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Thursday, June 14, 2007

Happy Catch Up Time

Injuries/News:

Tim Norton is rumored to be done for the year with major shoulder surgery, which pretty much means he’s done as a prospect…George Kontos finally returned last night…Brett Gardner returned from the DL during my silent period…Jesus Montero WILL play this year, hopefully by the end of the month…Eric Duncan has been placed on the DL with a thumb injury that has been bothering him all season according to the SWBY blog. On the one hand, it makes me hopeful that Duncan has an explanation for his poor performance, on the other hand, there always seem to be an excuse…

AAA:

The Yankee AAA rotation was supposed to be a source of excitement, but that can no longer be said. Clippard is in the bigs, Ohlendorf and Hughes are injured, and Steven Jackson has been moved to the bullpen, finally. Matt DeSalvo and Steve White are plugging away, but neither guy is terribly impressive.

On the offensive side, there’s not much to look for as Alberto Gonzalez continues to struggle and Eric Duncan has returned to the disabled list. The June sample size is small, but thus far Gonzalez has a 2007 OPS trend of .668, .605, and .527.

AA:

The recent news at AA is far more positive. Brett Gardner has returned from the disabled list and is playing extremely well. He is hitting .455/.520/.591 in 6 games back and his season line is up to a somewhat respectable .259/.357/.384. I wasn’t a huge fan of Gardner coming into the season and I still am not, but he’s been showing enough secondary skills to make himself interesting as a potential future reserve.

Unlike Brett Gardner, Cody Ehlers is struggling since coming off the DL. Ehlers seems to be trying to hit for power as his positive BB:K ratio from has been replaced by a ratio of 3:10 in June. While it has resulted in more power, it hasn’t been enough to make his line look good as his June stands at .213/.250/.340. For the season he is at .226/.317/.315 and with Juan Miranda raking in Tampa, he might not have much time left to correct himself.

With the recent promotions of Joba Chamberlain and Ian Kennedy, the AA rotation now goes Chamberlain-Marquez-Horne-Kennedy-Smith. Wow. AAA was supposed to be impressive, but this quintet blows that one out of the water. Joba was impressive in his first AA start despite throwing a lot of pitches. However, that’s bound to happen when you strike out 9 guys in 5 innings. Chamberlain is still primarily a fastball pitcher, with his slider showing flashes, but he’s one of the few guys with a truly dominant fastball, it could probably be described as plus plus, so that’s ok for now.

During the offseason, Jeff Marquez mentioned that it was the development of his curveball that allowed him to start getting more strikeouts in the 06 season. During a recent interview with Pinstripes Plus, Marquez mentioned that he had struggled somewhat with the curve this year, but seemed to be getting the hang of it again and in his last 13 innings he’s struck out 13 men. It seems he has a good idea of how his repertoire works.

Ian Kennedy had a better go of it in his second AA start and so far so good. There are rumors Kennedy has touched 94 recently, I’m not so sure about that. If it’s true, and it becomes a consistent for him, it obviously helps his prospect status quite a bit. If not, he’s still a solid prospect.

Alan Horne and Brett Smith both continued to lay waste to AA batters. If you’re an EL hitter, you have to HATE facing Trenton. They have a team ERA of 2.38 and the second place team is at 3.51.

A+:

The Tampa lineup has been a bit of a feel good story. Marcos Vechionacci is as hot as he has been in his minor league career, Juan Miranda is hitting like Barry Bonds, Colin Curtis is proving that slow and steady wins the race, and the Tampa offense is doing all right for itself.

Jose Tabata is plugging along, doing well enough to keep respectable numbers, but not breaking out enough to need a promotion. It was recently rumored that Tabata has a cyst on his wrist, which is supposedly the source of his power troubles and wrist/hand maladies, but there has been no official word on it. Either way, to this point, Tabata’s prospect status has dimmed just a bit for me. Still an excellent prospect, it’s just that he’s looking more like a future Bobby Abreu than something otherworldly.

Francisco Cervelli is in the midst of a huge slump. He’s hitting just .188 in his last 10 games and his overall line is down to .302/.421/.407. That’s still a terrific line for a 21-year-old C in the FSL. If he can correct himself, or even just maintain his current line, Cervelli would have done a TON to enhance his prospect status this year.

Daniel McCutchen and George Kontos have replaced Kennedy and Chamberlain as the top two in the rotation. They aren’t as exciting a duo, but they get the job done. Kontos was out for a while with an undisclosed injury. It was rumored to be something having to do with the shoulder, but I REALLY REALLY think it was disciplinary action. Either way Kontos returned last night and pitched very well 4-2-0-0-1-6-0 (IP-H-R-ER-BB-K-HR) and McCutchen pitched well today 6-7-0-0-1-4-0. Hopefully, both guys can keep up the good work.

A-:

Ivan Nova continues to get the job done, but in a scary way. A guy throwing as hard as Nova, consistent low 90s and touching the mid 90s, should not have only 19 strikeouts in 43 innings. Even if his secondary pitches were all awful, and they’re not, you would expect more Ks at that level on the basis of his fastball. Until he starts getting the strikeouts up, I can’t get too excited about him.

While Nova has struggled with the lack of Ks, Mike Dunn has just struggled with what appears to be fatigue. He’s getting the job done, but not in an especially pretty matter.

The Charleston offense has been terrific lately. Mitch and Austin have been getting on base fairly consistently and Seth Fortenberry, who is in serious need of a promotion, has been driving them in. Jose Gil has continued to show flashes of power, which seems to be at the cost of his plate discipline, and Eduardo Nunez is struggling. The Yankees recently turned Nunez from a SH to a RHB, so when looking at his season numbers, keep this in mind.

Spotlight On:

Trenton, probably.