Yesterday, Prospect A-Z wrapped up its final week with Xander Bogaerts, a power hitting Red Sox infielder that’s one of the most promising prospects in their system. He went from the Dominican Summer League to playing in the South Atlantic League in just one year. His twin brother is also in the Red Sox organization, but he’s not nearly the prospect that Xander is. However, Jair should be able to make it over to...
It’s Awards Week here at Bus Leagues, that annual event in which we unveil the seasons that our voters determined to be the best in Minor League and Independent baseball. This year, we have nine awards to give out: Player of the Year, Starting Pitcher of the Year, and Relief Pitcher of the Year for Full-Season Minor League Baseball, Short-Season Minor League Baseball, and Independent Baseball. In the Independent Baseball awards announced yesterday, Ronnie...
We’re just a few days away from baseball’s draft pick signing deadline which is at midnight ET on August 15th. That means it’s another year of Bud Selig and Major League Baseball swing and miss at their attempt to maintain fiscal sanity among owners. In an attempt to limit signing bonuses, the commissioner won’t allow most big money bonuses to be announced until the deadline. His thinking is that if bonuses are announced in...
Picture: Reference.findtarget.com (my computer wouldn’t open the link, but the map was cool so I wanted to mention it) I was working on one of my many projects the other day when I started wondering about the classification history of the modern minor leagues. Perhaps one day I’ll delve into this in greater detail – I’d love to research and write a series of books about the history of each individual league – but...
I was all set to make myself a bunch of little note card cheat sheets containing the playoff procedures for Minor League Baseball’s leagues, then I realized how complicated some of these scenarios get. Soooo, change of plans – I’ll just link here to the pages that detail each league’s procedure, and we’ll have this post as an easy reference. AAA International League Mexican League – The Mexican League just instructs visitors to consult...
I’ll admit it. I’m a bit of a wonk. A futurist wonk. Now granted, there are certain advantages to it. Though the fact I was able to get on the Michael Pineda train before the rest of the world caught up to him is certain to pay dividends by 2012? Some would consider that boring. Those people are Communists. I’m here for the hundreds in attendance and for the two or three in my...
Team League Organization Reno Aces Pacific Coast Arizona Diamondbacks Mobile BayBears Southern Arizona Diamondbacks South Bend SilverHawks Midwest Arizona Diamondbacks Visalia Rawhide California Arizona Diamondbacks Yakima Bears Northwest Arizona Diamondbacks Missoula Osprey Pioneer Arizona Diamondbacks Gwinnett Braves International Atlanta Braves Mississippi Braves Southern Atlanta Braves Rome...
August has been a good month for minor league no-hitters – there have been approximately 412 so far (that might be a slight exaggeration), with three more added to the list on Saturday. In the Arizona League, three Athletics pitchers combined to hold the Angels hitless – payback, perhaps, for August 14, when the Angels did the same to the A’s. There was only one problem: the Angels won both games. Hector Garcia started...
Friday was a wild day for pitching in the minors, with three no-hitters on the schedule. The first no-no came in the Arizona League, a combined job by three members of the Angels staff. Jose Perez started and was dominant for five innings, striking out nine and walking one. Joshua Blanco came on for three innings and walked two more batters before C.J. Bressoud closed it out with a perfect ninth. At 24, I...
Just for the heck of it, I decided tonight to look at the stats for every league in the minors and see if I could come up with a candidate or two (no more than three) for the Most Valuable Player award. (I’ll try to do the same for pitchers later this week.) Some of these are no-brainers (*cough*Chris CarterTexasLeague*cough*), but most had at least a couple guys that should find themselves in the...
2012 05 14 Scranton Wilks Barre/ Empire State Yankees vs Pawtucket Red Sox
