This is the final week of the regular season for both Class-A and High-A, and both Great Lakes and Ontario have a pair of standout players in one specific area.
Shortstop Emil Morales began the season in Ontario before getting promoted to Great Lakes in May, and he hasn’t stopped hitting. Morales has rocketed up prospect lists, including getting rated 29th overall by Baseball America in August. Between the two levels, Morales has driven in 115 runs in 113 games, and doesn’t turn 20 until September
22.
In the last 50 years, only four other Dodgers minor leaguers had at least 100 RBI in their age-19 season or younger — Mike Marshall (1979), Candy Maldonado (1980), Adrían Beltré (age 18 in 1997), and Cody Bellinger (2015).
Ontario first baseman and occasional third baseman Easton Shelton has 35 home runs this year, 15 more than any other player in the circuit. The 20-year-old Shelton has driven in 106 runs in 106 games this season. We’ll know by Sunday if Morales or Shelton can be the first Dodgers minor leaguers with at least 100 RBI and as many runs batted in as games played since Greg Brock knocked in 138 runs in 135 games for Triple-A Albuquerque in 1982.
In the last 50 years, the only other Dodgers minor leaguers with 100 RBI and at least as many RBI as games are Kelly Snider (139 RBI in 138 games for Class-A Lodi in 1977) and Mike Marshall (137 RBI in 128 games while inning Pacific Coast League MVP for Albuquerque in 1981).
Josue De Paula, the Dodgers top prospect, has a chance to join this group, as he’s sitting on 99 RBI with 11 more games left in Double-A Tulsa’s season. The last Tulsa Driller to knock in 100 runs was Joe Koshansky in 2006 when Tulsa was a Colorado Rockies affiliate. De Paula has already scored 100 runs this season, and if he drives home another run will be just the second Tulsa Drillers player with triple digits in both runs and RBI since then-Rangers prospect Carlos Peña in 2000.
James Tibbs III, who was not called up to the Dodgers, is also sitting on 96 RBI for Oklahoma City with nearly three weeks to go in the Pacific Coast League season, so he could easily join this group, too.
