Since the calendar turned to May, no hitter in the Midwest League has been hotter than Tampa Bay Rays second base prospect Jake Cronenworth. The 2015 seventh round draft pick from the University of Michigan has hit .419/.519/.605 this month and has scored 14 runs in 11 games.
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Credit for Cronenworth’s sweltering start to the season goes to two things. One is his control of the strike zone. Entering Friday he was eighth in the league in walk rate (15.6%) and has such a low strikeout rate (14.9%) that average luck would produce a high on-base percentage.
The other factor is that his BABIP is .484—highest in the league—means the baseball gods couldn’t be any more generous.
That high BABIP has fueled his engorged OBP, and both will surely return to normal levels over the next few months. However, Cronenworth has cut his strikeout rate by more than 10 percentage points and he had a .399 OBP in 234 plate appearances in Class A Short Season in 2015, so his on-base skills are legitimate. Normal luck on batted balls will reveal how legitimate.
Over in the South Atlantic League, the Augusta GreenJackets, the Single-A affiliate of the Giants, have two of the best pitchers in the league. Phil Bickford, the Giants’ 2015 first round draft selection, is sixth in the league in strikeout rate (11.08/9 IP) and is holding opponents to a .215 average.
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His teammate Michael Santos might not strike out as many hitters (7.49/9 IP) but he’s only walked three batters in 33 2/3 innings, resulting in the league’s fourth-best K/BB (9.33).