12 plays of 2018: Back-to-back weekly honors

Before the calendar flips to 2019, we celebrate the holidays by looking back at 12 moments from the New Orleans Baby Cakes' 2018 season.

August 12

Austin Dean was named the Pacific Coast League's Player of the Week for August 6-12, joining J.B. Shuck in giving the Baby Cakes back-to-back winners of the award for only the second time in club history.
Colin Porter and Jason Alfaro claimed the weekly honor in consecutive weeks in 2003.
Dean's 2.053 OPS across five games during the week bested all players in Minor League Baseball. He also paced the PCL in batting average (.647), slugging percentage (1.353), on-base percentage (.700), and total bases (23) while matching the league's top home run (3) and extra-base hit (6) marks. Dean drove in seven runs, scored seven runs and walked three times in helping the 'Cakes to a 5-1 record during the week.

The Spring, Texas native collected hits in all five games, including a stretch of four straight multi-hit contests. The first of those came on August 6 at Albuquerque, when he reached base four times and drove in a pair. He then posted consecutive two-hit efforts against the Isotopes and the Iowa Cubs, then capped the stretch with the first two-homer game of his Triple-A career against Iowa on August 11.
That proved to be all the Marlins needed to see, as Dean was given his first big league promotion three days later. His .326 batting average with the Baby Cakes ranked fourth in the PCL at the time of his call-up, and together with his Southern League Player of the Month efforts for Jacksonville in April, combined to hit .345 on the season to earn Marlins Minor League Player of the Year honors.