Here’s the latest from around the junior circuit…
- Athletics southpaw Felix Doubront left his final spring start today after one inning due to forearm tightness and underwent an MRI this evening. (MLB.com’s Jane Lee has the details). Doubront was projected to be Oakland’s fifth starter, at least until Henderson Alvarez makes his expected return from shoulder rehab in May. Jesse Hahn would likely replace Doubront if a DL stint is required, though the A’s will hold off on making any final roster decisions until they know the results of Doubront’s MRI. The lefty posted a 5.50 ERA, 2.15 K/BB rate and 6.7 K/9 over 75 1/3 innings with the A’s and Blue Jays last season.
- Dave Dombrowski had a clear idea of the players he wanted to acquire in his first winter in charge of the Red Sox baseball ops department, as Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe writes in a detailed recap of how the Sox landed David Price, Craig Kimbrel and Chris Young. The three players were, in fact, Boston’s top three targets heading into the offseason and all three will be wearing Red Sox jerseys on Opening Day.
- Andrelton Simmons has gone through a lot in his path to the majors, though the one constant has always been spectacular defense, Pedro Moura of the Los Angeles Times writes. Moura’s profile of the Angels shortstop covers such topics as Simmons’ brief flirtation with quitting baseball for soccer, his well-regarded pitching arm (four teams with high selections in the 2010 draft considered taking him as a pitcher) and his efforts to improve his hitting.
- Over the last decade, the Twins have struggled to find Major League starters at the top of the draft, 1500 ESPN Twin Cities’ Derek Wetmore writes. Wetmore recaps the unimpressive list of arms selected by the club since 2006, though obviously the jury is still out on more recent picks like Tyler Jay.
Call me cynical or whatever, but with the free agent and trade market that was out there this off season I find it very hard to believe that Chris Young was one of Boston’s top 3 targets.
I believe the best lesson from the 2004 Red Sox was not that you need the best players to win, but the right players. I admit my bias, but I’m putting my faith in Dombrowski.
It makes sense that Young would be a top 3 target. We have a lot of money tied up in dead weight (Rusney & Pablo) because I havent given up on Hanley at all) and considering how much DD knew Price would cost its no surprise that we were out on adding other major contracts. Young provides solid insurance for our outfield situation.
I still have some hope of Hanley regaining some of his hitting ability but the bar is so high to climb as a 1B to be worth the money he is being paid, and Rusney has at least shown to be a plus defensive OF
As the Dodgers have still not learned, a team has to have players on its roster that might not be stars, but do things to support the other players on the roster and help the team win.
The Tigers made a lot of nice moves this off-season. One that got no pub was the signing of Mike Aviles as a utility guy that can play anywhere in the INF or OF, puts up solid PA’s, and will do anything to help his team win a game. It amazed me that the budget-conscious Indians let Mike go and then paid twice the salary to Rajai Davis, who the Tigers had released. There is no doubt in my mind that Aviles will help the Tigers win far more games then Davis will help the Indians win – and at half the cost. Great move by Al Avila! Smart, savvy veteran front office guy got a smart, savvy veteran player.
You’d think a player puts up such solid PA’s could muster up a OBP north of 285 one of these years. and he can play a bunch of positions but he plays them poorly. It’s a wasted roster spot for Detroit.
And LAD made a bunch of depth moves this offseason, not star moves. Plus they have won a lot recently, not sure why you are using them as a example of team that needs to move away from stars.
lol! How do you read this site but think the dodgers only sign stars???
Guess there has to be a new definition of star players. Pretty lazy to look at last years payroll.
It’s hard to figure out how Oakland couldn’t have already found a better starter than Doub-er as it is. This guy has already lost his velocity.. Over the winter of 2012-13, whether it happened from that car accident he was involved in (and didn’t report to team officials until ST), reporting to ST well out of shape, like close to Sandoval forms of out of shape, or his hurting his shoulder that spring from any of the above.. He lost nearly 3mph of sitting velocity from 2013 onwards that has never returned from HIS own poor judgement and actions. Forearm problems? If was beane would follow up with what he’s been doing all winter, other than 12oz curls.
Reason organizations keep running him out.. Lack of effort on his part.
I get Espn1500s bit is to be overly negative about the teams FO but that’s a lousy way of judging the teams drafting of pitchers. The four most recent years are too early to judge, but look very promising with arms like Berrios, Stewart, Jay, Burdi etc and two of those years they didn’t really draft any pitchers at the top and two more they got Gibson and Garza. So essentially it’s arguing that two out of the last ten drafts the Twins drafted pitchers in the first three rounds that didn’t pan out.
Hindsight is great and all, but I think I agree with you. Most of the failed pitchers the Twins drafted weren’t top picks. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t quite that dire either. Garza got converted to Delmon Young who didn’t pan out but the move was supposed to beef up an anemic offense and leave the Twins with Liriano, Baker, Blackburn, and Slowey to anchor the rotation. It sounds silly now, but at the time that looked pretty promising. Add in that Philip Humber, Kevin Mulvey, and Deolis Guerra who came over for Johan… it seemed exceedingly unlikely that they’d ALL fail conclusively. Nobody could have foreseen that. The other guys that didn’t work out were not high draft picks with high ceilings and there was never anything particularly exciting about the Shooter Hunts that came and went.
Most of the pitching problems the Twins have had are more attributable to coaching and development than who we drafted, considering we weren’t drafting at the top of the rounds and never had a shot at most of today’s top pitching talent. I’m not the world’s most rabid Terry Ryan fan by any stretch of the imagination, but some of the guff he takes isn’t really fair. I’d say the problem I’ve had with the Twins FO over the years is more that the system in general kind of thinned out for a few years and there wasn’t a next generation to directly follow Cuddyer, Kubel, Morneau, et al., but it’s looking a lot better now obviously.
The kind of guff Ryan takes is the same kind of stuff every manager deals with. Everyone has 20/20 hindsight., but part of the reason the results have been spotty is that the team was so successful. While we were winning all those AL Central titles, we were picking in the low rounds of the draft and we weren’t always picking pitchers. From 2000 – 2005 I see a lot of solid first round picks. Mauer, Span, Plouffe, Perkins, and Garza. Since his return we have Buxton, Berrios, Stewart and Gordon all showing a lot of promise. His tenure hasn’t been spectacular, but he’s sure not the bumbling goat he’s sometimes made out to be.
I agree that hindsight is 20/20. However, it’s usually pretty obvious early on whose going to be good and whose not. Berrios is the perfect example. Guy has blown through the minors for the most part with flying colors. Stewart in contrast was massively overhyped and has turned out to be a soft tossing starter who can’t strike guys out as he was billed as.