The Chicago White Sox Systems Check video offers a quick overview of the team’s farm system, addressing its strengths and weaknesses as well as how it can improve moving forward.
The video also provides a breakdown of the White Sox’s top prospects for 2014, right-hander Erik Johnson, third baseman Matt Davidson and outfielder Courtney Hawkins, including each player’s ETA in the major leagues and potential long-term role within the organization.
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Michael Bourn could be headed back to the disabled list after starting the season there. His repaired left hamstring is acting up again, a big problem so closely after surgery. The Cleveland Indians speedster is being evaluated by their medical staff, according to MLB‘s Jordan Bastian, and no decision has been made on a return.
Bourn‘s 2013 season ended with him headed for surgery after a severe Grade III strain was not going to heal on its own. Stitching muscle back together is very difficult. A surgeon once told me that it was like trying to cut your steak and then stitch it back together. (He told me this at a steakhouse. Yeah.)
While Bourn was able to return without significant issue, the fact that he is having trouble is problematic. It’s not known where the new injury is. It could be at the repaired area, nearby or further up or down the muscle. Any is problematic as it further weakens the muscle that Bourn needs to play his kind of game.
Hamstring injuries do have a tendency to be recurrent. Because the muscle repairs itself with scar, it is never as strong. This exacerbates the normal strength deficit the hamstring has to the quad, it’s antagonist. Any imbalance leads to further movement disruption and usually only gets worse from there.
Terry Francona had a very interesting quote in the article above about the situation. “We just want to make him understand that he’s got to be honest, and then we’ll sit down with him and make decisions. That’s kind of how we always do things.”
Francona‘s quote is intriguing in that he felt the need to articulate it. Lonnie Soloff and his medical staff are among the most respected in the game and have been there for years. Having to say that Bourn should be honest has to be a reflection that they’ve had issues with him somewhere along the line.
The Indians should make a decision shortly on Bourn, retaining the retro move back to the weekend. They called up Nyjer Morgan, who had filled in for Bourn at the start of the season. Morgan is a streaky player, so he’s not a bad desperation play in fantasy.
Bourn‘s long-term value is tied up in his speed. With only two steals in five attempts and reduced range in the outfield, Bourn hasn’t demonstrated that at all. Further hamstring issues call into question whether it’s coming back at all.
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Chicago White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu burst onto the scene with a historic first month in the majors, setting MLB rookie records for most home runs (10) and RBI (32) before the beginning of May, per ESPN Chicago.
Abreu’s achievements didn’t end at the rookie level, as he also set a White Sox record for most RBI in March/April, per ESPN Chicago. Abreu bested the record of current teammate Paul Konerko, who knocked in 28 runs before May 1 in 2002.
Konerko, the heir to Frank Thomas as face of the franchise, is now limited to a part-time role in what will likely be his final season. The timing for a retirement couldn’t be better, as the 38-year-old Konerko can pass the franchise crown to the Sox’s prolific Cuban rookie.
Abreu, 27, is on pace for 56 home runs and 179 RBI, with both of those numbers representing would-be single-season White Sox records. Albert Belle, who isn’t exactly held in the same regard as Konerko and Thomas, set both franchise records in 1998, when he slugged 49 home runs and drove in 152 runs.
Belle is well represented in the franchise record books, but not so fondly remembered in the minds of White Sox fans, or fans of other teams for that matter. Unlike the more mild-mannered Konerko and Abreu, Belle was a notorious hot-head who rubbed many fans and teammates the wrong way.
Abreu seems to be cut from the same cloth as Belle in terms of raw power, but that’s about where the comparisons should end. Not only do the two seem drastically different in terms of personality, but even a player as talented as Abreu probably can’t match Belle’s team-record 49 homers and 152 RBI as a rookie.
Per the Baseball Almanac, only one rookie has ever hit more than 38 home runs in a season, and that was Mark McGwire, who slugged an incredible 49 for the Oakland Athletics in 1987.
Perhaps 49 is asking too much of Abreu, but, with good health, he should make a run at 40 homers, which would place him second on the all-time rookie list.
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The Cleveland Indians made a few minor moves this offseason, but nothing that would be considered scale-tipping.
In exchange for Drew Stubbs, the Tribe acquired Josh Outman from the Rockies, and they also signed four players—Scott Atchison, David Murphy, John Axford and Elliot Johnson—to deals that would eventually land them with the big league club—only Murphy and Axford were signed to the 25-man roster.
Most of these acquisitions have already paid early dividends and have helped the Indians maintain their 11-15 record—which would certainly be worse off without them.
With nearly a month of play behind us, the time has come to grade the Indians’ offseason acquisitions based on their early-season performances. Most have actually performed quite well, but one player has been unbearably bad through the season’s first month.
We’ll kick it off with the only player acquired via trade, Josh Outman.
All stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and Fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted.
Every season features players who take nontraditional, roundabout paths to unexpected success in the major leagues.
Last year it was the Atlanta Braves’ Evan Gattis. This year, it’s Chris Colabello of the Minnesota Twins.
Through the first month of the season, the 30-year-old Colabello is batting .308/.351/.505 with nine doubles, three home runs and 27 RBI.
Colabello went undrafted out of Massachusetts’ Assumption College and signed a contract in 2005 with the Worcester Tornadoes of the Can-Am Independent League. Other than a half-season stint with Nashua (another team in the league), Colabello spent the next seven years with Worcester and batted .317/.390/.514 with 166 doubles, 86 home runs and 420 RBI in 583 games.
In 2011, his final season playing in the Can-Am league, Colabello set career highs with a .348 batting average, 1.010 OPS and 20 home runs in 412 plate appearances. The then-27-year-old’s performance earned him Independent League Player of the Year honors by Baseball America, as well as a contract with the Minnesota Twins.
Colabello was assigned directly to Double-A New Britain in 2012, where he feasted on Eastern League pitching for the duration of the season. In addition to batting .284 with a .358 on-base percentage in 561 plate appearances, Colabello led the league with 37 doubles, ranked second in RBI (98), fourth in runs scored (78) and was tied for fourth in home runs (19). He also amassed 40 multi-hit games and 21 multi-RBI games and was the runner-up for the Eastern League MVP award.
However, it wasn’t until the 2013 World Baseball Classic that Colabello made himself known to a more national audience. Serving as the cleanup hitter for upstart Team Italy, he batted .333 with a pair of home runs and seven RBI in five WBC games.
Colabello’s strong showing against international competition ultimately earned him an invitation to major league camp the following spring. But despite posting an .873 OPS with four RBI in 10 games, he was reassigned to Triple-A Rochester to begin the 2013 season.
He didn’t stay there long, though; on May 22, 2013, the Twins purchased the contract of Colabello, 29 at the time, from Rochester after placing Trevor Plouffe on the seven-day disabled list with a concussion.
Unfortunately, Colabello’s long-awaited debut in the major leagues wasn’t pretty, as he collected just one hit and struck out six times in 11 at-bats. On May 29, the Twins optioned Colabello back to Rochester, but he returned the following day when Plouffe was placed back on the disabled list, this time with a calf injury.
Colabello shuffled between Rochester and Minnesota a few more times before joining the Twins for good on July 19. From that point forward, Colabello batted .201 with seven home runs and 17 RBI in 48 games. Overall, the rookie posted a disappointing .631 OPS and 58/20 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 55 games.
Though he struggled during his time with the Twins, Colabello’s .352/.427/.639 batting line, 24 home runs and 76 RBI in 391 plate appearances at Rochester earned him recognition as the International League MVP and Baseball America’s Triple-A Player of the Year.
With the Twins anticipating a lack of 40-man roster flexibility in 2014, and Colabello without a guaranteed spot on the team’s Opening Day roster, they presented him with an opportunity to play for the LG Lions in the Korean league for a guaranteed $1 million contract.
However, Colabello declined the offer, deciding that he wasn’t ready to give up his major-league aspirations.
“I don’t think it was that hard [of a decision],” he said, via Phil Rogers of MLB.com. “My heart never went that way. I’ve followed my heart my whole life. I use my head too, but I follow my heart. … It has never steered me wrong.”
Well, it now goes without saying that Colabello made the right choice.
The 30-year-old was arguably the Twins’ top hitter this spring, as he locked up a spot on the active roster by batting .349/.462/.512 with five extra-base hits and eight RBI in 23 games.
Colabello continued to rake through the first week of the regular season, collecting a hit in each of the Twins’ first seven games while batting .370/.414/.630 with four doubles, one home run and 11 RBI. His impressive start resulted in AL Player of the Week honors.
Through 23 games this season, Colabello is batting .308/.351/.505 with nine doubles and three home runs. He already broke the team’s two-decade record for RBI in the season’s first month with 27, overtaking Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett’s 26 in 1994.
“It’s quite an honor,” Colabello said, via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. “You start getting mixed in with names like that and you realize how special this game is and how special this opportunity to be here is. It’s certainly something I’ll remember for a long time.”
More importantly, he’s a major reason the Twins are one game above .500 (12-11) with an offense that ranks best in the AL in on-base percentage (.353), third in runs scored (127) and fifth in OPS (.742).
But can Colabello sustain his terrific opening-month production over the course of a full season? In looking at a few comparable, offensively oriented players from previous years, we see that hot starts never last; however, it doesn’t mean the player will necessarily have a poor season.
Shelton and LaHair both became small-sample-size legends with their torrid Aprils, but their high strikeout-to-walk ratios and BABIPs made it impossible for either player to sustain that level of production for a full season. If we compare their numbers with Colabello’s, we see the same glaring trends: poor strikeout-to-walk ratio and BABIP-driven batting average.
In terms of each player’s respective career trajectory following that season, LaHair—he actually made the 2012 NL All-Star team—spent the 2013 season playing overseas, and the 30-year-old now plays for the Indians’ Triple-A affiliate. Shelton, on the other hand, has been out of baseball since 2010.
Unfortunately, it’s easy to see Colabello’s career going down the same dreaded path given his lack of a defensive home. His natural position is first base, but it’s not as though he’ll ever play there over Joe Mauer. Therefore, the Twins have worked Colabello’s bat into the lineup elsewhere this season, giving him eight games at designated hitter and 12 in right field. The only problem is that Colabello is not an outfielder; in fact, his defense at the position has already cost the Twins six runs, according to FanGraphs.
Dan Cook of CBS Minnesota seems to agree with this assessment, though I’m sure neither of us is rooting to be correct:
There’s no question that he’s limited by the lack of a natural defensive position. His best spot, first base, is currently occupied by $23 million. And his BABIP is a sky-high .397. So even if the Twins are able to stay creative and get him at-bats, his hitting numbers should normalize a bit.
Even if the Twins continue to find him regular at-bats, Colabello’s production is going to even out. That being said, the 30-year-old should still put up similar numbers as some of the other second-tier corner players in the American League, batting in the .250 range with roughly 20 home runs. However, if Colabello cools off dramatically and the Twins need a roster spot, don’t be surprised if he suddenly becomes the odd man out.
Colabello is a great story, but definitely not a late-blooming star.
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Chicago White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu hit his eighth and ninth home runs of the season in Friday’s 9-6 win over the Tampa Bay Rays, setting an all-time rookie record for most homers before the beginning of May, per ESPN Stats & Info.
Not only did the Cuban rookie make history, but his second long ball of the game was a walk-off grand slam in the ninth inning that turned a 6-5 deficit into a 9-6 victory. Tampa Bay closer Grant Balfour, a notorious hothead, was the unfortunate victim of Abreu’s heroics. Actually, the word “unfortunate” is questionable in this scenario, as Balfour might not be able to throw a worse pitch if he tried.
The first homer was a bit more ordinary, as Abreu hit a solo blast off Chris Archer in the bottom of the third after knocking home a run with a single in the first. For the day, he went 3-for-5 with two homers, two runs and six RBI.
Now sitting at nine home runs through 24 games, Abreu is tied with Los Angeles Angels first baseman Albert Pujols for the major league lead heading into Saturday’s games. Coincidentally, Pujols—along with Kent Hrbek and Carlos Delgado—was the previous record holder for rookie home runs (eight) before the beginning of May, per George Castle of The Times of Northwest Indiana.
If Abreu has his sights on the season-long rookie home run record, he’s looking at a nearly impossible task. Mark McGwire smashed an incredible 49 homers for the Oakland Athletics in 1987, and no other rookie has ever hit more than 38, per the Baseball Almanac.
Of course, as a 243-pound 27-year-old with significant experience playing professionally in Cuba, Abreu is far from your typical rookie.
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Yordano Ventura will have many great starts in his career, but his outing on Friday night against the Baltimore Orioles is one he’ll never forget.
The 22-year-old rookie turned in his finest performance to date against one of the top offenses in the American League, striking out a career-high eight batters over eight shutout innings en route to a 5-0 Royals win. It marked the first time Ventura has worked eight innings in a start, as he allowed seven hits, two walks and hit a batter while throwing a career-high 113 pitches.
“I think that’s as good as I’ve seen him,” Royals manager Ned Yost said, via the Chicago Tribune. “He had everything going tonight. I mean good fastball, his curve ball, that was probably the most consistent curveball he’s had all year, and a great changeup. He just pitched a great game.”
Despite his success, Ventura’s outing wasn’t as clean as his line suggests; he actually pitched with runners on base in every inning.
He drilled Nelson Cruz with a fastball in the first inning, and surrendered a pair of singles to open the second. He yielded a leadoff single in the third inning, a walk and single in the following frame, and then another leadoff knock in the fifth.
The right-hander allowed a two-out single in the sixth, two-out walk in the seventh and two-out single in the eighth. However, Ventura was able to get strikeouts when he needed them most and ultimately kept the Orioles off the board.
Specifically, Ventura’s ability to execute his curveball Friday night was a revelation compared to his other starts this season—especially his previous outing in which he allowed four earned runs on six hits and four walks in four innings. Ventura’s curveball has always lagged behind his dynamic fastball-changeup combination, and it had been his least effective offering this season.
However, that wasn’t the case against the Orioles.
Ventura’s command of his curveball was the best it’s been since his arrival in the major leagues last season, as he posted a career-best 72.7 percent strike rate (via Brooks Baseball) and recorded five of his eight strikeouts with the pitch in eight innings. His victims were Ryan Flaherty, David Lough (twice), Adam Jones and Jonathan Schoop.
Ventura’s release point was consistent throughout the game, which in turn allowed him to generate the tight rotation and sharp, downward break necessary to generate whiffs. He also used his curveball to generate five ground-ball outs.
Ventura’s changeup took a backseat to his suddenly improved breaking ball, but he was still effective with the offering and kept the Orioles off balance by using it aggressively in fastball counts and at times on the first pitch of a plate appearance. Meanwhile, the 22-year-old flame-hrower’s fastball sat comfortably in the high 90s (as usual), topping out at 99 mph, and produced seven swinging strikes and a pair of strikeouts.
With a consistent and effective third pitch at his disposal, there’s no telling how good Ventura will be. He’s already proven to one of baseball’s premier young pitchers this season, and developing a more complete and refined arsenal could make him one of the game’s best in short order.
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The Cleveland Indians‘ minor league affiliates have played through the first week of their 2014 seasons. Some of the team’s top prospects are off to great starts, while others, not so much.
Early-season minor league numbers can be volatile, given the fact that a good deal of prospects are dealing with an adjustment period in their first games at a new level. Others, who have more minor league experience under their belts, tend to hit the ground running and we’ll see a little bit of both over the course of this article.
The aim of this repeating piece is to help keep you informed as to the performances of the team’s top-10 prospects on a semi-weekly basis. In each version of this article, I’ll recap the player’s 2013 stats, while also providing updated 2014 stats, weekly stats, an overview of the player’s season and week and, finally, an up or down label on the player’s prospect stock.
Bleacher Report’s Adam Wells ranked the team’s top-10 prospects prior to the start of spring training—you can find those prospect rankings here. So, to start the year, that’s the order you’ll find those prospects ranked in this and future versions of this piece.
We’ll kick things off with Adam’s No. 10 prospect, Jesus Aguilar.
All stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.
Five players capable of handling the middle infield made the Yankees‘ Opening Day roster. Eduardo Nunez was not one of them.
Surprise rookie Yangervis Solarte made the roster after a very impressive spring training, while fellow rookie Dean Anna will presumably be filling in on the Yankees bench until Brendan Ryan comes off the disabled list. Regardless, the surplus resulted in the Yankees designating Nunez for assignment.
Now, the Yankees have eight more days to decide what to do with Nunez. They could send him to the minors, trade him or release him. He makes a quality depth option, but there may be a job for Nunez on one of the American League‘s best teams.
With Jose Iglesias out for most, if not all, of 2014, the Tigers went out and acquired Alex Gonzalez from the Baltimore Orioles to take the reigns at shortstop. Gonzalez proved Dave Dombrowski right quickly, playing hero in the Tigers’ 4-3 win on Monday. However, the 37-year old has played in just 65 games over the last two seasons, and in addition to putting up average defense (-3.1 UZR in 2012, 0.5 UZR in 2013), Gonzalez struggled at the plate in 2013, hitting just .177 in 113 at-bats with the Brewers last season.
So a strong Opening Day aside, Gonzalez isn’t exactly a strong option at short when put into the context of his last two seasons. And if the Tigers are going to pursue Stephen Drew, it seems at this point like they will wait until after the draft in June to avoid giving up draft pick compensation. So unless they want to ante up to acquire Didi Gregorius from the Diamondbacks or Nick Franklin from the Mariners, there aren’t exactly a plethora of quality shortstops available at a reasonable price.
Nunez is average at best as a defensive shortstop, but at the dish, his bat is a significant upgrade over the .177 average Gonzalez posted in 2013. While Nunez is as far from a power hitter as there is, he did hit 17 doubles in just 90 games in 2013, also stealing 10 bases (out of 13 attempts) in just over half a season. And even if the Tigers want to give Gonzalez a shot, having Nunez there to platoon with him will give Brad Ausmus a reliable option when Gonzalez needs a day off, which he will at some point.
Nunez is not as young as Gregorius or Franklin, nor does he have nearly as high a ceiling. But while there aren’t currently any reports indicating that the Tigers will claim Nunez if he makes it to their spot in the waiver order, he was once considered the heir to Yankee legend Derek Jeter, and while he’s certainly not a game-changing acquisition, the fact that he is both cheap and an upgrade makes swinging a deal for the 26-year-old a no-brainer for Detroit.
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Here we have the Kansas City Royals‘ 2014 starting rotation: James Shields, Jason Vargas, Yordano Ventura, Jeremy Guthrie and Bruce Chen. It’s not particularly pretty, but I’ll go to battle with it. Kansas City has a great chance to end a 29-year playoff drought this year and those five, for better or worse, are a crucial part of that chance.
In the long term, however, much more is in flux.
This article looks to the future and scrutinizes prospects. Naturally, it will include a lot of speculation and projection. So let’s start on solid ground. Let’s start with what we know.
Note: Fielding independent pitching (FIP) is an advanced pitching statistic that measures a pitcher’s performance on an ERA scale while controlling for the performance of his defense. It has much better predictive power than ERA because it’s able to isolate the performance of the pitcher. It will be used occasionally throughout this article.
James Shields is a dominant, right-handed workhorse. He has amassed 200-plus innings pitched in each of the past three seasons. This is no small feat—only 35 other starters hit 200 IP in 2013.
More important is his effectiveness over those past three seasons. In that time, he posted a 3.45 FIP, far better than the league average for starters, which fell right around 4.03. In 2013, his first year with the Royals, he led the entire league in quality starts with 27. That total was matched only by NL Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw.
Viewed through a more traditional lens, Shields’ 2013 season becomes even more impressive—his 3.15 ERA was eighth-best among starters in the American League and sixth-best among those who pitched more than 200 innings.
But it’s quite probable that the 2014 season will be his last in Kansas City. With a weak crop of starting pitchers headed for free agency after the season and Shields’ remarkably consistent excellence, it’s likely that a team with much deeper pockets than the Royals will sign him to a nine-figure contract.
Even if KC were to offer him a long-term deal, it’s unlikely that it could offer him a per-year salary much higher than his current one ($13.5 million), especially given the big raises that Billy Butler and Alex Gordon are in line for in 2015. The duo will make a combined $18 million in 2014; that figure jumps to $25 million in 2015.
We also know that Bruce Chen, Jeremy Guthrie and Jason Vargas nearly epitomize what it is to be league average. But there is value in that, especially if they’re able to stay healthy and be average all season. If Danny Duffy—who I’ll get to later—is recalled from Triple-A, Chen will likely be the first man out of the rotation.
As fans, we have to hope that the organization’s decision to sign Vargas to a four-year, $32 million contract will be vindicated. As fans, we have to hope that luck and the Royals’ defensive performance will repeat themselves and mask Chen’s true pitching ability once again, because his advanced numbers for 2013 look much uglier than the pristine 3.27 ERA that he posted.
As fans, we have to hope that Guthrie can eat innings with reasonable efficiency and justify his spot in the rotation.
As realists, we have to recognize how unlikely it is that things will go so smoothly for that trio. We have to realize that all three of them will probably disappoint the team multiple times during 2014. But only Vargas is signed past 2015; luckily, they don’t factor too heavily into the future of the rotation.
The Future: Yordano Ventura, Danny Duffy, Kyle Zimmer, Sean Manaea and Miguel Almonte
We hope that these five will comprise the Royals’ rotation of the future. We could see three or four and will certainly see at least two of them pitch in Kansas City this year. So let’s get to know them and the reasons why they should make us hopeful about the future of the pitching staff.
After a lights-out spring, Yordano Ventura, a right-handed fireballer with a slight 5’11” frame, has been compared to another diminutive Dominican: Pedro Martinez. While it’s ludicrous to start comparing him to the three-time Cy Young Award winner at this stage of his career, it’s easy to be excited about a fastball that regularly climbs into triple digits.
Ventura complements his headline pitch with a plus-potential curveball, decent changeup and improving, if inconsistent, command. The good news is that he won’t be 23 years old until June and ostensibly still has room to grow.
In four minor league seasons (2010-2013), he has never posted a season FIP above 3.50. In 2013, before being called up to make a few starts for the Royals in September, he turned in his best minor league season to date. Over 57.2 IP at Double-A Northwest Arkansas, he put up a 2.56 FIP and struck out 11.55 batters per nine innings pitched. In 77.0 innings at Triple-A Omaha, those numbers were 3.17 and 9.47, respectively.
Some still think that the hard-throwing righty is destined for the bullpen, but if he can continue to develop his curveball and his command and prove that he’s able to stick in a major league rotation for a full season, the future looks bright.
In June 2012, after making six fairly average starts for Kansas City, Danny Duffy‘s elbow popped; he needed Tommy John surgery. That was a big setback indeed. Nevertheless, he eventually made his way back to the majors in 2013. After 70 successful rehab innings at Double- and Triple-A, he would return to Kansas City for five starts…five wildly inconsistent, out-of-control starts.
He failed to average five innings pitched in those five outings and struggled with his command to the tune of 5.18 BB/9. To make the case that these were actually successful starts after all, you could point to his 1.85 ERA. However, his 3.09 FIP and 4.60 xFIP (which accounts for how many of a pitcher’s fly balls should have been home runs) look much grimmer, despite the fact that the latter is probably an overstatement, given the rate at which Kauffman Stadium suppresses homers.
He then failed to make enough of an impression this spring to stick in Kansas City, which may actually be for the better, given that Ventura’s emergence would have relegated him to the bullpen.
He’ll begin the season in Omaha as a starter with a lot to prove. Time and time again, he has expressed how much he loves the organization and how hard he’s willing to work to start at the highest level. Hopefully he’ll show his impressive stuff in Omaha once again and remind Kansas City fans why they fell in love with him in the first place.
Since he is the last vestige of a once-vaunted quintet of pitching prospects in the system, fans are desperate for him to prove to be an effective major leaguer. Mike Montgomery and Jake Odorizzi have been lost via trade, John Lamb to injury and Chris Dwyer to irrelevance.
Under club control for this year and four more, Duffy could contribute a lot as a back-of-the-rotation regular. Either in the bullpen or the rotation, we’ll almost certainly see him back in Kansas City this season. Hopefully he returns with tighter command and the same ability that’s always been there.
Kyle Zimmer, picked fifth by the Royals in the 2012 MLB draft, immediately elicited hope from fans. The big righty looked like he was on the fast track to the majors after dominating the low minors. The beginning of 2013, however, told a different story.
Over his first 12 starts at Single-A-plus Wilmington, he posted an atrocious 6.32 ERA. People began to worry that he might not fulfill his massive potential after all.
But from that point forward, with a slightly altered delivery and improved command, he went on a tear. In his final 10 starts of 2013, in Single-A-plus and Double-A ball, his ERA dropped to 2.43. Belief in Zimmer was restored. Over those same 10 starts, he struck out 11.8 batters per nine innings. The stuff was tremendous, the command was there, and even though his advanced numbers were a just a little bit less staggering, it once again looked like a 2014 call-up was possible.
However, his season came to an end prematurely after a case of biceps tendonitis struck him in mid-August. It’s a minor setback, but a troublesome one nonetheless, given the encouraging string of starts that he was putting together.
This year, he will start the season at Northwestern Arkansas, and fans and team executives are already thinking that he may make his first major league appearance later this season. If he looks as dominant as he did toward the end of last season, that’s not unreasonable. With a great arm angle on his delivery, a powerful fastball and a 12-6 curveball full of potential, Zimmer’s ceiling is at the top of Kansas City’s rotation. The sooner he can get there, the better.
With the eighth pick in the 2013 MLB draft, the Royals selected Hunter Dozier, a shortstop prospect who was not thought of particularly highly by most who track prospects.
What we didn’t know at the time of that pick was general manager Dayton Moore‘s ultimate plan: With the 34th overall pick, Kansas City selected Sean Manaea—a pitcher once considered by many to be a solid top-five pick.
Manaea just one summer earlier had dominated the Cape Cod League, posting a 1.21 ERA and striking out 85 batters while walking just seven in 51.2 innings pitched. With that, the 6’5″ lefty established himself as a top prospect.
But after tearing the acetabular labrum in his left hip, his stock fell to the point that Moore was able to make one of the wisest decisions of his tenure. Because the lesser Dozier could be given a relatively small signing bonus, the money was there to sign Manaea.
Early reports out of camp have been positive—the organization is pleased with Manaea’s progress, according to The Kansas City Star. With his big, strong frame and dazzling stuff, Royals fans should begin to salivate if the positive reports keep coming in. If he fulfills his potential, he’ll be a dominant, front-line lefty.
The good news is that his floor isn’t all that low, provided that he comes back healthy. It’s hard to imagine him ending up as anything less than a productive, middle-of-the-rotation pitcher. If you don’t believe me, just ask Jason Parks, whose scouting report on Manaea, published a few weeks ago, read, in his words, “like pure smut.”
Miguel Almonte has never been the Royals’ sexiest prospect. With a strong fastball and plus changeup, Almonte, signed out of the Dominican Republic a few years ago, projects optimistically as a No. 3 starter and more realistically as a solid back-of-the-rotation starter or excellent reliever.
It’s difficult to talk extensively about his numbers, because he’s only spent one year in Single-A ball. It was, however, a very productive season. In 130.2 innings last season, he turned in a 2.76 FIP, struck out 132 and walked just 36 batters.
Granted, Single-A isn’t the majors. And Almonte is still several steps away. If he continues on his current trajectory though, we could see him in the majors in mid-to-late 2015. He’ll be just 21 years old next week, and while he doesn’t have the highest ceiling of the system’s pitching prospects, he could start contributing at a very young age.
And there you have it: five men whom Royals fans and management hope will carry the pitching torch into the future.
2014 is a big year for Kansas City; the playoffs are within grasp for the first time in nearly three decades.
The rotation is led by Shields, who will almost certainly be gone after the season. Ventura steps into the rotation this year with “phenom” status. Of the five young pitchers mentioned, he’s likely to have the most immediate impact. Duffy and Zimmer could both contribute at some point during the year. Manaea and Almonte are more likely to make an impact in 2015 and beyond.
Prospects will break your heart—I know that as well as the next baseball observer. It’s unlikely that all five of them will hit. But it’s April, a time for hope. The Royals have five impressive young starters, and if even two or three of them fulfill their potential, the future looks bright for Kansas City’s rotation.
Note: Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and Fangraphs.
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