Minor League Pitcher and Hitter of the Week: May 13-19
Welcome back to former top prospect Brennen Davis, who has clubbed seven homers across his past eight games for the Iowa Cubs.
What a rush!
This series as a whole has brought so many prospects to light with their strong performances throughout the first month and a half of Minor League Baseball. Last week, in the latest installment, I highlighted yet another group of newbies to the Prospects of the Week, and this week’s article will be no different.
The beauty of this article, as you will see when we get to the Minor League Hitter of the Week, is that we may finally be seeing the re-emergence of a long-time highly ranked prospect that may finally be coming into form.
For more information on the Top Prospects that find themselves on Just Baseball’s Top 100, you can find that list here.
Pitcher of the Week: Quinn Mathews (LHP) – St. Louis Cardinals (High-A Peoria Chiefs)
Weekly Stats: 1 GS, 7.0 IP, 3 H, 1 BB, 11 K
Season Stats: 7 GS, 37.2 IP, 12 BB, 63 K, 1.43 ERA, 1.82 FIP, 15.1 K/9
For quite some time, the Cardinals have been void of pitching throughout their organization. It can be argued that the lack of pitching has been their downfall throughout the past couple of years, despite making it to the postseason almost every year.
It seems as if we may be headed in the right direction towards building up a solid stable of arms on their way up to the Major Leagues.
Quinn Mathews has been on a tear this year. After his latest outing for Peoria, the long left-hander dominated across seven strong innings, where he generated 22 overall whiffs throughout his High-A debut.
Even with the emergence of other pitching prospects in the Cardinals’ farm system with a bit louder stuff (Tink Hence, for example), Mathews may be the one who has seen his prospect stock rise the quickest and could be well on his way to finding himself amongst the top 10 prospects in the organization.
Hitter of the Week: Brennen Davis (OF) – Chicago Cubs (Triple-A Iowa Cubs)
Weekly Stats: .438/.550/.1.438, 5 HR, 9 RBI, 1.000 ISO
Season Stats: .264/.434/.571, 8 HR, 25 RBI, .253 ISO, 162 wRC+
This prospect highlight is arguably my favorite moment of this series to date.
Since being selected in the first round of the 2018 MLB Draft, Brennen Davis has been lauded as a top prospect in all of baseball because of all the tools he possessed from day one of entering professional baseball. Through the battles of multiple injuries and struggling to fight through them since, Davis has seen his far more downs than ups over the past two seasons.
*crosses fingers*
WE ARE SO BACK!
Davis looks to be well on his way to returning to the pre-COVID version that got us all excited for his eventual debut in Chicago. Injuries have always been the thing that have held him back to this point but, with this recent hot stretch, hopefully he can continue to ride that into a 2024 Major League debut for the tooled-up outfielder.
Honorable Mentions:
Pitcher: Aaron Davenport (RHP) – Cleveland Guardians (Double-A Akron RubberDucks):
Weekly Stats: 2 GS 12.0 IP, 6 H, 1 BB, 12 K, 20.0% SwSt%
Pitcher: Chase Petty (RHP) – Cincinnati Reds (Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts):
Weekly Stats: 2 GS 10.0 IP, 7 H, 2 BB, 14 K, 10.0 K/9
Hitter: Josue De Paula (OF) – Los Angeles Dodgers (Single-A Rancho Cucamonga Quakes):
Weekly Stats: .353/.478/1.257, 4 HR, 8 RBI, 5 BB, .765 ISO
Hitter: Henry Bolte (OF) – Oakland Athletics (High-A Lansing Lugnuts):
Weekly Stats: .455/.586/1.586, 2 HR, 7 RBI, 6 BB, .243 ISO
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