Eric Hartman's Speed Show

Eric Hartman's first week at Double-A looks bad on paper. Six games, one hit in his last three, a .174 average. If you stopped there, you'd think the level jump broke him

Hartman spent the first four months of this season making Atlanta's decision easy. At 20 years old, at High-A Rome, he hit .273 with an .889 OPS, 24 home runs, 64 RBI and 38 stolen bases across 94 games, a 20-homer, 30-steal season from a 20-year-old. His carrying tool is pure speed: a 70-grade runner with a 30 ft/sec sprint speed, he went 48-for-54 stealing bases last year and hasn't slowed down.

MLB Pipeline moved him to No. 2 in the Braves system in late July and onto the overall Top 100 for the first time, at No. 73. He signed for roughly $340,000 as a 20th-round pick in 2024, the largest Day 3 bonus Atlanta handed out that draft. None of that reads like a player who needed a warning label at Double-A.

Look past the six-game average and the plate discipline is still there. Five walks in six games. A stolen base. Strikeouts, yes, against better arms than he saw in the Carolina League, but no sign of him chasing.

A 20-year-old who runs like this and just cracked the Top 100 does not usually need his bat to carry him yet. Hartman's first week at Columbus is noise. The four months before it are the signal.

The Rising Star

Xavier Isaac, 1B, Montgomery Biscuits (Rays)

Isaac has hit five home runs in his last 10 games. For the season he's at .258/.403/.508 with 21 homers, 61 RBI and 18 stolen bases in 299 at-bats, a .403 on-base percentage from a first baseman who's also stealing bases in the high teens. MLB Pipeline had him at No. 51 on the preseason Top 100, and this stretch is why. Over a five-game run in early August he went 9-for-17 with four homers and 11 RBI, good enough for a spot on that weeks Pipeline's Prospect Team of the Week. The power right now skews hard toward right-handers, just a .308 mark against lefties versus .551 slugging against righties, worth tracking as pitchers adjust. But a 22-year-old first baseman running a .900-plus OPS with speed attached isn't a normal profile. The power isn't a hot streak anymore. It's the identity.

Under the Radar

Colby Shelton, SS, Birmingham Barons (White Sox)

Shelton's season batting average, .219, won't get anyone's attention. His last two weeks should. He went 17-for-42 with 10 extra-base hits over that stretch, including a three-homer game on July 28 that produced five RBI in one night. For the year he has 12 homers and 40 RBI in 260 at-bats, and he carries the lowest strikeout rate, 22.3 percent, among the White Sox's top full-season hitters. He just cracked Chicago's Top 30 at No. 27, a fresh addition, not a name that's been there all year. That's the point. Shelton was a record-setting slugger in college between Florida and Alabama, the kind of bat teams draft and wait on while the average catches up to the power.

Worth Watching

Johnny King, LHP, New Hampshire Fisher Cats (Blue Jays)

Toronto promoted King from High-A Vancouver to Double-A New Hampshire yesterday. He left Vancouver 5-2 with a 3.21 ERA and 112 strikeouts in 84 innings across 21 starts, essentially a strikeout an inning at 20 years old. MLB Pipeline has him at No. 4 in Toronto's system. A third-round pick in 2024 off a swing-and-miss profile that should travel well against better lineups. Right-handers had no answer for him at High-A, hitting just .195 against him with a strikeout an at-bat. His final Vancouver start was actually his worst of the season, three innings, four runs, on August 8. Toronto promoted him anyway. That tells you how much the season before that outing mattered. First Double-A start still to come.

Devin Taylor, OF, Midland RockHounds to Las Vegas Aviators (Athletics)

Devin Taylor has been at Double-A for nine weeks. In that stretch he's hitting .340/.402/.542 with 10 home runs, 42 RBI and 5 stolen bases in 212 at-bats for Midland. He got there off a .292/.425/.436 line in 57 games at High-A Lansing, so this isn't a hot streak. It's a level-up.

He's the best hitter in the Athletics' system right now, and Las Vegas is next. That's not a hedge, that's where the numbers and the roster picture point.

The power skews right-handed for now. Eight of his 10 homers and a .567 slugging mark have come against righties, with a quieter .458 slug against lefties. Nothing that should slow an internal promotion.

The A's took him 48th overall out of Indiana last year for $2.5 million, an above-slot deal for the highest-picked Hoosier since Kyle Schwarber. He's the A's No. 6 prospect. He walked more than he struck out in college. That patience is showing up here too, a .402 on-base percentage against Texas League pitching most 22-year-olds are still adjusting to.

The one real question is defense, not offense. Scouts call his glove unrefined, but that's a question for whenever he gets to the majors. It has nothing to do with whether Las Vegas is next. The bat has already outgrown Double-A.

Las Vegas before Labor Day.

Chattanooga Graduated Its Best Infield Prospects and the Record Cratered

Cam Collier, Cincinnati's first-round pick in 2022 and the 2024 Futures Game MVP, is the only name left from what was a loaded Chattanooga infield in the spring. Carlos Jorge got the call to Triple-A Louisville on June 30. Leo Balcazar followed him there August 4. Two infield prospects gone in six weeks, and the Lookouts are 14-24 in the second half, last place in the Southern League North.

Collier's own year hasn't helped. He's hitting .218 with a career-worst strikeout rate at age 21, still working back from an injury-shortened 2025. The Reds are still bullish on the bat, a first-rounder who signed for $5 million and made the Futures Game at 19, but right now he's absorbing the loss of two teammates and trying to find his swing at the same time.

This is what pipeline churn looks like from the inside. The system worked exactly as designed, Jorge and Balcazar earned their promotions, but a roster doesn't replace two everyday infielders overnight. Double Dip tracks this kind of turnover across every Double-A team, not just the ones making headlines.

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Photo Sources: https://www.batterypower.com/atlanta-braves-prospects/134354/eric-hartman-rome-emperors-interview-highlights-home-runs-milb, https://www.instagram.com/p/DZ2S14GOLyr/, https://www.instagram.com/p/DHMthJeRenX/, https://www.instagram.com/colby_shelton18/, https://theprovince.com/sports/toronto-blue-jays-top-prospect-johnny-king-pitching-vancouver-canadians