With the 2009 Major League draft going on this week, there is always a lot of potential great catches for Major League ball clubs. With this in mind, I'd like to think back in 2005 the Cleveland Indians made a great catch when they selected Jordan Brown in the First Year Player Draft out of the University of Arizona in the fourth round (no. 124 overall). Speaking of catches check out the picture above (clockwise from top left Chris Gimenez, Trevor Crowe, Jordan Brown, Jon Meloan) Since being in the Indians organization, Jordan Brown, the 6'0 foot 205 lb first baseman has put up some pretty good numbers. The 25 year old won back-to-back MVP awards in his first two full seasons in the minors, taking the Carolina League honors in 2006 and the Eastern League trophy in 2007. In 2006 he hit .290 with an OPS of .831 at Single A Kinston and in 2007 he really broke out hitting .333 with an OPS of .906 in Akron. Brown spent all of 2008 in Triple A Buffalo putting up average numbers hitting .281 in 109 games. Furthermore he spent spent a little time last year on the Disabled list with a left knee injury. With this in mind, the presumed "catch" went unpicked in the Rule 5 draft after a rough 2008, but he's back looking like a fair first-base prospect again so far this year.
After a little over two months into the season Jordan seems to be one of the key factors that is holding this Columbus team together. The Clips have been up and down all year as they are 30-29 and a 1/2 game back in the IL West Division. The one thing that has not been down is Brown's averages. As of Monday he is 8th in the entire International League in batting .311 (59 x 190). He was also named IL Player of the week for the week of 5/18 - 5/24 going 14 x 27 batting .519 w/ 3 HRs, 7 RBI's, and a Slugging Percentage of 1.000. Furthermore, his batting average has not dropped below .300 since April 14. As mentioned earlier Brown has been a key player on this years Clippers squad; he has played in 53 of the 58 games so far this year. The Clippers roster has Brown listed as a first baseman, however he can also play outfield. In the past 5 years he has appeared at first base 207 times and in the outfield 138. He can play both corners of the outfield as he has played 16 games in right and 13 games in left this year. His fielding percentage has been a perfect 1.000 at both first base and left field this year and is .967 in right field. His total fielding percentage average over his 5 year pro career is .989.
Here is a breakdown of some of his stats this year:
AVG .311
SLG .521
OPS .871
vs. lefty's .326
vs. righty's .306
Home games .288
Away games .327
Day games .333
Night games .298
Runners on .324
Runners in Scoring Position .311
Looking at last years (2008) Baseball America's Top 10 Cleveland Indians Prospects versus this years (2009) one will notice that while Brown was on last years list he was dropped from this years list. Although he has started the year off with a bang I guess we will find out if indeed Jordan Brown is the "catch" we thought he was.
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