Minor league roundup: August 31
While he wasn’t on the list of first-wave September call-ups, Brent Morel impressed Baseball America’s John Manuel on Tuesday night with his play at shortstop:
Brent Morel lashes a wall-ball single. Playing SS 2nite for Knights, will be interesting to see, he’s above-avg at 3b but SS may b a stretch
Morel witha Hazel Mae single in the 3rd, and he’s handled 3 chances smoothly, including a DP.
Make that five chances; ball keeps finding Morel and he keeps making routine play. Sizzling pitching matchup w/Freddy Dolsi v. Brian Baker
He wasn’t so hot on Jordan Danks, who he said “looked awful.”
- Durham 5, Charlotte 2
- Brent Morel went 3-for-5 with a double and a strikeout.
- Jordan Danks doubled, drove in a run and struck out three times in five plate appearances.
- Dayan Viciedo was 0-for-4.
- Carolina 9, Birmingham 4
- Christian Marrero went 2-for-4 with an RBI; Josh Phegley was 1-for-4.
- Eduardo Escobar went hitless in five at-bats, striking out twice.
- Brian Omogrosso pitched a scoreless inning, allowing a hit.
- Kyle Bellamy struck out one in a perfect inning.
- Winston-Salem 6, Lynchburg 0
- Jose Martinez went 2-for-4 with a homer (his fourth) and three RBI.
- Jon Gilmore was 0-for-4; Nick Ciolli 1-for-4.
- Nathan Jones allowed just three singles and two walks over seven innings, striking out two.
- Kannapolis 5, Delmarva 2
- Trayce Thompson doubled, walked and struck out twice.
- Miguel Gonzalez went 0-for-3 with a walk; Tyler Saladino went 0-for-4 with an RBI.
- Kevin Moran pitched around a hit and two walks for a scoreless inning, picking up the win in the process.
- Bristol 4, Kingsport 2
- Rangel Ravelo went 2-for-4 with an RBI.
Can’t figure out what the Sox want to see Morel at ss for. Even if they can’t extend Alexei, wouldn’t Gordon get the next shot there? And now with Viciedo up, it’s even more strange.
I guess Teahen is the 3B of the future… (sigh).
Not that it hurts anything, I just would be curious as to their thought process there.
Alexei doesn’t factor into it. He’s under contract for one more year, then arbitration for two more. Any decision on him is a long ways away.
I think it’s twofold:
1) They know Morel can play above-average defense at third, but they don’t know if Viciedo is completely a lost cause there. So they have more to learn by giving Viciedo priority.
2) Because he doesn’t hit for a ton of power, they can’t quite project Morel’s bat to hold down a corner position. Not saying he won’t hit well enough, but they can’t count on it. So if they can get another position under his belt, it’ll give both some flexibility on the roster if Morel doesn’t hit well enough at the beginning.
Oh I thought we signed Alexei as a free agent. Arb rules still apply there? Didn’t know that.
Still, that makes it even weirder to me since Alexei is sure to be around. Is he projected as a utility guy or what? Again, I can’t see how it hurts anything, but by that thinking we should be playing all of our prospects at second positions.
At least the ones that are good at their first position!
Yup. Ramirez and Viciedo are guaranteed money, but the Sox get the standard six years of club control like they do with every other prospect. Some international players get a no-arbitration clause. For instance, the Sox traded Tadahito Iguchi for nothing because they couldn’t get draft picks for him. But those aren’t standard in international contracts.
And I wouldn’t worry much about Morel. He was playing third just about 100 percent of the time when Viciedo was on the big-league club.