Minor League Wrap (7/18-24/11)
Some of the draft and IFA stuff broke loose this week, like C/IF Jack Marder signing for $200k and getting himself assigned to the High Desert Mavericks. Marder had some leverage as a draft-eligible sophomore and could have very easily returned to school, so it’s good that we were able to add him as he sounds like the exact type of player the organization would love. I don’t know what this means for Marlette or the others of the top ten, but if a recent article that one of my readers found on third-round pick Kevin Cron is any indication, we’re probably going up to the deadline with this again. As for the July 2nd guys, we’ll get to that in a moment…
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Minor League Wrap (7/11-17/11)
Monday of last week, 7th-round pick 3B Steve Proscia and 22nd-round pick RHP John Taylor signed. Since then, nothing. No new draft news, no new international news. Taijuan Walker and James Paxton both made Baseball America’s Prospect Hot Sheet though, so there is that. There was also a Geoff Baker piece which references the allegations against the buscon of Esteilon Peguero and others and clarifies why Peguero hasn’t gotten his bonus yet. The short of it is that the rules have changed and the money is now held in escrow until a prospect turns eighteen. Oh, and there was that Peguero/Carp thing, which is probably good for us in the long run.
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Minor League Wrap (7/4-10/11)
Greetings! I suppose you might be expecting that this week was the week in which some of the international free agent stuff started going official for us. It wasn’t. Even though one of the guys spreading rumors from Venezuela said that things would start to get announced on the 10th, they weren’t, and we continue to wait. Maybe they get announced today, with the all-star break going on. Maybe we’re really tough negotiators. Maybe we have recognized that the international market is increasingly insane. Maybe we don’t care that the market is insane considering that we continue to have a pretty good return rate on our signings there. I don’t know! Let’s talk about things that have actually happened!
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Minor League Wrap (6/27-7/3/11)
Happy Fourth! I’ll be answering some questions early and then others much later on. No new news on the international signing front except that everything you thought you heard is now unconfirmed.
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Minor League Wrap (6/20-26/11)
We have reached the point in the season where I am now doing dailies for nine teams and covering six and a half affiliates here. Suffice to say, things will be a little crazy from here out.
Some important notes to start things out: Seager and Franklin were both promoted after their minor league all-star breaks, Paxton and Liddi were both named to the Futures Game, we signed twice-drafted RHP David Holman of the pitching Holmen and Steve Kelley did a feature, and the 60-day DL at present includes RHPs Danny Ayala Cruz, Yao Wen Chang, and Richard Vargas along with 3B Jose Flores. The only one of those that’s really upsetting is the loss of Vargas. I honestly thought they had released Chang already.
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2011 Pulaski Mariners Preview
The Aquasox preview had the caveat of “this roster is probably not finalized yet and we’ll likely see a lot of changes to it before the end of the season.” The Pulaski preview has the same caution with the added issue of limited local press and me getting the roster late, resulting in the kind of slapdash write-up that only I could give 1800+ words to. Considering Pulaski was hit by tornados a couple of months ago, I suppose they have other things to worry about over there.
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Minor League Wrap (6/13-20/11)
In lieu of a thematic intro, I’m talking about what each team would need to do to make the playoffs in the second half following their respective write-ups. Still, some important things to note: Peoria M’s start play this evening, Pulaski goes tomorrow, Everett’s first homestand starts on Wednesday (I’ll start covering them in earnest next week), and all the full seasons except Tacoma are on all-star break.
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2011 Everett Aquasox Preview
We all remember what happened last year. I looked at the roster the Aquasox were going to field on opening day, said it didn’t seem all that interesting, and then a couple of months later they won the NWL Championship. Funny how that works out. And yet a lot of the names from the 2010 squad are already gone from the system: Evan Sharpley, Kevin Mailluox, Hawkins Gebbers, Ryan Royster, Eric Thomas, Jorden Merry, John Housey. I don’t even know if Terry Serrano is still around, but he was a free agent in the winter. The most dominant bat in the NWL, Kevin Rivers, is now putting up pedestrian numbers in Clinton (better of late), LHP Anthony Fernandez and RHP Chris Sorce are taking their lumps in High Desert, and LHP Edlando Seco, the fifth man in the rotation, didn’t start the year in the rotation and is having his poor command catch up with him. Baseball is kind of weird when you get right down to it.
Anyway, the roster isn’t totally in place yet, as we’ve seen fewer higher-end signings to this point than we usually get. There’s still some talent around in the pitching staff though, it just seems to be a team that’s currently constructed to pitch a lot and then hope for enough offense to get by, which can be a little tricky when there are only so many position players on the roster that can bat left-handed. Some of those fellows are among the better players on the roster.
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Minor League Wrap (6/6-12/11)
I’m not going to let a little thing like a raging draft hangover keep me from my weekly duties. Keep in mind that Everett opens up their season next Friday, with the first homestand starting the next Wednesday, and Pulaski will gear up the Tuesday the 21st, with the AZL starting up the day before. I’ll have previews as rosters become available to me, but right now I haven’t even heard of any signings. We’re getting to the crazy part of the season here.
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M’s Go to Germany and Cavan Cohoes for #273
I’ve been following the draft for over ten years now and this one is completely new to me.
For a long time, there’s been talk of instituting an international draft, and when the subject comes up, the issue is always logistics. How are we going to follow players from all around the world? How do we stack them up against each other? The Mariners just drafted a kid who goes to high school on a military base in Germany. What now?
Baseball America has no data on this guy. The draft map does not extend to U.S. barracks abroad. Cohoes is a guy who played tennis and baseball in high school, which is different, and on the field he was mostly a shortstop but got some time in center and on the mound too. In spite of the varying positions, he seems pretty darned smooth on the field, charges well, reads hops like a pro, and transfers but quick. His arm and his speed at the best tools there, and while the competition has been mostly European (again, not bad in Germany, better if he’s played a little bit against Dutch teams too), he’s always wanted to be a baseball player and works out constantly, and that seems like just the kind of thing that the M’s want to hear. He’s committed to Ohio State, but more than anything it seems like he just wants to play some baseball.
The bat looks decent. It’s a little upper body intensive, but he’s fast and level and it doesn’t seem like the swing really has significant holes in it. If he gets a little more lower body action into it, he seems big enough to generate some power later on. The M’s went way, way off the radar for this one but he could end up being a steal.
YouTube: Player Profile
Patch HS Feature
Patch HS story on Cohoes hitting game-winning two-run HR in championship game