Kean Wong has jumped a level every year in the Tampa Bay Rays’ minor league farm system since he signed as a fourth-round pick out of Waiakea in 2013.
Kean Wong has jumped a level every year in the Tampa Bay Rays’ minor league farm system since he signed as a fourth-round pick out of Waiakea in 2013.
The farmhand second baseman has been assigned to the Durham Bulls, Tampa’s Triple-A affiliate, one step below the big league club.
Wong is playing on a team stacked with the organization’s top prospects, including mlb.com’s No. 1 shortstop Willie Adams, No. 4 outfielder Jake Bauers, No. 5 first baseman Casey Gillaspie, No. 8 pitcher Chih-Wei Hu, No. 9 pitcher Jacob Faria, No. 15 pitcher Jaime Schultz, No. 16 pitcher Ryne Stanek, No. 18 pitcher Taylor Guerrieri, and No. 24 pitcher Ryan Yarbrough.
Although he’s not ranked on mlb.com’s top 30 Rays prospect list, Wong went to the Arizona Fall League, an offseason circuit reserved for top prospects, and tore it up.
In 22 games, out of a possible 29, Wong batted .313 with an on-base percentage of .389 and a .751 OPS in 80 at-bats.
To show that talent, draft status, and prospect rankings don’t always match up, Wong could be compared to his 2013 draft classmate, a highly touted prep catcher from South Carolina.
Rays farmhand Nick Ciuffo, an AFL Peoria Javelinas teammate and a first-round pick, batted .190 with a .530 OPS in 79 at-bats.
Ciuffo, 22, has been assigned to Double-A Montgomery. In his five previous minor league stops, Ciuffo has never batted higher than .262.
Wong, 22, is one of the youngest players in Triple-A in the International League. He’s 4.8 years younger than the league average and over five minor league seasons has a .290/.335/.696 slash line.
He’s sharing time at second base with Jake Hager, 24, a first-round pick in 2011 out of Las Vegas. In six seasons, he has a .261/.312/.672 slash line.
There may be no better organization for job advancement than penny-pinching Tampa Bay, which traded second baseman Logan Forsythe to the Los Angeles Dodgers for pitching prospect Jose De Leon during the offseason.
Brad Miller, 27, is playing second base for the Rays. He’s in his second year with the team, earns over $3 million and eligible for arbitration again after the season, so he may be gone soon.
It’s more likely than not that Tampa Bay keeps Wong down on the farm for seasoning because he doesn’t need to be protected from the Rule 5 draft until after the 2018 season.
After that season, the Rays would need to stick Wong on the 40-man roster where those players are eligible for the big league club’s 25-man active roster.
The Milwaukee Brewers assigned left-hander Kodi Medeiros, a 2014 first-round pick out of Waiakea, to the Carolina Mudcats, an Advanced-A ball team in the Carolina League.
Medeiros, 21, is with his old Waiakea teammate, southpaw Quintin Torres-Costa, 22, a 35th-round pick out of Hawaii in 2015.
The Cleveland Indians sent outfielder Jodd Carter, 20, a 24th-round selection out of Hilo in 2014, to the Lynchburg Hillcats, an Advanced-A ball affiliate in the Carolina League.
The Mudcats host the Hillcats for a three-game series starting Monday, April 17, so it’s possible Medeiros and/or Torres-Costa could face Carter in an old BIIF reunion.
The Philadelphia Phillies released right-hander Jordan Kurokawa, a 28th-round pick last year out of UH-Hilo, on March 31.
Kurokawa, 24, went 1-3 with a 4.19 ERA in 19 1/3 innings for the Gulf Coast League Phillies in the rookie league last year.