What minor league players put up the best numbers this past week, July 2nd to July 27th?
Ryan Clifford
Week: 6 G, 23 AB, .522/.645/1.130/1.776, 10 H, 2 2B, 0 3B, 4 HR, 8 BB, 6 K, 0/0 SB (Double-A)
2025 Season: 93 G, 322 AB, .245/.367/.497, 79 H, 16 2B, 1 3B, 21 HR, 60 BB, 103 K, 4/6 SB, .290 BABIP (Double-A)
One of the better high school bats in the 2022 MLB Draft class, Ryan Clifford from Leesville Road High School, a public school in Raleigh, Noth Carolina, was considered a tough sign; despite having less-impressive-than-expected numbers in his junior and senior seasons, the raw tools screamed in your face and a commitment to Vanderbilt University made it likely that it would take some serious dough to sign him to a professional contract. The Mets were high on him and were considering drafting him in a high round thanks to their two first-round picks and additional QO free agent compensation round pick in the 2022 MLB Draft but were unable to make the money work with the other, higher-priority players they were already deciding to draft. That gave Houston Astros scouting manager Kris Gross the opportunity to make a play for the young slugger, drafting him in the 11th round of the 2022 MLB Draft, the 343rd overall selection made. Tailoring their draft around being able to afford Clifford by selecting players they would be able to sign underslot, the Astros signed the infielder for $1,256,530, roughly equivalent to the MLB-assigned slot values of second-round picks that season.
Clifford made his professional debut later that summer but only spent a year-and-a-half in the organization. On August 1, 2023, the Mets traded Justin Verlander to the Astros and received the 19-year-old Clifford and Drew Gilbert in return. Clifford was assigned to the Brooklyn Cyclones and finished out the rest of the season there, hitting .188/.307/.376 in 32 games with 4 doubles, 6 home runs, 1 stolen base, and 18 walks to 51 strikeouts. All in all, with Brooklyn, Single-A Fayetteville, and High-A Asheville, Clifford hit .262/.374/.480 with 20 doubles, 24 home runs- one of just 5 teenagers to hit 20+ in 2023-, 5 stolen bases in 7 attempts, and 64 walks to 140 strikeouts on the season.
Clifford returned to the Cyclones to start the 2024 season, and while the numbers did not exactly jump off the pages, he was solidly above-average in the 31 games he played there. The 20-year-old hit .216/.412/.304 with 6 doubles and 1 home run, his power numbers suffering and his walk rate benefitting from a weak Brooklyn Cyclones lineup that made it easy to pitch around the young slugger. When he was promoted to the Binghamton Rumble Ponies in mid-May, Clifford began showing off the plus power that makes him so dangerous as a hitter and capable of carrying an entire team for days at a time. Appearing in 98 games, Clifford hit .231/.359/.457 with 21 doubles, 18 home runs, 3 stolen bases, and 63 walks to 117 strikeouts. On the whole, he hit a combined .228/.372/.432 in 129 games on the season with 27 doubles, 19 home runs, 4 stolen bases, and 95 walks to 160 strikeouts. His walk total led the minor league system, while his home run and strikeout total both placed him in third.
He began the year with Binghamton and through 93 games is hitting .245/.367/.497 with 21 home runs, 4 stolen bases, and 60 walks to 103 strikeouts. With roughly two months left of the season to go, Clifford has already eclipsed his 2024 home run total, but the rest of his stat line is more or less in line with his 2024 numbers. While, in most cases, a player making no real improvement while repeating the same level would be a source of concern, there is still plenty of time for the slugger to improve as a ballplayer, as his solid track record belies his age; Clifford would have been draft eligible a few weeks ago had he initially attended Vanderbilt out of high school instead of turning pro.
At the plate, the 6’3”, 200-pound Clifford stands square at the plate, holding his hands at his head and angling his bat head at 10:00. He swings with a slight kick/toe tap without much of a load or weight transfer. His left-handed stroke is smooth, efficient, and quick, producing light tower power, but it is also long and inefficient against pitches in the upper half of the zone and pitches with premium velocity. While the raw power is easily plus, the swing-and-miss issues will make it difficult to fully tap into it. When everything is in sync, Clifford has the ability to single-handedly decide ballgames, and when he gets hot, he gets hot; his very patriotic 1.776 OPS this past week is the highest OPS for a Player of the Week in 2025, and may very well even be the highest in the history of this feature.
He does have an advanced approach at the plate as compared to most other players his age, making smart swing decisions, working counts and focusing on pitches he can drive, but many of the walks he drew in the lower levels of the minor leagues were from facing pitchers with either no interest in facing him head on, or were from pitchers with poor command. Even still, Clifford can sometimes be too passive at the plate when pitchers do not show pinpoint control, working himself into unfavorable counts by coming up to the plate with the intention of not swinging at anything questionable or borderline.
Defensively, Clifford provides little value at any of the positions that he played in 2023. In the outfield, he is a net neutral fielder, buoyed by his strong arm. His speed is fringy at best and based on his body type, as he ages he will likely lose additional athleticism and range. His read of the ball off the bat and the routes that he takes in the field are both suboptimal, and more work needs to be put in to improve both. His work at first base is also not great and needs to improve his receiving abilities and his reactions to quick plays.
Justin Hagenman
Week: 2 G (0 GS), 5.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 5 K (Triple-A)
2025 Season: 14 G (8 GS), 46.1 IP, 47 H, 33 R, 29 ER (5.63 ERA), 9 BB, 51 K, .279 BABIP (Triple-A)
It isn’t often that a relief pitcher wins Pitcher of the Week. For that to happen, the week’s starting pitchers have had to have been all unremarkable and that pitcher coming out of the bullpen had to have been very, very good. For the most part, starting pitching this past week was indeed very unremarkable, with Nolan McLean being the only qualifying starter to have a legitimately notworthy outing. The latter? Well, I don’t know if I would say that Hagenman had a very, very good week, but it was ultimately solid enough to outshine McLean. The right-hander appeared in two games against the Omaha Storm Chasers, once relieving the rehabbing Paul Blackburn and once relieving Alex Carillo, who was relieving the rehabbing Paul Blackburn.
Acquired by the Mets as a minor league free agent this past winter, the New Jersey native made his major league debut in mid-April of this year after spending years slowly growing and developing in the Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox minor league systems. Hagenman threw 3.1 innings against the Minnesota Twins, allowing 1 earned run on 3 hits, while walking 0 and striking out 4. He was sent down to Triple-A Syracuse and not summoned back to Queens until mid-June, when he threw 2.2 scoreless innings against the Atlanta Braves, allowing 2 hits, walking none, and striking out 1. After being sent down again, he most recently saw MLB innings in early-July. On July 4th, he was called up to be the spot starter against the Yankees, and things did not go well for him: the right-hander gave up 4 earned runs over 4.1 innings, allowing 5 hits, walking none, and striking out 5. A few days later, on July 10th, he gave up 2 earned runs against the Baltimore Orioles over 2.0 innings in relief, allowing 4 hits, walking 1, and striking out 3. Hagenman’s 5 scoreless innings this past week are his first since that disastrous week-plus.
At the Triple-A level, the right-hander does not have a particularly well-defined role. A “bulk innings guy”, he has outright started a handful of games, piggybacked a rehabbing Major League starters for a handful of games, appeared as a pure one-inning reliever for a handful of games, and has appeared as a multi-inning reliever for a handful of games. More consistency, whether it be as an “opener” who just goes through order once or so, or a long-reliever who gives his manager a few innings out of the pen, may help Hagenman, who has a cumulative 5.63 ERA in 46.1 innings in the rough International League pitching environment.
The 27-year-old right-hander throws from a low-three-quarter arm slot with a bit of effort in his delivery. The 6’3”, 205-pound right-hander mainly relies on four-pitch mix that includes a two-seam fastball, a cutter, a slider, and a changeup, with his fastball generally grading out as fringe-average and his cutter, slider, and change all grading as average. This season, his sinker is being used 42.1% of the time this season, his cutter 28.4%, his change-up 19.8%, and his slider 13.2%. While his stuff is only so-so, all of his pitches play up a bit because of his excellent command and control; the right-hander walked just one batter in his 12.1 major league innings so far this year and has a 4.6% BB% for his time in Syracuse. Hagenman can pound the zone with his pitches, throwing his secondary pitches outside to get batters fishing
Fly balls were an issue for Hagenman coming into the season and they remain so, as he is running a 40.6% Flyball Rate. While his Groundball Rate is slightly improved, up from 33.8% to 37.6% this season thanks to fewer line drives, his HR/FB Rate is still hovering around 20% and remains problematic. The long ball bit him in a major way in his limited major league innings, allowing three homers in 12.1 innings, and could be potentially be a fatal Achilles heel for Hagenman.