Bobby Bradley and Bradley Zimmer named MiLB All-Stars by Baseball America

Each year Baseball America (BA) goes in depth through Minor League Baseball and ranks prospects across all organizations, releasing an end of season All-Star article ranking all players through all levels. For 2015, Cleveland Indians prospects DH Bobby Bradley and CF Bradley Zimmer made the the first and second team of BA’s All-Star team, respectively.

BA takes into account the prospects that had the best seasons based on age, league context, experience level, and general competition. For Bradley and Zimmer, both prospects raised their prospect profile with especially strong MiLB seasons to earn recognition in this particular article as well as across the MiLB scouting community.

Bobby Bradley spent most of the season with the single-A Lake County Captains before being promoted to the high-A Lynchburg Hillcats just in time for their playoff run.

Bradley is a classic power hitter with a 2015 slash set of .264/.357/.518. His 27 home runs in 2015 were a pleasant surprise, as was his ability to maintain a high on-base percentage. His batting average suffered with the increase in power but such a decrease is often the trade-off there. With power a rare resource in baseball, swapping average for homers is considered beneficial.

Here is what BA had to say about Bradley as they selected him as their first-team All-Star designated hitter:

First-Team All-Stars

DH Bobby Bradley • Indians
Low Class A Lake County (Midwest) • High Class A Lynchburg (Carolina)

Bradley led the Rookie-level Arizona League in home runs and RBIs in 2014, and he accomplished the same feat in the Midwest League this season, becoming the circuit’s first teenage home run champ since Miguel Sano in 2012. Bradley smashed 27 homers and drove in 92 runs for low Class A Lake County before a late-season drop-in at Lynchburg that spanned two games.

Bradley Zimmer is actually the more highly regarded prospect by BA, as he was listed as their No. 23 overall prospect in baseball in their mid-season update. However, the competition was more fierce for a first-team outfield position, and BA elected to go with Colorado Rockies prospect Jordan Patterson.

Zimmer still was mentioned, and BA found it fit to include him as a second-team outfield selection.

Zimmer dominated the competition at high-A Lynchburg before receiving the promotion to double-A Akron RubberDucks. His .308/.403/.493 numbers for the Hillcats, however, dropped precipitously to .219/.313/.374 in Akron. He was an exceptionally young prospect in double-A (2.4 years younger than average, according to Baseball Reference), and BA apparently took such factors into account.

Zimmer did not get a full writeup as as second-team All-Star outfielder, though he was mentioned by BA:

(Jordan) Patterson narrowly edges a talented crop of young outfielders, including big league standout rookie Michael Conforto (Mets) and power-speed threats Brett Phillips (Brewers) and Bradley Zimmer (Indians).

Second-Team All-Stars

CF Bradley Zimmer • Indians
High Class A Lynchburg (Carolina) • Double-A Akron (Eastern)