Although it hasn’t seemed that way this year, winning player of the week honors in a given league is actually a pretty big deal and difficult to pull off. Chicago Cubs prospects have been doing it so frequently this year that they’ve somehow marginalized the accomplishment. That’s quite a feat.
The latest two prospects to tear up their leagues are outfielder Rubi Silva (AA Southern League) and Jacob Rogers (Low-A Midwest League). Each was named the hitter of the week in his league.
Silva, who turns 25 on Wednesday, went 7-15 last week with a triple and two homers. He also stole a couple bases for good measure. Silva was a $1 million Cubs signing out of Cuba before the 2011 season, and it’s been a relatively slow progression for the former infielder. He’s taken well to the outfield, but the overall plate approach appears to have been slow to develop. He broke out last year, though, and was even brought to the Cubs’ rookie camp after the season (which tends to be for guys on the doorstep of the bigs). This year, repeating AA, Silva is hitting just .256/.301/.403, but his walks are way up (already at 16 on the year after just 18 all last season), which was probably something he was asked to work on.
And it seems like the overall approach could be kicking in, as he’s hitting .313/.324/.537 in June. He’s not walking much in that span (1.4%), but he’s also not striking out (15.9%). Silva remains very much on the radar as a possible future bench player for the Cubs, and I mean that in a good way.
As for Rogers, 24, the big lefty first baseman is playing at Kane County after spending 2013 at Boise. Last week, he hit .421/.450/.947 with a couple homers, a triple, and a couple doubles. Rogers has always had a lot of pop in his bat, and has put up good offensive numbers since he Cubs drafted him in 2012, but not quite good enough to move him up the ladder rapidly. On the year, he’s hitting .255/.358/.437 with seven homers.