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MWL1 Dayton Dragons

Dragons 2016 Team Preview, Part 3: Second Basemen

March 7, 2016 - Midwest League (MWL1)
Dayton Dragons News Release


Dayton Dragons Second Baseman Shed Long
Dayton Dragons Second Baseman Shed Long
(Dayton Dragons)

This is part three of an eight-part series previewing the 2016 Dragons. Players listed here are candidates for positions on the 25-man Dragons season-opening roster.

This preview is an unofficial projection of possible roster candidates. Minor League rosters are not established until April 4. Spring training variables including performance, injuries, trades, and additional player acquisitions will impact the roster accordingly.

Candidates: Shed Long, Shane Mardirosian, Hector Vargas, Mitch Piatnik (additional candidates listed below will be profiled at other positions).

Second base looks like one of the more crowded positions for the Dragons in 2016. Some observers predict that Shed Long, who played in 42 games for the Dragons in 2015, will emerge as the Dragons everyday second baseman in 2016. But there could be as many as seven other possibilities for the position, depending on what happens elsewhere in the infield.

Shed Long made the conversion to second base from catcher after the 2014 season. He was a 12th round draft pick by the Reds in 2013 out of Jacksonville High School in Alabama. Long is still only 20 years old.

Coming off a 2014 season at Billings when he served as the backup catcher (a tough task in the Minor Leagues) and batted just .172, Long opened the 2015 season in extended spring training in Goodyear, learning to play the second base position. He was promoted to Dayton late in the first half and saw his first action on June 12. Long's first defensive inning with the Dragons was a bit rough and he did not play in the field again until June 28, utilized strictly as a designated hitter by manager Jose Nieves. On July 18, Long was batting just .176 in 17 games and had started only five games at second base in the seven weeks since he joined the club. But over the remaining weeks of the season, Long emerged as one of the Dragons top hitters and opened some eyes, also improving defensively at second base.

On July 19 and 20, Long posted back-to-back two-hit games, then spent the next two weeks on the disabled list with a lower back strain. In his first day back in the lineup on August 7, he started a 14-game hitting streak, tied for the second longest hitting streak of the year for a Dragons player. But Long saved his best work for his final 10 games of the season. From August 26 to September 7, Long hit five home runs, quite a stretch considering the Dragons team leader in long balls over the entire season had nine. On August 31, Long circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run. Over his final 25 games, Long batted .337 (34 for 101) and posted a slugging percentage of .554. He finished the year at .283 with six home runs and 16 RBI, a .474 slugging percentage, and an .836 OPS, all excellent offensive numbers for a guy that was batting .176 in mid-July.

While Long had only 152 at-bats for the season, his performance over the final seven weeks, especially in light of his young age of 19 in a league with an average age for pitchers of 22.0, certainly gained some attention. Long could move up the ladder in the Reds system to Daytona, but the second base picture there could also be crowded. If, as some predict, he returns to Dayton, it will be interesting to see if Long can build on his final weeks of 2015.

Statistically, second baseman Shane Mardirosian was one of the most improved hitters in the entire Reds system in 2015. The left-handed batting Mardirosian was a four-year starter at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, California, batting .383 over his career there. He was a Third Team High School All-American and a California All-Region First Team selection. He planned to play college baseball at UC Santa Barbara, but in 2014, the Reds selected him in the seventh round of the draft.

"We really liked the way he swings the bat," Reds senior director of amateur scouting Chris Buckley told writer Mark Sheldon in a story at mlb.com. "He runs very well. It's very hard to find left-handed-hitting middle infielders. It's like finding a left-handed-hitting catcher. It's hard to do for whatever reason."

After signing with the Reds, Mardirosian was assigned to Goodyear in the Arizona League to open his professional career in June of 2014. He was primarily utilized as his team's lead-off hitter, but he struggled in his first pro season, batting just .164 in 35 games.

In 2015, after a half-season in extended spring training, the Reds elected to move Mardirosian up a level despite a poor first season, as he played at Billings for new Dragons manager Dick Schofield. The improvement was dramatic. After an 0 for 10 start, Mardirosian turned it up. Over his next 16 games, Mardirosian batted .357 to raise his season average above the .300 mark. Over the later weeks of the season, his average dropped a tad, but he began hitting for power. In August and September, over 26 games, Mardirosian had 10 extra base hits and 16 RBI, and he also stole 10 bases over that period. He finished the season at Billings with a batting average of .297 in 44 games with nine doubles, three triples, two home runs, and 12 stolen bases. He hit .330 for the year against right-handed pitching. Mardirosian, now 20 years old, appears to be a player who is improving rapidly, just like Shed Long. He should be interesting to watch in 2016.

Another strong candidate for the second base job in Dayton is Hector Vargas, a 21-year-old native of the Dominican Republic who has posted a career batting average of .309 in three seasons in the Reds organization. Vargas had actually played more shortstop than second base prior to 2015, but due to the presence of third round draft pick Blake Trahan at Billings, he moved to the right side of the diamond and shared time with Mardirosian. At Billings in 2015, Vargas played 22 games at second base, 15 at shortstop, and 13 at third base. Vargas' offensive numbers were very similar to Mardirosian. He hit .296 with nine doubles, five triples, one home run, and 23 RBI. In contrast to Mardirosian, he was betting against left-handed pitching than right-handers, batting .338 with a .529 slugging percentage against southpaws.

The 2015 season did not represent a big change for Vargas. In 2014, he batted .297 at Goodyear, and he hit .327 with the Reds Dominican Summer League team in 2013 as a first year professional. He has hit only two home runs in 567 career at-bats, but he has some size at 6'2 and might add some strength. Vargas could be a candidate for the Dragons shortstop job as well as second base.

Mitch Piatnik is another name to consider for the Dragons in 2016. Piatnik split his time between second base and shortstop at Billings last season and also saw a little time in center field. Piatnik was the Reds eighth round draft pick in 2015 out of a junior college program, State College of Florida. Piaknik had played well enough in junior college to draw an offer from LSU, and had planned to play there had he not turned professional. Piatnik had started his college career at Stetson University, one of the many strong Florida Division I college programs, and saw a lot of playing time as a freshman at Stetson in 2014, but moved on to junior college in 2015.

Piatnik is a switch-hitter with outstanding speed. After signing with the Reds, he was assigned to Billings and dealt with some injuries and a late-season slump that wrecked his final statistics. When you see a player that endures a dramatic drop-off in performance over the final weeks of his first professional season, often the player has worn down due to the rigors of playing baseball from February to September for the first time. At Billings, Piatnik was batting .304 as late as July 17, about halfway through his season. But he went 9 for 68 (.132) over the final 22 games and finished at just .210. He hit one home run and added 10 stolen bases.

There are several other players with some experience at second base that could open the season with the Dragons, but they will all be previewed at other positions. Cory Thompson played in 51 games for the Dragons in 2015, splitting time between second base and shortstop. Blake Butler was a 2015 draft pick that profiles as a shortstop but has played some second. Brantley Bell, son of former Major Leaguer Jay Bell, is a third baseman and was one of the best players on the Billings team last season, but he could get bumped to another position if 2015 Dragons third baseman Gavin LaValley returns to Dayton. Finally, Tanner Rahier, who missed all of 2015 with a suspension, has been a third baseman but could see some time at second in 2016 if he returns. Thompson and Butler will be profiled with the shortstops while Bell will be profiled at third base.

This is an interesting group of candidates. It looks like one of the deepest collections of talent the Reds have had at a position in several years in Dayton. Five different players played second base at Billings under Schofield last season, so the new Dragons manager became accustomed to keeping multiple players sharp by getting them action at other positions or as a DH. The Reds may already have a plan for this position for 2016, but spring training performances (or injuries) may also impact playing time. Former big league star Bill Doran is the Reds field coordinator (supervisor of all Minor League coaches and instructors) and Doran was a second baseman himself, so he will help sort out the picture.

Next up: The shortstops

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Dayton Dragons Second Baseman Shed Long
Dayton Dragons Second Baseman Shed Long
   



Midwest League Stories from March 7, 2016


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