Prospect Watch: Bligh Madris
While the games top stars are fun to watch night in and night out, but sometimes it is nice to see someone come out of nowhere and succeed. For the Pittsburgh Pirates, one of those guys to watch is going to be outfielder Bligh Madris. He has not cracked the Pirate's top 30 prospect list in any of his three seasons in the Pirates system, but he has shown signs of being a strong outfielder. After bursting onto the scene in his professional career, he has had his share of ups and downs since but found a home in the Altoona Curve outfield last season playing his best season of professional baseball.
While his stats didn't set any career-highs, he showed that he was able to rebound after a rough patch. He ended the year hitting .260 with eight home runs and 55 RBI in 132 games played for the Curve. He set a new career-high for extra-base hits and he became a more patient hitter at the plate. While his offense experienced ups and downs throughout the season, the one consistency was his strong defensive play in the outfield. He committed just three errors all season, playing primarily in right field, and posted a .988 fielding percentage throughout the season.
His journey to professional baseball started at Mesa State University where he showed great ability on both sides of the ball. He was a starter right from the get-go as he appeared in 51 games during his freshman season. He showed that he could both hit for average and rack up the extra-base hits hitting .381 with 20 doubles during the season. While his extra-base hits didn't translate into any real home run power, he drove in runs at a good pace with 52 RBI. It was during that season that he helped his team to the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference championship and was named the RMAC MVP among several other honors during his freshman year.
Madrid would come back even stronger to start his sophomore season but would end up only playing in 10 games for the Mavericks that season. He hit .407 with a double and five RBI before an injury kept him out for the rest of the year forcing him to use a redshirt season. The time off helped Madris develop other parts of his game and he came back for the best season of his collegiate, and professional for that matter, career. In 63 games he would end up hitting an astounding .422 with 17 home run and 67 RBI. He became a much more patient hitter at the plate during his redshirt sophomore year walking 45 times and having an on-base percentage of .513.
This newfound power only raised his stock in terms of the MLB draft and he peaked the Pirates interest. He would become the third player in Maverick's baseball history to head to professional baseball when he was selected by the Pirates in the ninth round of the 2017 MLB Draft. Only one other Maverick had made it all the way to the Big Leagues, reliever Sergio Romo, and Madris was looking to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor. Having already played with college-level prospects, Madris would get his start in professional baseball with the Class-A Short Season West Virginia Black Bears.
The transition saw his batting average dip below .300, but he still managed to put together a strong first season for the Black Bears. He would appear in 56 games, hitting .270 with five home runs and 31 RBI while collecting 22 extra-base hits. His strikeout numbers jumped a bit as he went down 43 times that season and he wasn't a very patient batter with just 22 walks. However, he did have a knack for finding the gaps at Mongolia Country Ball Park, a trait that would follow him throughout the Minor Leagues. His 13 doubles led the Black Bears and his 31 RBIs were second on the team. Not only was his offense good, but his defense was transitioning over as well.
He was the starting right fielder for the Black Bears in 2017 and ended up committing just two errors in just over 420 innings played. He racked up a .977 fielding percentage while recording 83 putouts and two assists during the season. While not a speedster in the traditional sense, Madris had the range necessary to patrol the outfield and turned into a prominent player on the team. He was named a New York Penn League Mid-Season All-Star that season and his professional career was starting out with a bang. Because of his early success, Madris would skip Low-A Baseball and head straight to Advanced-A Bradenton for the start of the 2018 season.
This is where he experienced his first bump in the road in his career as his average took a tumble. He dropped to just a .238 hitter in 103 games played, but he was starting to show more power with nine home runs and 53 RBI. His strikeout rate soared to 23.8% as he went down a career-high 88 times in 369 at-bats. After a good start to the year, Madris's average dropped below the .200 mark for the months of June and July and he could never recover. Things were made worse when he had to make a trip to the Disabled List with a minor injury that would keep him out for a little over a week. When he returned to action, he still couldn't get back on track hitting .182 (6-33) over his final nine games of the season.
However, defensively he was still a strong asset and ended up playing all three outfield positions for the Marauders over the course of the season. He would see his fielding percentage raise to .989 as he committed just two errors the entire season. He started to show off his arm strength from the outfield, racking up a career-high eight outfield assists that season and helping to turn one double play. They say sometimes the best offense is a good defense, and it was this slogan that helped Madris continue to climb the ladder. If not for his defensive ability alone, he was promoted to Double-A Altoona to start the 2019 season.
Luckily for Madris, he had a turn around effort to start last season and would hit .309 during the month of April. However, disaster struck again as Madris saw his average dip to .176 in May and his power was not shining through. He had just one home run and 11 extra-base hits. However, he was able to find himself once again over the final three months of the year and finished with a .260 average with eight home runs and 55 RBI during the season. He would rack up the extra-base hits over those final three months and ended up finishing second on the team with 26 doubles, behind fellow prospect Logan Hill. The power surge was good to see for Madris because it proved he had what it took to come back from the trials and tribulations of a full season.
His defense has been the consistent thing in his career and 2019 was no different as he kept his fielding percentage steady at .988. He went back to being a full-time right fielder for the Curve and ended up finding a home there. He had 243 putouts and five outfield assists in over 1,000 innings of work and showed that he could play outfield every day over the course of the season. However, the question is where is Madris in the Pirate's future plans. He has a lot of names to jump before making it to the Major Leagues and it won't be easy with guys like Kevin Kramer, Jared Oliva, and Guillermo Heredia ahead of him. Whenever baseball resumes, look for Madris to once again be playing with the Altoona Curve, with a chance to move up to Triple-A if he continues to play well.
It is still uncertain as to when the 2020 MLB season is set to begin, but we at Buccos Cove are determined to continue to bring you strong content. Until the 2020 season begins, we will continue looking at the players who make up the 2020 Pirates organization and how they will impact the organization this season.
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