Other Winter Leagues Starting Soon
Winter ball has started, and while we’re all presently reading as much into Hultzen’s Arizona Fall League debut as we reasonably can, there are a few other leagues that will be starting up soon here that will also be worthy of some attention or at the very least, something to get you through a panged winter of baseball withdrawal. Larry Stone got a preliminary list of who will be playing where, and while it doesn’t include the lesser leagues like Nicaragua and Colombia, it does give us a good idea of who will be playing in the Caribbean Leagues and Australia.
As usual, Venezuela got assigned the bulk of our players, and Stone highlights Alex Liddi and Michael Saunders as being the big ones while adding Vicente Campos, Edilio Colina, Jarrett Grube, Moises Hernandez, Cesar Jimenez, Jose Jimenez, Luis Jimenez, Johan Limonta, Mario Martinez, Yoervis Medina, Scott Patterson (currently with Team USA for World Cup/Pan Am), Stephen Pryor, Mauricio Robles, and Nate Tenbrink as other players scheduled to see time with just the Cardenales, who are turning into the Mariners South. Yohermyn Chavez, Francisco Martinez, Luis Rodriguez, and Jesus Sucre will play for other teams in the league.
I’ll start out by touching on the two names that Stone mentioned. The mind will probably drawn to Saunders’ name because he’s carried with him certain expectations as he’s moved up and we’re still waiting on him to make good on any of them, or maybe he’s become less of a figure in our fan consciousness thanks to the addition of all sorts of new shiny outfield toys. On one hand, I could point to him having another season that had him post interesting-looking numbers in Tacoma (a 71/50 K/BB in 291 PAs) and then flopping at the major league level, but on the other, we can’t undersell the personal issues he’s had either. It’s been a bad year for Mariners fans and Mariners players. Liddi had impressive power numbers in his limited time with the M’s, with two-thirds of his hits going for extras, but that 17/3 K/BB in 44 PAs was pretty horrific. I suppose what we’d be looking for him is some semblance of discipline and a reasonable level of hitting beyond that. I find it curious that he would be getting additional playing time this winter while Seager, the guy who more people are projecting to take the third base job, is not, but most would claim that Liddi needs more time to help even out his game.
The other names are probably not so relevant for a lot of people, so I’ll only touch on a few. Grube has pitched well for us since coming over from the independent leagues and could be a short-term pitching solution, but he’s also going to be thirty in November. Cesar Jimenez would be continuing his bullpen audition and hoping that he’s found a way of getting left-handers out. After going down with that elbow thing in spring training, Robles needs to get innings in as he only logged 32.1 all season and walked ten more than he struck out. Another player in similar straights would be Tenbrink, who didn’t play at all after late June. The dark horse is probably Pryor, who has an outside shot of pitching his way into a seventh-inning role out of spring training and has the stuff to hold up in higher leverage situations. It will also be worth seeing if Francisco Martinez can help to redeem the Fister trade, which isn’t looking so hot at the moment, or if Chavez could re-establish himself in anyway.
While going over the Cardenales site, I came across a few other news items that would probably be of some interest. One is that Tenbrink wasn’t the Mariners’ first choice to fill an outfield spot, and that they had originally wanted to send Casper Wells down there, but Wells is still ailing in some way or another and they decided to let him sit. The other is that the manager of Lara this season will be Pedro Grifol, who used to head the Aquasox teams in the Junes of yore. We’ll be grasping at whatever straws are available to us, but Pedro should be in position to be making better evaluations. Games for them will be starting up Wednesday.
Moving around to the other leagues, Stone has Leury Bonilla, Edward Paredes, Carlos Peguero, and Carlos Triunfel in the Dominican League. This is one of those times where I’d say “look elsewhere”, because unless you’re really curious to see if Peguero can fake some plate discipline for a while or if Triunfel will work to justify his seemingly inevitable placement on the 40-man, there are better options. Paredes still hasn’t developed command and Bonilla, bless his little heart, is mostly interesting when he tries to play every position on the field in a single game. Similarly, you should be able to pass up on the Puerto Rican Winter League. Sure, Daniel Carroll will be there, and he had a breakout season in the Cal League this year, remaining healthy for a full year for the first time ever, but even though he walked eighty-eight times (EIGHTY-EIGHT TIMES) he struck out in over a quarter of his plate appearances. I’m waiting on him doing something interesting in double-A. The Dominican League will start up next Friday and Puerto Rico has usually kicked off about a week after that.
The only other league we have information on yet is that starting in November, we’ll have Denny Almonte, Steve Baron, James Jones, and Jandy Sena in Australia playing for the Adelaide Bite. This season, Almonte cut thirty Ks off his 2010 total, which sounds great except that the drop from 192 to 161 is less impressive in a larger context of him striking out in nearly 30% of his plate appearances. Baron didn’t do much after spring training, being injured much of the time, but his overall line was pretty close to his 2010 line anyway, just with slightly improved peripherals. Jones has another season where he was abysmal in the first half (.617 OPS) and pretty amazing in the second (.931) with the improvements again coming at the expense of patience. Sena split his time mainly between Clinton and High desert this season and was mostly interesting in that his season K/9 was around four.
The overall picture looks pretty similar to a lot of winter league seasons you’ll see. There aren’t a lot of lower level top prospects that you want to keep tabs on, but there are plenty of nearer-term contributors that could be worth tracking. After a certain point in the winter, you take what you can get.
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I’d argue our attention still gets drawn to Saunders in part because none of the other people that’ve played in left this year have done much to draw our attention away – except maybe Casper Wells (and we may very well need him in right soon). We keep hoping someone, ANYONE, will step up and claim the job. It doesn’t seem like the bar is all that high – don’t suck at bat, don’t suck when in the field – but obviously it’s more difficult than it appears.
But I’m not sure it’s even faint hope that draws our attention to Condor anymore – I think it may be more along the lines of morbid fascination. Similar to how you might respond if a train wreck was happening right in front of you.
Nah, that was Snelling.
Jay-
Curious why a team would choose to send certain players to certain locations. Is there a league where you want to send pitchers, or hitters, or lefties, or curve-ball specialists?
Or is it about where a player might “fit in” well?
Seems weird to send some players to Arizona, others to Venezuela, and other to Australia.
But as Jeff from LL says “Baseball!”
I, too, have said “Baseball!”
But more importantly, it’s really just a function of the league’s difficulty more than anything else, as far as the foreign ones go. Venezuela rates in a range that goes from “a good advanced-A league” to “a good double-A league/fringe triple-A” in terms of its competition. That’s why near-ready prospects are more likely to land there than anywhere else. The Dominican League rates probably about the same, maybe a little bit less, while Puerto Rico and Australia are both in the “advanced-A” to “intermediate-A” range. All these things are largely a function of the talent generated by those countries seeing as how native players often comprise the bulk of any given roster. Puerto Rico is not the hotbed that Venezuela or the Dominican Republic are, and Australia is much the same, though it generates its share of talent and draws on the existing leagues there. Just for the sake of adding them to the discussion, Nicaragua and Colombia both rate to roughly a short-season level of difficulty.
Arizona is its own beast. For one thing, the rosters are constructed such that each team sends only double-A, triple-A, and rather young MLB guys to the league, with each team granted one player below those three levels. This makes for better, or at least more polished competition, but because the league behaves in the way it does, teams are often reluctant to send good pitching down there. Hence, it’s a lot more difficult to figure out what the numbers mean exactly. A player might also get sent to the Arizona Fall League over another international league just because it’s easier to keep close tabs on a guy in Arizona.
Count me in the “blindly hoping Peguero learns plate discipline” camp. His power is fascinating enough for me to ignore all the bad if he learns how to make contact. I’m aware of how highly illogical that is.
Wow that’s amazing, I never knew teams sent guys to Australia.
Slim pickings for baseball in Australia.
Unfortunately I’m in Victoria (Adelaide is another state) however I’ll keep an eye out for when Adelaide is playing any clubs here in Vic and will try and get down.
Thanks for the heads up Jay!
I kinda thought I’d see Halman’s name somewhere. He’s so atheletic, I’d like to see him progress. Aso Tenbrick.
Maybe Baron can can shine in Oz. I believe this is the second year the the Australia league. RSS was there last year. Speaking of RSS he was 2-10 with a 6.19 ERA, talk about wishing a guy could make a comeback…..
“I find it curious that he [Liddi] would be getting additional playing time this winter while Seager, the guy who more people are projecting to take the third base job, is not, but most would claim that Liddi needs more time to help even out his game.”
Maybe “people” from the M’s organization have a different planning from “people” like fans and newswriters. It’s a possibility.
I’m surprised Marcus Littlewood isn’t playing. Is he maybe injured? He was a 2nd round draft pick so they must really not trust he becomes anything if they’re not playing him in the winter. Sad too – we need catching prospects, badly.
“I find it curious that he [Liddi] would be getting additional playing time this winter while Seager, the guy who more people are projecting to take the third base job, is not, but most would claim that Liddi needs more time to help even out his game.”
I read this as Seager being too weak to play 3B (and honestly not that good defensively) while Liddi has the power to, if he can stop striking out 1/3 of the time. Most likely projections are Seager is a utility player/3B stop gap and pray Liddi stops the Ks or Martinez puts it all together. Or maybe Carticala can fake a 3B impression.
Littlewood is in instructs. He has way too little experience/polish to be tossed at any of the winter leagues just yet.
“The Dominican League rates probably about the same, maybe a little bit less”
Well, the gap have narrowed in the last couple of years, but the DR League used to be the stronger league, because big leaguers used to play at the end of the regular season and during playoffs. I’d say that both leagues are identical in many ways, and although Vzla has 8 teams and the DR only 6, both leagues follow the same pattern of players integration. In the first couple of months you see “advanced-A” to “intermediate-A” players as Jay referred, but as the season progress you see players from double-A and Triple-A filling teams’ rosters.
As for the Mariners players participating in DR League, don’t be surprised if Peguero and Triunfel don’t accumulate great numbers, since both of them will be playing in a pitchers park (Estadio Quisqueya).
Littlewood is in instructs. He has way too little experience/polish to be tossed at any of the winter leagues just yet.
That’s kind of what surprises me. I thought he would be good enough for some winter league ball, but I guess he hasn’t developed as much as I would have liked.
I guess there’s always Steve Baron…
Littlewood was terrible in half a season at Clinton and then merely okay (great peripherals, bad average) in Everett. There are no players from below High Desert on any of these winter league rosters with the exception of Campos, who in all likelihood will not be pitching.
Brad Miller, who signed late and had three years of college ball in a good conference backing him up, is in instructs instead of a winter league. Dowd, Guarnaccia, Hicks, Marlette, and Marder are also not in a winter league, but instructs, in spite of the organization’s need for catching. I don’t understand how Littlewood, who isn’t even really a catcher yet, not being assigned to a winter league is supposed to be surprising.
Jay, should be trying to read into anything from Liddi being assigned a winter club while Seager was not? Or is it just a case that Seager getting more playing time is unnecessary since he’s been here since July?
Just an FYI – Daniel Carroll’s going to be playing with Lara in the Venezuelan league and not in PR. All told, that’s a good move – better competition, and it’ll make it easier of us to follow his progress.