Minor league baseball 2018 All-Star team

Minor League Baseball 2018 Top Performers – Pitchers

For pitching, I decided to go with a pair of lefty starters, a pair of righty starters, and a pair of relievers.

Unlike hitters, if I were selecting a top performing pitcher in minor league baseball in 2018, the choice would be clear. Philadelphia Phillies prospect David Parkinson had an incredible first full season after being a 12th round pick out of the University of Mississippi in 2017.

Parkinson is a 6’2″, 210-pound lefty, so there’s not likely a lot more physical development there, but with the performance he put up across A-ball this season, he may not need it. Parkinson put together an 11-1 record over 22 games, 21 of them starts. He tossed 124 1/3 innings, with an incredible 1.45 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, and a 35/141 BB/K ratio.

Incredibly, the guy who would have challenged Parkinson is not another starter, but lefty reliever Colin Poche, who pitched in the Arizona Diamondbacks and finished in the Tampa Bay Rays system. Poche was drafted by the Diamondbacks in the 14th round in 2016 out of Dallas Baptist. Poche had an incredible season, with 40 appearances, 2 of them starts. He pitched 66 innings, with a 0.82 ERA, 0.79 WHIP, and a 19/110 BB/K ratio.

Let’s take a look at a pair of other lefties…

Left-handed starter
After a dominant season in 2017 for Xavier, Zac Lowther was drafted by the Baltimore Orioles in the 2nd round. He is not a guy with a tremendous fastball, but he did see a tick up in his velocity to the low-90s consistently to go along with his deception and offspeed stuff this year. That allowed Lowther to put up a 2.18 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, and a 35/151 BB/K ratio over 123 2/3 innings across both A-ball levels.

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Right-handed starters

Acquired from the Marlins,

developed into a dominant pitcher in 2018 in the New York Yankees farm system. King shot up from high-A through AA to AAA, and he had his best numbers at the highest level. Combined, King had an 11-5 record over 161 1/3 innings, posting a 1.79 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, and a 29/152 BB/K ratio.

After three seasons in the Red Sox lower levels, Denyi Reyes pitched his first full season in the Boston system. He was able to have tremendous success across both levels of A-ball. He posted a 1.97 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, and a 19/145 BB/K ratio over 155 2/3 innings.

Relief pitcher
It just so happened that both of the relievers chosen this year were left-handed. Andrew Vasquez had a dominant 2017 season where he struck out 85 over 58 innings with a 1.55 ERA, then posted a 1.42 ERA in 12 2/3 innings in the Arizona Fall League with 14 strikeouts.

He then took all of that to another level in 2018, starting the season in high-A and finishing in the major leagues. Vasquez posted a 1.30 ERA over 40 games and 69 1/3 innings in the minor leagues, with a 1.02 WHIP and a 21/108 BB/K. He got touched up a bit in the majors, but the strikeouts were still there, whiffing 7 in 5 major league innings.

That’s the 2018 minor league baseball All-Star team via performance. Do you have others that you think should have been on the team? Any that you think should not have made it? Comment below!!