9-News: 37.042 – Draft Fallout: The Hot Corner

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9-News: 37.042 – Draft Fallout: The Hot Corner

Post by RonCo » Tue Jan 15, 2019 1:56 pm

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 THIRD BASE

Look, I get it. No one thinks a crap-ton of Rob Thomas. You look at those 7/8/7/3/7 ratings and think … meh. Defensively, you check out that blocky 4/5/10/5 piece of leather and you hold your nose. But, you know what? The guy’s actual numbers in the field are only borderline ugly, and he rakes right handed pitching. He’s a nice little 2-WAR guy in a platoon, and this year, well, the guy’s ready to slip into his second All-Star team, clubbing .344/.392/.633 with 16 homers and 44 RBI.

The right-handed side of the platoon is Alejandro Rodriguez, who had a nice start, but seems to have stuttered a bit lately. At least he’s a glove guy, though, so that helps a bit.

Overall, we’re pretty happy today—which is probably a good thing, because depending on how we see Dong-po Thum (and while the future could bring wonderful things) we aren’t super-deep here.

Here’s how I see our organization depth:

DEPTH CHART


A – Dong-po Thum (*****) – RHB 10/10/6/6/10 (8/8/12/7 Def)
SA – Roberto Viramontas – (**.5) RHB 7/8/3/6/8 (9/6/9/7 Def)
R - Nathan Moon – RHB 7/8/2/3/9 (3/4/9/3 Def) << NEW
A - Victor Vargas – RHB 6/7/6/3/7 (5/8/8/3 Def)
IC - Ambroz Stites - RHB 5/7/8/6/5 (5/8/8/3 Def)

As noted in other places, we really prefer to see Dong-po Thum as a shortstop, but he’s listed here, too, which is where he’ll play if the defense doesn’t tick up a notch. At present, Thumb can be a Zimmer winner here. Since I’ve already waxed poetic about him elsewhere, I’ll abstain here.

I’ve also touched on Viramontas a couple times in this series (as second and short). The fact is, however, that the master plan has him at third base—which is why we just now moved him up to 3B in SA. Well, technically, I moved him up there last sim, but for whatever reason the export didn’t stick. He lacks the huge power-punch you’d generally associate with a third baseman, but his stick looks reasonable, and the extra-gap power should make up for some of the dearth of homers he’ll not hit. Defensively, the glove looks like it would be a Zimmer candidate at third. If he closes up that “6” error, we could see pushing him back to shortstop on purpose rather than as a back-up plan.

Bottom line: we’re not sure where Roberto Viramontas will play, but we’re planning to get him ready for several eventualities.

Nathan Moon is a new draftee, and to be honest we’re not sure what to make of him. He can’t field today, and his bat is good, but hollow. So ultimately he’s a development project who we’ll move around the organization in efforts to get him playing time and see what happens. The raw material that’s there is good, so fingers are crossed. He’ll play all year at Rookie ball this year.

Then there’s Victor Vargas, a guy we bought out of the IFA pool for $3M. Though he’s still technically a prospect, he’s lumped a couple points of contact, a point of power, and a couple points of eye. My best guess is that he’s toast—but you never know, right? He’s up in A-ball now, but the early returns are not good, and he’s got Viramontas putting pressure on the organization to keep Vargas up, despite those ugly numbers.

Finally, Stites is an interesting find down in the International complex. We expect to see him in Rookie ball pretty soon. Time will tell, but we like hs glove and his power. If the "5" contact is on the high end, that's good. If it bumps a bit, that's better.


DARK HORSE: RHB Reijiro Taketo (5/9/5/5/8 – 3/5/10/7) has had a bit of an interesting journey. We draffffffted him in 2034, and he’s lost a considerable chunk of his luster, but he’s still got serious gap power, and the arm is good. He’s dropped good numbers in limited play, and his work ethic is pretty solid. We’re just going to leave him play for a bit and see what happens.
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Re: 9-News: 37.042 – Draft Fallout: The Hot Corner

Post by recte44 » Wed Jan 16, 2019 3:39 pm

Might be time to move Thum up to AA, he's ready.

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