Stories From Camp That I’m Reading, pt. 5
Even though minor league camp has opened up, news has been limited. I don’t know what to tell you. There’s still plenty of commentary on the few pieces I do have, so let’s get on with it.
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Stories From Camp That I’m Reading, pt. 4
As I started writing this, I was thinking “I can’t remember that much news in this past week that caught my eye.” Three hours later, it turns out to be the longest one I’ve written. This is why marc accuses me of graphomania.
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Stories From Camp That I’m Reading, pt. 3
Has it been a week? Yes, it has been a week. Here are some things to tide you over until Felix! and Pineda! around noon.
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Stories From Camp That I’m Reading, pt. 2
I’m thinking this could be a regular thing for spring training, or at the very least, I’m hoping they still give me material for it throughout. Here are some mostly minor league tidbits from the past week with some commentary and the occasional tangent.
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Paxton Reportedly Inks
Do two tweets equate to some kind of confirmation in today’s world? We have one from a former teammate and one from a B.C. area radio personality, so that may qualify. James Paxton has signed, eight days after the date Josh Fields signed in 2009. That falls within deviation, I guess.
Most of what I said last June still holds true now. On the potential he showed two seasons ago, Paxton is easily in the top ten prospects of the system and maybe in the top five, but where Fields was still looking back to a recent college campaign, Paxton had all of 17.2 innings for Grand Prairie last season. Those innings did not constitute a return to form.
What’s next at this point is something that perhaps only Paxton, Boras, and some of the Mariners staff can guess at. We don’t know what kind of condition he’s in. Some Boras clients who have signed late came to camp ready to go. Pedro Alvarez, I seem to remember showing up to the Pirates camp out of shape. Paxton could end up joining the M’s for part of the Cactus League schedule or he could end up working with the coaches for a while and not get immediately assigned when camp breaks. His past history with various minor injuries might suggest the latter, along with a healthy dose of caution in handling him.
The 2009 version of Paxton is our best pitching prospect outside of Pineda. The ’10 version is more like a mid-rotation starter, if that, than a frontline one. Either would be a significant gain for us, though my feeling is that he might take a little longer to contribute than we might like.
Stories From Camp That I’m Reading, pt. 1
While part of me always wants it to just be the second week of April already so I can go back to doing what it is I do, there’s another part that revels in spring training and the opportunities it brings. For one thing, there’s radio coverage and the rare TV spot which may provide an opportunity to look at a prospect in the late innings, and for another there’s the media saturation of the camp which allows players normally only covered in minor league articles to get talked up by our various Mariners beat writers. Here are a few of those articles that I’ve been reading of late.
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Ten Added to the 40-Man
To think that we were saying last year was an opportunity to add some fringe guys because there was space. Back then, we added six, and this time, ten players were added, those being OF Johermyn Chavez, RHP Maikel Cleto, LHP Cesar Jimenez, 3B Alex Liddi, RHP Josh Lueke, RHP Yoervis Medina, OF Carlos Peguero, RHP Michael Pineda, LHP Mauricio Robles, and RHP Tom Wilhelmsen. If you’re expecting nearly 2000 words of analysis to follow, well then by golly, you’re right.
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Rick Waits: Pitching Coordinator
Waits takes over Carl Willis’ old job, after seven years of serving in the minor league pitching coordinator capacity for the Mets. Prior to that, he had served as the pitching coach before Rick Peterson, and the bullpen coach before that. The Mets didn’t exactly have the strongest track record for developing pitching while he was in charge. In fact, you may be familiar with some of his former charges that have come our way in Yusmeiro Petit and Gaby Hernandez. You may also recognize certain names from the past of prospecting lists like Philip Humber and Mike Pelfrey. If you’re sensing a trend of the Mets not really generating good pitchers internally, you’re correct. I suppose Jonathon Niese is all right.
How this will turn out for us, we don’t know exactly. There are more factors involved in the development of a pitching prospect than can easily be accounted for, or attributed to one individual. Waits will take his orders from Willis, and we’ll see how things shake out from there. It’s unlikely that this is going to make a huge impact one way or the other. This is just some small amount of news.
For my own part, I plan on working in as many Tom Waits references as possible as long as he’s here.
Another Ackley Update
Dave already provided me with a segue below, saying “Dustin Ackley is the future at second base.” So, in the interests of another update, Ackley went 4-for-4 with his third home run for the Peoria Javelinas last night, which was the fourth time in his nine starts since getting back that he managed to get multiple hits. It was the seventh time in that span that he’d reached base safely twice or more. Taking into account the fact that he ended up missing about a week for the busted thumb, you have him with a safely reached streak spanning eleven games, his entire season.
We’ve cautioned people over the years to be skeptical of most AFL performances. The ball carries and teams aren’t inclined to send many of their top pitchers down there. However, after a certain point you can get a little excited, and here are some reasons to like what Ackley is doing. The .417 average is certainly something, but there’s also the fact that fact that he has five more walks than Ks, and that four of his eight Ks came his first two games back. His thirteen walks lead the league, and the two guys immediately behind him have logged seven and eight more at-bats. They don’t have .400 averages either. There’s also the fact that 40% of his hits have gone for extra bases right now. All the slash line categories, average, on-base percentage, slugging, Ackley leads the league. His 1.310 OPS is .125 higher than the next guy.
It probably won’t come as much of a surprise to people that Ackley was named to the Rising Stars roster, along with teammate RHP Josh Fields, who I might have more on later. The only thing the Mariners can find to complain about these days is that he isn’t stealing enough bases, as if he wasn’t doing enough to embarrass pitchers of late. It’s further testament to how far he’s come since this past April. By this coming April, the Mariners may have to come up with some pretty good excuses to keep him off the roster.
Brief Update From Peoria
Dustin Ackley in the Arizona Fall League last night: 1-2, R, 2 RBI, 5 BB, K.
Ackley now leads the AFL with a .556 on-base percentage. He has three more walks than Ks and half of his hits have gone for extras. He’s pretty good.