Dodgers Minor League Baseball Blog

Coming in at number four is first baseman James Loney.  The prospects was the Dodgers first round draft pick out of high school way back in 2002 and that year, he made his debut at Great Falls (Low A) where he was extremely impressive and where he put himself on the map.  He hit .371/.457/.624 in 170 at bats and while the power wasn’t from a large amount of homeruns, he did belt 22 doubles in the limited amount of at bats.  He made a brief jump to Vero Beach where he continued to hit, but not with much power.

In 2003, he started at Vero Beach where he put together a good but great season.  He hit .276/.337/.400 in 468 at bats.  Then in 2004, he had a set back when he was promoted to Double A.  There, he hit just .238/.314/.327 where he was outmatched.  He repeated Double A in 2005 and finally got back on track before 2006, when he started at Las Vegas and hit the snot out of the ball before getting promoted to the big league club where he racked up 102 at bats.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t room for Loney so he’ll start the season once again in Triple A.  He’s still only 22 though so this isn’t a huge deal (except probably for him) and expect him to be up the first time the Dodgers have some troubles out in the outfield.