Two 2011 BlueClaws – Maikel Franco and Aaron Altherr – were ranked among the top 20 prospects in the NY-Penn League by Baseball America, who released their annual league rankings yesterday.

Franco, a 3rd baseman from the Dominican Republic, ranked 4th, started the year with Williamsport and made a cameo with Lakewood during the summer. He hit .287 with two home runs with Williamsport, mostly as an 18-year old (he turned 19 on August 25th). With the BlueClaws, he went 8-65 with one home run, an absolute laser over the left-centerfield wall off of a 96 mph fastball from 2nd overall pick Jameson Taillon of West Virginia. Presumably, he will be Lakewood’s Opening Day third baseman next year.

Altherr, an outfielder from Arizona, ranked 20th. He began the year with Lakewood, hitting .211 with one home run in the first half before going to the NY-Penn League, where he hit .260 with 5 home runs. He ranked 15th on the same list last year and entered 2011 as a top ten prospect in the organization as also ranked by Baseball America. Altherr played mostly centerfield with Lakewood (all 39 of his games played were in center), but was the left-fielder with Williamsport (61 games in left vs 11 in center) as Kyrell Hudson (former 3rd round pick who hit .275 with 28 stolen bases) played center. We would expect Altherr to man left and Hudson center for Lakewood in 2012 as well.

Previously: Gulf Coast League Top 20

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 at 6:32 am and is filed under Around the Farm, Road to Lakewood, Williamsport Crosscutters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.