The Clubhouse DJ: Braylon Payne Triples Twice as the Timber Rattlers' Home Run Duo Opens the AFL
By Nate Mercer ·
Braylon Payne's second triple of the Arizona Fall League left his bat at 107.9 mph Thursday night at Scottsdale Stadium. It came with two outs in the third inning off Guardians right-hander Aidan Major, a fly ball that carried 349 feet to right field and scored two runs. Nehomar Ochoa Jr. tripled Payne home in the next at-bat, and Eric Bitonti's groundout brought in a fourth run. That was every run Scottsdale scored in a 4-1 win over Surprise. First pitch was at 6:32 p.m., and it was 97 degrees.
Anyone who spent the summer around the Fox Valley will recognize those two names. Payne and Bitonti played most of 2026 for High-A Wisconsin, and between them they rewrote the Timber Rattlers' single-season home run record twice. Payne hit his 23rd on Aug. 8 at Beloit to break a mark of 22 that had stood since 2010. Bitonti tied him on Aug. 26, then lined his 24th off the clock above the South Bend bullpen in Grand Chute the next night, as the club's Chris Mehring described it on MiLB.com. Payne's record lasted less than three weeks. Bitonti finished with 25.
Payne Brings the Triples
Payne is 20, a left-handed center fielder the Brewers took 17th overall in 2024 out of Elkins High School in Missouri City, Texas. He hit eight home runs at Single-A Carolina in 2025. This year he hit .277/.358/.552 with 28 homers and 25 steals between Wisconsin and Double-A Biloxi, and his 23 homers and 22 steals at Wisconsin made him the first Timber Rattler with a 20-homer, 20-steal season. 80Grade's prospect rankings have him No. 83 overall and No. 4 in the Brewers system.
Through four AFL games he is 4-for-15 with two triples, three walks, three RBIs and six strikeouts in 18 plate appearances. The strikeouts track with his season, when he struck out 136 times in 467 plate appearances, or 29.1 percent. His first triple came in the first inning Monday at Sloan Park, a line drive to center against Mesa. In the 10th inning of that game, his groundout put Scottsdale ahead 6-5. Antonio Anderson singled in the tying run for Mesa in the bottom half, and the game went into the books as a 6-6 tie after three hours and 23 minutes.
Bitonti Breaks a Tie at Camelback
Bitonti's first AFL hit was a home run. On Oct. 4 at Camelback Ranch, with the score tied 2-2 in the sixth, he hit a 110.3-mph fly ball 383 feet to right-center off White Sox right-hander Mathias LaCombe. Scottsdale never gave the lead back and beat Glendale 5-2. That is still his only hit in 14 AFL at-bats, with three walks and five strikeouts.
Bitonti is a 20-year-old first baseman, a 2023 third-round pick out of Aquinas High School in California. He hit .262/.378/.507 with 25 homers and 24 steals in 117 games this year. All 25 homers came at Wisconsin, and he went 3-for-24 in a six-game look at Biloxi to close the season. 80Grade ranks him No. 21 in the Brewers system.
A Catcher Who Walks
The Brewer in this group I'd most like to watch from behind home plate, a few rows up, is Matthew Wood. He's a 25-year-old catcher from Naperville, Illinois, a 2022 fourth-round pick out of Penn State, and he hit .257/.398/.492 with 18 homers in 95 games at Biloxi this year. He walked 71 times and struck out 52. In Monday's tie he caught, went 2-for-3 and walked twice, and he's 3-for-6 with two walks and no strikeouts in two AFL games.
Francisca's Five-Hit Opener
Welbyn Francisca opened his fall with five hits. He went 5-for-5 for Surprise on Oct. 3 at Scottsdale Stadium with a home run, a ground-rule double, a walk and a stolen base, and he scored three runs and drove in three in a 9-3 win. First pitch was at 3:31 p.m., and it was 99 degrees. Through three games he's 7-for-13 with one strikeout.
Francisca is a 20-year-old switch-hitting shortstop from La Romana, Dominican Republic. Cleveland signed him in January 2023 for $1.375 million as its top international signing of that class, according to his MiLB.com bio. In 2025 he hit three homers in 98 games at Single-A Hill City. This year he opened on the injured list, joined High-A Lake County in the Midwest League on June 4, and hit .277/.356/.538 with 17 homers in 65 games there before a five-game finish at Double-A Akron. He hit 19 homers across all his stops. 80Grade has him No. 20 in the Guardians system.
Reid's Four Innings
Cubs right-hander Dominick Reid started Mesa's opener at Peoria Stadium on Oct. 3 and struck out seven of the 13 batters he faced in four innings. He walked one, struck out the side in the third and threw 34 of his 53 pitches for strikes. The only hit he allowed was a solo homer to center by Tai Peete in the fourth. Mesa led 6-1 when he left, and Peoria scored twice in the ninth to win 7-6.
K-BB% is my favorite pitching stat because it fits on a napkin. Seven strikeouts minus one walk, over 13 batters, comes out to 46.2 percent. One start in October proves very little, and I'm writing it down anyway. Reid is 22, from Plano, Texas, and the Cubs drafted him in the third round in 2025 out of Abilene Christian. This year he made 13 starts with a 3.86 ERA and 54 strikeouts in 53 2/3 innings. He went on the injured list at Single-A Myrtle Beach on June 2 and didn't pitch again until the Cubs assigned him to High-A South Bend on Sept. 1. 80Grade ranks him No. 7 in the Cubs system.
The AFL runs through its championship game on Nov. 14 at Peoria Sports Complex. Between now and then I'll be watching whether Payne's strikeouts come down and whether Bitonti finds a second hit to go with the homer.
Weekend Concert Pick
If I'm going to one show this weekend, it's Saturday, October 10, when Squirrel Flower plays Turntable in Indianapolis. Ella Williams is touring Say a Prayer to the Gods of Getting Going, her August record on Polyvinyl, with a full band on her first headlining run in two years. Turntable is Forty5's room next door to the Vogue in Broad Ripple, about 400 standing and 18+. Doors open at 7, the show starts at 8, and tickets are $20 before fees. Dari Bay opens, and I'd be there for his set.
Make a trip of it. Hotel Broad Ripple has 20 rooms about a ten-minute walk away, and Cholita does tacos and margaritas on Broad Ripple Avenue. Luna Music is a mile and change south on College and open until 7 Saturday, which leaves time to buy more records than planned before doors. If Chicago is closer, Grandaddy plays Thalia Hall on Friday, an 1892 hall in Pilsen that holds about 800.