Chisenhall's Streaks Are Intact

I got an e-mail this morning from Jay over at LGT asking if Lonnie Chisenhall's consecutive errorless streak was still alive. In all honesty, I was not aware of the errorless streak though was aware he is still in the midst of a 14-game hitting streak. So, my curiosity was more than piqued.

After researching it Chisenhall in fact is in the midst of a 27-game errorless streak at High-A Kinston. Now, a 27-game errorless streak is not all that impressive and errors alone don't tell the whole story how a player is performing defensively; however, when you consider that he had 19 errors in his first 52 games - about one every 2.5 games - but in his last 27 he has none, this is noteworthy.

As many know, Chisenhall made the switch from shortstop to third base this year, a process that started at the end of last season when he went to the Instructional League in mid-September. Over the course of the past nine months he has transitioned well to the new position, and while there were some speed bumps along the way as evidenced by the high error totals the first two months of the season, the sudden drop in errors over the last five weeks shows he is adapting well to the new position. This is of no surprise as the Indians have said all year that he continues to get better every game at third base and they believe he can become an above average defender there, but it's nice to see some numbers help support what they are saying.

In some ways, Chisenhall is having a breakout year. Not so much as a prospect as he was a first round pick last year and was a Top 10 rated prospect in most publications coming into the season. Yet there was some unknown in how well he would handle the change to third base and how much power he would show in his bat, and with his performance to date he has gone from a very good prospect to an elite level prospect. Baseball America backs this up as they recently placed him in their mid-season Top 50 Prospect ranking, and the same pretty much came from the mouth of Kevin Goldstein in an interview Paul Cousineau and I did with him on Smoke Signals a few weeks back.

Chisenhall’s 15 home runs to date have surprised nearly everyone inside and outside the organization. Going forward it should not be expected that he will continue to put up high home run totals the rest of his minor league career and potentially in the big leagues, but baseball people throughout the game are just in love with his swing. With the way he maintains a consistent swing and the ball jumps off his bat he should always pile up a lot of extra base hits be it doubles or home runs.

On top of all this, Chisenhall was a Carolina League All Star and won the Home Run Derby contest a few weeks back. So, he is riding high at the moment. Given that he producing at the plate (.288, 15 HR, 60 RBI, .879 OPS), playing very good defense, and no one is really blocking him at third base at Double-A Akron, it is very likely he will get a call to Akron at some point in the second half. With Akron looking destined for a playoff appearance while Kinston is starting to look like a longshot for the playoffs, my guess is we see him promoted to Akron for at least their final 20-30 games of the season and he participates in the playoffs with them.

Posted in: Lonnie Chisenhall