November has arrived, the Arizona Fall League is deep into its schedule, and the numbers are starting to settle in. Every club has now played at least 21 games, the leaderboards are taking shape, and a handful of prospects made real noise in Week 4.
At the top of the offensive board, Week 1 Hitter of the Week Welbyn Francisca (CLE No. 19) continues to set the pace with a 1.237 OPS. He’s tied with the Nationals’ Teo Banks at 24 hits.
On the power side, the Rockies’ Jack O’Dowd, who won Week 3 honors, leads the league with 12 extra-base hits and shares the home run lead with Alex McCoy (SD No. 26) at five. McCoy’s power has shown up in a big way, too - his hardest-hit ball of the season came on Oct. 15, when he crushed a 118.2 mph, 435-foot blast.
The pitching leaderboard has its own standouts. Twelve pitchers are still carrying perfect ERAs, while Jarlin Susana (WSH No.
4 / MLB No. 66) and Patrick Reilly (Orioles) have each reached 20 strikeouts. White Sox prospect Jonathan Clark owns the best WHIP in the league at 0.55.
But Week 4 belonged to the players who flashed in the desert, and Susana was right at the center of it.
The 6-foot-6, 235-pound right-hander overpowered hitters for Salt River, touching 100 mph 40 times in his latest outing and peaking at 102.9 mph over five innings. He threw 38 strikes in 63 pitches and generated seven whiffs.
Among the 29 Fall League pitchers who started last week, Susana was the only one to get through five innings. It was a meaningful step forward for the 22-year-old Dominican Republic native, who had not gone beyond 3 2/3 innings since coming back from a right lat tear on Aug.
Jared Thomas kept his momentum rolling for Salt River, and he did it with speed. The Rockies outfielder went 9-for-18 with seven runs, a double, three triples, four RBI, four walks, six strikeouts and two steals.
Thomas added three triples this week, pushing his total to a league-best five across 19 games. His biggest day came Monday, when he collected four hits, including two triples, and scored five runs.
He has hits in eight of his last nine games and is tied for third in the Fall League with 17 runs scored.
Braxton Bragg gave Peoria the week’s cleanest starting line. In a league where offense ruled the stretch, the Orioles right-hander was the only pitcher to deliver a scoreless outing of at least four innings.
Bragg allowed five hits and one walk while striking out three over four frames, and he did it without giving up an extra-base hit. He now sits ninth in the Fall League with a 2.77 ERA.
Colby Shelton put together the most productive week of any hitter in the circuit. The White Sox infielder went 6-for-13 with five runs, two doubles, two homers, 12 RBI, three walks, one strikeout and a steal for Glendale.
He drove in four runs in three straight games and finished the stretch with a grand slam on Thursday, his third Fall League homer. Shelton, who was known for his contact skills at Florida, has carried that trait into the fall with a 13.9 percent swing-and-miss rate.
He has walked as often as he has struck out, with eight of each.
Isaiah Drake also made his presence felt for Glendale. The 21-year-old outfielder hit .700 last week, going 7-for-10 with three runs, a double, a homer, two RBI and two walks without striking out once.
His loudest swing was a 102.4 mph, 403-foot homer on Saturday, part of his second straight three-hit game to close the week. Drake, the younger brother of former NFL running back Kenyan Drake, has speed as his calling card, and he showed it again with a Chandler Simpson-esque infield single that reached 30.8 ft/sec.
That was his 10th bolt of the fall, and he owns three of the top five sprint speeds recorded in the league.
Miguel Useche kept turning heads for Mesa. The Cubs catcher, a nondrafted free agent out of the University of New Orleans, spent time in the independent Frontier League before earning his way into the organization, and he’s now looking more and more like a real prospect.
Useche went 6-for-12 with three runs, four doubles, a homer, nine RBI, four walks and one strikeout. Five of his six hits last week went for extra bases, the most of any player.
He hit his first Fall League homer on Tuesday and followed it two days later with three doubles.
Kyle West rounded out the week’s top performers by bringing serious thunder for Salt River. The Yankees first baseman went 4-for-14 with three runs, a double, three homers, five RBI, one walk and four strikeouts.
His first blast on Monday was the longest homer in the Fall League this season at 462 feet and 112 mph. Later in that same game, he added another shot that traveled 450 feet and came off at 109.2 mph, the fifth-farthest homer in the league so far.
West finished the week with a three-run homer on Saturday, becoming the only player to hit three home runs in Week 4. He is one of just seven players in the desert with at least four homers this season.
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