In January, I wrote an article highlighting some Red Sox minor leaguers who might be able to make a leap in prospect rankings with a good season. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like any of them will crack Baseball America’s top 100 next season. In fact, with what has happened with Jay Groome and Michael Chavis this year, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see no Red Sox farm hands make the rankings for 2019. That doesn’t mean all is lost though, some of these guys are still performing well.
The Pitchers
Bryan Mata
Mata is the Red Sox lone representative in the Futures Game. However, there have still been concerns with his season. Mata was known for being a well-polished pitcher for his age, having excellent command of his pitches despite being just 18 years old. Instead, Mata has walked 57 batters in 71 innings pitched this season, leading to a WHIP of 1.59. Despite the uncharacteristic amount of walks, Mata has been able to keep his ERA down, posting a 3.42 ERA in high-A to this point. Although it’s discouraging to see his control regress, it is encouraging to see him keep teams off the scoreboard still. At just 19 years old, he has a lot of development left and could easily get his control back to where it needs to be.
Tanner Houck
Houck has not made the strides he needed to make this year. The Red Sox first round pick last year is 4-11 with a 5.14 ERA for the season. His control needs to improve and he still could use the help of developing a better third pitch. Houck can reach the upper-90’s and has a good slider, but not much beyond that. He showed some potential when he threw six no-hit innings on June 14th. His good games have been too few and far between though. Houck might ultimately wind up being tried in the bullpen in the future if he doesn’t turn things around. His fastball and slider combination might play up better in the pen and get him to the Major Leagues.
Mike Shawaryn
Shawaryn has mostly put up the same numbers in AA this year as he has always put up. The main difference is a little bit of a decrease in strike outs at the higher level, but not an alarming drop-off. He has pitched to a 3.65 ERA this season with an excellent 1.10 WHIP. He still does strike out batters too, just not over a strike out per inning anymore. Shawaryn has struck out 85 batters over 93.2 innings pitched. It looks like he will continue to increase his amount of innings pitched while still being effective, a good progress in his development.
The Hitters
Josh Ockimey at the plate for the Sea Dogs.
Josh Ockimey
In January, I wrote that Ockimey was a three “true outcome” hitter, and that hasn’t changed in Portland this season. It is encouraging to see his power continue to develop while also maintaining his patience at the plate. In a game I went to in May, Ockimey hit a blast to right that was just to the right of a light tower. After striking out in his second at-bat, I correctly predicted a walk in his third at-bat. On the season, Ockimey has batted .265 with 12 home runs in AA. He has struck out 86 times in 249 at-bats, but has also drawn 50 walks, leading to an excellent .385 on-base percentage. So far he is putting up the best season of his minor league career.
Bobby Dalbec
Dalbec was someone who needed a bounceback season to restore his prospect status; boy has he done that of late. Dalbec has been on fire, posting multiple hits five times in the last ten games. Twice in that span he has banged out four base hits. Dalbec also has a multi-homer game and six home runs total in that 10 game span. With the red hot streak, Dalbec has raised his season average to a respectable .257. He has 21 home runs in A-ball, a number not many reach down in that level. He also draws a good amount of walks, giving him a nice .369 OBP to go along with his excellent .561 slugging percentage. The downside to Dalbec is the amount of swing and miss in his game, striking out 110 times in the first half of the season. It would be interesting to see how he fares if the Red Sox move him up to Portland in the second half.