Dodgers whiff on Baseball America top 20 league lists for 2017 Draft
A few days back Craig Minami over at TBLA in the comment section mentioned that no Dodger draft picks from 2017 made any Baseball America top 20 prospect lists that they compile for each league. This was only the second time this century that has happened. The last time was 2013
I don’t put much weight on these lists since as I’m not the biggest fan of Baseball America prospect work. You can just look at the 2016 lists to understand why I feel this way. Gavin Lux was the Dodger number one pick and he, of course, made the list from the Arizona Rookie League. Not making any lists were DJ Peters, Dustin May, Will Smith, and Mitch White. All four of them will probably be ranked higher than Gavin Lux in the latest version of the Baseball America LAD top 30 list.
I just thought it would be interesting to take a look at them.
2002 – James Loney (No. 1 prospect in Pioneer League)
2003 – Chad Billingeley (No. 2 prospect in Pioneer League)
2004 – Scott Elbert (No. 6 prospect in Pioneer League)
2005 – Luke Hochevar (did not sign), Ivan De Jesus (No. 18 prospect in Gulf Coast League)
2006 – Clayton Kershaw ( No. 1 prospect in GCL)
2007 – Chris Withrow (was not named to a postseason prospect team), Austin Gallagher (No. 7 prospect in Pioneer League)
2008 – Ethan Martin (did not pitch in 2008), Kyle Russell (No. 10 prospect Pioneer League)
2009 – Aaron Miller (was not named to a postseason prospect team), Brett Wallach (No. 16 prospect in Pioneer League)
2010 – Zach Lee (did not pitch in 2010), Ralston Cash (No. 20 prospect in Arizona League)
2011 – Chris Reed (was not named to a postseason prospect team), Alex Santana ( No. 13 prospect in Arizona League)
2012 – Corey Seager ( No. 4 prospect in Pioneer League)
2013 – No Dodger draft pick named to a 2013 postseason Top 20 team
2014 – Grant Holmes ( No. 2 prospect in Arizona League)
2015 – Walker Buehler (did not pitch in 2015), Willie Calhoun (No. 11 prospect in Pioneer League)
2016 – Gavin Lux (No. 9 prospect in Arizona League)
2017 – No Dodger draft pick named to a 2017 postseason Top 20 team.Posted by bhsportsguy on Dec 29, 2017 | 11:59 AM reply unrec (1)
Before we decry the 2017 Dodger draft let’s delve deeper into this. The Dodgers number one pick in 2017 was Jeren Kendall the athletic college outfielder. Kendall lit up the rookie league while playing for Ogden but he only stayed there for 22 plate appearances before being promoted to the Loons of the MidWest league. The MWL is a tough league and many a prospect has struggled in their first taste of the league. Jeren Kendall was no exception as he posted an anemic .690 OPS in 155 plate appearances. Even more problematic for Kendall was that he struck out 42 times in those 155 plate appearances. It is little wonder that Kendall was unable to crack the top 20 list for the MWL.
Morgan Cooper was the Dodgers second round pick but he did not pitch after being drafted.
The Dodgers best hope to crack a list was Connor Wong who had a strong professional debut putting up a .830 OPS in the tough MWL but he didn’t make the cut.
8th round pick Rylan Bannon had a strong season for Ogden putting up an OPS of 1.016 but he was 21 in a prospect rookie league.
You can’t judge a draft after 1/2 a season of professional ball but the 2017 draft does not seem to be as strong as the 2016 draft which has Will Smith, Mitch White, Dustin May, and DJ Peters as players to keep an eye on.
All of this could change quickly if Jeren Kendall can turn his uber athletic skills into a more advanced batting approach and if Morgan Cooper shows something when he finally takes the mound.
In 2015 Willie Calhoun was the only Dodger to make the lists but the number one pitching prospect in baseball is now Walker Buehler who was in the same draft.
2014 had Grant Holmes make the lists but he quickly fell out of favor and was eventually traded. In fact, the players traded from the lists above include Willie Calhoun, Grant Holmes, Chris Reed, Zach Lee, Ethan Martin, and Chris Withrow. The jury is still out on Holmes and Calhoun but none of the others managed any type of major league career.
Let’s check back a year from now and see if any of the 2017 draft have great seasons and put themselves on the map like Dustin May, DJ Peters, and Mitch White did.
Who do you think BA may have whiffed on from the class of 2017? I”m going to bet on Jeren Kendall.
Dodgers building a nice rotation in the bullpen
Some teams are building a bullpen by signing pitchers who have been relief pitchers for most of their careers. For example, the Rockies have signed Bryan Shaw, Jake McGee, and Wade Davis in the past month. Combined those three pitchers have made zero starts over the past three years. The Rockies will be paying them a combined $100M over the next three years. That is one way to build a bullpen. Buy bonafide relief pitchers.
The Dodgers are going about it a bit different. Last summer they traded for Tony Cingrani who …………damn, I thought Cingrani had started a few games for the Reds last year and a bunch in 2016 but that is not the case. Cingrani has not started a game since 2015. It is possible the premise for my column is going to blow up in my face. Still, we can say that Cingrani is definitely a converted major league starter who has made thirty major league starts.
Let’s try again.
How about Tom Koehler, that seems like a safe bet. Koehler started thirteen out of seventeen games last year. The reason the Dodgers traded for him was because of his success as a relief pitcher for Toronto, but we are talking only 14 games. Overall Koehler has started 133 out of 161 games. That works.
Kenley Jansen – Nope, converted catcher though
Pedro Baez – Nope, converted 3rd baseman though
Kimi Garcia – Nope
Scott Alexander – Nope
Adam Liberatore – Nope
Eduardo Paredes – Nope
Josh Fields – Nope
Ross Stripling – Yup, Ross made fourteen starts in 2016 and two starts in 2017. Woot
Brock Stewart – Yup, Brock has started nine of his twenty-four major league games. Woot
Wilmer Font – Yup, Font started every game he pitched in the minors last year.
So what do we have? We know for sure that Tom Koehler and Tony Cingrani are going to be in the bullpen as long as they are healthy.
It does seem a stretch to have Ross, Brock, and Wilmer also in the bullpen. Ross and Brock could both be starting in AAA, though I think both of them would be more valuable to the team if they are utilized out of the bullpen unless Baez and Garcia come back strong this year.
Font is in a pickle because he is out of minor league options. Even though he didn’t impress in Sept it was only three games and the Dodgers did add him to the 40 man roster. I’m in his corner and hope he kills it this spring and makes the team and becomes the next name of a big minor league starter who converted to the bullpen and created a major league career. Maybe the next Latroy Hawkins.
I may have jumped the gun with this article but come July 20th, if the bullpen consists of Koehler, Cingrani, Stewart, Stripling, and Font, I’ll look back at this and smile. If they are any good.
I’m also curious what the Dodgers are going to do with Henry Owens and Manny Banuelos who are both career minor league starters that the Dodger signed this winter. They are both WAL (Wild Ass Lefties) who were once top pitching prospects. Manny was ranked as high as number 12 overall in 2012. Owens ranked as high as #19 overall in 2015. History has proven that a tweak or two could change any WAL into a weapon (Andrew Miller). They both have legit major league stuff, they just don’t have command or control which is why there were available. These are the guys you gamble on. I don’t know if the Dodger plan is to convert them to relief or not but it would sense given that Dodgers have Buehler, White, Santana, and Alveraz already in the system, not to mention Julio Urias as starters for the future. Only Buehler should be counted on to make starts in 2018.
Dodgers shake up bullpen
In a three-team deal, the Dodgers traded left-handed bullpen piece Luis Avilan while picking up left-handed bullpen piece Scott Alexander. It has been trendy lately to call Scott Alexander a Zach Britton clone and that is what Fangraph’s Tavis Sawchik went with in his headline.
Dodgers grab Zach Britton Lite in three-team deal
Travis focused on the upside of Alexander and gave plenty of ammunition on why he’s considered a Zach Britton clone.
In a year marked by fly balls, home runs, launch angles, and juiced balls, Alexander was, by some measures, the top ground-ball arm in the game in 2017. The approach led him to a 2.48 ERA, 3.23 FIP, and 56 ERA- last season over 69 innings. He emerged, quietly, as one of the better relievers in the game.
Among pitchers who threw at last 20 innings last year, Alexander led baseball in ground-ball rate (73.6%). He was one of only three pitchers to post a mark of 70% or greater, joining Marc Rzepczynski (70.0%) and Zach Britton (72.8%) in that small club. And it is Britton who could become a frequent comp for Alexander, thanks to latter’s darting sinker and handedness.
To get the upside of Alexander the Dodgers had to give up something and that something was Trevor Oaks. Oaks was starting depth insurance for the Dodgers for 2018 but for the Royals he will probably slot right into the rotation. This is good for Oaks, so he probably benefits quite a bit from this deal as his major league clock will likely get started in 2018. Many things would have had to go wrong with the Dodger rotation for Oaks to crack it in 2018. Oaks was a nice prospect but he was probably the 9th option assuming the Dodgers made no other deals headed into 2018.
Kershaw, Hill, Wood, Maeda, Ryu, Stewart, Buehler, Stripling, Oaks, and Font. I personally would have had Font in front of Oaks. Suffice to say, the Dodger rotation depth didn’t really take a hit with this deal though I’ve been reading that some felt Oaks was going to have an impact for the Dodgers in 2018. I didn’t see it myself. I guess I’m still a Brock Stewart fan and expect him to be the guy, not the AAA pitcher who missed 1/2 a season. Or I’m a fan of the top pitching prospect for the Dodgers getting a shot before the guy who missed 1/2 a year last year. Or the guy who was the PCL pitcher of the year before the guy who missed 1/2 a year last year. You get my drift.
I think when you can trade the guy who is number nine on your starting depth chart and is not a top ten prospect for someone expected to be the setup man for Kenley Jansen, you have probably made a good trade. I’m glad the Royals took Trevor Oaks instead of Dennis Santana so I’ll be curious to see how the two careers pan out going forward.
By all accounts Trevor Oaks was a good guy, but so is Scott Alexander. I like the deal from all the angles including the prospect they got Jake Peter an infielder/outfielder who I’d expect to slot in between the 15 – 20 spots in the Dodger prospect hierarchy.
The Dodger bullpen currently looks like this:
Kenley Jansen
Scott Alexander, Tony Cingrani, Liberatore, Paredes
Tom Koehler, Pedro Baez, Yimi Garcia, Ross Stripling, Josh Fields
With Stewart and Font.
Crowded at the moment but spring training usually takes care of a few of those names as arms develop issues that they don’t have in January.
Basically, Alexander has replaced Watson.
Koehler has replaced Morrow.
That may not sound sexy but I wonder if a year from now if it won’t look sexy. I may be too much of a Brock Stewart fan, time will tell.
I’m doing my best to not talk about Julio Urias.
Kiké rides tall in Rose Parade
The Dodgers partner with the City of Hope on annual “Think Cure” cancer research fundraisers. As the Hernandez family scrambled to learn the options for treating multiple myeloma, the Dodgers put Enrique in touch with Forman, a renowned oncologist who previously had worked with executives and employees referred by the team.
MLB did a story this morning about Kiké and his father riding the City of Hope float.
The Kiké Hernandez story for 2017 was one of redemption. 2016 was a lost year for the utility player as he was unable to compete mentally with major league baseball in 2016 after learning about his father’s battle with Multiple myeloma a cancer of the bone marrow. For fans, they just saw a player struggling and looked at the metrics and concluded that Herandez simply wasn’t very good discounting the outstanding season he had with the Dodgers in 2015.
Headed into 2017, Hernandez had to win a job and the competition was fierce as Chris Taylor had come out of nowhere to wow the Dodger staff in spring training. Charlie Culberson was also in the picture but eventually, both of them were sent to AAA and Hernandez had won the coveted utility role because he could play both infield and outfield.
Now that his father was in remission, Hernandez turned his full attention to baseball and was a valuable player for the Dodgers during the regular season. Showing off his versatility, Hernandez played all over the diamond with 34 games in CF, 28 games in LF, 24 games at Shortstop, 18 games in RF, 14 games at 3rd base, 9 games at 2nd base, and even 3 games at 1st base. He did all this while putting up an outstanding .946 OPS against LHP.
Kiké saved his best for last perhaps having the greatest single postseason game in Los Angeles Dodger history, he slugged three homes in game five of the NLCS to lead the Dodgers into the World Series.
Player Date Series Rslt PA 2B 3B HR TB RBI Enrique Hernandez 2017-10-19 NLCS W 11-1 5 0 0 3 12 7 Steve Garvey 1978-10-04 NLCS W 9-5 5 0 1 2 11 4 Eric Karros 1995-10-04 NLDS L 4-5 5 1 0 2 10 4 Steve Garvey 1974-10-09 NLCS W 12-1 5 0 0 2 10 4 Duke Snider 1955-10-02 WS W 5-3 4 1 0 2 10 2
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 1/2/2018.
As we head into 2018 we can probably count on Kiké to be the right-handed platoon partner for whoever wins the left job against right-hand pitching. I think we can also count on him to clobber them and give the Dodgers more heroics in 2018.
Dodger prospect busts 1990 – 1999
Last week we took a look at the Dodger prospect busts of the 21st century. Today we will take a look at the busts from 1990 – 1999. Thanks to an old Dodger Thoughts column by Jon Weisman I was able to find this link to all of the Baseball America Top 100 lists from 1990 – 2005 which helped jog my memory.
Before we hit the busts we should briefly applaud the prospects who made it. They didn’t’ just make it, they made it big.
Paul Konerko, Adrian Beltre, Todd Hollandsworth, Chan Ho Park, Raul Mondesi, Mike Piazza, Pedro Martinez, and Eric Karros. That is two current HOF and one for sure in Adrian Beltre. Konerko will roam the Hall of the Very Good. Unfortunately for the Dodgers other than Piazza they didn’t do any of their HOF work with the Dodgers. Martinez, Beltre, and Konerko were gone from the team before they were 26 years old.
Darren Dreifort is a tough player to grade. He wasn’t a major league bust but when you are the 2nd pick in the draft and go straight from college to the major leagues you expect more from a career than what Darren was able to provide. Baseball America ranked Darren as the 11th best prospect in 1994. Even before injuries ended his career he was an enigma to me. Advanced stats that are available in 2017 might be have helped enlighten the enigma back in the 1990’s. His stuff looked as unhittable as any pitcher I’d seen but hitters didn’t really seem to have a problem hitting him. He was good (barely) but he was never great. For a guy drafted right after possibly the greatest infielder in the history of baseball, that is a big fall.
Karim Garcia looked like he was going to be a star for the Dodgers. He was only 19 and was already pummeling AAA. Headed into his age 20 season Baseball America marked him as the 7th best prospect in baseball. His first few years he struggled in the majors but he was still extremely young when Arizona poached him in the expansion draft in 1997. I was livid but it turned out the Dodgers were right in exposing him in the draft. I expected great things from Karim but it never happened to him. Karim had a long career but only managed 1500 plate appearances in ten years and other than one year in 2002 was never ever to put those tools to proper use.
Was Jose Offerman a bust? Baseball America ranked him as the 4th best prospect in baseball in 1991. Offerman would end up with a fifteen-year career but over 1/2 of his 13 fWAR was collected in just two years with Royals. I was so in on Offerman as a prospect that I actually collected his minor league cards. When he hit a home run in his first major league game on Aug 19th, 1990 I felt that Jose Offerman would be the greatest shortstop the Los Angeles Dodgers would have had up to that point. It was not to be. Mainly because Jose Offerman was a horrible shortstop. Horrible. Even when the Royals turned out to be smarter than the Dodgers by moving him to 2nd base he still couldn’t field well enough to help his team. Not once in his fifteen-year career did he post a positive dWAR. His carer dWAR is -56. I was harder on Jose Offerman than I was on most Dodgers who don’t pan out. I really expected him to be something. It was not his fault he wasn’t but in 1995 he became one of the few Dodgers I’ve ever booed.
In the 1989 draft the Dodgers had three number one picks. The 15th pick was used on Kiki Jones considered the best high school pitcher. Kiki reported to the highly offensive Pioneer League and proceeded to dominate as no 19-year-old had done in many a year. Kiki went 8 – 0 in 12 starts, threw two complete-game shutouts and found himself ranked as the 6th best prospect in baseball by Baseball America. He then blew out his arm and never got above AA ball.
In the Baseball America 1991 ranking, the Dodgers had
4th – Jose Offerman
14th – Raul Mondesi
29th – Henry Rodriquez
40th – Jamie McAndrew
43rd – Kiki Jones
71st – Dan Opperman
74th – Tom Goodwin
94th – Eric Karros
Thank goodness for Raul Mondesi.
In a three year time, the Dodgers lost Dan Opperman, Kiki Jones, and Jamie McAndrew to arm injuries. That was right about the time I was seduced by TINSTAAPP.
Players Who Died, died
We lost many baseball players in 2017 but none of them meant as much to me as the announcer we lost in Dick Enberg. Last week Spectrum Channel 30 played a Tribute to Dick Enberg and it was possibly the best I’ve seen of such shows. Mainly because Dick Enberg hosted his own tribute show. This show was produced by Fox Sports San Diego and was called A Tribute to Dick Enberg. What made this show unique was that it was produced after Dick retired from the Padres and he gave an excellent review of his career and how some forks in the road changed his life after high school. I’ve tried to find a link but have been unable to do so. If you have Spectrum, I’d suggest going to On Demand and finding it via the search option. It will be worth your hour.
You might be tired of hearing about Dick Enberg by now but I was blown away by the information I gleaned about his career from that special.
- He applied to be a janitor at the only radio station in his small town but when they interviewed him they liked his voice so they let him do the radio news.
- The sports director left after six months and with no one else available they gave him the job.
- He taught at the original San Fernando Valley State College, which eventually became Cal State Northridge before starting his broadcasting career in Los Angeles.
If you have watched any sports over the last two weeks you will have noticed something. Dick Enberg was such a giant in so many sports that you will have seen tributes to him during College Basketball games, NFL games, and College Football games. You can bet when the Masters comes around we will see another one.
He was unique and I still feel lucky to have moved to Southern California just as his broadcasting career was getting started. When you think about it, in 1969 a sports fan in Los Angles had Vin Scully, Dick Enberg, and Chick Hearn. The holy trinity.
This madcap poetic romp by Jim Carrol’s People who Died, died always struck me long before I knew anything about the Basketball Diaries. Jim wrote this iconic song in 1980, and Jim himself died in 2009 of a simple heart attack.
These are the baseball players who died in 2017, and here is a brief look at each of those who had either Dodger ties or impacted me as a baseball fan.
Jim Bunning – HOF pitcher who was 37 years old when the Dodgers acquired him on August 15th, 1969. Bunning made nine starts for the Dodgers and acquitted himself well enough but the team fell short of the postseason. Bunning won 19 games three years in a row and eventually had four seasons of 19 wins. Jim Bunning pitched as he threw over 200 innings eleven straight seasons.
Paul Casanova – Paul was a member of my original favorite team the 1968 Washington Senators. Casanova was a horrible offensive player and even Ted Williams couldn’t help him. He still managed a 10 year career.
Bill Hands was a pitcher for the Cubs in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Bill was an above average pitcher from 1967 – 1973 but the reason he makes this list is that he was the best pitcher for the Cubs in 1969 and I was a big fan of the 1969 Cub team. That was the team that had a nine game lead on Aug 16th but went 17 – 26 over their final 43 games and watched as the Mets stunned baseball by winning the NL Pennant and World Championship. I’m pretty sure the only reason I was rooting for the Cubs was to that Ernie Banks could finally go to a World Series. It never happened but I will admit I got all sorts of joy watching the Mets win the World Series.
Gene Michael was supposed to replace Maury Wills. The Dodgers traded for the slightly built shortstop on December 1st, 1966 after Wills angered Dodger management by complaining about the trip to Japan after the World Series. Michael was a horrible hitter and lasted only one season with the Dodgers. As a kid I held grudges against Dodgers who didn’t perform which meant I disliked Bob Bailey and Gene Michael for a long time. Michael made his bones as part of the NYY management team.
Clayton Kershaw thru age 29 and other thoughts
One thing stands out for me when reviewing the accomplishments of the greatest pitchers in baseball history through their age 29 seasons. Of the fourteen pitchers to have accumulated at least 50 bWAR only two of them are left-handed. Clayton Kershaw and Hal Newhouser.
Only one of them pitched their full career in the 21st century and that is Clayton Kershaw.
Only two of them have a K% > than 25% and they both pitched for the Dodgers. Pedro Martinez and Clayton Kershaw.
Eleven became Hall of Famers. Kershaw should be unanimous even if he retired today while Roger Clemens is basically like Barry Bonds, a HOF in spirit just waiting for the smell of steroids to eventually waft away. Leaving Wes Ferrell who never had another good season after the age of 29.
Only three of them have an ERA+ > 160. Walter Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and Clayton Kershaw.
Player ERA+ WAR To Age IP H ER K% BB% Tm Walter Johnson 166 99.1 1917 19-29 3474.1 2669 655 17.3% 5.2% WSH Christy Mathewson 145 75.3 1910 20-29 3259.1 2690 702 15.4% 5.4% NYG Roger Clemens 152 63.1 1992 21-29 2031.0 1703 631 22.8% 6.7% BOS Bert Blyleven 126 59.7 1980 19-29 2841.1 2554 933 19.4% 6.6% MIN-TEX-PIT Tom Seaver 142 57.9 1974 22-29 2167.1 1723 595 21.5% 6.6% NYM Clayton Kershaw 161 57.4 2017 20-29 1935.0 1431 508 27.9% 6.7% LAD Pedro Martinez 169 57.1 2001 20-29 1693.0 1262 501 29.4% 6.9% LAD-MON-BOS Hal Newhouser 134 57.1 1950 18-29 2672.0 2362 880 14.8% 10.2% DET Bob Feller 134 56.4 1948 17-29 2471.0 1961 822 19.2% 12.0% CLE Robin Roberts 123 55.7 1956 21-29 2608.1 2468 923 12.3% 5.0% PHI Don Drysdale 122 52.5 1966 19-29 2848.1 2543 950 18.0% 6.2% BRO-LAD Pete Alexander 141 51.5 1916 24-29 2104.0 1765 509 14.4% 6.0% PHI Wes Ferrell 123 50.7 1937 19-29 2406.2 2569 1031 8.7% 8.8% CLE-BOS-WSH Greg Maddux 137 50.4 1995 20-29 2120.2 1877 679 17.0% 6.5% CHC-ATL
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/28/2017.
How about a completely different look. The greatest pitchers after the age of 30. Will Clayton Kershaw also make this list when his career is over?
Eighteen pitchers accumulated more than 50 bWAR after the age of 30. Only Roger Clemens, Walter Johnson, and Greg Maddux made both lists. Four of them were left-handed giving credence to the idea that lefties take longer to get in the groove. We can blame Lefty Grove for this. I like the idea that Lefty Grove actually threw right handed but alas he really was a southpaw.
While those who care are arguing about the HOF case for Curt Schilling, ex-Dodger Kevin Brown waves his hand much like Gary Sheffield.
Player ERA+ WAR From To Age IP H ER BB SO K% BB% Lefty Grove 153 81.0 1930 1941 30-41 2686.1 2658 909 731 1429 12.6% 6.5% Randy Johnson 147 89.9 1994 2009 30-45 3062.0 2512 1062 879 3749 30.1% 7.1% Kevin Brown 143 50.7 1995 2005 30-40 1977.2 1757 644 473 1655 20.6% 5.9% Cy Young 137 72.7 1901 1911 34-44 3312.1 2900 779 413 1563 12.3% 3.3% Roger Clemens 137 76.3 1993 2007 30-44 2885.2 2482 1076 1028 2799 23.3% 8.6% Curt Schilling 134 63.7 1997 2007 30-40 2272.2 2118 870 420 2316 25.2% 4.6% Pete Alexander 132 65.5 1917 1930 30-43 3086.0 3103 967 452 995 7.9% 3.6% Bob Gibson 131 56.3 1966 1975 30-39 2436.0 2028 732 750 1907 19.2% 7.5% Walter Johnson 131 53.2 1918 1927 30-39 2440.0 2244 769 666 1204 12.0% 6.6% Greg Maddux 129 54.2 1996 2008 30-42 2887.2 2849 1077 438 1900 16.2% 3.7% Dazzy Vance 126 63.0 1922 1935 31-44 2933.2 2774 1050 817 2027 16.6% 6.7% Eddie Plank 125 53.1 1906 1917 30-41 2895.0 2470 706 717 1462 12.9% 6.3% Gaylord Perry 119 73.1 1969 1983 30-44 3989.2 3714 1384 1040 2533 15.5% 6.4% Jack Quinn 117 53.4 1914 1933 30-49 3232.1 3517 1191 707 1060 7.8% 5.2% Red Faber 117 54.4 1919 1933 30-44 3071.2 3227 1181 881 1004 7.7% 6.8% Warren Spahn 117 67.1 1951 1965 30-44 3960.1 3685 1360 1029 1930 11.9% 6.3% Phil Niekro 114 88.9 1969 1987 30-48 4800.1 4516 1840 1653 2999 14.8% 8.2% Nolan Ryan 113 54.9 1977 1993 30-46 3451.0 2584 1243 1615 3629 25.2% 11.2%
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/28/2017.
Dodger all-time prospect busts – Part I
I was all ready to do my 2nd installment of the good and bad of 2017 when Baseball Prospectus rolled out a prospect bust list for the 21st century. It included three Dodgers and while I agree with Andy LaRoche and Jtd (Joel the Destroyer Guzman), they also included Zach Lee which I thought was very strange.
Even though Zach Lee was a 1st round pick and was the Dodgers top prospect in 2011 and 2012 that was more because the Dodger farm system in 2011 and 2012 was horrible. Zach Lee never really showed much and never cracked a top ten prospect or even top 20 prospect list. Defining bust is subjective but for me, you have to have been considered by the prospect community to be a player capable of at least being an all-star type of talent.
Anyway, it got me thinking about the Dodger prospects who never lived up to expectations. Lately, Dodger fans are used to the prospects being exactly what was billed what with Yasiel Puig, Joc Pederson, Corey Seager, Cody Bellinger, Austin Barnes, Clayton Kershaw, and Kenley Jansen all being homegrown prospects. Other than Barnes they have all had high expectations and other than Joc Pederson have lived up to them. Joc has done just fine based on expectations, but when you are followed by the likes of Seager/Bellinger you can see where his own production looks a tad shallow.
But as any longtime Dodger fan could tell you, that was not always the case.
First I’m going to work backward and once I’ve come up with my list, I’ll list them subjectively how busted they were based on expectations.
Heh, I’ve already gone back to the 2011 prospect lists and haven’t found any busts. The problem is that the Dodgers had some really bad drafts during the McCourt/Colletti era and you’d be hard-pressed to find any of their prospects make top twenty lists. For example the top prospect in 2011 and 2012 was Zach Lee but as I already showed above the highest he ever hit a Baseball America or MLB top prospect list was 45. He was certainly a bust but then again he was never highly rated.
Let’s keep going.
Okay, I had to go all the way back to 2008 to find a legit prospect bust. That, of course, is Andy LaRoche who while never a top ten ranked prospect was a top twenty prospect for both 2006 and 2007 by Baseball American, while Baseball Prospectus had him at #14 for pre-2008. Yeah, he was a legit bust. Very possible that health was his issue (back) but we will never know.
Sadly it is going to get easier now as the Dodgers did have a plethora of highly ranked prospects who never quite reached the expectations from 2003 – 2007.
Scott Elbert just misses the cut. I thought he was more highly ranked but he stalled out in the 30’s.
Good time for JtD aka Joel Guzman to make the list. Joel got his nickname Joel the Destroyer when he appeared in the futures game as a 19-year-old shortstop and proceeded to awe the scouts with his “light tower power”. JtD became a prospect darling at the age of 19 when he crushed AA pitching as part of the Jacksonville Five in 2004. I can remember his minor league equivalent saying his AA 19-year-old season would have produced an OPS over .800 in major league baseball. I’ll never forget the hype about the 6’6 teen-age shortstop and I fell for it until the day I saw him in a major league game. I’m not a scout, but he was the least athletic middle infielder I’d ever seen so I thought for sure he would end up a 1st baseman or left fielder. He did, but he also never hit. He stunk. Really really stunk. No positional Dodger was ever ranked as high as Joel Guzman by Baseball America until Corey Seager showed up.
Prospect ranking is not a science. The year that Joel Guzman was ranked the Dodgers top prospect Matt Kemp was ranked 14th. Matt Kemp was never in the Baseball America top 100 because he came to fast for them. Actually, he was ranked 96th in 2006 but by the summer of 2006 he was already in the majors and used up his prospect status. I talked to scouts in the winter of 2005 who felt Matt Kemp was a fourth outfielder. I’ve never quite trusted scouts. Really.
Here we go. Edwin Jackson. On his 20th birthday in 2003 he beat Randy Johnson in his first major league start. This start would rank as one of the all-time debuts in baseball history. Baseball America had him ranked as the 4th best prospect in all of baseball headed into 2004. Edwin Jackson has had a long career which includes one of the strangest no-hitters in baseball history but unlike Chad Billingsley never had one consistently good season much less a great one.
But Edwin Jackson was not even the biggest bust for me from the 2004 list. That would have been Greg Miller. Greg Miller was everything that Clayton Kershaw was at the age of 18. Hell, he was even more advanced than Clayton Kershaw at that age. Greg Miller dominated AA pitching at the age of 18. Sadly that was his peak, injury after injury kept Greg Miller from ever fulfilling his destiny and he never pitched in one major league game. Of all the Dodgers prospects I’ve followed the demise of Greg Miller was my greatest disappointment.
Righthander Edwin Jackson emerged as one of the most promising pitching prospects in baseball and won a surprise spot start in September. And some scouts say lefthander Greg Miller is even better than Jackson. That one-two punch can�t be matched by any organization, and Evans has deemed them all but untouchable.
Read more at https://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2004-los-angeles-dodgers-top-10-prospects/#WRguIGOECmmyVWQy.99
This seems like a good ending point and I’ll have to break this into multiple parts. Time for my list of the 21st-century busts.
- Greg Miller – a real bust, zero major league games
- Joel Guzman – a real bust, barely any major league games
- Andy LaRoche – real bust
- Edwin Jackson – the least bust because he had a long career and once in a while would remind of the promise of Sept 9th, 2003.
Only four real busts in seventeen years. One view is that is pretty damn good, the other view is that from 2000 – 2003, and 2008 – 2012 the Dodgers simply didn’t have any good prospects.
The bottom line is that the Dodger prospects in the 21st century have delivered on that promise more times than not.
2017 Good and bad Part I
Time for end of year lists and luckily for Dodger fans the year was loaded with amazing moments and stories.
The Good:
Puig Resurrection – Puig went from being demoted to AAA in August of 2016 to batting eight for much of the first 1/2 of 2017 to batting cleanup in game three of the NLCS. Puig may have struggled in the World Series but he did have an OPS over 1.100 in both the NLDS and NLCS. The Puig that arrived in August was a Puig that had not been seen before. Calm and patient with power. Over the season Puig hit at least four but never more than six home runs in every month. This new Puig will be an MVP candidate in 2018.
The Bad:
Andre Ethier proved his 2016 injury-marred season was no fluke by following it up with just about the exact same season. In 2016 Andre managed 26 plate appearances. In 2017 he moved that up to 38. The Dodgers paid Andre Ethier $35M for 64 plate appearances. I’m going to miss Andre but it seems he left us two years ago.
The Good:
Cody Bellinger broke into the major leagues with a bang and never stopped banging until the World Series. He won the Dodgers second positional ROY in two years and broke the NL rookie home run record set by Frank Robinson over a 1/2 a century ago. His mega skills were on full display as he showed he could beat you with his power, his clutch hitting, his speed, and his glove. All during his age 21-year-old season. Dodger fans had never seen anything like this from someone 21 years old who wasn’t named Fernando.
Player WAR/pos Year Age Tm PA BA OBP SLG OPS Pos Cody Bellinger 4.2 2017 21 LAD 548 .267 .352 .581 .933 *37/9H8D Adrian Beltre 3.9 1999 20 LAD 614 .275 .352 .428 .780 *5/H Adrian Beltre 3.4 2000 21 LAD 575 .290 .360 .475 .835 *5/H6 Willie Davis 2.4 1961 21 LAD 380 .254 .316 .451 .767 *8H Tommy Davis 2.3 1960 21 LAD 374 .276 .302 .426 .728 *8H79/5 Bill Russell 2.0 1970 21 LAD 304 .259 .303 .363 .667 *98/H67 Willie Crawford 2.0 1968 21 LAD 198 .251 .335 .400 .735 *7H/98 Pee Wee Reese 2.0 1940 21 BRO 361 .272 .366 .372 .738 *6/H
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/28/2017.
The Bad:
Adrian Gonzalez final season as a Dodger was a dud in many ways. Adrian went from never having been on the disabled list to being on the DL almost all year. He ended his career with the Dodgers by being flipped to the Braves in a salary dump deal and then being released by the Braves. After a consistent career his 2017 season was an Ethier.
The Good:
Kyle Farmer – getting your first hit is always cool, getting your first hit and driving in a run is even cooler, getting your first hit in the bottom of the 9th and driving in the winning run is as cool as it gets.
The Bad:
Ballyhooed number one prospect Alex Verdugo failed to impress with his bat, glove, or attitude in his brief trial in September.
The Good:
The Dodgers had the greatest pitcher of the 21st century on the mound and a 4 – 0 lead in pivotal game five of the World Series.
The Bad:
That pitcher gave up four runs in the bottom of the 4th to squander the lead. That said pitcher gave up four runs in a game only fifteen times in five years of 141 starts. In the regular season.
The Good:
The Dodgers scored three runs in the top of the fifth to give the greatest pitchers of the 21st century a 3 run lead in pivotal game five of the World Series
The Horrific:
That said pitcher gave up the lead. again.
The Good:
Clayton Kershaw when he pitched was once again the best pitcher in baseball during the regular season.
The Bad;
For the second season in a row Clayton Kershaw was sidelined by a back injury. This time he made 27 starts.
The Good:
Brandon Morrow was signed to a minor league deal but by the time the World Series rolled around you could make an argument he was the best setup man in baseball.
The Horrific:
Game five of the World Series happened. No outs, Four hits, Four runs.
Justin Turner walk off in NLCS game two is the 14th top play of 2017
Hernandez and Turner get back to back top plays of 2017 with their postseason heroics. Justin Turner hit the three-run walk-off home in game two of the NLCS that propelled the Dodgers to a 2 – 0 series lead.
Justin Turner had an outstanding 2017, documented below.
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 