MiLB POTW: April 18-24

This is getting a little more difficult to pin down now.

Hitter of the Week

My initial thought was to give this to Max Stassi since he knocked three home runs this week, but then I took a look at his numbers. The home runs were it, he has one other base hit and no walks. The Batguy as Astros County brought up Bob, and that fits perfectly.

Robbie Grossman had a fantastic week. I guess getting sent down will light a fair under your britches. He's only played a week, so it's quite easy to see how well he's done in this sample. His batting line stands at .409/.519/.636. He has three multi-hit games in which he picked up three hits in two of those games. He drew five walks and struck out four times. Have to love the positive BB/K ratio.  He knocked one home run and two doubles. He stole one base and was caught once.

That's encouraging given his poor performance at the major league level. Maybe this will build him back up some and he'll be ready when he gets another chance.

Pitcher of the Week

This was too easy. Tommy Shirley. He tossed ten scoreless innings  and struck out six in both of his two outings for Double-A Corpus Christi.  His first outing was a perfect four innings of work. No hits. No walks. Just six strikeouts. His second outing was the first six inning stint in the Astros minors and it was also, obviously, scoreless. He struck out six, walked one, and gave up four hits.

On the season, he has a 1.16 ERA in 23 1/3 innings while walking four and striking out 28. That ERA seems crazy right? Well how about his FIP of 1.31? Or how about his ground ball rate over 60%?  Not bad for a pitcher who has knee and shoulder injuries since being drafted that has caused him to miss significant development time.

The simple fact is that he's 25. That's 40 in prospect years. I'm joking. But, that does mean something. He's had success when he's been healthy. But, he's about two years behind where you'd like him to be.  That limits his upside, but doesn't mean he won't provide value for the major league club at one point or another. In all likelihood, it's unlikely that he will as a rotation piece. But, as long as he shows he can have success, he will receive opportunities. With the way things are with LOOGY's, it may be as that since he dominates lefties.

But I do want to bring up the six innings. That may or may not be significant. He's paired with Matt Heidenreich who has been quite bad. They could be weeding him out of the rotation while they build up Shirley's arm. Or, it could be a one time blip.