Talent Overload in Appleton
A Future Forty update is coming tomorrow, as I wanted to confirm all the minor league rosters before putting it out there, but since the Future Forty threads often turn into discussions about a specific player, I wanted to give this its own post.
The Wisconsin Timber Rattlers have more prospects on their roster than any team I can remember in Mariner history. This team is loaded with guys who at least have a shot at a major league future, and basically every exciting young talent in the system has been sent to Appleton.
The rotation contains Tony Butler, Chris Tillman, Nathan Adcock, Anthony Varvaro, and Ricky Orta. Tillman, Butler, Orta, and Adcock were the M’s selections in the second, third, fourth, and fifth rounds respectively last summer, and Anthony Varvaro would have been a second or third round pick in the 2005 draft had he not undergone Tommy John surgery. Orta and Adcock are more fringy prospects at this point, but even they have some potential, and Butler/Tillman/Varvaro is an outstanding trio of arms. Steve Uhlmansiek, another TJ recovery guy, will work out of the bullpen.
On the offensive side, SS Carlos Triunfel will make his professional debut as a 17-year-old in the Midwest League, making him likely to be the youngest player in the league this year. He’ll be joined by Alex Liddi, Kuo-Hui Lo, Greg Halman, Gerardo Avila, and Kalian Sams to form a very talented young line-up. Of that group, only Sams won’t appear on the Future Forty, and all but Sams and Avila are among the organizations best offensive prospects.
Butler, Tillman, Varvaro, Triunfel, Liddi, Halman, and Lo are essentially the cream of the crop in terms of low-level talent in the organization, and they’re all going to be playing together in Wisconsin this year. If you’re anywhere near a Midwest League city, you want to make sure to make it to the ballpark when the T-Rats roll into town. The next wave of talent headed towards Seattle will be on full display.
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Woa. 3/4 of my post evaporated. That sucks.
Basically, I ranted that this M’s team is a candidate to form into a “synergy”, defined as a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Hargrove and Bavasi could reap the benefits of a team that wins in spite of their “intuitive” influence, and we get stuck with them indefinitely.
I was wondering if Vidro gets axed if the M’s win in spite of him? Bavasi wouldn’t lose as much face then.
Well said. And I do agree with you for the most part. I’m just so afraid that change however justified can lead to negative leadership.
Call it an after-effect of growing up a Northwest sport fan.
But yet I continue to be hopeful, even if that is unwise at times given past history.
#46: Cutting Everett was cheap: they ate the 1-year salary and buyout for the option year. Vidro has $16m guaranteed coming to him over the next two years. No one will take that albatross of a contract off Bavasi’s hands for a guy with no defensive ability who put up a 100+ OPS in the NL last year.
Get used to his vetran (sic) presence in the lineup.
Good to see that the talent pool is being refilled after Pat Gillick used it as a skateboard park.
You should blame Frank Mattox, and Roger Jongewaard, not Pat Gillick. That skateboard park Gillick provided us with delivered King Felix, Jose Lopez, J.J. Putz, and indirectly Yuniesky Betancourt. Without Gillick you have no Bob Engle. I can’t begin to imagine how bad this team would be without those players.
Please. Pat Gillick thought first-round draft picks weren’t worth the money. Look where that got us.
I heard the Mariners scouts were comparing Tillman to a Mark Buerhle or a Jon Garland? Is this true? Because if he pitches that way in real life, well, I definitely wouldn’t mind it.
Calderon, think of all the players we DON’T have because of Gillick, not the 3.5 we do have. Yes, Felix is royalty, but you spend a decade with a team, shouldn’t you pull more than 3.5 players that are defendable as legitimate players to be with the current roster?
Well, I still hate what Gillick did to the team, too, but you can’t deny that no matter how badly he and his crew screwed up in the draft, he and his crew at least should get SOME credit back for their work on the international market. They really did go after and get a lot of their current ML home-grown talent on the international market.
Good point, PP, but think how flush the whole Mariners organization would have been today if he would have put a few million more per year into American talent and the draft (along with not signing FA’s before the date when the draft pick is lost for the signing)
… the ROI would have been fantastic, and the team/minors could have been flush with upper level talent for years.
Find me a perfect GM and I’ll show you a dynasty.
That said, Gillick was a MORON.
Please. Pat Gillick thought first-round draft picks weren’t worth the money. Look where that got us.
It got us 90+ wins a season and a shot at post-season play every year Gillick was in Seattle. The same cannot be said for Bavasi.
Adam Jones, a compensatory pick, didn’t turn out too shabby. Non-first round picks Feierabend, O’Flaherty, and Livingston all have good chances to become big leaguers.
It’s well documented Gillick clashed with the meddling Chuck Armstrong, and still had success.
I think we both agree we should have gotten more than a division title, but there were many outside factors working against Gillick during that time period.
I heard that Yuni got an extension today. Any word on the numbers? Any opinions of it from Dave or Derek?
Good point, PP, but think how flush the whole Mariners organization would have been today if he would have put a few million more per year into American talent and the draft
Blame Chuck Armstrong for that. One of his many hats is possessing the club’s financial keys.
Why else would a good Scouting Director pass up better arms than Brandon Morrow in last year’s draft? Like Lincecum, and Miller. They allegedly scared off the team with high signing bonuses. Yet the team didn’t hesitate to bid $10-$13 million on Kei Igawa.
as long as there’s threadjacking going on…
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#57: I’m with you. Too much Gillick bashing, too much Bavasi love. They were just good at different things, and one of them (Gillick) is not very personable while the other one (Bavasi) is. Personable gets too much play for him here. Is the goal of the GM to a) get the big club into the playoffs? b) ensure steady stream of talent in the farm system, c) both. It’s c, of course, and it’s all about striking a balance between the two. Our approach is clearly unbalanced; small market teams like the As and the Twins who are manging to do both to some degree, successfully year in and year out, are forced to have the right balance by circumstances. Maybe throwing LESS money at the big league roster would have forced this organization to pull it’s head out of its’ ass and try to come up with an approach to achieving the right balance, instead of swinging back and forth on the pendulum.
It got us 90+ wins a season and a shot at post-season play every year Gillick was in Seattle. The same cannot be said for Bavasi.
It also got us 2004 to 2006. Gillick burned any chances this team had to contend on his way out the door.
Adam Jones, a compensatory pick, didn’t turn out too shabby. Non-first round picks Feierabend, O’Flaherty, and Livingston all have good chances to become big leaguers.
Jones worked out, but given the amount of extraordinarily risky picks, it was inevitable that one of them would. Feierabend is a solid, unspectacular prospect, the kind that every organization drafts every year. O’Flaherty is a LOOGY, and Livingston’s not a major league player. So we’ve got two and a half good picks.
Contrast that with the worst draft of all time. The only major league player we selected in 2002 was T.J. Bohn, who isn’t really a major leaguer. Well, we also drafted Travis Buck, but didn’t sign him. But good luck finding a worse top ten than Mayberry (not signed), Womack, Martinez-Esteve (not signed), Frye, Bergdall, Cate, Bastida-Martinez, Perry, Forbes, and Stitt. They basically lit money on fire.
Of course, that draft was only slightly worse than this one in terms of talent added, but is arguably a bigger wasted opportunity since the club had two compensatory picks for losing A-Rod. Garciaparra, Rivera, Wilson, Abreu, Merritt, Livingston, Cole, Ockerman, Axford, Ellena, Blood, and Hintz in the first ten rounds.
Those drafts suck. So did the 2000 draft, where the best player we took was Chip Ambres. Of course, they forfeited their first three draft picks that year, so Mattox gets a bit of a pass for this clunker.
That’s a three year run where the M’s just completely whiffed on the draft. They didn’t get one ounce of value out of 150 selections over a three year period. That kind of ineptitude is remarkable.
It’s well documented Gillick clashed with the meddling Chuck Armstrong, and still had success.
He mortgaged the franchise’s future to win while he was in charge, then left it to others to clean up his mess. What a hero.
Please, no more talk of those three drafts. It makes me ill.
Dave,
Going all the way back to post 7, are you saying Liddi has a higher ceiling as a hitter than Halman?
“If you’re anywhere near a Midwest League city, you want to make sure to make it to the ballpark when the T-Rats roll into town. The next wave of talent headed towards Seattle will be on full display.”
I live right near where the Quad City Swing play, so I’ll definitely have to check these boys out when they roll into town.
Going all the way back to post 7, are you saying Liddi has a higher ceiling as a hitter than Halman?
Yea, I like Liddi more than Halman offensively. Halman could make up the difference with his glove, and they’re similarly valuable prospects, but just on offense, I’d prefer Liddi.
Kind of a more broad question: How can this GM and his management team be so TERRIBLE at evaluating major league talent in their trades and signings, but be half way decent with their evaluating of rough and undeveloped talent for their drafts? Is there more political issues driving their decisions on the major league level? Is it just he has better advisors and scouts helping on the draft than helping in the trades and signings?
It seems like team Bavasi has gotten better with their drafts each year, but increasingly worse with their Major league trades and signings.