Two Major One Minor 060915

Here is my ninth Two Major One Minor segment of 2015. This is my fifth year of doing this series where I feature two Major League players and one minor league player each week. This week I am featuring Eric Hosmer, Andre Ethier and Balbino Fuenmayor.

Hosmer is one of the young leaders of the Kansas City Royals who sparked the team all the way to World Series last season. The talented first baseman has helped the team pick up where they left off proving the Pecota projections were flawed for this season. He is putting together a career season as he is hitting .306/.378/.490 with 7 HR, 35 RBI, 63 R, 3 SB in 55 games. Over five MLB seasons with the Royals he has hit .278/.333/.425 with 66 HR, 310 RBI, 303 R, 45 SB in 625 games. A return trip to the World Series will depend how long he can keep the Royals on the right path. He was originally drafted by the Royals with the third pick of the first round in 2008. Hosmer will be 26 on October 24.

Ethier is only one season removed from almost being bumped out of an over crowded four to five man outfield rotation with the Dodgers. That led him to have the least productive season of his career but he is bouncing back closer to what had been his norm. This season he is hitting .288/.372/.513 with 8 HR, 26 RBI, 25 R, 1 SB in 54 games. Over ten MLB seasons with the Dodgers he has hit .285/.359/.464 with 153 HR, 655 RBI, 607 R, 28 SB in 1329 games. He was originally drafted by the Athletics in the second round in 2003 and traded to the Dodgers in 2005. Ethier turned 33 on April 10.

Fuenmayor is a first baseman at Double A Northwest Arkansas of the Kansas City Royals who has been terrorizing the Texas League with his bat. He has already twice captured the League's Player of the Week awards for the weeks of April 27 and May 11. This season he is hitting .340/.378/.557 with 10 HR, 34 RBI, 32 R and 1 SB in 51 games. He originally signed with the Blue Jays in 2006 as an amateur free agent out of Venezuela plus has played in the Venezuelan winter leagues each of the past six seasons. Fuenmayor turned 25 on November 26.