NFT: Yankees discussion thread 2/9

Then I'll play along - you didn't research shit about Gonzalez, because a simple Google search for "Adrian Gonzalez shoulder surgery" had this article at the top of the list:

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Gonzalez hit .298 with 31 home runs and 101 RBIs last season. He underwent surgery to repair his right labrum three weeks ago in New York.

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is what what done. I haven't read if it was a fray or totally detached. If it was totally detached there should be a lot more concern.

not detached

Speaking just for myself, my power in hitting a golf ball was immensely affected by my front shoulder labrum surgery even though the repair went very well (judging by MRI results). Gotta hope for the best...even if he loses some power, his swing is beautiful and he could be a doubles machine if he doesn't try to pull everything.

In comment 12807955 Greg from LI said:

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Then I'll play along - you didn't research shit about Gonzalez, because a simple Google search for "Adrian Gonzalez shoulder surgery" had this article at the top of the list: Quote: Gonzalez hit .298 with 31 home runs and 101 RBIs last season. He underwent surgery to repair his right labrum three weeks ago in New York. Link - ( New Window )

I wasn't being condescending about it- I was pointing out that RAB gave you information that did not provide either context or background. On its face, the information "sounds" good- but when you look at it in detail, it doesn't hold up to prove the point for which it was offered.

Again, that's not an attack on you- it is just that I do not believe RAB does good work when it offers "analysis"." In my opinion, RAB's analysis is often superficially researched and poorly reviewed.

Going back to Adrian Gonzalez- I said I could not find anything that said he had labrum surgery- and that I would find it hard to believe he did because he missed almost no time in 2010 and 2011.

Bird is going to miss the whole season for his labrum surgery, which leads me to believe that Gonzalez only had some minor repairs done- otherwise he probably would have missed more time.

Still, as I pointed out- in the year immediately AFTER the surgery, Gonzalez had the highest SLG of his career- which kind of refutes RAB's claim that it sapped his power. Add in that Gonzalez moved from a hitters park to Fenway and then Dodger stadium, there is also context for not hitting 30 HR- as both of the new parks are tough on lefty hitters in general and Dodger Stadium in particular is considered a pitchers park.

I also pointed out that Kemp had surgery- and his power numbers the following season WERE bad. That part is correct- but what RAB conveniently left out was that Kemp had multiple trips to the DL with serious hamstring and ankle injuries- as well as some pain in the repaired shoulder- all of which contributed to the down season. Sure enough, Kemp returned to his career standard power numbers the next 2 seasons- even with one of those seasons in Petco park, which is tough on power hitters.

Again, NONE of this is an attack on you- it is pointing out that RAB did not do a good job reporting this, and in my opinion, sensationalized the story to get clicks. I am sorry if it came across as an attack- sometimes on the internet, it is not easy to convey information without coming across the wrong way.

A real sleeper of a SP prospect.
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3-5 mph on his FB in a season and at his age? Better technique I presume taught by pro pitching coaches?

Nice article.

Probably taught how to incorporate his legs into his delivery more so than ever before.

he's also less likely to be injured - less stress on the joints.

he didn't. This is RAB going off scouting reports that are dependent on the early season or prior seasons. Others identified him as a flamethrower when he came out and noted that he could sit 95-96 and approach triple digits. Scouting reports immediately post-draft or even after the draft season tend to be shitty because they're secondhand. He's a 3-4 pitch pitcher with the projection to have that many above average offerings, that's why they want him to start. They drafted him expecting him to get a chance to start.

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on the Yankee system, so that ranking is actually a pleasant surprise. Especially without Severino and Bird

the comments section, someone mentioned that the Yanks are in the mix for Ike Davis. Good alternative to Bird.

discrepancy even if the reports were 2nd hand. Bad scouting. I guess nobody paid attention to him because of his lackluster two years at JUCO.

Well it would be nice to develop (quickly) another healthy starting power arm.

In comment 12809603 section125 said:

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discrepancy even if the reports were 2nd hand. Bad scouting. I guess nobody paid attention to him because of his lackluster two years at JUCO. Well it would be nice to develop (quickly) another healthy starting power arm.

Dallas Baptist is not a big school but it is actually a substantial baseball school. Still, these guys working for these open source outlets or even for some of the pay-for-play don't have a ton of time to vet EVERYONE, which is why we get extremely excited about certain prospects who looked interesting enough to be mentioned in limited looks and less excited about others who, say, weren't pitching when the BA writer was in attendance. Remember, every team has more scouting staff in their employ than any five of these outlets.

In comment 12809593 Kyle in NY said:

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on the Yankee system, so that ranking is actually a pleasant surprise. Especially without Severino and Bird

Law is pessimistic generally, he clings to early impressions about certain players, but he has never been anti-Yankee. He has been anti certain Yankee prospects (like Severino) but some people mistake a lack of ball wash on middling prospects for disdain.

catch the Cashman on WFAN interview a few minutes ago? I caught the tail end of it, anything interesting? Cash normally is pretty candid with playing time questions or roster questions at this stage.

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In comment 12809661 Dunedin81 said:

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In comment 12809593 Kyle in NY said: Quote: on the Yankee system, so that ranking is actually a pleasant surprise. Especially without Severino and Bird Law is pessimistic generally, he clings to early impressions about certain players, but he has never been anti-Yankee. He has been anti certain Yankee prospects (like Severino) but some people mistake a lack of ball wash on middling prospects for disdain.

Fair enough. His Severino thoughts will be interesting to look back on one way or another

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bump it?

on the various Yankee prospects.

Dunedin
DanMetroMan : 10:27 am : link : reply

Law is known to check out sites and complain about them if they post too much of his stuff so I will summarize

Judge- Middle of the order ceiling, has to make some adjustments to get there, should be above average or better in RF, plus arm, 70 pure power but that hasn't shown up in games, has issues with soft stuff away, 30 homer upside with 150+ k's per year

Mateo- 80 runner, makes all of the plays at SS but not yet plus there, makes good contact but not a lot of "strong" contact. If he can learn to make better contact (59% of his balls in play were grounders or pop ups) he has allstar upside with 60+ steals.

Sanchez- 70 power, 70 arm, good enough behind the plate to stay there, work ethic will dictate how good. MVP upside.


Kaprielian
DanMetroMan : 10:28 am : link : reply

93-95 with a wipe out slider, above average control (command is still developing). Should develop into mid-rotation SP.

was throwing harder than that during instructs. In fact, harder and harder since the second half of his last college season.

In comment 12810446 Phil in LA said:

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was throwing harder than that during instructs. In fact, harder and harder since the second half of his last college season.

Truth be told, velo spikes scare me a bit. At 17 or 18 sure, but for a college junior, throwing much harder all of a sudden seems like an effort thing and one likely to lead to injuries. Of course nobody pays me for my opinion.

Not really sure what happened but the last 2 or 3 seasons Law's pre-season writeups have become a lot more over the top positive in regard to his top 100 list. I mean Gary Sanchez is #70 yet basically says he has MVP upside and doesn't really suggest much he has to improve, how is that the #70 prospect in baseball? 100% not a knock on Sanchez, just a weird thing I've noticed about Law's rankings recently.

In comment 12810454 DanMetroMan said:

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Not really sure what happened but the last 2 or 3 seasons Law's pre-season writeups have become a lot more over the top positive in regard to his top 100 list. I mean Gary Sanchez is #70 yet basically says he has MVP upside and doesn't really suggest much he has to improve, how is that the #70 prospect in baseball? 100% not a knock on Sanchez, just a weird thing I've noticed about Law's rankings recently.

He's a shrewd guy, perhaps he has read enough criticism that he is too negative that he thinks a slightly sunnier outlook will play better with his readers?

In comment 12810461 Dunedin81 said:

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In comment 12810454 DanMetroMan said: Quote: Not really sure what happened but the last 2 or 3 seasons Law's pre-season writeups have become a lot more over the top positive in regard to his top 100 list. I mean Gary Sanchez is #70 yet basically says he has MVP upside and doesn't really suggest much he has to improve, how is that the #70 prospect in baseball? 100% not a knock on Sanchez, just a weird thing I've noticed about Law's rankings recently. He's a shrewd guy, perhaps he has read enough criticism that he is too negative that he thinks a slightly sunnier outlook will play better with his readers?

Dunedin,
I think you are 100% correct. Just seems like a clear shift. He's actually my favorite of the "experts".

and it may not be a fair criticism, is that if he's not convinced that someone has an everyday MLB ceiling he is utterly dismissive. You've got kids out there, and their families and friends, who are busting their asses on what is essentially a lottery ticket, and they're reading that they've got no future based on opinions formulated from three or four in-person ABs and some confirmation bias.

In comment 12810479 Dunedin81 said:

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and it may not be a fair criticism, is that if he's not convinced that someone has an everyday MLB ceiling he is utterly dismissive. You've got kids out there, and their families and friends, who are busting their asses on what is essentially a lottery ticket, and they're reading that they've got no future based on opinions formulated from three or four in-person ABs and some confirmation bias.

That is more than fair. He's also insanely slow to shift his opinion. If he likes you he will maintain that regardless of the outcome and then sort of sweeps it under the rug if they are a bust. I'm especially curious about Lazarito (Law's people insist he's overrated) though in fairness a 16 year old is very hard to judge.

He's pretty absolute in his evaluations, and is very reluctant to re-evaluate year to year. I'm guessing he still swears that Severino will end up a reliever.

prospects 31-35 with blurbs. Very interesting prospects on there, guys who in leaner years would probably have been well into the Top 30.
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The Yankees landed four players on Law’s 2016 top 100 list: OF Aaron Judge (No. 36), SS Jorge Mateo (No. 55), C Gary Sanchez (No. 57), and RHP James Kaprielian (No. 87). Law seems to be the high man on Kaprielian. He hasn’t shown up on any other top 100 lists this spring. The other three guys are pretty clearly top 100 caliber. Reminder: RHP Luis Severino and 1B Greg Bird are no longer prospect eligible. Too much big league playing time in 2015.

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But would anyone be surprised that none of the kids from last year's spending spree amount to much?

It seems only Garcia is getting positive reviews at this point.

It appears that our scouts not only suck at scouting dratftable amateurs, they are also not very good, if not outright committing fraud, at identifying LA free agents.

Flames and Gomez in particular. Some evoked no strong feelings, some they were down on, and a couple of guys with big ceilings - particularly Dermis Garcia - were hurt.

would just be draftable high schoolers this year, other than Park. They are still too young to judge. And this is the same scouting group, lead by Donny Rowland, who is in the Scouting Hall of Fame, that found Severino, Mateo and Acevedo, as well as Anderson Severino and others for peanuts. I think we should have faith in their big budget finds.

This is to your point, running down in depth the 2014 class. Some have really impressed, some have underperformed on the stat sheet but more importantly on the eye test too. But for the majority of them the results were simply somewhere in the middle, with (for most) a year of stateside ball ahead of them and the opportunity to draw more meaningful conclusions.
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that a lot of these kids are undernourished and underweight when they sign. And a lot of them their growing bodies have been overly taxed from too many tryouts and showcases.

Then once they're signed, it's a completely different culture, and a much different game. So are playing new positions and some are playing in games for the first time since they were plucked out a few years earlier and put into showcase training instead of playing a two thousand innings of something.

I asked sin the question elsewhere and I didn't know the answer. Have we ever kept a seven-figure bonus baby in the DSL for more than a year? I'm curious who we do (or don't) bring north this year.

I think there were a few brutal misfires during that late `00s period where some guys got signed for7 figures then couldn't get over in decent time. That's when Carlos Rios and his friends were taking kickbacks, Can't think of the players names, but I think there were a couple. One being a guy who was 19 or 20 who could run but couldn't hit. Can't think of his name. Used to mock him on PinstripesPlus. Also, not sure how much Leonora Erickson got, but it took him quite some time. And there might have been a pitcher or two.

In comment 12814149 Phil in LA said:

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I think there were a few brutal misfires during that late `00s period where some guys got signed for7 figures then couldn't get over in decent time. That's when Carlos Rios and his friends were taking kickbacks, Can't think of the players names, but I think there were a couple. One being a guy who was 19 or 20 who could run but couldn't hit. Can't think of his name. Used to mock him on PinstripesPlus. Also, not sure how much Leonora Erickson got, but it took him quite some time. And there might have been a pitcher or two.

Yeah I said I couldn't think of one outside of the kickback era. I don't know that any of the Calderons or Kevin De Leons of the 00's cracked seven figures though.

era, and both eventually made it to the states and showed a tool or two. Don't remember if DeLeon was 600K or 1.6.

In comment 12808446 rich in DC said:

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Still, as I pointed out- in the year immediately AFTER the surgery, Gonzalez had the highest SLG of his career- which kind of refutes RAB's claim that it sapped his power. Add in that Gonzalez moved from a hitters park to Fenway and then Dodger stadium, there is also context for not hitting 30 HR- as both of the new parks are tough on lefty hitters in general and Dodger Stadium in particular is considered a pitchers park. I also pointed out that Kemp had surgery- and his power numbers the following season WERE bad. That part is correct- but what RAB conveniently left out was that Kemp had multiple trips to the DL with serious hamstring and ankle injuries- as well as some pain in the repaired shoulder- all of which contributed to the down season. Sure enough, Kemp returned to his career standard power numbers the next 2 seasons- even with one of those seasons in Petco park, which is tough on power hitters.

The park that you're referring to as a "hitters park" for Gonzalez IS Petco - and it's not remotely a hitters park. While Fenway is definitely favorable for RHH, it's not like a lefty with a hard pull swing can't take aim at Pesky's Pole. In fact, as of 2012, it was just behind Coors and Arlington for the most hitter-favorable parks in MLB.


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only Red Sox's Espinosa is making any noise, already the 39th prospect on MLB's list.

It's the fucking Red Sox bias of course, but it'd be hilarious if none of the Yankees bonus babies amount to anything.

Moncada was a big kick in the nuts, I don't care if Hal is going to tighten the payroll, but at least invest in a better scouting department.

I know I reiterate the same thing every freaking time, but there is no reason why the Yanks shouldn't have the best scouting department in the sports, especially if they are going to now skimp on the big league payroll.

Post-restrictions and pre-binge, they added Severino, Mateo, Avelino, Estrada and Domingo Acevedo, all of whom were low to mid-$ signings, and their "splurges" were Andujar and Molina, both of whom have shown enough in the way of tools to rationalize their bonuses.

As for the binge, they've already got a couple positive returns. Espinoza is a talented prospect and was considered the most talented arm of the class and the early returns on him have been extremely promising, but some of the other highly regarded bonus babies for other teams have been silent so far. And some of them - and some of ours - will stay silent, that's the challenge of trying to project a 15-year old's ceiling (and to effect the binge they had to conclude the handshake deals even earlier than usual). But there will be successes. Wilkerman Garcia and Park are already "successful" in that each has built trade value in limited stateside reps. They will not be the only ones.

In comment 12814427 Jim in Hoboken said:

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only Red Sox's Espinosa is making any noise, already the 39th prospect on MLB's list. It's the fucking Red Sox bias of course, but it'd be hilarious if none of the Yankees bonus babies amount to anything. Moncada was a big kick in the nuts, I don't care if Hal is going to tighten the payroll, but at least invest in a better scouting department. I know I reiterate the same thing every freaking time, but there is no reason why the Yanks shouldn't have the best scouting department in the sports, especially if they are going to now skimp on the big league payroll.

Yes, let's ignore the facts about Moncada and blame Hal because it fits your agenda.

No, the reality was that the Moncada's people were not going to let him sign with the Yanks after Lopez's stupidity. Good thing Hal got rid of him- albeit a prospect too late.

In comment 12814593 rich in DC said:

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In comment 12814427 Jim in Hoboken said: Quote: only Red Sox's Espinosa is making any noise, already the 39th prospect on MLB's list. It's the fucking Red Sox bias of course, but it'd be hilarious if none of the Yankees bonus babies amount to anything. Moncada was a big kick in the nuts, I don't care if Hal is going to tighten the payroll, but at least invest in a better scouting department. I know I reiterate the same thing every freaking time, but there is no reason why the Yanks shouldn't have the best scouting department in the sports, especially if they are going to now skimp on the big league payroll. Yes, let's ignore the facts about Moncada and blame Hal because it fits your agenda. No, the reality was that the Moncada's people were not going to let him sign with the Yanks after Lopez's stupidity. Good thing Hal got rid of him- albeit a prospect too late.

The reality is the Yankees had every opportunity to sign Moncada down to the last day.

You are such a fucking windbag homer its unreadable.

apparently had an outsized role in that fiasco. It's forgivable that this or that prospect wasn't signed, even Moncada, if they don't think the value is there, that's all well and good. But the notion that that toady with no ties to baseball but a marital bed had any real say in a major personnel decision like that just smacks of nepotism. And while Phil and I, and most Yankee fans, were excited about the binge, it is worth noting that in dollars spent it ranked far below every other team who has signed a premier <23 talent (Moncada & Lazarito, most notably).

the Yanks had every opportunity to top the Sox offer.