The Carolina League announced Wednesday that 3B Jeimer Candelario had been added to its All-Star roster.
Jeimer Candelario is having a good season for High-A Myrtle Beach and joins teammates RHP Duane Underwood Jr., RHP Jonathan Martinez and OF Mark Zagunis on the squad.
Pitching coach David Rosario and assistant hitting coach Chris Gutierrez will also be at LoanMart Field in Rancho Cucamonga, California on Tuesday, June 23 for the California-Carolina League All-Star Game.
Tripp Keister, the skipper of the Potomac Nationals, will call the shots for the Carolina League All Star Team.
Jeimer Candelario
Jeimer Candelario is batting .266/.320/.414 after 53 games this season. Candelario has 16 doubles, a triple and four home runs for a .734 OPS. The 21-year old leads his team in doubles (12) and is fifth in the league in two-base hits.
The switch-hitting third baseman was solid at the plate in May and has reached base 38% percent of the time over his last eight games.
Jeimer Candelario appears to be back on his development path after taking a couple steps back last season. Candelario began the year with High-A Daytona and was not ready for the promotion. Candelario finished the season with Kane County and helped the Cougars with the Midwest League Championship.
Duane Underwood Jr.
RHP Duane Underwood Jr. is arguably the top pitching prospect in the system. And he is having a very good year, his first at the High-A level.
Underwood Jr. does not turn 21 for another month (July 20) and is 6-2 in 11 starts this season with a 1.85 ERA and a 0.93 WHIP. He has allowed 17 runs, 13 earned, on 42 hits with 17 walks and 41 strikeouts in 63 1/3 innings.
Underwood Jr. has limited teams to two runs or less in 10 of his 11 starts and one run or less in eight of his 11 games this season. Underwood Jr. had a rough outing on June 5 in which he allowed four runs on seven hits with a walk and four strikeouts in 5 1/3 innings.
Jason McLeod was very happy with the progress Underwood Jr. made on and off the field last year. And it appears the pitcher with possibly the best stuff in the system has continued on the same development path that got his career going in the right direction last season.
OF Mark Zagunis
OF Mark Zagunis has made a successful transition to a full-time outfielder. The Cubs third round pick in the 2014 draft has quietly put together a very good season.
Zagunis is batting .312/.436/.452 in 60 games with 14 doubles, four triples and three home runs for a .888 OPS. And in those 60 games, Zagunis has more walks (45) than strikeouts (38).
Mark Zagunis has followed up a very good May in which he hit .333/.471/.484 with a .954 OPS with a .333/.425/.522 line over his last 18 games with five doubles, a triple and two home runs for a .947 OPS.
RHP Jonathan Martinez
Acquired from the Dodgers last year as the player to be named later for INF Darwin Barney, Jonathan Martinez has pitched extremely well for the Pelicans.
The 20-year old right hander (June 27) is 5-1 in 11 games, 10 starts, with a 2.62 ERA and a 0.87 WHIP. Martinez has allowed 18 runs, 16 earned, on 40 hits in 55 innings. Martinez has 28 strikeouts with only eight walks on the season.
And Martinez seems to be improving each time out. In his last three starts, Martinez has allowed three runs on 11 hits in 16 innings with 11 strikeouts and one walk.
Cubs Minor League All-Stars
The Cubs had 16 players make All-Star teams in three levels of the minor leagues.
Double-A Tennessee
- C Kyle Schwarber
- C Willson Contreras
- 1B Dan Vogelbach
- RHP Frank Batista
- RHP Corey Black
- RHP P.J. Francescon
- RHP Felix Pena
High-A Myrtle Beach
- RHP Duane Underwood Jr.
- OF Mark Zagunis
- RHP Jonathan Martinez
- 3B Jeimer Candelario
Low-A South Bend
- SS Gleyber Torres
- C/1B Cael Brockmeyer
- OF Charcer Burks
- RHP Jeremy Null
- RHP James Farris
The Cubs are still considered to have one of the top five farm systems in the game even with the promotions of Kris Bryant, Addison Russell and Jorge Soler to the big leagues from the pre-season rankings. Depending on how much time Kyle Schwarber spends in the majors this year, he will be ranked the top prospect in the organization if he still qualifies. With the advanced bat of Ian Happ, he is expected to slide in right behind Schwarber as the No. 2 prospect in the system.
The mid-season organizational rankings will be released soon and with so many of the top prospects being promoted in recent weeks, it will be interesting to see how the Cubs actually stack with the other 29 teams.