Two Major One Minor 070812

Here is the 11th installment of Two Major One Minor for 2012. The players this week are Alexi Amarista, Alcides Escobar and Jedd Gyorko.


Amarista is a super utility player with the San Diego Padres who has played second, third, short and outfield this season. He is in the Jose Altuve\Dustin Pedroia Little Dynamos Club of smaller guys who can flat out play ball. I almost wrote about Amarista a few weeks ago when he first started to heat up and he has been red hot ever since. In 2012 he is now hitting .273/.298/.473 with 4 HR, 18 RBI, 15 R and 2 SB in 41 games. In the past 10 games alone he has raised his average 40 points. His time in the minors showed him capable of hitting above .300 and fleet enough on the base paths to steal 20 to 30 in a season. He is just scratching the surface with his MLB career only 65 games old and he'll get plenty of opportunity to play with the Padres and hone his skills.


Escobar is in his second season as the short stop for the Kansas City Royals and is on pace to have the best season of his 5 year career. In 2012 he is hitting .311/.354/.416 with 2 HR, 21 RBI, 34 R and 13 SB in 81 games. He is hitting batter in a line up of several other talented young bats who should help feed off each others success. Hitting second in that line up should help his numbers when the team gels.


Gyorko is a 2B\3B who has shown he can hit at every stop he's had in the minors and is currently at the Padres Triple A team Tuscon. After starting the season at Double A San Antonio where he hit .262/.356/.431 with 6 HR, 17 RBI, 18 R and 1 SB in 34 games he jumped to Triple A where he is hitting .343/.386/.605 with 13 HR, 47 RBI, 35 R and 1 SB in 49 games. While Tuscon may be a hitter friendly environment the fact he's hit .365 and .330 with a couple of his previous minor league teams helps you have more faith in his hitting eye. Add in that he hit .409, .421 and .381 in his three years at West Virginia and you can see why the Padres grabbed him in the second round in 2010.