Here is my Hot & Cold Minor League Player report for this week. As you all know by now, this is similar to the weekly Hot Sheet on Baseball America, except that it focuses only on Dodger minor league players and will not only look at the players that are doing well, but will also feature players who are struggling. Also included in this post in the update about where each Dodger minor league team is in terms of standings and how the teams did during the past week.
Albuquerque Isotopes: 24 - 18, 2nd place in the PCL American South Division. The Isotopes went 4 and 2 this past week.
Chattanooga Lookouts: 21 - 22, 3rd place in the SOU North Division. The Lookouts went 2 and 4 this past week.
Rancho Cucamonga Quakes: 26 - 18, 1st place in the CAL South Division. The Quakes went 3 and 4 this past week.
Great Lakes Loons: 26 - 17, 1st place in the MID Eastern Division. The Loons went 3 and 3 this past week.
Hot Hitters:
JD Closser (AAA): .333 average, 1.083 SLG %, 1.512 OPS, 3 HR's, 4 RBI's - The 31 year catcher showed he still has something left with a great week at the plate. AJ Ellis is obviously still ahead of him on the catching depth chart, but should something happen to Ellis and either Navarro or Barajas I would imagine that Closser would be next in line.
Blake Smith (HiA): .333 average, .762 SLG%, 1.095 OPS, 3 HR's, 4 RBI's - The streaky hitting continues for Smith as he has alternated between the hot and cold list in each of the past 3 weeks. Blake became the first player in the organization to reach double digit homers, and leads the Dodger minor leaguers with 31 RBI's.
Trent Oeltjen (AAA): .412 average, .524 OB%, .994 OPS, 3 RBI's, 2 SB's - Oeltjen had another good week to boost his OPS above 1.000, and in total Trent is having a better overall season than both Trayvon Robinson and Jamie Hoffmann. Of course he's not on the 40 man roster anymore, but is it possible he'll get a chance to play with the Dodgers again in 2011?
Casio Grider (LoA): .400 average, .933 OPS, 3 RBI's, 1 SB - Grider strung together a few good games late in the week to make this list. For the season the speedy middle infielder has 9 SB's, an average of .292, and a surprising OPS of .856, although he has been getting a bit lucky as his BABIP is .403 so far in 2011.
More after the jump
Cold Hitters:Trayvon Robinson (AAA): .056 average, .222 SLG %, .278 OPS, 44.4% K rate - Not a good week for Trayvon, although his one hit was a homer. He's allowed a down week every now and then, but hopefully he turns it around soon and cuts down on those strikeouts.
Austin Gallagher (HiA): .105 average, .211 SLG %, .401 OPS - Gallagher has been ice cold, going 0 for 4 in each of his last four games. His season average has dropped down to .295, although he has maintained a solid walk to strikeout ratio.
Jonathan Garica (LoA): .150 average, .200 SLG %, .461 OPS, 39.1% K rate - After his hot start, Garcia has fallen on tough times. He hasn't hit a homer in a couple of weeks, and has seen his average drop down to .248 for the season. He also needs to improve his walk to strikeout rate, which is currently 1 walk for every 5 strikeouts.
Michael Pericht (LoA): .118 average, .118 OB%, .471 OPS, 47.1% K rate - Speaking of strikeouts, Pericht K'd in almost half of his plate appearances this week. While he did have one homer during that stretch, his OPS for the season is still just .706, which is definitely low for a 6'5" power hitting catcher.
Hot Pitchers:
Nate Eovaldi (AA): 10 IP, 16 K's, 1.80 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 1.50 FIP, 14.4 K/9 - Eovaldi struck out 8 batters in each of this 2 starts this week, allowing just 2 total runs in 10 innings. The 21 year old now has a sub 3 ERA and a batting average against of just .203, and so far he is having the bounce-back year that we were all hoping for.
Matt Magill (HiA): 8 IP, 1.13 ERA, 0.75 WHIP, 1.08 FIP, 11.25 K/9 - Magill had a magnificent start this week, throwing 8 strong innings and striking out a season high 10 batters. While he's been slightly more hittable this year when compared to 2010 (.251 batting average against in 2011 vs .194 in 2010), his ERA is still a sparkling 2.81 and he's allowed just 1 homer in 48 innings.
Tim Sexton (LoA): 5 IP, 1.80 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 2.20 FIP, 12.6 K/9 - Sexton had his second quality start in a row this week, and that earned him a promotion all the way up to AAA. While he's probably just filling in for the Isotopes short term, it's an opportunity for him to really make a name for himself against much older competition.
Javier Solano (HiA): 3 IP, 0.00 ERA, 0.67 WHIP, 1.53 FIP, 12.0 K/9 - Small sample size this week, but if you include his appearances from last week as well you can see that Solano has finally seemed to find a groove here in 2011. It's the first time this season he's had 3 straight scoreless appearances, and his strikeout totals seem to be picking up as well.
Cold Pitchers:
Gustavo Gomez (LoA): 4.2 IP, 19.28 ERA, 2.57 WHIP, 7.70 FIP - The soon to be 20 year old struggled mightily this week in his 2 appearances, one of them being his first start in a full season league. I'm sure better days are ahead of him, so let's just hope that he keeps his spot in the rotation for now to prove he's better than his current stats.
Mike Drowne (LoA): 3.2 IP, 9.82 ERA, 2.18 WHIP, 4.29 FIP - It's a little unfair to put Drowne on this list given that this week was his professional pitching debut after being converted from an outfielder, but there really weren't many other cold pitchers this week. Drowne allowed 5 total runs in his 2 appearances this week, although his FIP wasn't too bad because he struck out more than a batter per inning.
Red Patterson (LoA): 4.2 IP, 7.71 ERA, 2.14 WHIP, 3.8 K/9 - Patterson only had one poor outing this week and it wasn't really even that bad, but again there weren't many Dodger minor league pitchers this week that struggled so I had to pick somebody. This was Red's first sub-par outing since his first start of the season, so his stats for the year are still pretty solid.