Down on the farm

smastroyin

simpering whimperer
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Jul 31, 2002
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In avoiding work today to make up for my long weekend I have been digging a bit on prospects, and since we don't often summarize here, just thought I would give some updates. These are just quick capsules. Nothing in depth, and mostly randomly chosen beyond the top 6.

Yoan Moncada. Having a great season, his May has shown a significant dip in average but he has been adding some power to his game to make up for it. May end up with a Portland promotion soon, otherwise he is kind of chugging along, especially on the basepaths where he already has 31 steals (though 6 CS already doubles his total from last year).

Andrew Benintendi. Had a great start in Salem, then cooled off a bit before slumping badly in both Salem and Portland in the time around his promotion. He had a pretty decent week this past week mostly driven by singles, so probably need to put the "Will Benintendi be the 2016 LF solution" talk on hold until he really shows something at AA.

Anderson Espinoza. Some growing pains and things to work on. Still looks really great, but there is a ton of start to start variance that goes along with figuring things out. Still just 18. But, like Benintendi, we probably need to pump the brakes a little bit on him having a meteroic rise to the majors. And that's totally fine.

Josh Ockimey. If it wasn't Chavis, it was Ockimey that has been the biggest riser in the system. After a good but uninspiring coupld of years in rookie ball, he has put it all together in Greenville. He leads the Sox minor leagues in OPS (other than Vaz' 20 PA in Pawtucket) thanks to doubling his BB rate and adding 100 points to his ISO.

Mauricio Dubon. Another riser, Dubon is probably looking at promotion soon (post draft signings perhaps?) after showing improvement in all areas in Salem. His plate discipline seems to be a lot better, and there are reports that has been his focus. Whether that is just self-affirming remains to be seen.

Trey Ball. Impressive results when you just look at ERA. But, I personally am still not a believer as his K and BB rates are still not special, he is repeating a level, and we have seen month long run suppression streaks from him at this level before. Still, getting good results despite poor peripherals is better than getting crappy ones, so let's hope he can continue to put things together.

On the more of the downside:

Rafael Devers. Everyone I think knows Devers has had a really tough year. Yes, a bunch of it is hard contact to fielders and his .226 BABIP should correct upward. His May has been better than his horrible April - his K rate has stabilized and his BB rate is up, he's just not getting enough hits to drop (and not really hitting for much power) and he's also super young.

Luis Alexander Basabe. Expected to be something of a climber this year, he's really fallen off. His twin Luis Alejandro who was thought a non-prospect is raking, though, so maybe this is some kind of Parent Trap game going on.

Deven Marrero. His bat is in free fall. Probably not much future in Boston with Xander being the full time SS and BROCKHOLT and Marco Hernandez around to backup.

On the injury front:

Sam Travis. Had shown quite a bit more power than expected but he was already exchanging a much higher K rate and much lower BB rate. Some of that is AAA adjustment, I still "worry" a bit about the power since it was largely driven by a single week of HR power. Still, of course, the most unfortunate business is that he tore his ACL, so we won't see what his development looks like until next year.

Michael Chavis. Speaking of injuries, Chavis still hasn't returned to action despite not needing surgery on his thumb. He was probably the biggest "gainer" in the system before his injury, but thumb injuries can be tricky.

Michael Kopech. Recently re-started baseball activities. Hopefully the fracture doesn't affect his grip and ability.

Brian Johnson. Believed to be suffering from anxiety from his carjacking incident over the winter. Currently on IR. Was having a terrible year before the Sox put him on the temporary inactive list.

The trade:

Manuel Margot. After a disappointing and pedestrian April, Margot has been much better in May. It's the PCL, yes, but he's also still really young. Would not be surprised to see him in the majors, presumably as soon as the Padres can pawn off one of their current OF.

Javier Guerra. Having a disaster season. His K rate is way up, and his ISO is down and not much else is going right for him. He's probably not this bad, but he is also looking like he was a good sell high candidate last year. Personally if he had not been traded I'd say Dubon had passed him already.

Logan Allen. A number of folks said at the time of the trade that this was one step too far. And they may be right. There is a long way to go, it's a small sample, plus TINSTAAPP but Allen would probably be moving up into the top 10 Sox prospects (and maybe behind only Espinoza for pitchers) based on his results so far.

Carlos Asuaje. Putting a big hurt on PCL pitching. He's not super young, but he's still not old by any means, and he may be showing that the wall he hit in AA last year was just temporary and he was sold low just as much as Guerra was sold high.

Verdict: Kimbrel has been great but not all time super great, but the Red Sox have been very good and it's hard to argue with the major league team being very good. And, frankly, I don't trust Dombrowski to have found someone else for this role and at least we don't have to cheer for a guy who shot a gun at/around/near his girlfriend in anger. But it still seems like too much to pay. No I don't have an alternative in mind, and of course the Carson Smith injury just means they need good Kimbrel more.
 
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LeftyTG

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Jul 18, 2005
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Austin
thanks for taking the time to write out a helpful summary.

Not trying to nitpick, but I think you write "Greenville" when you mean "Salem" in the Benintendi and Dubon summaries.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Dec 22, 2002
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Luis Alejandro Basabe was never a non prospect. The sox always viewed both as legit prospects and gave each guy $500,000 signing bonuses. He may have fell off the radar, but he's only 19.

edit: I'm guessing he's probably already leapfrogged his brother too, seeing he has the much better plate discipline of the two, although Alex has more power at present. The problem with Alejandro was/is he's always injured.
 

smastroyin

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Jul 31, 2002
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The signing bonus stuff is a weird justification. Do you think Tzu-Wei Lin is still a prospect, for example? As well, as they are brothers, I honestly don't know if they were thought of as equal or if the deal was $900K to the family for both of them. And I'm being serious, the Venezuelan signings aren't always straightforward.

Still, the injuries obviously held Alejandro back, and perhaps that also caused issues with his scouting reports. But by the end of 2015 scouts were pretty much off of his train due to showing no ability to do anything at the plate other than take 35% of pitches, leading to a lot of BBs, but also a lot of Ks. The hit tool and power he has been showing this year was not evident at all. Now, you can take that as "don't go around writing off 18 year old kids" and that's perfectly fine, but doesn't really change my premise that coming into the season, Alexander and his potential plus power bat and CF defense combo had him much more highly regarded, but their results (other than Alex still showing good power) have kind of flipped.
 

Cesar Crespo

79
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Dec 22, 2002
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Everything I read on the two was that both were considered legit prospects and that they were nothing remotely comparable to Xander and Jair. I guess I could see how people would have wrote him off already, but ya know.. 18. Like you said, he really hadn't shown much other than to take a pitch and I haven't heard anything about his defense one way or the other.
 

Quintanariffic

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Apr 23, 2002
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The City of Studios
I think we'd be remiss if we didn't touch on two other prospects that are making big moves in the real/perceived rankings based on performance YTD.

On the upside, Josh Ockimey down in Greenville might have made the biggest jump in the system. After a largely forgetful first 2 season where Ockimey struck out in about 1/3 of his PAs and produced a .681 OPS, Ockimey has been a different guy thus far in 2016. At the still tender age of 20, his K rate is down to 25% while his walk rate has nearly doubled from 11% to over 20%, and the results are showing up in a YTD slash line of .308/.450/.556. This is good for the 2nd highest OPS in the Sally, behind only an undrafted 23 year old who is repeating a level in the Rockies' system. It's always hard to project 1B prospects b/c they don't have any positional versatility if the bat doesn't play, but Ockimey is definitely one to watch.

On the downside, there is Henry Owens and is ongoing inability to control his FB. While he seemed to be trending in the right direction the previous 2 seasons, his BB rate has spiked to over 6 per 9 while his K rate has plateaud and his overall stuff seems to have taken a step back. He seems to have very quickly shifted from "interesting SP depth with upside" to "could have John Halama's career if things break right" in pretty short order.