Happy Birthday, Cody

Today the Aces family wishes infielder Cody Ransom a happy 36th birthday.

In December, Ransom inked a one-year Minor League deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks for the second-straight season. His contract includes an invitation to Major League Spring Training, where he’ll compete for a spot on the D-backs’ 25-man roster.

In 2011, Ransom put together one of the most productive offensive seasons in Aces franchise history. He set new Aces single-season home run and RBI records in 2011, despite playing in just 101 games. Ransom hit 27 home runs, breaking the previous record of 25 (INF Brandon Allen, 2010). He also drove in 92 runs, besting the old mark of 86 RBIs (Allen, 2010). The D-backs Triple-A record for home runs is 30 (OF Ernie Young, 1999) and the record for RBIs is 110 (INF Josh Whitesell, 2008). Ransom had 432 plate appearances in 2011, compared with Allen’s 469 PA in 2010.

For his efforts, Ransom earned a Pacific Coast League Player of the Week honor and was named to the PCL’s mid-season and post-season all-star teams.

Ransom’s impressive numbers came in a season where he spent a month in the big leagues. You might remember this or even this.

He finished the 2011 season ranked among Minor League Baseball’s active career leaders in runs scored (811) and home runs (210), and he’ll start the 2012 season 10 RBIs shy of 800 in his professional career and 61 hits shy of 1,300 in his Minor League career. 

Ransom has spent parts of nine seasons in the big leagues with the Giants, Astros, Yankees, Phillies and Diamondbacks. In 2008, he became the 11th player in Yankees franchise history to homer in his first-career plate appearance with the storied franchise (in the expansion era). When he homered in his next plate appearance, he became the first Yankee player to accomplish the feat in club history. Later that season, on Sept. 21, Ransom made the final putout in the history of Yankee Stadium.