Rays' Carson Williams: Returns from week-long absence
Rotowire
Williams (hand) returned to action Tuesday for Double-A Montgomery and has gone 1-for-7 with two walks, a run and an RBI while starting at shortstop in the club's last two contests.
Williams missed a week of action with a hand injury but was never placed on Montgomery's 7-day injured list. The 20-year-old shortstop prospect is hitting .289/.374/.537 with 10 home runs and 15 stolen bases across 230 plate appearances in the Southern League this season.
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Rays' Carson Williams: Dealing with hand injury
Rotowire
Williams is considered day-to-day after being hit by a pitch in the hand during Wednesday's game with Double-A Montgomery, MLB.com reports.
X-rays and an MRI came back clean, so it appears as if Williams has avoided serious injury. That's positive news, as he's had an excellent season with Montgomery, maintaining a .928 OPS with 10 home runs and 15 stolen bases across 49 games.
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Rays' Carson Williams: Stock way up at Double-A
Rotowire
Williams is slashing .336/.410/.571 with five home runs, nine steals, a 24.6 percent strikeout rate and a 72.3 percent contact rate in 29 games for Double-A Montgomery.
Williams has plus power, above-average speed and a chance to develop into a 70-grade defender at shortstop, it's just a question of how good his hit tool will be. While Williams' .432 BABIP is obviously inflating his line somewhat, his start to the season is encouraging, as he had a 31.8 percent strikeout rate and a contact rate below 65 percent last year. The Rays are getting good real-life shortstop play from Jose Caballero (0.8 fWAR), and Williams isn't on the 40-man roster, so he may still spend most, or all the season in the upper levels of the minors, but his dynasty stock is trending steeply up.
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Rays' Carson Williams: Boosted to Triple-A
Rotowire
The Rays promoted Williams to Triple-A Durham on Tuesday, Ben Badler of Baseball America reports.
The 20-year-old shortstop has been lighting it up in High-A Bowling Green recently with a .306/.390/.605 slash line since the beginning of July. The Rays are so confident in Williams that they're allowing him to skip an organizational level and head straight to Triple-A. Williams is a long shot to reach the majors this season, but if his bat acclimates well to a higher level of competition, he could make his MLB debut next year.
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Rays' Carson Williams: Falls off after hot start
Rotowire
Williams is hitting .255/.347/.489 with 13 home runs, 21 steals and 41:125 BB:K in 82 games for Single-A Charleston.
Yep, that's 125 strikeouts in 82 games for Williams -- good for an ugly 32.9 percent strikeout rate. He came out of the gate on fire, putting up a .323 average and 1.018 OPS through his first 33 games of the year, but in the 50 games since, he's put up a .208 batting average and .710 OPS. The stolen-base production has fallen off, too -- he's gone 0-for-2 over his last 16 games. Williams still boasts an intriguing power-speed blend, and he's considered a good bet to stick at shortstop, so there's still plenty to dream on here, but as the Rays (and fantasy managers) have seen with the travails of Josh Lowe this year, a subpar hit tool can prevent the other tools from showing through regularly.
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Rays' Carson Williams: Enticing results in Single-A
Rotowire
Williams is hitting .323/.418/.600 with four homers, 12 steals, 1 RBI and 25 runs across 33 games for Single-A Charleston.
That 1.018 OPS is the good news; the bad news is that Williams has a 33.3 percent strikeout rate. He's also drawing walks at a decent clip (13.1 percent), but he'll need to cut down on those swing-and-miss issues to have any hope of hitting for decent average in the big leagues. Nonetheless, it's been an incredible start to the year for Williams, who's shown a ton of extra-base ability with 10 doubles and seven triples to accompany his four long balls. Considering his exploits on the bases, it seems like evaluators may have underestimated his speed. He should be a big riser on the midseason prospect lists.
