TWO UNDER THE RADAR MLB PROMOTIONS

Outside of the more celebrated CJ Abrams call-up by the Padres (and maybe Josh Lowe by the Rays), there were two additional moves that clubs made to replace injured regulars, that, well, simply failed to garner any attention: Sean Bouchard, JJ Matijevic

What To Expect From COLORADO'S SEAN BOUCHARD?

You won't find the 26 year old Bouchard on any top 100 lists, heck, he wasn't even in Fantrax' (Eric Cross') top 400! (Note: We had him at #25 in our recent Top 30, just prior to his promotion)

So what can we expect of the 1B/OF?

Well, over 165 PA's in AAA (Albuquerque) Sean compiled an outstanding .338 Avg (18th best in MiLB) with 11 HRs on his way to a 1.114 OPS (3rd best) and a .345 ISO (8th best). Sean can also run a little with 9 SBs and an 8.1 Spd grade.

These stats resulted in a .460 wOBA (#13 in MiLB) and a 168 wRC+ (#22)

It's safe to say that Sean has put together one of the best minor league seasons this year and has done so while striking out a modest 21.8% of the time to go with a decent walk rate of 13.3%. With 11 HRs in just 165 plate appearances, we're looking at a 40 HR season over 600 ABs (of course, those are minors productions, and based on this year, since over his minors career, he's more of a 20-22 HR projection guy).

In the bigs, you can expect Bouchard's K rate to increase to around 25% and the OPS to drop to .800 (but even if it does, that could still put Bouchard in the top 42 batters this year, ahead of folks like Mancini, Marte, Christian Walker, Starling Marte). Now speaking of Christian Walker, Bouchard's profile may be somewhat similar in terms of OPS and HR production (Walker had almost twice as many minors PA, so just looking at the rate of production). But a difference for the 6'3" Bouchard is his speed. While Walker only swiped 14 bases across his 2899 PA's, Bouchard has successfully stolen 53 bases across just 1635 PA's. That puts Walker in the 20/20 discussion.....

Personally, I'm a fan. And if Colorado can give Bouchard enough ABs, he's going to make an impact.

JJ MATIJEVIC -- HOUSTON ASTROS

It's fitting that JJ Matijevic's first hit was a home run. (You can read about it here) Why? Well, because that's all JJ did in the minors, hit (bombs).

The 26 year old, former University of Arizona product has made a career out of the long ball -- 77 of them, to be exact, and over just 1635 Plate Appearances, which is a career pace of around 28-30 HRs a year. That's not bad, not bad at'tall. And this year, in Sugar Land (the Astros AAA affiliate), JJ has been even better, swatting 12 HRs in 166 PA's, putting him on pace for 43-45 HRs for the year. Add in a .313 Avg, 1.013 OPS (25th best in MiLB) and 8 steals (no CS) and you have a pretty complete player.

As high as I am on Sean Bouchard, I'm similar stricken by JJ Matijevic. But like Bouchard, I'm not sure the Stros are going to give JJ enough ABs. If they do (and we were over a full season), I'd expect JJ to hit .250+ with 20-25 HRs and 15-20 steals.

I like the SPOW guys (Speed/Power) and Sean Bouchard (Tier 2) and JJ Matijevic (Tier 3) are both graduates of the club!