Taylor Trammell spent the 2016 season after the draft with the Billings Mustangs. Each month of the season he got better, statistically speaking. To this point in the 2017 season it’s been more of the same.
The 19-year-old got out to a bit of a slow start in April, hitting .222/.312/.309 for the Dayton Dragons for the month. When the calendar flipped to May, so did the performance. Last night saw Taylor Trammell cap off the month in a big way. He went 3-4 with two doubles, a triple and a walk.
In 24 games during the month, Taylor Trammell hit .287/.382/.553 with seven doubles, six triples and two home runs. In 110 plate appearances he had 15 walks and 26 strikeouts while adding in five stolen bases. The big difference between April and May was the amount of power the outfielder showed.In April he had five extra-base hits, but followed that up with 15 in May.
Other Impressive Turnarounds
Eric Jagielo joined the Cincinnati Reds organization in December of 2015 when he came over in the Aroldis Chapman trade. That season he had hit .284/.347/.495 in Double-A with the Yankees. That season was cut short in the middle of June after undergoing surgery on his knee to have bone chips removed.
His 2016 campaign didn’t go well as he returned from the knee issue. He only had an OPS over .700 once during the 2016 season, June, where he hit .269/.355/.388 on the month. In total he managed to hit just .205/.305/.310 with 44 walks and 128 strikeouts in just 420 plate appearances. It was a big struggle throughout the entire year.
Those struggles continued into 2017 as he returned to Pensacola. In April he hit .185/.264/.246 with just two extra-base hits, six walks and 23 strikeouts in 73 plate appearances. Whatever happened in May, it worked.
It was easily the best month that he’s ever had since joining the Reds organization. In 82 plate appearances during May the first baseman hit .288/.415/.515 with six doubles, three home runs, 14 walks and 15 strikeouts. This version of Eric Jagielo is the one that was playing with the Yankees in 2015, showing a good plate approach and hitting for plenty of power.
Twice in the last two months I’ve written about Jose Siri and how he’s looked like a different play this year. The first time was in spring training when he was doing things I hadn’t seen in the past for him. Then just a few days ago I noted how well he had been hitting in May. Given that I did just write about it, I won’t get into too much detail about it, other than noting that he a big night to end his month, going 2-3 with a triple, a long home run and a walk last night. After posting a .609 OPS in April, Jose hit .309/.352/.474 with seven walks and 23 strikeouts in 108 plate appearances during May.
Kevin Shackelford isn’t a big time prospect name that most Reds fans have heard of. He’s a 28-year-old reliever who has never pitched in the big leagues. His April was a bit interesting from a statistical standpoint. He posted a 2.70 ERA in eight games that spanned 10.0 innings. That’s pretty good. With that said, he walked nine batters and had 10 strikeouts in that span. That’s not a good ratio and entirely too many walks allowed, but he was able to work around the walks and keep runs off of the board.
Things were much better in May for the right handed reliever. Kevin Shackelford pitched in 12 games with a 1.26 ERA in 14.1 innings pitched. His walk rate dropped off the table, handing out just three free passes on the month. His strikeout rate jumped up, too. He struck out 23 opposing batters. Not only were the walks way down, the strikeouts way up, but he also boosted his groundball rate. While we are dealing with small sample sizes, in April his ground ball rate was just 38%. In May that rate jumped up to 50%.
Entering the year, ristides Aquino was one of the Reds top prospects after a big season with the Daytona Tortugas in 2016 where he took home Florida State League MVP honors for his efforts. April and the Southern League didn’t greet the outfielder well. He hit .163/.223/.256 in 23 games with five walks and 31 strikeouts over 94 plate appearances.
The Punisher, as he’s nicknamed for what he can do to baseballs, put together a much stronger month of May. Over 26 games he hit .250/.314/.531 for the Pensacola Blue Wahoos. The average was a little bit lower than you would like, but it was a big step forward from where he was in April. In 105 plate appearances he walked eight times and struck out 27 times. The walk and strikeout rate both went in the right direction. Those trends helped, but the big difference was the power he showed previously started to show up in a big way. Aristides Aquino had five doubles, two triples and six home runs on the month after managing just five extra-base hits in April.