In preparation for the final cuts, the Valencia front office has put together a series of Spring TrainING (STING) Reports.
This edition is focusing on the Centerfielders. Out of the 50 players on the roster during the last week of Spring Training, 6 of those players were being evaluated for centerfield.
Last year's incumbents were Santiago Dieguez and Jagara Ranjani. Ranjani was the better fielder of the two but hit for a .236 average and only had one walk in 140 at-bats. He was placed on waivers and picked up by Mexico City. Dieguez definitely has the bat to be in the line-up hitting 32 homers, but had a sickening -20.3 zone rating in centerfield leading the front office to move him to a corner outfield slot more often than not.
That leads us to the five candidates to try to solve this issue. First off, the Valencia brass picked up two outfielders in the Rule 5 draft. Lenya Adlerov hit .245 with a .296 on-base percentage while swiping a couple of bases in his 49 at bats. Billy Bonnar had a disastrous spring going 0 for his first 10 before being relegated to a lot of time in the dugout where he finished hitting .176. Both of those options were returned to their previous owners when the spring training concluded.
Next up was minor league free agent signee Otis Kolokotronis. Otis was signed as a plan C in case nothing else worked out. After hitting .257 in his 35 at-bats and being able to play 7 different positions, he made enough of an impression to stay in the organization but he will be staying with the AAA Mars Martians team.
The Stars picked up the other two options via the trade route. Valencia picked up AA prospect Carlos Perez from Montreal for a sum of $600K, Carlos proceeded to hit .281 in 32 at-bats during spring training making him the last man out of the BBA centerfield depth chart but the top centerfielder in the Valencia farm system with the AAA club.
Last, but not least, is Bob Hills who was picked up from Vancouver for a price of $2M. Bob did not disappoint with a .347 batting average and a .429 on-base percentage over 49 at bats. With a outfield range of 9 and enough speed to swipe 7 bases, Bob had the most successful spring training of the six players.
Look for Bob Hills to hold down the starting centerfield job in a majority of the Valencia ballgames.
Listed are some of the Spring Training stats for these players:
