Usually, I insert these into the game recap posts, but there were so many of them up and down the organization for the month of June that they're getting their own post.
First we'll start with the big club's clean sweep of the three monthly awards as befitted a 22-6 June:
Now for the farm:
We definitely have a Mike Harms problem. He also won this award for May and as you can see he's clearly overqualified for AAA but there's no room for him in the lineup with Rodolfo Rivas entrenched at 1B. With Christian Little and Jon Hayes becoming free agents at year's end there will be a couple of holes to fill in the rotation. Right now the idea is to fill them internally with some combination of Nate Thompson, Danny Medina and Gil Wayne (doing great at Durham when healthy). But I might also deal some of the hitting glut as Omar Rodriguez is also in the same boat as Harms, more than ready for MLB, for a proven MLB starter. One other option is this guy:
Lovetere is an interesting case. He has 40 stuff right now (although his potential is 50-55) but he has 55 control and movement and manages to get it done without striking out a lot of people (77 in 163 IP at AA last year, 50 in 99 IP at Durham this year), but right now I'd imagine he'd get eaten alive in MLB. Still BNN likes him (#93 overall prospect) so he's either depth or trade bait.
One step down is this guy:
Boesel's been in the top 100 prospects although right now he's #106. An athletic OF with 30-HR power right now, he'd already be up on a second-division team but right now he's looking at Durham next year. He was acquired along with Marc Wagner in the ill-fated Blake Money/Jhon Diaz deal with Oakland.
We also had a couple of other Players of the Month who aren't hot prospects (P Mel Vallone at AA Montgomery, 1B/OF Jorge Herrera at Class-A Bowling Green) as our minor league clubs below Durham are doing much better than usual this year (Bowling Green is an outstanding 54-23 for example).