Cleveland Indians: Way-too-early reactions to minor league performances

Way-too-early reactions to minor league performances for the Cleveland Indians

The minor leagues began play on May 4 and have now completed their first round of games for the 2021 season. The affiliates of the Cleveland Indians, along with the rest of the MiLB, will play Tuesday through Sunday throughout the season, having Monday off each week. The stretch of games each week will either be entirely on the road or entirely at home, making for an interesting season. The plus side for fans and major league clubs is that the new schedule for the year will make week-by-week evaluations simple in terms of call-ups and send-downs.

This season, the affiliates for the Cleveland Indians are the Triple-A Columbus Clippers, Double-A Akron Rubberducks, High-A Lake County Captains and Low-A Lynchburg Hillcats. Overall, the teams performed well with a combined 18-4 record over the first group of contests with just two games postponed for the weekend showers.

The Columbus Clippers began on the road with six games against the Louisville Bats on the schedule. The series finale was rained out, but the other five games saw the Clippers collect four wins while outscoring the Bats by a margin of 24-16, including a 10-0 shutout to begin the season with a record of 4-1.

As for the Akron Rubberducks, they began at home with the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, winning the first five games of the year before a rain out on Sunday to carry a 5-0 record into the second week of the season. While they didn’t record a shutout like the Clippers, the Rubberducks were able to outscore Binghamton 31-11 over the five matchups.

Moving down to High-A with the Lake County Captains, the results were still good, but not as great with a 3-3 record against the Lansing Lugnuts on the road. Lake County saw a roller coaster of results that resembled their major league affiliate, losing by seven and getting shutout in the series while also scoring seven runs and six runs in different games.

Finally, the Lynchburg Hillcats started the season with a perfect 6-0 record at home against the Fredericksburg Nationals, beginning the series and the season with outbursts of 16 and 19 runs in the first two games, respectively.

While records and scores are important, individual progress is the focal point of the minor leagues as players are brought along to get a shot at the major leagues. With that being said, what players helped or hurt their progress over the first week of the season? These are our way-too-early reactions to the first week of the minor league season.

Akron Rubberducks

The Akron Rubberducks have had a strong start to the season and it’s spelled out success nearly across the board for the team. There really isn’t one standout player or one that is struggling mightily either. It’s a lot of solid players combining to wins games day-in and day-out. With that being said, we can still highlight that team effort.

On the mound, arguably the best start came from the left-handed Juan Hillman, a second round pick by the Cleveland Indians in 2015, who tossed four scoreless innings for Akron. He allowed just two hits, but did hit two batters and walked another. Those types of outings aren’t uncommon at this level, but control will still be something he will need to work on to advance up to Columbus.

As for at the plate, it’s been the Oscar Gonzalez show on more nights than one. A 6-foot-4, 23-year old outfielder, Gonzalez is slashing .333/.375/.933 in the early going thanks to three home runs through the first five games. The outburst of power has translated to a team-high seven RBI, having knocked in over 20% of Akron’s runs in the first series of the season. The downside for Gonzalez is five strikeouts, but if his stats at the plate continue he could be a fast mover through the minors for an organization that is still trying to gain footing in the outfield.

Lake County Captains & Lynchburg Hillcats

The Lake County Captains finished out the first week of the season with a .500 record and that’s about where the roster stands as well, average. There’s only a couple players on the brink of being “standout” while most of the roster struggled during the first week of action. It’s going to take at least another week of games before we can make any sort of distinction on if Lake County has players to keep an eye on based off the early outings.

As for the Lynchburg Hillcats, they might be sending some players up to Lake County very soon if the two clubs keep playing the way they did in the first week. The Hillcats have six players that have logged five or more RBI through their first five games, at most. Leading the squad is first baseman Jhonkensy Noel who has tallied 11 RBI.

Noel played rookie ball in both 2018 and 2019 for the Tribe. Still just 19-years old, he’s drawing a lot of attention in Lynchburg. Not only does he lead the team in RBI, but he’s been able to slash .440/.444/.960 thanks to four doubles and three home runs through the first five games while striking out just twice. There’s still a lot of time left in the season, nearly all of it, but if Noel keeps this up he will be in Lake County very soon and might end the season at an even higher level.