In another week of picking out the best players in the Atlanta Braves organization, really three players stood out like a sore thumb since June 4. Those three players were Sean Godfrey, Ozhaino Albies, and Jake Brigham. All three are deserving of this high and prestigious honor, but we chose Jake Brigham of the Mississippi Braves for his near no-hitter on June 4.
Brigham had a long career in the minors since 2006 when he in the Arizona League with the Rangers. He has spent many years ranging from A to AAA ball. Jake spent most of his years in AA with four years in the league. In AA alone, Brigham has a record of 16-14 with 305.2 innings pitched. His overall career strikeout to walk ratio is 2.21 K for every walk with his ERA at 4.30. Jake has spent part of two seasons in AAA, last season with the Indianapolis Indians and in 2013 with the Round Rock Express.
In one of his best years of his career, Jake Brigham currently is 5-2 in 10 games started. He has hurled 50 innings while allowing 49 hits and 25 runs (19 earned). His K to BB ratio is higher than his career average by sitting at 3.25 K per BB. He has limited to opposition to a batting average of .255 with his WHIP at 1.22. In five of his ten starts, he has allowed one or less earned runs. His past two starts is when he started to get more attention. On 5/29, he went 8 innings with just three hits and no runs. He did not walk a batter and struck out five. However, Brigham gained this week's honor by his start on 6/4 against the Jacksonville Suns. He threw a complete game with just one hit and one run. Sadly, he had a no-no going into the last inning, but it was faltered by a leadoff double. He received his second honor as the pitcher POW in the Southern League.
To give some background on Jacob Daniel Brigham, he was born in 1988 in Winter Garden, FL. He is currently 27 years old and stands at 6' 3" and 210 pounds. He was drafted in the 6th round out of Central Florida Christian in Orlando by the Texas Rangers. He played in the Rangers organization from 06-07 then 09 through most of 2012. He was later picked up by the Cubs where he only started two games and went 3.2 innings with 9 runs allowed. He was let go and later picked back up by the Rangers where he split time in AAA and AA during the 2013 season. Before coming to Atlanta, he spent most of his 2014 season with the Indianapolis Indians where he appeared in 18 games and started in 14 of those. Atlanta found the FA and signed him to a minor league contract on Nov 22, 2014.
Congrats to Jake Brigham on being TC's POW this week, but we would like to take a moment to recognize other players in the organization who did well this last week too, from Rome to Gwinnett: Ozhaino Albies, Braxton Davidson, Sean Godfrey, Dustin Peterson, Mallex Smith, Eric Garcia, Jose Peraza, Greg Smith, and Ryan Lavarnway.
