45 at bats into the leaderboard season let us see how our boys in baby blue are doing:
Midwest League:
Gerry Sands leads in OPS 1.338, Slug .870, wOBA .540, and ISOP .463. The most impressive part is not that he's leading but that he has a 200 point differential between 1st and 2nd in OPS and Slug. Kyle Russell tore up the MWL last year, what Gerry Sands is doing is on another level. It is early yet, so temper the expectations but this underrated prospect is opening eyes nationwide. Even though he's age listed at 23, he doesn't actually turn 23 until late Sept.
Brian Cavazos-Galvez is not hitting as we had hoped but he's doing something completely unexpected, he's stealing bases. He leads the league with 10 stolen bases, and more importantly has never been caught.
California League:
Kyle Russell leads in slug% at .696, 2nd in ISOP at .321, fourth in wOBA at .464, 2nd in OPS at 1.115. More importantly he does not lead the league in strikeouts. Being placed into the Cal League kind of left Kyle Russell in a Catch 22 situation. At 23 he's expected to dominate the league, so even if he does no one will be impressed. However for anyone who is really interested in Kyle as a prospect his K rate seems to be the key for his future development into a possible impact player. The most important thing that Kyle Russell is doing right now, is still hitting for power but also cutting down his K rate. As of now it stands at 22.6 a full 10% drop from last year. Even Canuck who is Russell's biggest critic will probably admit that if Kyle Russell can continue like this, he jumps up the prospect leaderboard.
Southern League:
Andrew Lambo is fourth in average at .370, Dee Gordon is 12th. Andrew Lambo is 4th in slug at .585 even though he has hit only one home run. This also puts Lambo 5th in OPS at 1.006. However his lack of home run power only nets him 12th in ISOP at .208. Trayvon Robinson actually has a better ISOP at .212 even though his slug% is 100 points lower then Lambo. So before everyone gets all giddy about Lambo's slug% let's put it in perspective. He ain't walking, and he's hitting a lot singles and doubles. On the other hand he's hitting and that is good to see. None of the top prospects are in the top 25 in BB% which means none of them are in the top 25 in wOBA. Robinson, Gordon, Lambo, Van Slyke are all under a 8% walk rate. Some might be impressed with Gordon's start but not me. If he's not walking 10% he is not going to be anything more then a Christian Guzman playing SS. All of this is early, I'm just saying I want more home run power from Lambo, more plate discipline from everyone before I get on any of these guys bandwagon.