Rays' Nathaniel Lowe: Moves up to Triple-A
Lowe was promoted to Triple-A Durham on Wednesday.
A 13th-round pick in 2016, Lowe had certainly been productive in the lower levels of the minors in 2016 and 2017, but this year has unquestionably been his coming out party. He earned the promotion to the highest level of the minors after going 13-for-28 (.464) with a pair of home runs, nine walks and three strikeouts over his last eight games for Double-A Montgomery. He has logged a 190 wRC+ at High-A, a 191 wRC+ at Double-A and 23 home runs over 101 games across the two levels. His batting averages on balls in play at those two levels were high, but not so high that we should write off the production. He also has a 63:60 K:BB this season, and had more walks (35) than strikeouts (30) at Double-A. Another promising element of Lowe's production is his spray chart -- he hit exactly the same amount (34.2 percent) of balls to the pull side as to the opposite field at Double-A, which suggests MLB teams won't be able to neutralize him via the shift. The big knocks on Lowe are his age (23), position (first base) and lack of pedigree. If he carries over this dominance against Triple-A pitching, we will likely find out how his tools play at the highest level sometime next summer.
