The accolades continue to roll in for members of the Cleveland Indians organization as on Monday, Lake County catcher Francisco Mejia was named the Midwest League Player of the Week for the stretch of games between June 6 and June 12.
It is the second time in as many weeks that a member of the Captains has been honored with a weekly award. Pitcher Matt Esparza was recipient of the Midwest League Pitcher of the Week award last week.
Mejia is the fourth position player and sixth member of the Indians farm system overall to take home the weekly honor. In his second season with the club and his fourth professional season overall with the Indians, he had an impressive week at the plate on the way to winning his second Player of the Week award of his pro career (the other came on September 2, 2014, while a member of the short-season Mahoning Valley Scrappers).
The Lake County backstop received good news early last week when he and three other Captains teammates were selected to represent the Eastern Division of the Midwest League in their All-Star Game later this month. He appeared in six games last week, all at home at Classic Park during the team’s six-game homestand, and got hits in every game. Four of those games were multi-hit contests, as he put together a 13-for-25 (.520) effort at the plate with a double, four home runs, eight runs scored, and eleven runs batted in.
Those six games extended his hitting streak to 14 straight, the second-longest in the Midwest League this season (trailing only his teammate and fellow Midwest League All-Star Tyler Krieger’s active streak of 23 straight games). Mejia’s homers came in bunches – he hit them in back-to-back games on Tuesday and Wednesday against Lansing and again on Friday and Saturday versus Great Lakes.
He celebrated his award by extending his hitting streak to 15 games with another home run on Monday at Bowling Green, his fifth in seven days.
The 20-year-old switch-hitter and number eight prospect in the Indians system is in his second season with the Captains after hitting .243 with a .324 on-base percentage in 109 games for Lake County last season. He had hit .282 with a .339 OBP in 66 games the season before with Mahoning Valley and .305 with a .348 OBP in 30 games in the Arizona Rookie League in his debut season with the Indians organization.
This season, Mejia is quickly playing his way towards a promotion to High-A Lynchburg, as in 51 games he has hit .335 with a .369 OBP. He had 13 doubles, three triples, six homers, and 46 RBI.
He has also been solid for the Captains in 44 starts behind the plate this season, committing four errors for a .990 fielding percentage. Even more worthy of note is his improvement in the running game. After throwing out 34.4% of would-be base stealers last season, 32.2% the season before, and 22.4% in 2013, he is gunning down 44.2% of runners in stolen base attempts this year.
Photo: Emily Jones/MILB.com
