Alex Mejía

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Alejandro DeJesus Mejía

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Biographical Information[edit]

Alex Mejia reached the major leagues in 2017. His father Carlo Mejia played for Pepperdine University and in Mexico and his cousin Marco Estrada has been in the majors as well.

Mejia hit .368 as a high school senior. He batted .319/.346/.396 as a college freshman (his 12 sacrifice flies being one shy of the school record) and .335/.350/.422 as a sophomore. He was 8th in the Pac-10 Conference in average and joined Deven Marrero as the All-Conference shortstops. His junior year was better yet - .357/.392/.478. He led the conference (now the Pac-12) with 97 hits (two ahead of Johnny Field), was 4th in triples (6), tied Austin Wilson for 6th in RBI (54) and was 5th in total bases. He was named the conference Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, again splitting All-Conference at SS with Marrero. The St. Louis Cardinals took him in the 4th round of the 2012 amateur draft.

Making his pro debut with the Batavia Muckdogs, he hit .250/.265/.333. In 2013, he split time between the Peoria Chiefs (.281/.327/.386 in 40 G) and Palm Beach Cardinals (.207/.247/.254 in 81 G). He played in 2014 for Palm Beach (.284/.307/.349 in 71 G) and the Springfield Cardinals (.270/.326/.356 in 49 G). He fielded .956 between the two stops, his third straight campaign as a full-time shortstop. In '15, he became a utility infielder and hit .270/.341/.383 in 34 games for Springfield and .275/.335/.383 in 59 contests for the Memphis Redbirds.

He was the starting shortstop for the Mexican national team when they won their 2016 World Baseball Classic Qualifier, going 1 for 9 with three runs. His lone hit was a double off Jan Novák. He slipped in 2016, again split between Springfield (.218/.274/.276 in 44 G) and Memphis (.273/.314/.384 in 34 G). He opened 2017 back with Springfield and was hitting .251/.305/.366 after 63 games. He moved up to Memphis and was only there 11 games (.263/.333/.289) when he was called up to replace the struggling Aledmys Díaz.

He made his major league debut with the Cardinals on June 29, 2017, starting at second base. He grounded out and flew out against Patrick Corbin then was replaced by Greg Garcia. Two days later, he collected his first two major league hits in a 2-1 win over the Washington Nationals. One of these hits was a home run against reliever Sammy Solis in the 8th that provided the winning margin, after his single in the 2nd inning against Gio Gonzalez had driven in his team's first run. He did not do well after that, getting only 3 more hits and finishing at .109/.146/.174 in 49 plate appearances over 29 games for the Cards. He fielded .980 in a utility backup role. Spending much of the year with Memphis, he hit a solid .335/.381/.466 in 55 games there.

He was with Memphis for all of 2018, producing at a .273/.316/.329 clip with only 9 extra-base hits in 108 games. He played all four infield slots as well as right field and DH as a frequent fill-in. He came up big in the Triple-A National Championship, going 5 for 5 with 3 runs, 5 RBI in a win over the defending champion Durham Bulls. He finished with four extra-base hits in 9 postseason games after his light-hitting regular season.

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