The Yanks’ Minor League Challenge. John Sickels of MinorLeagueBaseball.com has posted an informative interview with Mark Newman, Yanks senior VP of baseball operations (thanks to Steve Lombardi of Was Watching for the link). The piece offers a good guide to Yankees sleeper prospects–take that for what its worth, few Yankees prospects wind up with careers in Yankees uniforms, and few fringe Yankees prospect turn out to have surprisingly good major league careers (Mo Rivera and Andy Pettitte 15 years ago may be he last two in that category), but the piece offers an interesting look at the challenges that the Yankees face in stocking the minor leagues. No one is crying for the Yanks, but, as Newman points out, because the major league team wins a lot, the organization rarely has high draft choices and needs to pursue non-draft strategies for populating the farm.
…our mandate to win yearly in the majors gives us two main challenges: our draft slot and the fact that we often trade prospects. Where we pick in the draft is always an issue, at least if we’re doing our job by winning at the major league level. We almost always have lower picks in the draft, and that makes it harder to get players with high upsides in the draft process, especially for the hitters…Because of those two factors, especially the draft slot issue, we will take risks on some players to get a high-ceiling guy in the system…..There has to be a solid reason or really outstanding tools to give a Latin player a large bonus, but if we think the risk is worth it, we will take it. It would be fairly rare for a guy with a Montero or Gary Sanchez or Arodys Vizcaino-like upside to fall to us in the draft, so we look hard to find guys with that kind of talent internationally. This is especially true for the position players, since few guys with genuine impact bats will get to us at the bottom of the first round. We have to take the risk to get guys like that somewhere, so we’ll look in Latin America. We can find tools there that are hard for us to acquire in the draft.
Interesting stuff.
Granderson, Another Import Likely to Struggle Early. I don’t put much stock in spring training stats–although if you watch a player you can see how his swing or pitching motion looks, the stats based on a small number of at-bats or innings pitched in exhibition games against non-major league talent tellyou very little. But Curtis Granderson’s woeful spring (.160 BA–4 hits in 25 ABs) suggests that we may be watching another player go through a half-season of under-acheiving NY adjustment. It happens to many, if not most players who come to New York (at least from anywhere other than Boston). I won’t be surprised if Granderson struggles mightily in the first half.
The Good, the Band & Joba. I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for contrarians, but Brian Burkhart’s piece yesterdaysaying Joba should be handed the 5th starter’s gig is on the edge of nutty. Burkhart’s point that Joba’s no longer on an innings watch but Hughes is, is a fair one. But Steve Lombardi at Was Watching concisely presents the other side noting that in his brief youthful career Joba has seen is preformance decline the more innings he pitches and the more batters he faces.
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