This week:
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Dayan Viciedo continued his hot hitting, increasing his season line to .295/.329/.519. As with most prospects, there are some red flags and Viciedo is no exception. One is some rather dramatic home/road splits, suggesting that he's benefited from the hitter-friendly bandbox in Charlotte. Another is his platoon splits, which have him mashing lefties while being rather pedestrian against righties. Finally, he simply doesn't take walks. The former two may even out a bit over the course of the season. His walk rate may increase some now that he's hitting the ball more and with authority but he doesn't profile as the type to walk much more. rmensch provided some video of Viciedo, along with Tyler Flowers and Jordan Danks.
- Daniel Hudson: 8 GS, 40.1 IP, 47 H, 13 BB, 48 K.
- Let's take a look at a couple random pitchers in the low minors. First, Kannapolis' Andre Rienzo was brought in from extended spring training this week and had a good debut: 3 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 6 K. I've been watching the right-handed Brazilian (yes, that's right) since his days in the Dominican Summer League because he had a nice strikeout rate. The soon to be 22 year old made his U.S. debut last year for Bristol and continued striking guys out while limiting the walks. His offerings don't appear to be complex - fastball, change and curve - but his fastball has some velocity to it, reaching 94 on the Kannapolis gun.
- Another guy on my list is Winston-Salem's Hector Santiago. The 22 year old mostly draws my attention because he's a lefty in a system almost entirely devoid of them. He's repeating with the Dash this season, which obviously is a bit of a flag, but he's substantially improved his walk rate while maintaining a K/9 over 9. I'd like to see him pushed to Birmingham soon.
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Brent Morel: .318/.366/.444.
- C.J. Retherford is not having a good time in AAA so far: .219/.267/.350. Looking through his past numbers, this appears to be the first time that he's experienced such an extended slump. It's somewhat troubling that it's occurring now, as the pessimist would suggest that the undrafted free agent is reaching the ceiling of his talent. I think it's a bit early to be writing him off but, as we've discussed before, he needs to hit to be a viable prospect because, while he does play a few positions, he doesn't play them all that well and he doesn't take many walks, either. Once he works through this slump, I'd like to see him get some time in the outfield corners to increase his versatility. I've seen talk of putting him at first base but he's a little, shall we say, stumpy to be much more than an emergency fill-in there.
- Tyler Flowers: .230/.326/.484. I'm getting a little concerned that his AAA strikeout rate, including last season, is now 34%.