Braves' Minor League Player of the Week: Christian Bethancourt

As per the usual, there were a lot of deserving candidates for our Minor League Player of the Week award. Austin Riley seems to be a lock for contention each week the way he is playing, but he missed some games to attend a wedding. Mallex Smith has been heating back up again while Cedric Hunter, Mike Soroka, Bradley Keller, Greg Smith, Randy Ventura, and Kevin Ahrens all have been excellent of late and that's just to name a few. However, this week a familiar face has come on very strong of late, so congratulations are in order for Christian Bethancourt for being named our Minor League Player of the Week. Christian is currently riding a 6 game streak of multi-hit games during which he has 13 hits, 6 runs, 6 RBIs, 6 BBs, and has struck out just 1 time. He hasn't been getting cheapies or getting super lucky either as 5 of those hits were for extra bases and his good work at the plate has brought his average up 32 points to .329 just in those six games. Its also worth noting that Bethancourt has had a flair for the dramatic as well.

Its certainly encouraging to see Bethancourt performing so well at the plate, especially given the struggles he had while in Atlanta. He has also been performing well behind the plate as he has just 1 passed ball charged to him while catching 12 of the 28 runners trying to steal against him in the minors this year. However, a couple of the Atlanta beat writers have hinted recently (most notably Mark Bowman) that C-Beth hasn't made as much progress in terms of his game preparation and his work defensively as the Braves would have liked and may be looking for other future options at catcher. Whether or not this an attitude problem or something that is more correctable is unclear at this point. Nevertheless, its a virtual lock that Bethancourt will be called up by at least September and we should be able to see if this recent hot streak is a sign that he has finally figured things out not.  Congratulations Christian Bethancourt on being our Minor League Player of the Week!