INTRODUCTION:
As noted elsewhere, after a very active draft season, I’m reviewing the organization’s prospect depth by position—both because it’s fun, and so that I can spend some time getting my head around all these guys. It’s a lot of work, probably…and we’ll see how far I get. I’ll probably do some form of depth charts. These will be my views rather than the game’s views. Bottom line, I still don’t trust OOTP’s algorithms particularly far when it comes to determining overall values of players. This means your mileage may vary relative to mine. I’ll focus on the prospects, and probably go into some fringy guys, too. I’m not going to list every single player in the organization, but by talking about some guys I’m guessing that I’ll expose the depths of the fact that I tend to see more players as prospects than the average guy—just like I’ll discount some players at the top end when they are young (assuming that they’ll bust some), I’ll often look at a younger guy missing some things and give them the benefit of the doubt.
Plan for success, I always say, and adjust down.
OVERALL ASSESSMENT AT RIGHT FIELD
To be direct, we brought up 21-year-old Andy McKinney on a bit of a prayer. He jumped AAA, after all. But, yeah the ratings looked semi-reasonable and his AA numbers popped. So today he’s at .291/.368/.561 in the strongside of the platoon out in right field, and his glove is almost semi-okay. Yes, we’d like him more in left field—which is where he’ll probably be next year—but beggars can’t be choosers. When McKinney’s not out there, we mostly use Carlos Camacho, which almost works. Sometimes. Well, to be honest, not so much. But the John Ginn experiment didn’t work out so hot, and Ginn’s down in AAA right now.
So, blah.
Otherwise, and given that we’d prefer McKinney over on the other side of the field, here’s how I see our organization depth:
DEPTH CHART
AAA – Jose Machado (**.5) – LHB 6/6/8/7/7 (6/6/9 Def)
A – Javier Rodriguez – (***.5) LHB 7/9/9/7/5 (3/6/7 Def)
R - Raul Valdez – (**.5) RHB 7/9/8/6/6 (5/6/8 Def) << NEW
A - Randy Williams (**) – RHB 6/7/7/6/5 (6/4/8 Def)
AAA - John Ginn – (**.5) RHB 7/8/6/4/7 (7/5/9 Def)
This was supposed to be Jose Machado’s year. He’d hit a little bit and got on base a lot as a 20-year-old AAAer, but he got sent back to the minors to see if his power might step in—which it did, at least a bit. But then he went and tore a meniscus, and, as Springsteen wrote “boy that was all she wrote.” Out for a season. Technically, I’d put him second on the chart behind Rodriguez, but with a little luck he’ll come back good as new next year and be able to play. Otherwise, yeah, he’ll fall a bit. But he’s 21, left-handed, and carries around a big outfield arm. All signs Green.
Rodriguez was a first round supplemental pick last year, and fit right in at Short A. He’s a popular Puerto Rican with gap power and patience already all grown up. Defensively he projects to maybe a bit better than fair at best, and he’s got a hitch in his swing that lefties will exploit. I’m expecting big things, though. With luck, he’ll skip through A-ball pretty quickly. If the OBP stay up, we’ll get him promoted fairly quickly.
Valdez was listed as a 1B when we took him in this year’s round 2 supplemental draft, but he’s got the chops for a right fielder. I like that he’s right handed because we’re probably going to need a platoon with some of the other prospects on this depth chart. At 17, he’s got a ways to go, but he’s showing splits that say he might be a lefty-masher.
Which brings me to John Ginn, a guy who’s still only 23 years old. We got him in a weird little three-way deal with Des Moines and Louisville. Yes, he’s got an attitude. So the hell what? He should still be able to hit, which he’s done just fine in AAA, but which he hasn’t done worth a crap in the majors. He’s still got a tad under of year of service time left before he gets to arbitration. We’ll see what happens. I expect he’ll be back up sometime semi-soon, depending on injuries. I’d love to have his glove around to plug in. But sheesh, it’s really, really time to put-up or shut-up.
DARK HORSE: RHB George Childers (5/6/3/9/5 – 4/8/10) off-the-charts patience makes him an interesting player. He’s 23, and still needs a bump somewhere else, though. Unlikely, but they don’t call ‘em dark horses for nothing. Also, Roberto Garcia (5/6/3/6/6 – 7/6/6) has come out of the IC and will get a chance to see if he can dev up.
