Alen Hanson has put up massive numbers for the West Virginia Power

The sheer numbers are overwhelming for a teenaged shortstop in the Pittsburgh Pirates system. It’s hard for me to even remember a shortstop doing what Alen Hanson is doing.

“Hanson is my opinion is the MVP of the league,” West Virginia manager Rick Sofield said. “He’s a triple-threat.”

The 19-year old switch-hitter is the spark plug for the Power from his lead off spot.  If he can continue this success, and improve his fielding, he will cement his place in the top of the batting order as he climbs through the Buccos system.

Don’t let the 5’11,” 152 pound frame fool you, he’s crushed from both sides of the plate putting up an .836OPS against left handers while spiking that to a .955 against righties.

The speed is what impresses me, well other than the pop off the bat, and the….you get the point.  But seriously, the guy can fly.  Watch.

The numbers are solid.  Hanson has a .921 OPS and .541 SLG which puts him in third in the entire South Atlantic League.  The prospects in the first two spots have over 100 less at-bats than Hanson.

He has over 500 plate appearances now, has crushed 16 bombs, scored 90 runs, and stole 30 bases. The power gets even better when one looks at those 29 doubles and 12 triples.

Hanson has hit well before this year, but not like this.  It’s been a while since a Pirates player, let alone a shortstop, has jumped onto the national scene like Hanson has this year.  It’s damn refreshing to see.

Clipped from: www.fangraphs.com (share this clip)

Clipped from: baseballprospectus.com (share this clip)

Seriously, wouldn’t it would be tough to be looking at this list today and see another teams names beside one of those right handers?  Cole has been bumped from his preseason spot in the top ten, at number nine.  The Altoona Curve right hander is now ranked number twelve despite a number of prospects no longer being on the list.

The biggest drop was for Jameson Taillon who checked in at number thirteen in the preseason.  Taillon is now ranked number thirty-two.

But the teenager has moved up the list.  We thought Luis Heredia surely would have made a bigger jump especially when one considers the amount of fastballs he has thrown this season.  The Little Horse has moved up five spots to number thirty-seven in Goldstein’s poll.

The interesting news is the emergence of even more Pittsburgh Pirates prospects playing their way up the rankings.  Those players are shortstop Alen Hanson and outfielder Gregory Polanco.  If you check out the tweet below, you can see Goldstein will be ranking ahead of Hanson.

Some solid video of Hanson and Polanco are now up in our Hub section.

And finally KG’s reasoning….

When the Pittsburgh Pirates have an off day in 2012, it’s always difficult to figure out what to do. Fortunately, the Pirates awful seasons of the recent past have given rise to some solid baseball talent in the minors.

Here are some articles on some of those players:

A great perspective matchup on Jameson Taillon and his good friend Christian Yelich, who plays for the Marlins Class A Advanced Jupiter club, is covered  in this post.  Yelich is one of the best players in minor league baseball which shows from his career .311 average, but he is only hitting .077 against Taillon–find out why he finds the Bucs stud so difficult to face.

_________________

Alen Hanson is arguably the breakout player of the entire minors.  Listen to his interview with MILB:

________________

If you missed this ‘scouting report’ on Taillon from Fangraphs, here you go. It’s from a few days ago.