Chapman on MLB Pipeline’s Prospect Team of the Week

MLBPipeline.com’s Prospect Team of the Week honors the best performances from the previous seven days. Any player currently on an organization Top 30 Prospects list on our Prospect Watch is eligible, including big leaguers.

Yency Almonte had a chance to go in the early rounds of the 2012 Draft, but he experienced a dead-arm period as a Florida high school senior that dropped him to the Angels in the 17th round, where he signed for $250,000. He posted a 6.44 ERA in three seasons in the Los Angeles system before the White Sox chose him as the player to be named in a trade for Gordon Beckham.

Almonte made a better impression with his second organization, recording a 2.42 ERA in seven high Class A outings at the end of last season, but not enough for Chicago to resist dealing him to the Rockies for Tommy Kahnle. While Kahnle has had trouble locating the strike zone with the White Sox, Almonte has boosted his profile by taking over the Minor League strikeout lead.

He hasn’t allowed an earned run in his last three starts, and he permitted just one unearned tally in two outings last week while striking out 20 in 14 innings. Almonte now has 132 whiffs in 132 1/3 frames, registering many of them with a fastball that sits at 93-96 mph and tops out at 98 with good life. He also has a hard slider and an improving changeup.

Almonte is the spotlight performer on the latest edition of our Prospect Team of the Week, which covers games from July 25-31. Here’s the rest of the squad:

C: Tom Murphy, Albuquerque Isotopes (Triple-A) (Rockies’ No. 11 prospect) 5 G, .500/.571/.889, 5 R, 1 2B, 2 HR, 4 RBI, 3 BB, 4 SO

Despite missing the first month with an oblique injury, Murphy still has earned PTOW recognition three times this season, tying him for the most with Dodgers second baseman Willie Calhoun, Phillies first baseman Rhys Hoskins and two players we’ll get to below. Murphy hit safely in all five of his games and homered twice last week, boosting his Triple-A numbers to .307/.339/.642 with 15 homers in 56 games. He also drew three free passes after walking just eight times in his first 51 contests.

1B: A.J. Reed, Fresno Grizzlies (Triple-A) (Astros’ No. 2 prospect) 8 G, .414/.485/.793, 9 R, 2 2B, 3 HR, 11 RBI, 3 BB, 5 SO

He went just 7-for-45 (.156) with two homers in a 17-game trial with the Astros, but Reed reacclimated himself well to Triple-A in his first full week back. He had three homers and four multi-hit games, and he’s now batting .284/.361/.537 with 14 home runs in 69 games there. Once he figures out how to handle quality …

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