Budding star Mejia represents future for Tribe

CLEVELAND — One by one, the names of the prospects the Brewers were going to receive surfaced in various reports. Soon, it became clear that, if Jonathan Lucroy was going to be donning an Indians uniform, catching prospect Francisco Mejia was a required part of the trade.

Mejia was the centerpiece of the five-player deal, which ultimately fell apart on the eve of the Aug. 1 non-waiver Trade Deadline, when Lucroy used his no-trade clause to block the transaction. Mejia would have headed to Milwaukee as a prized prospect, and that grabbed the attention of Cleveland fans who knew little about this young catcher.

“Any time we can keep one of our guys,” Indians assistant general manager Carter Hawkins said, “you have a lot of happy, happy player-development staff.”

By keeping Mejia, Cleveland retained one of the game’s rising stars, and one of the best stories to came out of the Minor Leagues last season.

Following his breakout showing in ’16, which included a 50-game hitting streak that was among the longest in Minor League history, Mejia jumped to No. 4 on the Indians’ Top 30 prospects list, according to MLBPipeline.com. He is rated as the game’s third-best catching prospect and is 84th on MLB’s Top 100 chart. In November, Baseball America rated the 21-year-old Mejia as Cleveland’s No. 1 prospect.

It is not hard to understand why so much praise surrounds Mejia. He is a switch-hitting catcher who posted a .342 average and .896 OPS between Class A Lake County and Class A Advanced Lynchburg, while throwing out 43 percent (30-of-69) would-be basestealers. 

“I felt really good about this season,” Mejia said through a translator at the Indians’ fall development program in September. “Thanks to God, everything went really well.”

Talk about an understatement.

Longest Minor League hitting streaks Player Games Year Joe Wilhoit 69 1919 Joe DiMaggio 61 1933 Roman Mejias 55 1954 Francisco Mejia 50 2016 Otto Pahlman 50 1922 Jack Ness 49 1915 Harry Chozen 49 1945 Johnny Bates 46 1925 James McOwen 45 2009 Brandon Watson 43 2007 Eddie Marshall 43 1935 Orlando Moreno 43 1947 Howie Bedell 43 1961 Jack Lelivelt 42 1912 Herbert Chapman 42 1950 Ducky Detweiler 40 1942 Frosty Kennedy 40 1953

Who could have predicted that on May 27, when Mejia sent a pitch from Fort Wayne’s Jerry Keel into center for a single, that the catcher would embark on a historic run? For the next 78 days, Mejia overcome some minor health woes and a …

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