Welcome to a new feature here at Over The Monster in which we will be looking at the best players on the farm from the past week. With the new minor-league schedule being implemented this year that has teams playing six-game series every week with Mondays off, there are no Minor Lines on Tuesdays. We figured rather than just leaving that timeslot blank every week, we’d hand out some fake, virtual hardware. Each week, we’ll pick players of the week for both position players and pitchers, as well as an honorable mention in each category.
Position Player of the Week
Johan Mieses
There was a clear top two for the inaugural Player of the Week on the position player side, and neither would qualify as a top prospect. At the end of the day, though, I had to give it to Mieses. At 25 years old, the corner outfielder has been around a bit, making his pro debut back in 2013 after signing with the Dodgers out of the Dominican Republic. He spent a bit of time in the Cardinals organization after a trade there before hitting the free agent market back in the winter of 2019. Boston added him to the organization, but due to COVID he hadn’t been able to make his debut until last week.
What a debut it was. Mieses leads the entire farm system in home runs, already putting four over the fence including with a multi-homer game on Sunday. Overall he’s hitting .313/.450/1.063 in just five games played. The right-handed slugger is a bit of a shaky fielder, though he has the tools to play a solid right field including a big arm, and at the plate there is a ton of swing and miss in his game. But there’s also a lot of power, and while the swing and miss will likely take over the power and prevent a real major-league career, Mieses showed this week that this kind of power can be scorching and make anyone look like an all-world player.
Honorable Mention: Stephen Scott
Scott had a big week as well, and by wRC+ actually was better than Mieses. I gave it to the latter because it was a bit less built on BABIP and he had one more homer. But Scott was phenomenal as well, hitting .462/.650/.1154. He’s likely an organizational player, but he has makeup scouts rave about, he put up great numbers at Vanderbilt against some of the best college competition in the nation, and he can move around the diamond a bit including behind the plate. He’s a deep, deep sleeper in the system if you’re into that sort of thing.
Pitcher of the Week
Ryan Weber
Well here’s a familiar name that we typically don’t include among the most exciting players in the Red Sox system. Weber has of course been around for a couple of years now, with the righty serving as rotation depth for the major-league club out of necessity for the last couple of seasons. With some prospects starting to mature and get on the verge of the majors, it looked like Weber was no longer really in the picture for this season. Funny how quickly things change. The Red Sox have injuries to Tanner Houck and Connor Seabold, and that combined with Weber’s hot start could put him on the map for an emergency start. I’d still bet against it, but it’s more likely than it was.
And in terms of that performance? The 30-year-old pitched twice for Worcester last week, making one start and one relief appearance as well. Over a total of 6 1⁄3 innings, he pitched to a 1.42 ERA with nine strikeouts and one walk. It was the kind of dominance we are not used to from Weber, and really we probably shouldn’t get used to it. But it was nice to see and he’s a stabilizing force right now in a suddenly banged up Triple-A rotation.
Honorable Mention: Kutter Crawford
In terms of prospect status, Crawford is probably the most exciting on this list. Coming back from Tommy John which kept him out of action for last season, the righty made his first start since being healthy last week and it was a good one. He only threw four innings, but he didn’t allow a run, gave up only three hits, didn’t walk anyone and struck out five batters. I’d been thinking we’d see Crawford in the bullpen sooner than later, but he got off on the right foot trying to stick in the rotation a bit longer.