Raudi Rodriguez Is Passing Triple-A's First Test, Just Slower

Raudi Rodriguez is hitting .238 through his first Triple-A series. His on-base percentage is nearly a hundred points higher, .333, because he is walking three times for every two strikeouts. That gap is the actual story.

We had Rodriguez on Call-Up Watch back in Double Dip Issue 5. The line then: Salt Lake near the end of the season. The Angels moved him to Triple-A Salt Lake on August 4, almost a full month ahead of schedule.

He left Double-A Rocket City hitting .261 with 14 doubles, 12 home runs, two triples and 42 RBI in 95 games, the Angels' No. 14 prospect. The tools that got him there travel. He is a 60-grade runner with plus bat speed and exit velocity, even with a hit tool that projects fringe-average and a swing that still gets handled by fastballs in the zone.

Through his first five games against Oklahoma City, he went 5 for 21 with three walks, two runs, two stolen bases, and an RBI. He struck out twice. That is not a slugger's line. It is a hitter refusing to chase against pitching a level higher than anything he has seen, and it is usually the first thing to go for a 23-year-old jumping a level in August. It did not.

Rodriguez is 23. He has already beaten one prediction by a month. Adjusting to Triple-A pitching in real time is not a setback. It is the next test, and the strike-zone discipline is passing it even while the average catches up.

The Rising Star

Brock Rodden, 2B, Tacoma Rainiers (Mariners)

Brock Rodden had one of the best weeks in the sport. Five home runs in five games, a double, a triple, eight RBI, six runs, a .360/.360/1.080 line. MLB Pipeline named him to its Prospect Team of the Week for it.

He is up to 19 home runs on the season, two shy of his combined total across his first three pro seasons. The 2023 fifth-round pick and 2024 Gold Glove winner at second base is tapping into power he never showed before, and the Pacific Coast League is helping. He hit four of his five homers this week against right-handers, and the splits are stark: a .919 OPS from the left side against a .690 from the right.

He is 26. That is old for a breakout, but the swing decisions have not changed, just the results. Nineteen home runs in a hitter's league from a plus defender at second base is a real profile. Tacoma is paying attention. So is Seattle

Under the Radar

Ricky Tiedemann, LHP, Buffalo Bisons (Blue Jays)

Ricky Tiedemann had not pitched at Triple-A since July 2024. Tommy John surgery wiped out all of 2025. He entered the year as Blue Jays Nation's No. 7 org prospect, and for two years all anyone could do with that ranking was wait.

He is back. A rehab assignment at Single-A Dunedin in late July led to his return to Buffalo this week: one inning, eleven pitches, a fastball that sat 96.7 and touched 97.8, mixed with a sweeper. Clean.

Toronto is using him in relief the rest of the way rather than stretching him back out as a starter, a deliberate call given the layoff and where the Blue Jays sit in the standings. He is 23. The stuff never left. The only question was health, and this week answered it better than any scouting report could.

Worth Watching

Bryce Mayer, RHP, Sugar Land Space Cowboys (Astros)

Double Dip had Bryce Mayer on Call-Up Watch in Issue 8: Sugar Land before the end of August. The Astros moved him there around August 3, well inside that window, off a July that earned him Texas League Pitcher of the Month, a 0.47 ERA over 19 innings. His full Double-A season: 2.61 ERA, 100 strikeouts in 69 innings at Corpus Christi.

His Triple-A debut on August 8 did not go the way any of that predicted. Three innings, six runs, six earned, two walks, three strikeouts against Albuquerque. Every pitcher has a first bad outing at a new level. His just happened to be his first outing at this one.

He is 24. One start is one start, not a body of work. The strikeout stuff that carried him through Double-A does not disappear because of one Tuesday. Sugar Land gets him again soon, and that is when this actually gets answered.

Jonah Cox, OF | Sacramento River Cats to San Francisco Giants

The Giants have already called Jonah Cox up once this year, straight from Double-A Richmond on May 31, skipping Triple-A entirely, just the seventh Giants prospect to make that jump since 2010. An oblique strain sent him back down. When he was activated on August 4, San Francisco optioned him to Sacramento anyway and gave the open outfield spot to Eddys Leonard instead.

Cox has made that decision look expensive. Since landing back in Sacramento, he is hitting .420, 33 stolen bases on 41 attempts, with hits in 48 of his 53 games this season. A three-hit game against Round Rock over the weekend was his 12th of the year and his third straight.

He is 25, a plus-plus runner with an 88th-percentile sprint speed to match. His one shot at the show this year showed both sides of the bet: a .269 average and a .500 slugging mark in 24 games, but a strikeout rate above 50 percent that is the real reason he came back down. The swing-and-miss, not the roster crunch, is the bar he has to clear before a permanent recall instead of another summons.

The Giants have shown twice this season they will promote him when they need offense, even if they have not shown yet that they will keep him up. September's roster expansion is the next mechanism. If history with this player is any guide, he will not wait that long to force it.

Triple-A Just Had Its Best Week for Call-Ups All Season

Triple-A emptied out this week. Charles McAdoo hit .464 with four homers in six games and Toronto called him up Monday. Buffalo teammate Brett Bateman beat him there by three days, arriving straight off the Kevin Gausman trade return. Zac Veen closed his Triple-A season with a franchise-record 17 total bases and got the call ahead of Tuesday's game. Chicago pulled two starters out of Charlotte for bullpen help, Hagen Smith and Tanner McDougal. Smith debuted Sunday. McDougal is still waiting.

The quieter moves tell the same story. The Dodgers called up Seth Halvorsen, a 100 mph reliever acquired from Colorado at the deadline, after nearly erasing his walk rate across six scoreless innings at Oklahoma City. The Yankees gave 27-year-old Bradley Hanner his first big league look off a 2.10 ERA at Scranton, six years removed from being a 21st-round pick. The Nationals pulled lefty Jackson Kent from Rochester Wednesday to patch a thin rotation.

George Lombard Jr. is still building on his own debut from last issue. The Yankees' No. 1 prospect hit .268 with six home runs at Scranton before the call. Six games into the majors, he is hitting .286 with a .571 slugging mark, two home runs, and a sprint speed in the 97th percentile, the same wheels that clocked a Statcast "bolt" in his first big league at-bat. The sample is small. The tools are exactly what the reports promised.

None of this is roster-expansion math. Rosters do not expand until September 1. A team needed a specific thing and a Triple-A affiliate had it ready. Contenders are not waiting for September.

Triple Dip is a Below the Show publication. Published every Thursday. Forward this to a friend who loves baseball.

Photo Sources (In order of appearance): https://www.mlb.com/milb/rocket-city/news/it-s-getting-raudi-in-the-rocket-city, https://www.milb.com/news/it-s-getting-raudi-in-the-rocket-city, https://www.milb.com/news/rodden-homers-but-travs-fall-in-frisco, https://www.milb.com/news/conversations-with-the-herd-ricky-tiedemann-bisons-blue-jays, https://www.mlb.com/milb/corpus-christi/news/mayer-marches-hooks-to-second-straight-shutout, https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/giants/article/giants-take-rare-step-call-top-hitter-jonah-cox-22284838.php, https://www.mlb.com/news/george-lombard-jr-showing-all-around-skill-set-for-yankees