A few things I had lying around, mostly minor league stuff, waiting for the time to mention them:
Hunter Pence leads the Texas League in slugging, and is second in OPS.
The other day, Pence had been the flagship guy in a Hardball Times article on "Unlisted Hitters Worth Knowing."
The Astros' Minor League Players of the Month for May were given front-page play at the official site for a couple days last week, but did want to give a shout-out here:
AAA Round Rock Pitcher -- RHSP Chris Sampson (18:3 K/BB, 2.17 ERA in April)
AAA Round Rock Hitter -- 2B Brooks Conrad (.482 SLG with 17 RBI in April)
AAA Round Rock Fielder -- INF Jesse Garcia
AA Corpus Christi Pitcher -- RHSP Matt Albers (3 - 1 with a 1.69 in April)
AA Corpus Christi Hitter -- C JR House (.361 AVG, 18-game hit streak in April)
AA Corpus Christi Fielder -- OF Hunter Pence
High A Salem Pitcher -- RHSP Chad Reineke (0.95 WHIP, 1.77 ERA in April)
High A Salem Hitter -- INF Neil Sellers (.313 AVG, 11 Doubles in April)
High A Salem Fielder -- INF Edwin Maysonet
A Lexington Pitcher -- RHSP Levi Romero (31:6 K/BB, 1.88 ERA in April)
A Lexington Hitter -- Ole Sheldon (.409 AVG in April)
A Lexington Fielder -- C JR Towles
Also if you are not cognizant of this, you need to be made aware: Jeffrey Sackmann, who runs the Milwaukee Brewer blog for SBNation, has written a little program that parses the play by play accounts at Minor League Baseball.com to come up with splits data for minor league players.
Information like this of course has never been available before, and you are encouraged to check it out. The information right now is fairly basic--right/left, home/road, base and out situations--but, tantalizingly, much more is promised.
Here, for example, are Hunter Pence's splits, and you can see that the numbers show he's been slugging .843 on the road, away from the pitcher's park that is Whataburger Field.
I am led to understand that there is a time lag involved, usually about 4 - 5 days as the boxscores become official and Mr. Sackmann's software does its work, but my, my, this has got to be the development of the year for those into baseball and statistics. . . .
Houston's affiliates within the database are listed right here.