Mason Katz celebrates his 9th-inning HR in the championship series finale (ABBY DREY — CDT photo)

By Scott Barancik, editor

Drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in June, former LSU star Mason Katz underperformed during the regular season, hitting a modest .249 for the State College Spikes (Class A-short season) while striking out once in every 4 at-bats. His trajectory looked even worse: in the final 10 games, the 5-foot-10-inch second baseman managed to hit just .184.

Apparently, Katz was saving his energy for the playoffs.

Leading all batters with a .435 average, 2 HRs (tie) and 9 RBIs in just 23 at-bats, he carried the Spikes to the brink of the New York-Penn League championships. The team lost to the Tri-City ValleyCats 4-3 in the finale despite Katz’s heroic 2-run HR in the bottom of the ninth.

State College defeated the Jamestown Jammers 2-games-to-1 in the first round of the playoffs. The ValleyCats beat them by the same margin in the second and final round.

Katz was picked in the 4th round of the 2013 draft, 125th overall. A 23-year-old native of Harahan, La., he received a $95,000 signing bonus. He is one of 38 Cardinals farmhands who will be participating in the franchise’s three-week-long instructional league, which begins tomorrow (9/20/2013) in Jupiter, Fla. Among the others attending is 2013 first-round pick Rob Kaminsky.

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