Vote for the BCB Cubs Minor League Player of the Month for June!

Another month is behind us and you can now vote for the BCB Minor League Player and Pitcher of the month for June!

I need to apologize as the holiday weekend and some family obligations kept me from getting this piece done earlier. But even though the Cubs have already named their “official” choices for these awards, that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun and vote ourselves.

Here’s how it works. I pick one player from each of the four Cubs minor league affiliates. You vote for which one had the best month, in your opinion. You can use whatever criteria you want, but I want you to vote on how good a month the player had, not on how good a prospect they are. So please vote based on what the player did in the month of June. This is an award for performance and we don’t want to just hand an award to Brennen Davis every month (and he’s not even nominated for June anyway).

Also, I reserve the right to pick a wild-card fifth choice if I have trouble deciding on the candidates, but that’s not going to be the case this month.

Today we vote for the Minor League Player of the Month and tomorrow we will vote on the Minor League Pitcher of the Month. The winner will be announced in tomorrow night’s Minor League Wrap, so you have until around 9:00pm Central Time on Thursday to vote.

If you click on the name of the player, it will take you to their MiLB player page if you want more information. Be aware that the MiLB pages haven’t been working that well this season as they transfer everything from the old (and superior) MiLB format to the new (and inferior) MLB format.

If you are reading on Apple News or Google AMP, you will need to open a browser to vote.

So finally, the candidates are:

Iowa Cubs outfielder Michael Hermosillo

Although Hermosillo has played parts of the last three seasons with the Los Angeles Angels, he still has not exhausted his rookie eligibility and remains a prospect. Hermosillo, 26, had a terrific month of June, hitting .324/.446/.554 with five doubles and four home runs in 74 at-bats over 22 games. Hermosillo scored 15 runs, drove in 15 runs and went 5-for-5 in stealing bases.

I don’t want this to influence the vote, but you should know that the Cubs named Hermosillo their choice for Minor League Player of the Month.

Tennessee Smokies outfielder Nelson Maldonado

Maldonado has done nothing but hit since the Cubs took him in the 21st round of the 2019 draft as a senior out of Florida. Maldonado, 24, had 88 plate appearances over 23 games in June and he hit .308/.386/.487 with eight doubles and two home runs. He scored 12 times and had 12 RBI.

South Bend Cubs infielder Yonathan Perlaza

Perlaza got off to a slow start in May but honestly, it’s always been difficult to hit in South Bend before the warm weather starts. In June, Perlaza did much better. The 22-year-old Venezuelan hit .276/.388/.483 with four doubles, a triple and four home runs in 24 games. Perlaza scored 14 runs and drove home 12. He also stole two bases, but since he was thrown out three times, that’s not really something to be proud of.

Myrtle Beach Pelicans outfielder Yohendrick Pinango

We’d heard good things about Pinango from the Dominican Republic back in 2019, and now we’re able to see that those reports were not inaccurate. Pinango had a solid May and followed it up with a very good June, hitting .302/.337/.427 with four doubles, a triple and two home runs in 101 plate appearances. He also stole two bases in three attempts. Pinango scored 12 runs and had five RBI.

So who is your choice?