Saturday, January 5, 2008
Those That Missed The Cut Pt. 1
The following is a brief rundown on the prospects THAT did not make my Top 25. Questions, comments, and criticism are welcome. I’m going to attempt to have the Top 25 done by the time ST rolls around, but…no guarantees. The following list isn’t in any specific order. Ages listed are “baseball ages” for the 2008 season.
Eric Duncan, 1B, 23 In Duncan’s time in the Yankee minor league system I have ranked him as the 3rd (‘04), 1st (‘05), 2nd (‘06), and 10th (‘07) best prospect in the organization. While Duncan’s high initial rankings were due in part to the Yankee system being terrible, I think that knowing what I know now, I would not have ranked him as high. 2007 was the same old story for Eric. He drew a good amount of walks and didn’t strike out too much, but an inability to hit for average killed his overall numbers: .241/.323/.389. I’m at the point where I don’t believe Duncan will ever learn to do that and his power, on base skills, and defense aren’t strong enough to make him worthwhile unless he can his average up a lot. The Yankees seem to have soured on Eric as well, leaving him unprotected for the Rule V draft, where no one picked him up. It can no longer be said that “Duncan is so young, players his age are normally in [insert favorable minor league level here]” and being what he is, a “slugger” who has trouble providing offensive value due to an inability to turn quality ABs into quality outcomes, I could not leave him in my top 25.
Chris Garcia, RHP, 22 If he can somehow get healthy and stay that way, Garcia has the ability to make me look stupid for leaving him off. However, having missed time due to TJ surgery and then a knee injury while rehabbing, which followed a ‘06 where he also struggled with injuries…I’m beginning to think Garcia just won’t stay healthy enough for long enough to show why some talent evaluators felt he had more ability than Phil Hughes.
J.B. Cox, RHP, 24 Cox could also make me look foolish, but in my defense, he was one of the last guys cut. I’m confident that he will be back to some level of “normal” this year, but a guy coming off an injury whose projected future ML role is 7th inning guy didn’t strike me as someone I wanted in the top 25.
Tim Norton, RHP, 25 This one really hurts. Norton had filthy stuff. Great low to mid 90s fastball and developing splitter. While the Yankees were using him as a starter, he seemed destined for the bullpen as a shutdown reliever. Unfortunately, 5 starts into his ‘07 he had to undergo shoulder surgery, which is not something I tend to be forgiving with.
Brett Gardner, OF, 24 I think this is the one I’m going to get the most hate for, but…I just don’t see it. I’ve gone over his stat lines numerous times, I’ve seen him play, and I just don’t get the Brett Gardner love. Last year I said he could be “the player that everyone thinks Scott Podsednik is” in ranking him 16th and now I think he might just be the real Scott Podsednik. He is not Jacoby Ellsbury. Brett MAY be just as fast and while they may provide equivalent baserunning value, that’s about the only area where they are comparable. Instead of making him a standout defender, Brett’s speed helps him to be a good one due to his making his share of poor reads on the ball. In addition, at the plate, while Jacoby is never going to hit for much power, he has far more than Brett and that is going to help Jacoby’s skills translate to the major league level. Brett walks a good amount now, but major league pitchers are going to knock the bat out of his hands rather than walk him. He also strikes out way more than a player of his skill set should, but has made progress in that regard. Overall, Brett Gardner is REALLY fast and may one day use that to turn into a 5th OF or something, but that’s not enough.
Steven Jackson, RHP, 26 Jackson is a sinkerballer who gets his share of groundballs, but makes far too many mistakes, leading to an elevated home run rate. Outside of his sinker, 88-92, Jackson didn’t demonstrate much in the way of secondary pitches. He’s looking like a one pitch guy, which eliminates him from being a starter long term, and his one pitch isn’t dominant enough to make him a great reliever, at this point.
Alberto Gonzalez, SS, 25 I really like Alberto Gonzalez. It was really tough for me cut a guy from the top 25 who I believe is a really good defender with a developing bat. For the Yankees he could be one of the league’s best backup infielders and on another club he may be a league average SS. I believe that whatever the Yankees did to Gonzalez when he was demoted to AA, it worked because he has been a very different player since then, making a huge cut in his K rate while upping his walk rate. This lasted through his AA time, his return to AAA, and is now carrying over in the winter leagues. Of course, if that improvement isn’t real he’s just a good glove who can’t hit and that’s not worth much.
Steven White, RHP, 27 White has a good fastball, in the low 90s, but it’s not a great fastball. He has decent, if inconsistent, secondary pitches. His control isn’t great. I think he could be Luis Vizcaino, a serviceable reliever, but not much else. He has no long term future starting.
Colin Curtis, OF, 23 Curtis looks like Brett Gardner without the speed. I wanted to believe there was more there last year, but it seems the scouts were correct in writing him off as a ‘tweener. He has time to change this evaluation, but it’s always scary when a guy who lacks power is promoted and proceeds to see good offensive numbers turn into terrible ones due to an increase in strikeouts and decrease in walks.
Chase Wright, LHP, 25 Wright has an average fastball and slightly above average change, but his control and command of all his non-change pitches leaves a lot to be desired. As a result, he is consistently behind in the count and this leads to predictable pitching sequences, which could one day lead to him doing something historic, like giving up a lot of homers in a row or something. The lack of command and control also makes Wright a less than ideal candidate for a bullpen role, so he doesn’t seem to have much of a big league future unless he can learn to command his very average stuff.
Kevin Whelan, RHP, 24 Thanks to a pretty good fastball and splitter combo, Whelan will always have supporters. Unfortunately, his control left him too frequently last year for him to put up the numbers he could/should have. I do wonder how his numbers would have looked if he were limited to just 1 innings more frequently. He’s a guy that I wouldn’t be surprised to see jump back on to the 25 next year.
*To Be Continued*
Friday, May 25, 2007
Vested Interest
Injuries/News:
Nothing.
AAA:
It is my belief that the Yankees have a vested interest in Steven Jackson doing well. Right now, Luis Vizcaino is pitching terribly at the major league level and Ross Ohlendorf is on the disabled list with a back problem. Alberto Gonzalez is having a mediocre AAA season, but given that he plays SS, nothing he does will really have an impact on the team. That leaves Jackson as the only part of the deal currently available to making an impact. To demote him would be to admit that another piece from that deal isn’t what the Yankees originally thought he was. That’s the only explanation I can see for why a guy who just had a start with a line of 4.2-11-6-6-2-1-1 (IP-H-R-ER-BB-K-HR) to up his season totals to 45.1-66-38-31-19-30-6 is still in AAA. I thought Jackson was a pretty solid sleeper pick going into the year, but he’s been a huge letdown.
Speaking of letdowns, the Eric Duncan struggles continued. Duncan was 0 for 3 with 2 walks. He is now down to a .217 AVG in 115 at bats, but a 21:23 BB:K ratio, which is really weird. You would think that a guy who’s displaying such terrific patience and discipline would hit for a higher average, but Duncan still manages to pop the ball up a lot. His average shouldn’t be THIS low, but he hasn’t been as unlucky as his BB:K ratio would leave you to assume. It just hasn’t been a very good year. I expect him to start hitting LHP soon, because he always has, and hopefully that will bring up his overall numbers. He is currently hitting .042/.200/.167 against them in 24 at bats.
AA:
...
A+:
Kei Igawa picked up his first minor league victory with a dominating line of 5-4-2-2-1-4-0…Igawa now has an ERA of 2.00 in 9 Advanced A innings.
The guys with the bats in their hands had some impressive nights. Well, everyone except Reegie Corona who was 0 for 4 with a walk and a steal. Jose Tabata seems to be emerging from his season long power outage because though he was 4 for 5 with all 4 being singles, he was hitting liners all over the field last night. Soon, some of those hard hit singles will begin finding the gaps, I think. Juan Miranda had a huge game, going 3 for 4 with a double and 2 homers, but his season line is still an uninspiring .244/.305/.423 with 14:44 BB:K ratio in 168 at bats. Colin Curtis was 2 for 5 with a homer, a steal, and a strikeout. Curtis was hitting the ball the opposite way in the air, including the homer, which is something he hasn’t done that much this year. Marcos Vechionacci had the quietest positive night by going 1 for 3 with 2 walks. While he hasn’t been hitting the ball with enough authority, Marcos has still managed an 8:10 BB:K ratio in 60 at bats. The key number there is the amount at bats as Vechionacci has tons of time to work on his .217/.309/.283 line. Finally, after a stretch where he was 2 for 12, Francisco Cervelli has heated up in the last 3 games. Francisco was 3 for 4 with 2 doubles, a stolen base, and a strikeout. Cervelli was another guy lacing the ball to the opposite field last night. Over the last 3 games he is 6 for 13 and his season line is incredibly impressive at .347/.439/.466.
A-:
First thing’s first, Mitch Hilligoss is now at 30 games. The 3B was 1 for 3 with a walk and a caught stealing. 30 is kind of a big number, and I would expect Hilligoss to start earning some press clippings now, even though his .324 average and 30-game hit streak have been fairly empty. Austin Jackson was 1 for 4 with a strikeout in his second game in the 3rd slot. Jackson has been hitting the ball up the middle and the opposite way a lot this season, but hasn’t had much to show for it. If he can cut back on his strikeouts and start getting lucky with some of those balls to the opposite field, he should be fine.
20-year-old Ivan Nova was the star of the game from the Riverdogs’ side. Nova’s 3rd start of the season resulted in his 2nd victory and a line of 6-2-0-0-1-4-0. Nova has just 11 strikeouts in 18.1 innings, which is initially surprising given how impressive his repertoire supposedly is, but not as surprising when considering he struck out “just” 36 batters in 43 Gulf Coast League innings last year.
Spotlight On:
Tyler Clippard. He’s facing Jered Weaver and there has to be some poetic justice to this match up. Weaver was pegged as number 3 starter and has thus far performed like an ace. Clippard was pegged as a back of the rotation guy and will be looking to prove his doubters wrong in as fantastic a fashion as Weaver has.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Jackson Debuts
4.10.07 Review:
Steve Jackson made his first start for AAA Scranton and was impressive throughout the game. While he tired in his 5th inning of work, giving up back to back home runs, prior to that he was winning me over. Similar to Ohlendorf, Jackson doesn’t seem to have amazing movement on his sinker, but is able to get ground balls by pounding the bottom half of the zone. The difference between his start today and Ohlendorf’s last time around was that when Jackson went to his breaking stuff it had more movement than Ohlie’s and he was able to get swings and misses or weak contact. Unfortunately, in the 5th inning it seemed that he got a bit tired as both home run pitches were just a bit higher than they should have been and dealt with accordingly.
Eric Duncan had a very poor offensive game. In his first at bat he worked a full count before popping up on a pitch in on his hands. His second AB was a giveaway as he quickly struck out on a fastball up and away. His third AB provided a bit of excitement as he got hold of a pitch and drilled it deep and gone, but foul. He would then strike out on another up and away fastball. Fourth time up, Duncan popped up on a pitch down and away to the CF and then in his final AB he had his most frustrating appearance. Bottom of the 9th and his team down a run, Duncan came up with a runner on. He worked the count to 2-0 and things were looking good, but then it all went bad. Duncan would then proceed to pull off on next 3 pitches, which looked to be change-ups, as he was no doubt looking to connect on a game winner, but instead just whiffed.
Alberto Gonzalez was 1 for 4 with a solid line drive single, one of the best hit balls I’ve seen from him thus far, and a walk and a strikeout. He also was finally show off his much talked about defensive tools. On a low line drive grounder to his right during the 9th Gonzalez ranged right, backhanded the ball from a crouching position, and just let loose from the same position to throw the runner out. No jump throw, no leveraging, just a very nice play.
The Riverdogs took their first loss of the season as their hitters were simply over matched by Josh Sullivan of the Asheville Tourists. On the defensive/pitching end, Tim Norton also ran into a bit of bad luck. While none of the 3 hits or foul balls that he gave up in his 4.1 innings was particularly hard hit, Norton struggled just enough with his control, 3 walks, that the opposition was able to push runs across. At the least, Norton was as advertised, stuff-wise. The vast majority of his pitches were fastballs, on this night he was 90-96, and he seemed a bit reluctant to go to his secondary stuff. The opposition could not handle his fastball in the early going, but after a while they learned to deal with it and the secondary arsenal was on and off.
Offensively, no one had a good game. Even Mitch Hilligoss’ 2 hit night was of the “it will look like a line drive in tomorrow’s paper” variety. Austin Jackson knocked the crap out of the ball a couple times, but got nothing to show for it as he still seems to just give ABs away every now and then. Wilmer Pino also drew another walk, no clue what’s going on there. Unfortunately, after he got on base he had the less than terrific idea to try and steal home. While he was caught doing so, it was kind of cool that he made the play close; he’s got some good speed.
Around The Minors:
Trenton lost in extra innings as nothing too exciting happened for their prospects. Brett Gardner was 0 for 3 with 2 walks and 1 strikeout, Ramiro Pena struck out twice but also collected a single in 6 ABs, and Cody Ehlers was 0 for 5 with a walk and the game winning RBI. On the mound, Kevin Whelan pitched 2 innings, gave up 1 hit, and struck out 2.
Tampa was rained out and will play a doubleheader today.
Spotlight On:
Scranton is the place to be as Tyler Clippard gets his 2nd AAA start and Eric Duncan looks to snap out of his funk.
Monday, March 5, 2007
Spring Training Notes (3/5/07)
-Phil Hughes struggled in his first appearance of the Spring, but that’s not much of a worry. When a guy has the physical ability as well as performance track record of a Hughes, you don’t get worried because he does poorly his first time out in the Spring. He was obviously a bit nervous and that hurt him, as he wasn’t finishing on most of his pitches, leading to spotty control and poor break on his curveball.
-Jose Tabata seems to be in good shape. The difference between when I saw him last year and seeing him this year seems to be that last season he was built like a big kid and now he looks like an NFL running back. He solidified this opinion my going 1st to 3rd very quickly on A-Rod’s botched double in the first game of the Spring. This has eased some of my worry about his weight/development as I feel he might just be one of those stocky fast guys with a broad base of skills, a la Bobby Abreu. I was afraid he might have to be downgraded to a one-dimensional slugger, one of the primary reasons I didn’t grade him as a straight A on my Top 25. -Marcos Vechionacci looks like he’s beginning to grow into his body. He’s already gotten pretty big and he has plenty of room to get bigger. I was impressed by the way he pulled the ball on his first hit as that was something that he has struggled with in the past and I don’t think the less meaty Vechionacci that we saw last year would have been able to do the same thing. I think strength and leveraging that stretch as he gets bat to ball will be the most critical aspect of Marcos’ development this year. He has the plate discipline to succeed in Tampa; it is just a matter of improving the quality of his contact. -Ross Ohlendorf was very impressive in his first outing of the Spring. The Princeton product looked a lot like Wang and you have to assume that’s the projection the Yankees were making in acquiring him. He worked off of his 92-94 MPH sinker and had a very nice outing. Reports in the offseason made it seem as though his velocity on the pitch would be a tick lower than that, but I think this is about what should be expected. I think he’s going to have to refine his secondary pitches some more though because I’m not sure his sinker is of the quality of Wang’s, which is what allows Wang to get by with such a limited repertoire. -Steven Jackson got some work in today, but didn’t look very good at all. He was mainly 89-90 and it looked incredibly straight for a guy who is supposed to be a sinkerballer. He didn’t show much in the way of other pitches and got knocked around a bit as well. I’ve speculated on Jackson as a poor man’s Ohlendorf and Ohlendorf as a poor man’s Wang. The problem with this is that Wang, despite great performance thus far, does not have the greatest room for error. The more you downgrade the quality of Wang…the less enticing the pitching prospect. Hopefully that makes as much sense to you as it did in my head. -I love Tyler Clippard. I’m not going to pretend I’m without bias because the fact of the matter is that I’ve had a huge man crush on him since 2003 and every time Baseball America or someone else has questioned his ability, it has made my man crush larger. That said, I don’t think I’m out of line in saying that Clippard was terrific today. His much-maligned fastball was 89-92 and looked like it had solid movement on it. His changeup gave him the most trouble as there were a couple of times he didn’t finish on the pitch and it flew on him, most noticeably on the HBP. His curveball wasn’t thrown much, but he got his lone strikeout on it and would have had another strikeout in an earlier AB had the umpire not blown the call, so that pitch was working well. He also displayed what seemed to be a quick move to 1st. Overall, I would say Clippard did a good job of showing what he’s all about and why his future may not be as dull as some seem to anticipate. -As a result of injuries, Humberto Sanchez has not pitched any Spring innings. Is anyone surprised? I didn’t want to rate Sanchez ahead of Clippard during the offseason, but gave into everyone’s raving about his stuff. I’m beginning to regret that decision, but you know, small sample size and all. -The Run Fairy™ is alive and well. -Bronson Sardinha is Melky Cabrera with less discipline and, as a result, less ability to hit for average, but more power. He might be John Vander Wal.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
My week old Randy Johnson post
The Yankees have traded Randy Johnson. I’ve never been the biggest fan of Mr. Johnson. I didn’t want him here and each time he pitched I hoped that he would go about 7 innings and give up 7 runs while the Yankees scored 10. He didn’t quite do that, though it seems he certainly tried to in 2006. Johnson wasn’t as spectacular as the Yankees probably felt he would be in dealing for him, nor was he as terrible as I wanted him to be. Instead, he was somewhere in the middle. His first year was pretty good and his second pretty poor, but no matter he was usually good for 6+ innings. As Barry Zito has proven this offseason, innings are important.
I am in no way saying that Randy Johnson is as dependable as Zito. He’s not as healthy and he’s not nearly as young. However, compared to the rest of the Yankee rotation, he might as well have been Zito. Wang will be coming off a season where he pitched about 70 more innings than he ever has in his life, Mike Mussina usually expires after 100 pitches, Kei Igawa is an unknown, Andy Pettitte is a wildcard. So, Randy Johnson with all his injury/age/health issues was probably still one of the more dependable Yankee starters going forward health-wise. As much as I don’t like him, it is tough to lose that.
As for what the Yankees got back, they can best be summarized as a bunch of C+ prospects and a replacement Scott Proctor. Vizcaino might be coming off a solid year in relief, but his performance record and/or stuff is not that of a reliever that you can be fairly certain will shut down the late innings for you. Steven Jackson seems to be of the Darrell Rasner/Jeff Karstens mold of guys you definitely trade if someone comes knocking with something useful. Alberto Gonzalez looks like he has a future as a utility infielder ahead of him. Ross Ohlendorf…is interesting.
Given the logjam of RHP in the organization, the Yankees may consider moving Ohlendorf to the bullpen. It would certainly be tempting to magically have a bullpen arm that can be counted on for 95+ fastballs on a regular basis. However, if left as a starter, Ohlendorf may still prove very valuable. At the moment, his secondary pitches are fringy. Of those offerings, his slider seems to show the most potential, as at times it has been a strikeout pitch. So, how is it that a starting pitcher with only one reliable pitch, in the upper minors, was able to author 182.2 innings of 3.25 ERA ball? Well, his first step was to not walk anyone, 1.4 per 9. His second step was to limit the long ball, .6 per 9. So while he didn’t strike out too many, 6.4 per 9, and allowed a less than ideal amount of hits, 9.2 per 9, he was ok. The pitch he accomplished all this with was a power sinker in the low 90s.
It remains to be seen how effective Chien-Ming Wang will be going forward. However, to this point he has been very effective for the Yankees. I have no doubt that the Yankees saw some of him in Ohlendorf, and they have every right to have made that connection. While the questionable secondary offerings and lack of huge strikeout numbers will keep him from ever having top pitching prospect billing, there is reason to believe that Ohlendorf may be more than meets the eye. Because of this, I feel the trade hinges on him. I will not rank him or anyone from the RJ trade in the current version of the top 25, but after I finish counting down, I will go back and attempt to place them.
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