This list is going to be based on the best seasons by the league’s players, but its also weighted by a players age as well. Someone may have had a slightly better season in the stats, but if they are older than someone with a close line, the younger player will get the nod in my book.
Catcher - Tony Delmonico
The Dodgers catching prospect hit .285/.383/.430 for Great Lakes with a 10.7% walk rate and a 20.1% strikeout rate. He also threw out 26% of the attempted base stealers on the season.
Honorable Mention: Corey Kemp
First Base - Rebel Ridling
Its a good thing that Ridling had good numbers because I really wanted to use his name in the article. The Cubs prospect hit .310/.357/.466 with 97 RBI, 34 doubles, 1 triple and 16 HR.
Honorable Mention: Jordan Lennerton
Second Base - Alexia Amarista
The Angels second base prospect hit .319/.390/.468 for Cedar Rapids. Amarista didn’t show a lot of HR power as he hit just 4, but 39 doubles and 10 triples suggest there could be power in the future of the 20 year old. Showing excellent plate discipline was a key for the Venezuelan who had a 9% walk rate and an 11% strikeout rate.
Honorable Mention: Josh Harrison
Third Base - Ramon Santana
The Twins third baseman hit .296/.384/.453 with 25 doubles, 3 triples and 9 HR. Santana had an 11.5% walk rate and a 21.7% strikeout rate.
Honorable Mention: Bryan Pounds
Shortstop - Andrew Cumberland
The Padres shortstop prospect hit .293/.386/.410 to lead all shortstops in the league in OPS. Cumberland had an 11.8% walk rate and a 10.6% strikeout rate to go along with 19 stolen bases.
Honorable Mention: Gustavo Nunez
Outfield - Jaff Decker
The Padres 2008 supplemental first round pick led the league in OBP by an incredible 37 points and OPS by 40 points. The 19 year old had a combined line of .299/.442/.514 with an 18.7% walk rate and a 20.2% strikeout rate.
Outfield - Kyle Russell
The former Longhorn led the league in SLG, HR and RBI. Spending most of his time in right field he hit for a line of .272/.371/.545. Russell also had the 2nd highest strikeout rate in the league at 32%.
Outfield - Kyler Burke
The Padres 2006 first round pick led the league with 43 doubles and his OPS was only one of three over .900 in the league. Burke hit .303/.405/.505 with a 14.1% walk rate, 17.8% strike out rate and also stole 14 bases.
Honorable Mentions: Byron Wiley, Brian Van Kirk
Starting Pitcher - Casey Crosby
The Tigers lefty prospect posted a 2.41 ERA over 104 innings. The 20 year old also posted an 11.5% walk rate and a 27.9% strikeout rate to go along with a 1.13 WHIP and a 55% groundball rate.
Starting Pitcher - Anthony Bass
Bass had a 2.19 ERA over 90.1 innings with Fort Wayne before earning a promotion to Lake Elsinore. The Padres 5th rounder in 2008 had a 6.8% walk rate and 18.7% strikeout rate.
Starting Pitcher - Brett Lorin
Lorin had a 2.44 ERA over 88.2 innings before being traded and thus sent to another league. The former Mariner and now Pirate had a 7.1% walk rate, 24.6% strikeout rate and a 0.97 WHIP in the Midwest League.
Starting Pitcher - Brayan Villareal
Detroit’s right hander had a 2.87 ERA in 103 innings for West Michigan. The Whitecaps starter had a 7.9% walk rate and leagues second best strikeout rate among starters at 27.5%.
Honorable Mention: Simon Castro, Henderson Alvarez
Relief Pitcher - Andrew Taylor
With a 1.23 ERA over 51.1 innings Taylor was among the league leaders in ERA for a reliever. The Dodgers prospect didn’t allow a HR over the season, had a walk rate of 9.5% and a strikeout rate of 41.7% that far and away led the league.
Relief Pitcher -Christopher Huseby
The Cubs relief prospect had a 1.83 ERA and 0.98 WHIP. The 21 year old had a 4.6% walk rate and 33.3% strikeout rate for Peoria.
Honorable Mention: Brad Brach
Is Harrison a 2B or LF? I’m kinda surprised that Lawrie or Puckett wasn’t mentioned instead.
Harrison played all over the place, but I wanted to find a place to put him and 2B was the easiest spot for him. Cody Puckett had a .783 OPS, Brett Lawrie had an .802 OPS while Harrison was at .856.
um…how did Dee Gordon not make the list? Is this a joke?
Pretty simple cool guy… Gordon had a .758 OPS. Cumberland, who was younger had a 796 OPS and Nunez, who was the same age had a .780 OPS. Gordon may be the better prospect of the three (although I am not nearly as high on him as some), but he didn’t have the best season in my eyes.
oh sorry…I didn’t realize your ranking was based only on OPS…you should have said so. FYI scouts could care less about Gordon’s slugging percentage cause he is not, and will never be a power hitter. So OPS is dumb way to evaluate him. That being said, his OBP was higher than Nunez (.362 vs. .355), and he almost had double the amount SB’s. Also, Gordon is much “younger” in terms of his baseball development. I’ll give you that Cumberland may have had a better season given his OBP, but saying Nunez had a better season that Gordon is just not true. I’m just not sure how you can snub the league co MVP
OPS is never a dumb way to evaluate anyone because of the simple stats, it correlates to runs better than any of them. Scouts who ignore Gordon’s power and lack or power projection are missing the boat. At best he is a 1980’s shortstop playing in an offensive era because he just isn’t going to have the ability to hit the ball over the fence. Fortunately he can glove it with some of the best. As for his steals, that’s a stat I care very little about. Unless you are stealing at an 80% clip and doing so 45+ times a year, you aren’t even adding 5 runs to your total value, which basically makes it negligible. As for snubbing the leagues Co-MVP…. I don’t think I am. I think that Gordon, while being a good player, had no reason to be in the MVP conversation. At all.
While I appreciate your work and this website, I’m pretty sure that the guys who voted on the Midwest League MVP know more about the Midwest League and it’s players than you do
They may, but they also probably lack a strong understanding of statistics. They voted on ‘who looked good’ and not the best season. I probably only saw about 40 games worth of MWL action this year, certainly now 140 games like the managers did. With that said, there is simply no way a shortstop with a .750 OPS is the MVP of the league. He wasn’t even the MVP on his team since his team also included Kyle Russell. The only thing Gordon had that was above average this season was stolen bases, which largely are the most overrated statistic in baseball. The kid is a good player and may one day be a starting shortstop in the major leagues with a good glove and not much power, but he wasn’t the best shortstop in the league, nor the MVP of the league or even his own team.