Mariner Minors: 01/01/2006

Mariner Minors

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Transaction Update (1/5/06)

Baseball America informs us that the M's have signed LHPs J.C. Contreras and Luke Lockwood, C Andy Dominique, and IFs Jose Morban and Scott Youngbauer. In one of the more recent organizational notes, they also mention the M's signed RHP Chris Jaile.

Contreras, 23, has been bouncing around in the Twins' system for a while now, mostly slingshotting from their FSL affiliate in Fort Meyers to their GCL complex and back for the past two and a half years. In four years in the U.S. since coming in from Venezuela, he's logged 33 innings per year on average, and the highest he's ever gone was 61.1 in 2002. No idea what his deal is, haven't had time to look yet, but I guess he has some potential.

Lockwood, 24, had one of this best seasons this year moving on from Les Expos to the Marlins, finally getting his hits down below one per inning for the first time in his career. His walk rate was also low, below two, and a his K per nine of six isn't bad either, but most of his career has been less than successful. Lefty swingman, makes for intriguing organizational filler.

Jaile, 24, has gone from shortstop to catcher to pitcher. Decent velocity, supposedly hitting 93 on occasion, so I guess he has some potential. We like converted position players for pitchers.

Dominique, 30, doesn't seem bad if you're insistant on having a quad-A catcher/DH/1B around as insurance.

Morban, 26, has bounced around from place to place, even doing some time as a major league rule 5 pick, but he never really turned into anything. He's generally had good speed and ISO numbers, but his average has been awful on a regular basis, and I don't know if his defense makes him worth the trouble.

Youngbauer, 27 (soon), meets the same basic description, except he's shown less power over his career and has had a few isolated performances at various levels that are strikingly good, but too short to make anything of (.295/.377/.607 in 17 games in the SAL in 2002, .321/.380/.514 in 27 games in the Carolina League in 2005), and both happened at levels where he was a good deal older than his competition. He has shown the ability to hit for a higher average compared to Morban, but he's really just as streaky.

Not much to say on this crew. The arms are kind of interesting, I guess.

I also received a copy of the San Antonio team recap that's close to final. I'll have to take out some time to review it, but that should get posted within the next few days, depending on when I have time.

posted by Jay Y. @ 12:48 AM

Monday, January 02, 2006

Winter Leagues Stats Wrap (1/2/06)

Venezuelan Winter League:
RHP Nibaldo Acosta: 0-1, 9.00 ERA in 7.0 IP, 7 runs (7 ER), 7 hits, 0/8 K/BB
RHP Yorman Bazardo: 1-2, 2.51 ERA in 32.1 IP, 10 runs (9 ER), 29 hits (2 HR), 30/14 K/BB
OF T.J. Bohn: .267/.358/.345 in 165 at-bats, 10 2B, HR, 17 runs, 29 RBI, 23/48 BB/K
SS Asdrubal Cabrera: .241/.328/.315 in 54 at-bats, 2 2B, 4 runs, 7 RBI, 7/10 BB/K
RHP Marcos Carvajal: 0-2, 4.96 ERA in 16.1 IP, 12 runs (9 ER), 13 hits (2 HR), 14/15 K/BB
RHP Renee Cortez: 0-2, 4.91 ERA in 29.1 IP, 18 runs (16 ER), 32 hits (HR), 25/10 K/BB
RHP Rich Dorman: 3-2, 3.08 ERA in 52.2 IP, 24 runs (18 ER), 58 hits (HR), 65/31 K/BB
LHP Jose Escalona: 0-0, 6.14 ERA in 7.1 IP, 12 hits, 7 runs (5 ER), 5/4 K/BB
RHP Emiliano Fruto: 3-1, 2.03 ERA in 26.2 IP, 13 saves, 7 runs (6 ER), 27 hits (HR), 28/12 K/BB
IF Jesus Guzman: .270/.333/.400 in 100 at-bats, 4 2B, 3 HR, 13 runs, 16 RBI, 10/20 BB/K
RHP Jeff Heaverlo: 0-3, 6.62 ERA in 17.2 IP, 17 runs (13 ER), 21 hits (4 HR), 14/10 K/BB
LHP Cesar Jimenez: 2-3, 2.87 ERA in 62.2 IP, 23 runs (20 ER), 56 hits (2 HR), 38/29 K/BB
LHP Chris Key: 0-0, 6.48 ERA in 8.1 IP, 7 runs (6 ER), 12 hits (2 HR), 5/3 K/BB
IF Jose Lopez: .285/.369/.354 in 130 at-bats, 6 2B, HR, 12 runs, 16 RBI, 16/22 BB/K
IF Oswaldo Navarro: .243/.282/.351 in 37 at-bats, 4 2B, 7 runs, RBI, 1/3 BB/K
C Luis Oliveros: .143/.182/.142 in 21 at-bats, run, 4 RBI, 0/3 BB/K
LHP Ryan Rowland-Smith: 0-0, 4.05 ERA in 6.2 IP, 3 runs (3 ER), 7 hits, 2/3 K/BB

Little to be said this time around. It seems like they're sending out the scrubs lately, because Jimenez and Bazardo didn't get any innings in while Acosta and Escalona did. Meanwhile, on offense, Oliveros had more at-bats this week than the rest of the M's prospects combined. Yikes. This could just be an indicator that they've started their playoffs.

Dominican Winter League (Semi-finals):
RHP Rafael Soriano: 0-0, 0.00 ERA in 2.1 IP, 2 hits, 2/0 K/BB

The semi-finals have started in the Dominican. I'm not going to be able to get all the stats for the playoffs around the winter leagues, but I can get these ones and it seems that Raffy's doing pretty well in his brief stints. Numbers accurate through the 30th.

Puerto Rican Winter League:

RHP Sean Green: 0-0, 3.86 ERA in 25.2 IP, 14 runs (11 ER), 32 hits, 18/9 K/BB
2B Erick Monzon: .040/.143/.040 in 25 at-bats, run, RBI, 3/4 BB/K
C Rene Rivera: .189/.257/.242 in 95 at-bats, 2 2B, HR, 5 runs, 10 RBI, 6/29 BB/K
LHP Jake Woods: 0-3, 5.48 ERA in 21.1 IP, 16 runs (13 ER), 25 hits (3 HR), 22/10 K/BB

Same level of accuracy here. Green allowed five runners in two innings, which led to a run scored against him. Rivera slid a bit. Monzon took a walk and drove in a run, but still isn't hitting. Woods seems to have headed home for the winter.

posted by Jay Y. @ 1:09 PM

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Excuse The Dust...

If you're coming in and finding things slightly out of whack, that's my fault. I've been trying to fix the XML feed, which has been down since I started using RRS. The RRS itself stopped working quite a while ago, hence the need to switch things around a bit.

Unfortunately, this meant that I had to redo the template and replace the sidebar content as well as various posting features, such as the comments, because I didn't make a backup.

But, with any luck, an XML feed should be working shortly, and if not, the problem may become slightly easier to diagnose.

Edit: 9:57 pm

Mark, who runs the SportSpot forums, hooked me up a feed over at FeedBurner, which means no one has to go through the code or anything nasty like that. A fine solution for all parties involved. Thanks, Mark!

posted by Jay Y. @ 11:07 AM