Weekly Notes: Breakouts and Positional Versatility

Here are this week's minor league notes:

• With interleague games on the schedule, the Red Sox saw a need for a deeper bench and to cover this need they called up Jackie Bradley and optioned reliever Alex Wilson.
• Bradley struggled after he made the Red Sox out of spring training, but as ESPNBoston's Gordon Edes writes, he was able to re-establish his confidence after dominating at Triple-A after getting optioned. At Pawtucket Bradley hit .354/.457/.544 while cutting his strikeout rate almost in half. Thus far he has gone 1-for-2 since returning to the major league club. 
• Prospects need to learn from all their experiences, and Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal writes about what Bryce Brentz was able to learn from facing Cliff Lee in spring trainning.
• MacPherson also had a Red Sox minor league update this week. In this piece he discussed how right hander Allen Webster is working on his command, on Garin Cecchini's breakout, and how the history of catchers selected out of high school works against Blake Swihart.
• Like all prospects, Jose Iglesias wants to be part of the major league team, but a roster crunch and need for continued development caused Iglesias to see the majority of his time this year at Triple-A Pawtucket. The Providence Journal's Tim Britton takes a closer look and finds Iglesias has shown increased maturity both on and off the field this season.
• Portland saw several strong performances over the week, among them was Xander Bogaerts (pictured above). After a slow start, the Red Sox top prospect has shown improving performance over the recent weeks. SoxProspcets.com Senior Columnist John Meoli talked to Bogaerts as he begins to find his rhythm in Portland.
• Portland also received a visit this week from former star Red Sox pitcher and current special assistant to Red Sox GM Ben Cherington, Pedro Martinez, who shared his experience with the young prospects, as The Portland Press Herald's Kevin Thomas writes
• Matt Barnes came into the season as the highest ranked pitcher in the system. Thus far this season he has flown somewhat under the radar. SoxProspects.com's Northeast Scout Ian Cundall covers him this week in his latest Scouting Scratch and sat in on his May 6th start to get an update on the right hander.
• There was another episode of the SoxProspects.com podcast, and this week Chris Hatfield, Matt Huegel, and Ian Cundall took questions from readers, discussed Jose Iglesias' move to third, and discussed the lack of power from Greenville's lineup.
  
• Iglesias' (pictured) move to third increases his flexibility as he is still an extrodinary defender there. Ron Chimelis writes on Mass Live that Red Sox shortstop Steven Drew respects that Iglesias made the move to third base for the better of the team.
• To try and aid Greenville's lineup, the Red Sox signed third basemen Mario Martinez who was recently released by the Tigers after hitting .234/.265/.391 for their Low-A affiliate. To make room for Martinez, the Red Sox also promoted pitcher Madison Younginer to High-A Salem.
• We're running behind on SoxProspects.com site updates due to a server crash on Tuesday. Updates of some features may be delayed until next week, but don't worry we will be back on track soon.
• Finally June 6th through 8th is the major league baseball first year player draft. The first, supplemental, second, and competitive balance rounds will take place on Thursday starting at 7 pm and the Red Sox have the #7 overall pick, rounds three through 10 will take place on Friday starting at 1 pm, and rounds 11 through 40 on Saturday again starting at 1 pm.
• As always, SoxProspcets.com will have you covered with all the draft information beginning shortly with information on draft history, players to know, possible picks for the Red Sox, a mock draft, and more. Make sure to bookmark the site, check back regularly, and ask questions either in the SoxProspects.com Forum or directly to our staff on Twitter.

Photo Credits: Xander Bogaerts and Jose Iglesias by Kelly O'Connor.

Will Woodward and Kevin Pereira are Staff Writers for SoxProspects.com. Follow them on Twitter @SPWill and @kevinrpereira.

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