9-News: 42.021 – Prospect Rankings – Bullpen

[RonCo]

Round ‘em Up The Usual Suspects

Level	Player	Age	T	OVR	STU/MOV/CON	Pitches
AAA	Armando Duarte	21	R	70/70	9/6/9 -	97 MPH. 8/2/10
AAA	Josh Henson	22	L	60/70	7/7/8 -	93 MPH. 8/1/9
AAA	Ernesto Martas	20	L	40/55	5/9/9 -	94 MPH. 7/6/8/7
AAA	Alberto Contreras	22	R	45/50	6/5/10 -	94 MPH, 7/9/1
AAA	Al Colbert	22	R	55/80	7/7/9 -	92 MPH, 8/8/2
AAA	Bartolo Olvera	21	R	35/70	8/7/7 -	95 MPH. 9/9/2
AA	Bartolo Gomez	23	R	40/40	6/6/7 -	97 MPH, 8/8
AAA	Carlos Elias	22	R	45/45	9/5/4 -	99 MPH, 9/10
AA	Knud Calhoven	24	R	35/45	6/4/10 -	95 MPH, 8/9/1
A	Vicente Mendez	21	R	40/40	6/5/7 -	95 MPH, 9/8/1
AAA	Roberto Fernandez	23	R	45/50	7/6/5 -	95 MPH. 8/8/2
AA	Juan Pena	23	R	30/30	7/5/9 -	94 MPH, 5/6/10/1
AAA	Jean Kattenberg	21	L	50/50	9/4/5 -	99 MPH, 10/9/1
INT	Lawrence Sepkiechler	17	L	20/40	4/7/6 -	88 MPH, 7/7
A	Jorge Andres	21	R	25/45	9/2/6 -	99 MPH, 9/2/9
AA	Manuel Gomez	22	R	30/30	5/8/2 -	97 MPH. 9/2
AA	Luis Buigas	23	R	30/35	6/4/5 -	96 MPH, 9/8/1

The bullpen continues to be a position of considerable youth and considerable depth, with closer Curt Phillips at age 26 being the Grandfather figure. He’s also the franchise leader in saves despite that—like many pitchers—he’s hoping to bounce back from a difficult season. He’ll be making $7m per year for a bit to do it, though, so he should be happy about that. Lefties Tiernan O’Macken and Angel Hernandez pair with RHP Sergio Perez and last year’s rookie Roberto Ramirez (bought from Nashville for $12M a season or two back) match those two. They’re all pretty good. Jose Sanchez (he of the 2.53 ERA) is almost lost in the noise.

And, of course, by design, there’s more where that came from.

Despite having traded three young arms in the off season so far, the bullpen rankings are still pretty danged deep, starting with RHP Armando Duarte (who, admittedly, had some injury risk added last year), and lefties Josh Henson and newly acquired Ernesto Martas. Henson is still trying his hand out as a rotation guy, but his final place with the parent club is likely to be the pen. He’ll be a good one, we think.

Arguably, Al Colbert should be higher on this list—as should Bartolo Olvera, but we still have a soft spot in our heart for Contreras, and that movement/control that Martas brings is hard to complain about. Regardless, those guys should be pretty good, too. Kattenberg should probably be up around Elias, and pretty much everyone from that level down could well wind up holding their own in limited usage…maybe not Manuel Gomez and Luis Buigas, but they remain on the list because they are young enough to bump, and if they do, they’ll be serious contenders.

Overall, yes, the bullpen is an area where the team’s player development efforts have been showing off (to steal a phrase), and continues to do so.

[jleddy]

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