This is the fourth in a series of articles looking back on the Knights’ season by Charlotte beat writer Jeff Cohen. In this installment, Jeff hands out his FutureSox awards to the best Knights’ players.
BEST INFIELD DEFENDERS
Danny Mendick — Appeared to have the best range of all the middle-infield candidates and team seemed to just play better when he was in the game.
Romy Gonzalez — 54 Triple-A at bats is a small sample but he has the “IT” factor.
Ti’Quan Forbes — He mostly played first base as a way to get on the field, but was an excellent defender when he was able to play other infield positions. A possible sleeper in the organization.
BEST OUTFIELD DEFENDERS
Mikie Mahtook & Micker Adolfo — Mahtook made up for average foot-speed with terrific reads and routes, to go with a strong, accurate arm. Speaking of arms, word got out quickly not to try and take a base on Adolfo’s cannon of an arm.
MOST UNDER-RATED HITTER
Matt Reynolds — Reynolds flew under the radar, but he showed more plate discipline than the rest of the team combined, with a team-leading OBP of .373 (excluding late call-ups and rehabbing MLBers). Reynolds had almost twice the number of walks as the next guy, was 2nd on the team in doubles and fifth in hits.
MOST UNDER-RATED PITCHERS
John Parke — He was one of the few guys on the team without the big fastball, but he was also one of the more dependable pitchers on the team. He is a groundball generating machine, with a sinking fastball that is unhittable in the bottom of the zone.
Mike Wright — What didn’t he do for this team! He made 16 starts for the team, and only had one outing of less than five innings. Wright was near the league lead in innings and WHIP at the time of his call-up on Aug. 16.
Kyle Kubat/Tanner Banks — In an era when relievers rarely toss more than an inning per outing, Kubat and Banks were the team’s true multi-inning relievers and they repeatedly bailed out the staff when starters were yanked early (which happened a lot this year). Pitching coach Matt Zaleski called out Banks as one of the guys who improved the most since the 2019 season.
Alex McRae — He found himself in the rotation because there were no better options, but he improved as he got stretched out and was effective as the season wore on. He was another guy that saved the bullpen by covering a lot of innings.
BEST RAW POWER
Micker Adolfo — Adolfo gets hitting coach Chris Johnson’s vote, and he should know better than anyone. Adolfo hit 10 homers for the Knights this year, and none were cheap wall-scrapers. He got his money’s worth on every one.
BEST IN-GAME POWER
Jake Burger — But, in a game, Johnson said, it is Jake. His 40-plus% hard-hit rate on all batted balls tells you just how much he barrels balls up.
PRETTIEST SWINGS
Gavin Sheets — Are his swing mechanics that much better? I don’t know, maybe, but he sure made a lot of contact.
Blake Rutherford — Perhaps it is a lefty thing, but his line drives into the left-center gap were gorgeous. Rutherford led the team with 30 doubles this year, and about a quarter of them were shots in the left-center alley.
BEST CLUTCH HIT
Mikie Mahtook — His walk-off grand slam in the nightcap of a doubleheader sweep on Aug. 18 was storybook.
BEST FASTBALL
Severino — It was love at first sight. He stepped onto the mound in Charlotte for the first time on Aug. 24, his fastball hit 101 more than once, and I was smitten. (It didn’t hurt that he could pair it was a curveball in the upper-70s.)
MOST ENTERTAINING
Yermin Mercedes — ‘Nuf said.
BEST SLIDER
Jimmy Lambert — Zaleski votes for his young starter. In fact, Zaleski said, Jimmy throws two variations of a slider, just to mess with hitters.
BEST CURVE
Nik Turley — “One of the best I’ve seen,” Zaleski says of Turley’s bender.
MOST INTERESTING YOUNG ARMS
Anderson Severino — Did I mention a 101-mph fastball and 78-mph breaker?
Bennett Sousa — Zaleski thinks Sousa could be ready for a breakout with some off-season improvements.
MOST INTERESTING YOUNG HITTERS NOT NAMED ADOLFO
Romy Gonzalez — What does he do for an encore? And where does he do it?
Ti’Quan Forbes — I’m curious to see what he could do with regular at bats at an infield position other than first base. I think he could have a big year in 2022 if everything breaks right.
THE GUY YOU WANT AT BAT WHEN THE GAME IS ON THE LINE
Jake Burger — He was a steady run-producer in the middle of the lineup from day one, so much so, in fact, that we began taking his amazing comeback story for granted by the end of the season.
BEST MLB PLAYER IN 3 YEARS
Adolfo — I love Wes Helms’ quote when Adolfo first came up: “He’ll do things that will amaze the fans and the guys in the other dugout.”
THE TOUGH GUY
Tim Beckham — The veteran infielder played on a bum knee as long as he could, before finally calling it a season after 45 games and a slash line of .279/.330/.545. The highlight of his season was a thrilling four-game stretch in mid-June when he smashed six home runs.
IRON MAN AWARD
Blake Rutherford — With 448 at bats, he was at the plate 81 times more than his next closest teammate.
Photo credit: Sean Williams/FutureSox
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