clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Mike Leake Finally Gets Chance To Tour Minor Leagues

Mike Leake, the Cincinnati Reds starter and recent graduate, allegedly, of the Winona Ryder Academy, is most famous on the baseball field for having skipped the in-season minor leagues and made the Reds' rotation right out of Spring Training in 2010. Now he's—in the minor leagues, where he'll finally get a chance to tour the great cities of the AAA International League, so named because all of its teams are located within the continental United States.

↵

This is one of those unfortunate things that happens to most minor-league-skippers who are not all-time greats. Pete Incaviglia, for instance, skipped the minor leagues and hit 30 home runs in a 185-strikeout rookie season—all this deep within the pre-Mark-Reynolds age of hitting. But in 1998, at 34, he finally spent extended time in the minor leagues, which he appeared to find to his liking—he hit .324/.411/.612 with 23 home runs in 76 PCL games, and would later spend significant time in the unaffiliated minor leagues. 

↵

Leake, who's just 23, is unlikely to spend the next several years in the International League—and definitely not the Atlantic League. But for league-average players a brief minor league stint is never all that far away, which is what makes his achievement so lastingly impressive. 

↵