Ask Baseball America By James Bailey
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February 9, 2000The ol’ mailbag is heating up with plenty of good questions these days. I like it. Gives me a little choice in what we can talk about here. And today we’ve got another potpourri. Four completely unrelated questions. Notice a theme? Neither do I. Enjoy. I enjoy Baseball America's excellent coverage of minor league prospects, college prospects, and high school prospects, however, it seems like there is a large void because there is no coverage of the junior college prospects. It would be nice to see a section devoted to the juco players, who are all eligible for the draft. Even though many juco players are not drafted in the first 100, it would be nice to see the prospective talent available at No. 1 ranked Grayson, Miami-Dade (where Steve Carlton pitched), Alvin (where Nolan Ryan pitched), Gulf Coast (where Don Sutton pitched), New Mexico JC where there is a young man who throws 100-plus mph, and other Junior Colleges around the country. Thanks, Bill
The problem is the sheer number of schools out there. If you add all the NCAA Division I, II and III schools, NAIA schools and major jucos, you’re way beyond 1,000 schools. There’s just no way we could do a credible job trying to cover that much, so we instead focus on Division I, because that’s where the greatest amount of interest–and the greatest percentage of pro prospects–lies. To do a good job covering the small schools would require at least one, and maybe two, full-time writers. In most (but not all) cases small schools often don’t have much in the way of a sports information department, which makes it difficult to find out about anything significant happening there. And there really isn’t anyone out there, at least not to our knowledge, that covers small schools in-depth. But I’ve got an idea. If you know of a web site, be it a newspaper’s or other, that does a particularly good job covering small college baseball, send me the link. If we get some good links from around the country, we can post a links page in our college section and at least provide a starting place for people to keep up on the game. I know you've had a lot of discussion about Adam Everett. Mostly from Red Sox fans hyping him, at least prior to the Everett for Everett swap. What I'm curious to know is where BA sees Everett now? Last year, he was No. 3 on the Red Sox top prospects list. This year he made no appearance at all. What happened? Dan S. Hess Statesboro, Ga. What happened is he wasn't on either team when its Top 10 list was done. He was still a Red Sox property when the Astros list was compiled and he was an Astro when the Red Sox list was done. Don't read into that that he wouldn't make either list, because he'd rank fairly high on both of them. This is the same thing that happened with Abraham Nunez, as discussed here last week. This kind of thing happens a couple of times each year, because it takes us three months to do the Top 10s and we can’t ask the teams to please not trade any prospects until we’re done. Well, we could ask, but . . . I had high hopes of seeing righthander Geraldo Padua somewhere in the Padres top 15 list. I'm sure you know this but he is the guy the Padres got for Jim Leyritz from the Yankees. Do you feel that Geraldo has a chance to be a Padre one day or did they just give Leyritz away for a warm body. Thanks for the help, Alec Milne Ottawa
Chris Dankberg I wanted to answer this question a few days ago, and I thought I knew the rule, but I wasn’t exactly sure. So I didn’t. I have to thank BA’s Alan Schwarz for sending me the exact rule as it reads in the Basic Agreement, so I wouldn’t get the answer wrong and look like a doofus. Anyway, the answer to the question is this: Any player with five or more years of major league service who is traded in the middle of a multi-year deal can demand to be traded at the end of the season. So if the Red Sox went insane and traded Pedro Martinez to the Twins this year, at the end of the season Pedro could file a request to be traded elsewhere. The Twins would then have until March 15 of next year to accommodate Pedro or he would immediately become a free agent. Also, as part of the agreement, Pedro could specify six teams to which he would not accept a deal. Basically, what this means is a player can demand to have his contract renegotiated if he’s traded in the middle of a multi-year deal. Because the team knows he has the right to demand a trade, and he can say, "look, I won’t exercise this option if you boost up my salary a little bit." And so the team says, "sure, we’d love to give you more money." And then they sign him to a new contract. February 7, 2000 In honor of college baseball season really getting underway this weekend, we’ll start off today with a couple of college questions. And then follow up with a few minor leaguers. Really a little bit for everyone today. I know that a college sophomore is eligible for the baseball draft if he is 21. But, what is the cutoff date to determine his age? Is it something like June 1 or is it the actual date of the draft? By the way, what is the date for the 2000 draft? Dan Jensen Claremore, OK For a college player to be eligible for the draft he must turn 21 within 45 days of the draft. So any player who turns 21 by July 20 this year will be eligible to be drafted as a sophomore. This year’s draft is on June 5-6. You have [Arizona righthander] Ben Diggins listed as the second best prospect in the draft. But being that he is a draft eligible sophomore with lots of leverage, do you think he will fall to the supplemental round or even the second round before someone takes him and gives him big bucks? Dave Sparks Morris, IL Diggins has more leverage than normal, but I think if a team is truly interested in his talent, they will draft him based on that. And when you think about it, the difference between his leverage and the leverage of a junior isn’t that big to his drafting team. They only get one shot at a junior, who can go back to school if he doesn’t sign, and they would only get one shot at a draft-eligible sophomore. You can be sure scouts who talk to Diggins this spring will discuss the signability question, but I can’t see him slipping very far based on his status. In last year’s draft, righthander Kurt Ainsworth was picked with the 24th overall pick by the Giants as a draft-eligible sophomore–and he is a recovered Tommy John guy. The Giants really picked him about where he slotted talent-wise, so his status as a sophomore didn’t seem to affect his draft position at all. Ainsworth was eligible as a sophomore because he was in his third college year, having missed one season due to the arm injury. But he had two years of baseball eligibility left, so it's the same as far as bargaining power. There were seven draft-eligible sophomores on our Top 100 College Prospects list for you sophomore fans out there: Diggins (No. 2), Louisiana State righthander Billy Brian (No. 33), Tulane second baseman James Jurries (No. 47), Baylor shortstop Jace Brewer (No. 55), Miami righthander Vince Vazquez (No. 60), Southern California catcher Beau Craig (No. 63) and Princeton righthander Chris Young (No. 77). First of all, love the column and the work you guys do. I was just wondering if you had heard anything on what the Dodgers' plans were for third baseman Brennan King now that they have signed Aybar out of the Dominican Republic? Is King going to be trade bait, or will he move back to short perhaps? Thanks a lot and keep up the good work. Jacob I doubt the Dodgers are in any hurry to move King. Both he and Aybar are so young there’s no reason to move either one of them, either to a new position or a new organization. If they both develop and rise through the system as third basemen, eventually the Dodgers will have to make a decision about moving one, or both if Adrian Beltre is still in Los Angeles at that point. But there’s no hurry. If the Dodgers liked King as a shortstop last summer they probably would have left him there. But they projected him more as a third baseman because of his size (6-foot-3, 180 pounds by the time he turned 19) and lack of speed. So he’s not likely to move back to shortstop. And both he and Aybar are too good defensively at this point to move to first base or the outfield. If as they climb the ladder they seem to have difficulty at the hot corner, then maybe a move would be in place, but not now. I see where Kenny Kelly may choose to play baseball exclusively for Tampa Bay. He was recently rated as the No. 10 prospect in Tampa Bay's system by BA. At this point, his power (.408 SLG in '99) and selectivity (18BB/46K, .335 OBP in '99) in Class A don't jump out at you. If he does decide to focus just on baseball, is he young enough and have enough offensive skills to progress to a major league talent? Additionally, what was his SB/CS ratio last year? Thanks, Tim Mavor Kelly is only 21 and if he decides to concentrate on baseball he’s got plenty of time to build himself into a good player. His walk-to-strikeout ratio wasn’t terrific last year, but baseball is an extremely difficult game to master on a part-time basis. Kelly has a lot of talent, but it takes more than talent to become a major leaguer. It takes a lot of at-bats to learn how to recognize different pitches and learn what pitchers are trying to do to you. Kelly has had just 523 at-bats in his three-year career because he has to miss the beginning and end of the season. And how about the disadvantage of no spring training? Kelly would finally get one if he sacked football. Another big advantage would be cutting down on his injury risk. Kelly partially tore his ACL during football season. If it had been torn worse he might have had to spend his summer rehabbing, missing his baseball time. There are no guarantees that Kelly will become a star if he concentrates on baseball, but it sure will enhance his chances. Hello, I was wondering what you think about Giuseppe Chiarmonte’s prospects to make a splash in the bigs in 2000? I think he is going to play himself into this season's top NL rookie and was surprised that another catcher was ranked above him and overall Giuseppe ranked 11th of the top prospects for the Giants. Mylove4johanna@hotmail.com I wouldn’t rule anything out, but I wouldn’t put a lot of money on Chiaramonte’s rookie prospects this year. First off, the guy hit .245 and drew just 40 walks at Double-A Shreveport last year. He needs to improve on that at Triple-A this year to show he’s ready for the big leagues. Also, the Giants acquired Bobby Estalella from the Phillies and seem to want him to win the starting job. Longtime Giants farmhand Doug Mirabelli has the inside track on the backup job. And by the way, say hello to Johanna from all the rest of us. Good luck with things. I hope you never need to change your e-mail account. Directory: mlb mlb -> By Ken Gurnick mlb -> Los angeles dodgers clips mlb -> 2010 – What’s the name of the umpire whose errant call cost the Tigers’ Armando Galarraga a perfect game in 2010? (Jim Joyce) gabp mlb -> Wednesday, September 23, 2015 headlines: Verrett stumbles in the fifth as Mets lose to Braves 6-2 mlb -> All-Star History In what city was the first All-Game played? (Chicago, 1933) Baseball & Pop Culture mlb -> Los angeles dodgers clips mlb -> Los angeles dodgers clips mlb -> Los angeles dodgers clips mlb -> The Impact of Television Revenue on Major League Baseball mlb -> Los angeles dodgers clips Download 1 Mb. Share with your friends:
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