Just as the start of 2012 brought a lot of excitement to Charleston, the Tampa Yankees reaped the benefits in the latter half of the year. Unfortunately, a slow start to the season put the Yankees in a big hole in the Florida State League and they ended the year with a 65-70 record, their first losing season since 2005. Additions of Slade Heathcott, Mason Williams, Gary Sanchez and Tyler Austin revived them somewhat, but in the end their inconsistencies early in the season were too much for the Yankees’ hottest prospects to salvage.
While inconsistency was a problem for the Yankees on both offense and defense in 2012, they should have some solid players on both sides of the field this year. Combined with some strong players waiting for promotions down in Charleston, it could be enough to propel the Yankees back to a winning season, if not another FSL championship. Williams and Sanchez will anchor a strong lineup, with Angelo Gumbs probably starting in Charleston. Gumbs could spend most of the year with Tampa and be another great asset for the Yankees’ High-A club. Yankees fans will also recognize a few of the people guiding the young hopefuls, as Luis Sojo will continue to manage the Tampa Yankees. Marcus Thames will join Tampa as the batting coach.
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There was quite a bit of excitement in Charleston when the 2012 season got underway, as the RiverDogs’ Opening Day roster boasted some of the Yankees’ most exciting prospects. With Tyler Austin, Mason Williams, Gary Sanchez, Dante Bichette, Jr. and others, it looked like the RiverDogs would be the team to beat in the South Atlantic League. Unfortunately for Charleston, Austin, Williams and Sanchez moved up to Tampa part way through the season, while Cito Culver and Bichette struggled to make up for the lost production and the RiverDogs ended the season 73-63, just short of a SAL playoff berth.
As always, there will be plenty of changes in Charleston this season, and I am not just talking about the newest addition to their heralded concessions - the beer milkshake. These changes will start in the dugout, as Al Pedrique will take over managing duties for the RiverDogs for Carlos Mendoza, the new roving defense coach for the Yankees minor league system. Pedrique served as the Arizona Diamondbacks’ interim manager in 2004 and was the bench coach for the Houston Astros the last couple years.
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In my book, the most enduring myth in baseball is that the introduction of the amateur draft in 1990 destroyed Puerto Rico as an incubator of MLB talent. People use it as an example why the international draft the MLB and MLBPA are negotiating right now is a bad idea. I’ll let you decide. Can you spot the draft-related decline in Puerto Rican MLB players after 1990?
Can you spot it? I include Dominican players (the red line) to show what people are really talking about: the decline of Puerto Rico as a hotbed of baseball talent in relation to the newest non-US powerhouse: the Dominican Republic. While levels of Puerto Rican MLB players remained fairly constant, even growing a little bit, through the early aughts, Dominican baseball exploded. This does not mean that baseball on the island declined, just that it didn’t explode as much as baseball on the other island.
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The Yankees have a lot of strong prospects in their minor league system since about 2005, when they began to turn around one of the worst farm systems in baseball. Some of these top prospects include: Robinson Cano, Chien-Ming Wang, Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy, Andrew Brackman, Dellin Betances, Austin Jackson, Jose Tabata, Christian Garcia, Tyler Clippard, Mark Melancon, Eric Duncan, Melky Cabrera, Brett Gardner, Alan Horne, Jesus Montero, Jeff Marquez, David Robertson, Zach McAllister, Hector Noesi, Eduardo Nunez, plus the current crop.
I list out those names for a couple of reasons. The first is a little bit of nostalgia. I loved following these players as they climbed the minor league ladder. But the second is more important: it seems like Yankeee pitchers have on the whole disappointed a lot more, while quite a few Yankee hitters have significantly exceeded expectations.
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I’m a prospect guy. I’ve always been most passionate about baseball when I’m reading about or watching some guy in High-A who might make the major leagues some day. Last week, I advocated trading four young Yankee players, including top outfield prospects Mason Williams or Slade Heathcott, in a package for Padres star Chase Headley.
Reacting to my post, several readers dug in their heels against the idea of trading prospects in general. Their reaction is probably best summarized by OldYankeeFan’s comment:
I would NOT give up any prime meat for a 2 year rental.
You never know who is going to make it large.
We dangled Mo, Cano and others in the past. Fortunately, they weren’t taken. AJax was!Remember. THE DYNASTY WAS BUILD ON THE BACKS OF FIVE HOMEGROWN PLAYERS!!!
That will NEVER happen again if we keep trading our better/best prospect for ONE shiney object.
I share some of this instinct, but I think it is misguided. Obviously, if any given talented group of prospects were going to turn out to produce all of (or really, any single one of) Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter, and Andy Pettitte, you would handcuff them to the team and throw away the key. But we know that’s not the reality. All four of those players have an argument for the Hall of Fame, and two are arguably the best players ever at their position. Prospects turning into these four players are rare events.
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With Spring Training underway and the Yankees gearing up for their first “game,” it seems like a good time to look at the Yankees of the future. The bulk of the Yankees’ strongest prospects still have at least a couple years to go, but they are getting closer. Some of these guys may find their way to the Bronx at during the next seven or eight months, others are still a few years away from the majors and – of course – some may never get the chance to run out onto a big league field. Regardless, here are some names to keep an eye on during this year’s Farm Reports.
1. Gary Sanchez (C):
We had Sanchez at the top of our list all last season and see no real reason to move him out of that top spot, though some of the other young guys make this a bit of a harder decision – but more about them later. The Yankees have had a wealth of catcher prospects over the last few years, but with Jesus Montero now in Seattle and Austin Romine missing most of last season with another back injury, Sanchez has become the focal point in the Yankees’ internal search for their future catcher. Sanchez had a rough 2011, with some “character” issues and a mediocre year at the plate, but he seemed to turn it around quite a bit in 2012.
Offensively, Sanchez still is a bit raw, but at 20 he continues to improve and has always projected to hit for average and power. He hit .290/.344/.485 between Charleston and Tampa in 2012. He was SAL Player of the Week twice and picked up SAL Mid-Season All-Star and MiLB.com Organization All-Star honors. Much like Montero, Sanchez’s offensive potential has never been questioned, but his ability to stick behind the plate continues to garner discussion. He has a strong arm and appears to be making improvements defensively. He is probably a safer bet to play catcher than Montero ever was, but some scouts continue to doubt whether this will happen. Sanchez will likely start the year in Tampa and find himself in Trenton by the end of the season, giving him a few more years until we see him in the Bronx.
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Baseball America released its 100 Top Prospects list and four Yankees make an appearance on the list. None of the names are surprising but their postions in the list might be. None of them are in the Top 30 – the highest prospect appears at #32. The number one prospect on BA’s list is Jurickson Profar, a highly touted SS/2B in the Texas Rangers organization.
The Yankees on the list are:
OF Mason Williams at #32
C Gary Sanchez at #57
OF Slade Heathcott at #63
OF Tyler Austin at #77
Last year, the Yankees had four players on the list as well, with Manny Banuelos named the highest ranked Yankee prospect, appearing at #29 on the list. Banuelos is currently recovering from Tommy John surgery. Another player not appearing on this year’s list is Dellin Betances who was slotted into #63 on 2012′s list.
Betances was also the victim of a very disappointing 2012. His problems were not injury-related like Banuelos, they were mainly were performance related. He split his time with the Empire State Yankees and Double A Trenton and finished the year with a 6-9 record with a 6.44 ERA.
Sanchez and Williams also appeared on last year’s list at #81 and #85 respectively.
The last ten months or so have been downright brutal for the Yankees’ farm system in the pitching department, but perhaps they’re getting off to a good start in 2013. Via George King, Yankees’ player development chief Mark Newman confirms that Jose Campos has completed his throwing program and is ready to return to the field this spring. Campos, 20, got off to a scorching start with Charleston last April before being sidelined with a mysterious elbow injury. He went on to miss the rest of the season. I would imagine that he’s ticketed for a return to the Riverdogs this year, but the main goal will have to be keeping him healthy over a year of full season ball.
The Yankees’ farm system isn’t quite as impressive at first blush as they were at this time last year, but they still have a lot of talent (albeit towards the bottom of the system), and they still stack up pretty well against the rest of the league. In fact, Keith Law thinks they have a top ten system, putting them in the tenth spot in his just released organizational rankings. That corresponds pretty closely with the rankings of Baseball America (11th) and John Sickels (14th), putting the Yankees squarely in the top half of the league. After trading away Jesus Montero and having Manny Banuelos and Jose Campos go down with injuries in 2012, that’s a real testament to the work Brian Cashman and the front office has done in investing in player development recently.
On a quick programming note: You should probably expect light blogging from me over the next two days. I have a small parade to attend tomorrow that will occupy most of my day, and as for today, well frankly I’m far too distracted/exhausted to find many interesting things about baseball. We’ll still be on top of any developing news and what have you though, rest assured, and if that just doesn’t do it for you, On the Money is going to a four day a week schedule now that February has arrived, and Stacey and I will be live at 9:00 P.M. through Thursday. I apologize in advance for my meandering into football talk tonight.
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