Maple Ridge prospect may move up to the Mariners
Outfielder could lose shot at Triple Crown with promotion to big club
From the Good News-Bad News file, we present the premise of Tyler O’Neill losing his crack at a Triple Crown in the double-A Southern League thanks to the Seattle Mariners promoting the Maple Ridge outfielder to the big club when rosters expand next month.
It’s not a certain scenario. It’s plausible.
O’Neill, 21, went into Friday’s action with the Jackson Generals sitting second in the Southern League in average (.300) while holding down first in home runs (23) and runs batted in (96).
Chattanooga Lookouts outfielder Zach Granite was leading in hitting (.303), while Mobile Bay Bears first baseman Kevin Cron held onto second in homers (22) and Mississippi Braves outfielder Dustin Peterson had the same spot in RBIs (82).
MLB teams, who usually operate with 25-man rosters, can add extra players off their 40-man list for the stretch drive starting next Thursday. O’Neill isn’t currently on Seattle’s 40-man squad, so they’d need to come up with a spot for him there as well.
Jackson had 11 regular-season games remaining going into Friday. Five of them come after the Mariners can begin adding players.
“Promotions are out of my control,” O’Neill, the Langley Blaze product, maintained in an email interview this week. “I’m just trying to be the best I can for the last couple of weeks and keep it rolling through the playoffs here in double-A. I am excitedly looking forward to what next year has in store for me.”
As for taking aim at a Triple Crown, O’Neill explained: “The numbers are definitely on my mind, but I try to stay away from them the best I can. All I can do is keep performing on the field and let the rest take care of itself.”
Jackson is already guaranteed a playoff position, thanks to winning the North Division first-half pennant, and the team sported a onegame lead over the Montgomery Biscuits atop the North secondhalf race before Friday’s slate of games began.
It’s not unheard of for players to skip triple-A and be called up to the majors. Seattle closer Edwin Diaz, 22, for instance, went directly from Jackson to Seattle in June.
The Mariners were three games out of a wild-card spot starting play Friday. There’s an argument that they could use a big bat off the bench like O’Neill; there’s also an argument that it would be too much pressure to put him into a pennant race right away.
Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto told the Seattle Times in July when O’Neill was at the Futures Game that there “was no rush,” and they wanted him to have a “dominant season.” Dipoto talked then about possibly giving him a “taste” of triple-A before the year was out.
According to baseball-reference. com, the last minor leaguer to lead a league in average, homers and RBIs was Clint Robinson, who topped the double-A Texas League in those categories in 2010 while playing with the Northwest Arkansas Naturals.
Detroit Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera captured a Triple Crown in the majors in 2012, becoming the first to do so at that level since Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox in 1967.