Mariner Minors: 03/27/2005

Mariner Minors

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Guttormson to Japan?

I suppose that lately you've been hearing whispers about this from various sources. It all started about a week or so ago when a newspaper in Japan wrote up a story about the possibility of the Yakult Swallows acquiring his services, an article which included a rather detailed scouting report. Since then I've been trying to track this one (with some help from Dave Cameron) and while it seemed like only a possibilty a short while ago, DG just left a comment indicating that it's getting closer and closer to a reality. Right-hander Ricky Guttormson appears to be in the process of being sold to Japan for 125k. Any of you holding out hope that the local guy will still make the hometown 25 this year (or 40, for that matter) should probably move on.

Guttormson was one of the many independant league finds over the past couple of years. He spent some time as San Antonio's closer last season, and eventually led the system with 25 saves. While his numbers looked nice on the whole, his WHIP (1.40) was a little higher than you'd usually like from a relief prospect, particularly a 27-year-old (now 28) with some injury history who has just hit double-A for the first time. Sherrill put up much better overall numbers in the past two years and he just got cut (unfairly), so the odds on Guttormson ever making the M's roster probably weren't that great anyway.

So farewell to a guy who had a pretty nice story coming into the organization last year. May he have better luck in Japan.

posted by Jay Y. @ 9:34 PM

In other news...

The Seattle PI is trying to run me out of business. They're running a bunch of minor league stories this morning, including a list of the top position players, a list of the top pitchers (both in relief and starting), and a piece by John Hickey that extols the virtues of our international scouting. Seriously, I'm in awe, particularly with the international one which, due to a couple of inside connections, goes into even more detail than I'm usually capable of around here. There isn't much I can add to it in the way of extra insight other than infielder Dean Zorn might've been working out with the Mariners' Australian team as well, and I think that the M's have some sort of baseball training facility set up or funded in Taiwan. Other than that, spectacular job there by Hickey.

On the note of the lists, I can see from the mention of certain prospects on the list (Thom Oldham and Jason Snyder) and other references therein (Bohn vs "Bone") that someone's finally listening to Joe Kaiser over there, which is excellent as well. I don't necessarily agree with all that I see over there (Brent Johnson comparable to Justin Leone? Maybe in that they're both from Vegas and can play multiple positions), but most of it is top notch.

Head on over and check them out... but please stay tuned here if you want continuing coverage over the regular season.

posted by Jay Y. @ 12:46 AM

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

News Around the Minors (3/29/05):

For those of you that are new to the minor league gig, check out Jonathan Mayo's Mariners system overview over at MLB.com, which reviews the past year, including the system leaders, top five drafted players, and other things of note.

In front office news, the Mariners have hired Tommy Jones as their independant league scout. I haven't been able to dig up too much on hims beyond that he was a minor league manager for a time and worked as Director of Player Development for the D'backs, but I did find out that he was involved in the independant Lone Star League (which I think is now defunct) for some time. I haven't been able to track down any of the players that he's been involved in the signing of, however. Overall, it seems like he has a solid background in the game, but that doesn't mean it will be easy to replace Charley Kerfeld and his success. There have also been a few minor transactions recently, which have sent Benji Gil to the Mets and Mickey Lopez to the Giants, both for cash considerations. Lefty Nate Bland was given his release.

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Post-Crescent is already rolling out stories on the upcoming Timber Rattlers season, including a story on team physician Etienne Mejia and a general notebook including some comments on manager Scott Steinmann preparing for the season. Still no word on how the roster might be shaping up there.

The San Bernadino County Sun is also running a short article on the upcoming Inland Empire season today. This one goes a bit farther into the roster makeup, though no complete roster is listed. It looks like there will be a number of returning players on this year's team.

Baseball America has set up their 31st team, comprised of talented guys who just missed making their own team's list for whatever reasons. The M's have a representative on the list as well, but unlike Jamal Strong and Aaron Taylor, who appeared on last year's list, this isn't exactly who you would expect. Instead, they added outfielder Jon Nelson, whose power/speed combination has intrigued them. While you're over there, you might as well check out their new draft notebook and their list of the top 50 college prospects.

Aaron Gleeman at Hardball Times recently named Felix Hernandez as his number two prospect (behind Joe Mauer) in his top 50 list. Jeremy Reed came in as number 11 and Shin-soo Choo is number 40.

The RotoTimes has a list of the top 10 AL west prospects, which includes Felix, Reed, and Choo on the list.

posted by Jay Y. @ 12:59 PM