Two Major One Minor 041811

I'm going to start a segment during the season that I hope to do at least once a week where I go over a couple Major League players and a minor league player to keep an eye on. The two guys in the Majors this week are Jonny Gomes and Jed Lowrie. The minor leaguer in the spotlight will be Paul Goldschmidt.


Gomes is off to a hot start with six homeruns in his first 14 games for the Reds. Gomes has shown glimpses in the past but had been too much of a free swinger behind the plate. Funny thing he is currently leading the majors with 15 walks which is almost half his total for the entire previous year. Gomes has admitted that the fact that he has been promised more playing time has prompted him to let some balls go by that he would have taken a hack at in previous seasons. Now that Gomes has the luxury of being more patient with a regular home in left he can be more selective and that has resulted in more walks and homeruns. He might be on the cusp of having a breakout season. That would make me very happy since I picked him up for a buck in a trade last season and kept him this year.


Lowrie is another guy that has shown plenty of promise and may be having his breakout season. After his four for five performance today he has a gaudy .516 average in 11 games. After spending half his rookie season in 2008 in the majors the injury bug limited him to 83 games total the next two seasons. The question mark certainly is whether he can stay healthy and this season should be telling. Over the last few seasons Lowrie has spent time enticing me and my friend Joe as he spent time of each of our rosters multiple times. Joe knows talent because he has won our league four years running now. He had Lowrie on his roster this season yet again but when he dropped him in favor of another player I was quick to pounce. Now it appears that Lowrie  will let me reap the rewards of his meteoric rise as he is on the verge of becoming the Red Sox regular shortstop.


One young minor leaguer that caught my eye last season was first-baseman Paul Goldschmidt in the Diamondbacks organization. He challenged for the homerun title with 35 falling one short of Mike Moustakas and Mark Trumbo. Goldschmidt is up a level to Double A now and on a tear with six homeruns and a .364 average through 10 games. He has shown he can hit average too by hitting .334 and .314 in his previous two seasons respectively. Looking back in college he set career school records for homeruns (36) and RBI (178).   The 87 RBI he had in 2009 led all of Division 1. Right now he is at the top of my 2011 watch list.