Cleveland Sports Forum

More moves today ...

Lake County Captains transactions

RHP Nick Sandlin promoted to Lynchburg
INF Connor Smith promoted from AZL Indians
LHP Kyle Nelson promoted to Lynchburg INF
Tyler Friis promoted to Lynchburg
OF Austen Wade promoted to Lychburg

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RHP Mitch Brown placed on DL (Blister)

RHP Stephen Fife placed on (Bereavement) List
RHP Dominic DeMasi promoted to Columbus from Akron

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Mahoning Valley Scrappers transaction

RHP Andrew Lantrip promoted from AZL Indians (rehab assignment)

This is from Bleacher Report. Not exactly the encyclopedia of baseball. But an opinion ...

Our farm system dropped from 16th best in baseball to 27th following the trades of Mejia, Castro, and Capel. Here is their rankings now. Tier 1 is a player who can be special. Tier 2 is a guy who should become an every day player. Tier 3 is fringe player....

27. Cleveland Indians (Previous: 16)

Top 10 Prospects

Name Level Tier
1. RHP Triston McKenzie AA 1
2. 3B Nolan Jones A 2
3. 1B Bobby Bradley AA 3
4. C Noah Naylor ROK 3
5. LHP Sam Hentges A+ 3
6. OF George Valera ROK 3
7. RHP Ethan Hankins - 3
8. SS Yu-Cheng Chang AAA 3
9. RHP Luis Oviedo A- 3
10. RHP Aaron Civale AA 3

Graduated/Traded: C/OF Francisco Mejia (1), RHP Shane Bieber (3), SS Willi Castro (10)

Nolan Jones 3-4 with 2 homers tonight. ... 7 homers his first 141 games. ... 13 in his last 53 games.

Bradley with another homer tonight, but was his typical 1-5. If this guy can just figure out how to get his average up to 250 or so I could get on board.

Karinchak made AA debut. Allowed a hit and 2 walks but worked out of it with no runs.

I am starting to develop a man crush on Tyler Freeman. 2-3 with a homer yesterday. ... 3-4 with a double and triple tonight, 4 RBI. Now hitting .385.

Oviedo with another nice outing. 6 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K.

Yandy has quietly been hot lately, and with some power for a change. Back up to .291.

It is disappointing that the Indians can't find someway to use Yandy's bat in the majors. He'll join the team when rosters expand but what will they do with him then? DH against some lefties and EE slide over to play first. I don't think they want to have Ramirez bouncing around between 3rd and 2nd. He'll be available to pinch hit

It hasn't taken the 71st overall pick in the 2017 First-Year Player Draft long to show his consistency. Earlier this season, Tyler Freeman rattled off a 13-game hit streak. On Wednesday, the Indians No. 19 prospect extended his second run to 14 games with a career night at the plate.

Freeman collected four hits -- including a triple and a double -- while racking up four RBIs, both professional bests, to lead Class A Short Season Mahoning Valley beat Williamsport, 6-5, at Eastwood Field.
The Etiwanda High School (California) product began his first run of the season on June 17, his third game. His average climbed to .453 as he hit safely in every game through July 2. Freeman started another tear July 17 and hasn't let up yet.

"These last couple weeks, obviously I've been working hard and locking in more than usual," he said. "But I still try to treat every single at bat as a new one. I'm just trying to do anything that can help the team."

Freeman delivered in big moments Wednesday. After grounding out in the first inning, he lined an RBI triple to left field to get the Scrappers on the board in the third. With two outs in the fourth, the 19-year-old cleared the bases with a double to left, scoring Henry Pujols, Michael Tinsley and Jose Fermin to cap a five-run frame.

"I was super confident coming up there," Freeman said. "Knowing the situation with two outs, I'm just doing my best to put the ball in play, and luckily I found a spot to land it. That was a great at-bat and it gave me a great feeling to help my team out there."

In the sixth, the shortstop lined a single to right. Two innings later, he lined another single to left to cap his career night.

Freeman credits his maturation in the mental side of the game for giving him the ability to be consistent over two spans this season. He's learned to treat each plate appearance individually and not get too high or too low about previous performances.

"Before during high school ball, there wasn't a whole lot of failure, but in the [Rookie-level Arizona League] last year, I found some of that failure and that stuck," he said. "Whether I go 4-for-5 or 0-for-5, I have to have a strong mind either way and treat every day like a new one. With that, I feel like I've been able to block all this out pretty well. I couldn't tell you what I'm batting right now and that truly helps me because if I treat every at bat as a new one, there's no stats, no homers, no RBIs."

Pujols knocked three hits, including a pair of doubles, with two RBIs and a run scored.

Indians No. 10 prospect Luis Oviedo (4-2) gave up two runs on three hits while striking out six over six frames for the win.

we went 1-1 in Arizona. Of interest:

Marcos Gonzalez 2 walks
Yainer Diaz C singled, homer #2, avg 409 ops 1019
Lenny Torres 17 year old RH 3 1-hit no walk shut out innings. 7 1/3 total as pro scoreless
Mike Garcia 17 year old big RH 6-4 183 5-4-2-2-1-7 27 K in 20 IP total for the AZL2s

Another thing screwing Yandy is the lack of every day OF'ers in 2 of the 3 OF spots. We have to keep extra OF'ers on the roster to platoon in two spots. And of course Tito loves having a large bullpen. So we can only afford Gonzalez as a do it all utility guy.

If we had a few good regular OF'ers we could afford to have Yandy on roster as a second back up IF'er to platoon at DH as you mentioned and spell Jose once in a while at 3rd.

Nolan Jones hot streak has earned him a promotion to High A Lynchburg.

And Henry Martinez has been promoted to AAA Columbus.

good to see the whole collection of promotions. They're being especially aggressive with relievers: Sandlin after a month as a pro will be in High A. Karinchak was drafted last summer. Martinez had only pitched 2 innings above Low A before this season. All 3 are moving to their 3rd teams of the season.

Yandy has the misfortune of backing up one of the prime contenders for MVP so virtually no time available at his prime defensive position. It would make sense for him and for the team to trade him somewhere that needs him for someone of equal ability that we need. Who needs a 3rd baseman and has 300-hitting power-challenged OF to exchange?

BA Highlights include:

Nolan Jones, 3B, Indians. Jones hit his 15th and 16th home runs of the season for low Class A Lake County. That brings Jones into a four-way tie for the Midwest League home run lead, along with teammate Will Benson, Ronaldo Hernandez and Ryan Costello. [looks like his lead will now be in jeopardy. Not that he will be disappointed.]

CLE AA Bradley, Bobby 1B 5 1 1 2 .217 HR (24)
CLE AA Krieger, Tyler CF 5 0 0 0 .269
CLE AA Mathias, Mark 2B 4 0 1 0 .220
CLE AAA Chang, Yu SS 4 0 1 1 .259
CLE AAA Haase, Eric C 3 0 1 0 .243
CLE HiA Collins, Gavin C 2 0 0 0 .222 BB (11)
CLE LoA Benson, Will RF 4 0 1 0 .165 [2 game hitting streak!]
CLE LoA Gonzalez, Oscar LF 4 0 0 0 .279
CLE LoA Jones, Nolan 3B 4 2 3 2 .279 2 HR (16)
CLE MAJ Gonzalez, Erik 2B 4 0 1 0 .310
CLE R Gonzalez, Marcos SS 2 0 0 0 .353 2 BB (5)
CLE R Naylor, Noah DH 4 1 1 0 .321 BB (8)
CLE R Rodriguez, Johnathan RF 4 0 0 0 .280
CLE SS Freeman, Tyler 2B 5 0 4 4 .385 2B (16), 3B (3)
CLE HiA Hentges, Sam 5.0 3 1 1 4 3 3.33
CLE R Torres, Lenny 3.0 1 0 0 0 2 0.00
CLE SS Oviedo, Luis 6.0 3 2 2 1 6 1.88 W (4-2)

[2 game hitting streak!]

Ha! Well, it's a start.

Holy hell, is the moving week or what? Bobby Bradley has been promoted to Columbus as well.

Pack clothes, hygiene stuff, lap top ... just don't worry about bringing your batting average.

A ton of movement today.

Luis Oviedo, RHP Dakody Clemmer, and LHP Adam Scott promoted from Mahoning Valley to Lake County. Scott's 3rd team since draft.

Louis Head was cut from ClipShow. ... Marabell and NellieRod was sent down to Akron from Col.

@indiansPro says he is hearing if everything goes well in Columbus Henry Martinez will probably see a September call up to big team too. Team really likes his arm. Has touched 100 MPH this year.