A Day Off to talk about Stetson Allie

The Pirates could not get the sweep and in fact got blown out.  But I am not too worried yet because the pitcher was a guy who will be replaced as soon as Karstens or Morton or Lirano get back from the DL.  He is not part of the long term team so his success is not that important.

So we might as well focus on the Farm System, and particularly a surprising story from West Virginia in Stetson Allie.  Allie you will remember was a second round pick who could  hit 100 on the radar gun, but never got the control.  So, last year they converted him back to an infielder.  I believe he played third base last year, and not that well in Rookie Ball.  Well, that was last year.

This year he is in West Virginia and playing first base.  He is currently hitting .333 with 2 HRs and 2 doubles.  He has 4 walks and 10 Ks.  However, almost half those Ks came in the first two games where he struggled a lot.  Allie's OPS is 1.012.  Even better news is he seems to be able to do it against both righties and lefties with a homer off of each.  If you throw out those first two games, his numbers get real scary good.  He is currently riding a 5 game hit streak coming into today's game.

It is real early, and Allie could return to last year's .213 AVG and 3 HRs in 40+ games in rookie ball, but the fact he is playing full season ball and doing well is a great sign.  Remember he came out of high school so he is actually about where he should be if he had gone to college.  He would either be in his senior year of college right now and bound to play in Short Season ball or if he had come out as a junior would probably be starting the season at WV anyway.  I admit to being depressed a little when he flamed out as a pitcher, and I dropped him off my top prospect list, but it was always mentioned how much he loved to hit and how good he was at it in High School.  He can play his way back onto the prospect list if he keeps this up.  It is far too early to give up on him.