling, and one dominating, only there's a twist!

Nate Hall is raking it, hitting singles and doubles all over the park, now batting .298 with OBP of .383 and SLG of .395. That means his OPS over the last 20 games is probably over .950. He's now third on the team in average and OBP, and is maintaining a level K:BB ratio, which is promising.

Today is the first day that I can write this: if Nate continues to improve at the rate he has been improving, it is possible that he can find his way into affiliated ball. I don't know about his defense, and with a team-leading 7 errors and my memories that he was just an average college 3B, the difficulty for Nate is the lack of a position. A corner infield prospect generally needs to hit home runs, or play great defense. Because Nate does neither, his ticket to the top will come from using his exceptional batting eye and hitting lots of doubles, but hey, if he can hit .330 or .340 at this level, that could translate to a .950+ OPS, which is possibly enough to get him signed somewhere.

The bad news for Nate: Wilson Matos has started to play some third base, and homered in 3 straight games from July 3 to July 5. However, despite the power surge, Matos is hitting only .222/.317. Hall has played a couple of games at first base now, which doesn't speak well of his defense. It just means he's going to really have to improve both offensively and defensively to have a chance to get noticed. He'll need to work to become an above-average infielder, and a really exceptional, high average, high walk rate hitter. Or, he might develop some decent power in the next couple of years, which would not be unusual for a player of his age.

Now, Brad Holt, on the other hand, has gotten absolutely killed his last 2 starts, after skipping a couple of starts with an injury. Giving up 9 ER in his last 3-2/3 innings may wreck his stats for the rest of the season, or at least to the point where we can be pretty sure he'll finish the year in AA. He's young and still has some developing to do, so that's not the end of the world. The last thing anyone wants to do is to rush him up to a level where he won't be encouraged to 1) keep his confidence, and 2) refine and add offspeed pitches.

One last tidbit: Gilberto Mejia is the second baseman and leadoff hitter on the Windy City Thunderbolts, and looks like the best player in the league. He's hitting .390/.452/.573 as a second baseman, with 31-38 stolen bases and a level K:BB ratio. I'm planning to follow him a little on this blog, if only to see what one must do to get noticed in the Frontier League. It's hard to believe one of the major league teams won't notice a performance like this and send a contract his way. And if one does, that sets the bar for what Nate Hall can do to get a contract shipped his way as well.