July Awards: Elizabethton Twins

I will continue my series on the July awards as I will go over the Elizabethton Twins. The Twins really played good in July going 20-8 as they marched to another division title. Also, there were some very good performances in July by the Twins and I want to other their accomplishments. With good accomplishment though quite a few players were promoted to Beloit so I will not be including them in the Player of the Month and Pitcher of the Month awards. I hope everyone likes it and if anyone disagrees you can either email me at travis_aune@yahoo.com or leave me a message in the comment box and I will be sure to respond.

• Pitcher of the Month: Tom Stuifbergen: After missing all of 2008 with arm surgery Tom has really restablished himself as a Twins prospect. After a good start in June Tom really turned it on in July to put up a great month. In July Tom went 3-0 with a very good 2.79 era in 6 July starts including 1 complete game. Stuifbergen worked an impressive 38.1 innings in July which is an average of 6.1 innings which is very impressive for someone coming off an arm injury. The stat that was most impressive to me was his walk to strikeout out ratio. Tom doesn't walk anybody period and gets his fair share of strikeouts. In 38.1 inning Stuifbergen only walked 4 batters while striking out 31 which is almost 9 k's per 9 innings which is very impressive. In July he held opponents to a very impressive .243 batting average. Tom Stuifbergen has really got himself back on the map with his bounceback year at Elizabethton. You will see him skyrocketing up prospect lists and I look for him to join former teammate Liam Hendricks in the Beloit staff next spring and at only 20 years old he is very young for his level so I look for him to keep getting better and better as he moves through the Twins organization and he is definatly someone that Twins fans should keep an eye on and who will probably make his debut in 2014 with the Twins.
• Others Considered: Matthew Tone, Angelo Sanchez, Kane Holbrooks

• Hitter of the Month: Josmil Pinto- Pinto really established himself as a big time hitting in the month of July. Going into the season there was not a lot known about the 20 year old from Venezuela who the Twins signed as a 17 year old free agent in 2006. He has really showed how good of a hitter he is and especially in July. In July Pinto hit .359 with 4 homeruns and an impressive 26 rbi's along with 7 doubles and also 2 triples. Another good thing about Pinto is he does not strikeout very often as he only had 13 strikeouts in 78 July at bats. Pinto has a very good .418 on base percentage which is unheard of for a middle of the order bat. He has a very good .643 slugging percentage for a very impressive 1.057 OPS. Josmil Pinto has really established himself as a big bopper for the Twins and I look for him to continue moving through the organization as a catcher/dh/1st base type of guy that you can't keep out of the lineup because his bat is too important. If he can find one position to be full time at it would increase his chances with the Twins because the Twins like to take guys from other positions and use them as DH's and not have someone come up as strictly DH because it limits their flexibility so it should be interesting. I have high hopes for Josmil Pinto and he definately is someone to keep your eyes on in the years to come.
• Others Considered: Brian Dozier, Tobias Streich, Michael Gonzalez