D-backs name Duplantier, Cron as top minor-league players for 2017
PHOENIX -- The Diamondbacks named first baseman Kevin Cron and right-hander Jon Duplantier as their Minor League Player and Pitcher of the Year for 2017.
Cron, 24, hit .283 with 35 doubles, 25 home runs, 91 RBI and 76 runs scored in 138 games with Double-A Jackson. He was named Southern League Most Valuable Player after leading the league in home runs, RBI, extra-base hits (60) and total bases (256). A graduate of Mountain Pointe High School in Phoenix, he also led the Southern League in home runs in 2016 with 26.
Duplantier, 23, was named MLB Pipeline's Pitcher of the Year for all of the minor leagues, going 12-3 with a 1.39 ERA in 25 games between Single-A Kane County and Single-Advanced Visalia. He struck out 165 batters in 136 innings and his combined ERA was the second-lowest in minor-league baseball over the last 25 years -- behind only Justin Verlander's 1.29 ERA in 2005.
Verlander was a third-round draft pick out of Rice in 2016 and was named the organization's minor-league pitcher of the month for April, May and July -- joining Archie Bradley (2013) as the only pitchers in franchise history to be honored three times in one season.
