Innholdsfortegnelse for Monday, August 7 2017 i Baseball America

FEB. 1, 1981 The first edition of this magazine, titled All-America Baseball News, correctly predicted Arizona State would win the College World Series. Kevin McReynolds’ name bespeaks his Scottish and Irish ancestry. But his accent is pure Arkansas. The two meshed throughout McReynolds’ amateur baseball career. He attended Arkansas, where he helped the Razorbacks to the 1979 College World Series championship game. As a sophomore in 1980, McReynolds won the MVP award in the Southwest Conference, and was MVP that summer at the National Baseball Congress World Series. “We landed in Washington (from Alaska) and bussed from Seattle through to Wichita,” McReynolds remembered in a July phone interview. “I think it’s hard to appreciate the good times unless you learn through the stepping stones.” Entering the 1981 season, McReynolds was…

BBo Bichette’s batting eye remains as lasersharp as his line drives. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. continues to crunch the ball with a crack that audibly defines potential hitting stars. Prodigious progenies who, upon initial inspection, could surpass their parents’ talents. Premium prospects the Blue Jays hope eventually can equal the long, storied major league careers of their fathers, Dante Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero. Or better. “The ultimate ceiling? God prevail, they’ll both be big leaguers. I mean, they have all the ingredients to be that type of player,” said Blue Jays special assistant Sandy Alomar Sr., who knows about having sons follow in his baseball footprint. “They’re very smart. They seem to be very patient. And as young kids, when you have that knowledge and you have those type of tools,…

TThe reality of being a national champion is still setting in for Brady Singer. A couple weeks after helping Florida beat Louisiana State in the College World Series finals to win its first national title, Singer said what the Gators accomplished will occasionally hit him. When he does think about the national championship, he said it means the world to him. “That’s something I’m going to remember until the end of time, being a part of the first national championship,” the rising junior righthander said. “It means so much to me and to the guys.” Singer played a critical role in the national championship run. Voted a Preseason All-American by major league scouting directors, he had a strong regular season as a part of Florida’s dynamic rotation of junior righthander…

The inaugural Futures Game in Boston in 1999 featured six prospects who went on to appear in at least three major league All-Star Games. Representing the World team that year were game MVP Alfonso Soriano (a seven-time all-star), Aramis Ramirez (three), Rafael Furcal (three) and Francisco Cordero (three). The United States team featured Lance Berkman (six) and Vernon Wells (three). ). Futures Game players developing into major league all-stars has been an annual occurrence ever since. The 2011 Futures Game featured one of the best prospect classes in the event’s history. It included Mike Trout (six), Jose Altuve (five), Paul Goldschmidt (five), Bryce Harper (five), Nolan Arenado (three) and Manny Machado (three). Likewise, the Futures Game class of 2014 has a chance to go down as one of the best.…

Looking for the organization report for your favorite team? We publish them—now as prospect reports— for all 30 organizations online. You can find them here: BaseballAmerica.com/tag/prospect-report Colombia native and Double-A Jacksonville righthander Tayron Guerrero remembers feeling terrified. For a six-week period when he was 17, Guerrero would get up at 5:30 a.m. to take a boat out of his remote village, the town of Bocachica on an island called Isla de Tierra Bomba. The 20-minute ferry took him to Cartagena, one of the larger cities in Colombia, where he practiced basketball until noon and then baseball until late at night. Since the ferry stopped service at 6 p.m., Guerrero was forced to take a smaller boat and then walk through the woods for two hours before making it back to…

EDITOR john.manuel@baseballamerica.com For many baseball fans and even baseball writers, Brent Honeywell is the guy who throws a screwball. He showed at the Futures Game that there’s much more to him than that. Ranked No. 14 on our Midseason Top 100 Prospects, Honeywell is the highest-ranked healthy pitcher on the list, two spots behind injured Cardinals righty Alex Reyes. He looked the part for the U.S. Team, dominating a stacked World lineup for two scoreless innings with four strikeouts en route to game MVP honors. “I honestly don’t know where this one’s going,” Honeywell said of the MVP trophy, “but maybe my mom and dad will play rock-paper-scissors for it.” The 22-year-old from Carnesville, Ga., had all his stuff working at the Future Game. He threw only one of his…

PWhen Aaron Judge dispatched Justin Bour in the first round of the Home Run Derby in Miami, he gave Bour a brief hug and pat on the back. When Judge beat Miguel Sano in the finals, he was doused with water and Gatorade by his celebrating teammates. But when Judge beat Cody Bellinger in the semifinals, the 25-yearold Yankees rookie star did something different. As soon as Judge blasted his 507-foot moonshot to vanquish Bellinger, he made a point to walk over to his fellow rookie slugger, wrap his arms around him and give him a message. “I just said, ‘Way to put on a show, man. That was awesome,’ ” Judge said. “It’s pretty cool watching him develop this year. When he first came up, what he’s done in…

SSantiago High head coach Ty De Trinidad figured Brice Turang could make his Corona, Calif., program’s varsity team as an eighth grader. That’s how polished the Southern California shortstop was at a young age. In fact, De Trinidad started getting scouting reports on Turang when he was in the fourth or fifth grade. Granted, those scouting reports were from De Trinidad’s own son, and they consisted of, “Dad, you gotta make sure you look at Brice—he’s pretty good.” Regardless, Turang was on the radar. It seems only natural for the son of a big leaguer—Brian Turang, an outfielder who played for the Mariners in 1993 and 1994— to stand out at such a young age. But a lot of the credit should go to Brice’s four older sisters: Brianna, ,…

WRITER, ESPN.COM jerry.crasnick@baseballamerica.com The Cubs traded No. 1 prospect Eloy Jimenez and three others to the White Sox for Jose Quintana. For scouting reports for all traded prospects, see Trade Central: BaseballAmerica.com/tag/trade-central Andrew McCutchen signed his first professional contract with the Pirates at age 18. He was 24 years old when he made his All- Star Game debut, and 26 in 2013 when he led the franchise to its first playoff berth in two decades and won a National League MVP award. Given his record of achievement and all the love that’s been shared, it’s not outlandish to think McCutchen would be in line for one marathon honeymoon. It didn’t last until his 30th birthday. For such an elite talent, McCutchen has had a heaping dose of humility thrown his…

Forty-four of the 50 Futures Game participants stopped by the Baseball America Prospect Pad, which was held the day before the game. BA editors Ben Badler, J.J. Cooper, Kyle Glaser and John Manuel chatted with many of them. We present some of the most interesting responses here. View the Prospect Pad videos here: http://bba.am/aBM1DN VLADIMIR GUERRERO JR., (via a translator): “He has a lot of memories of being around his father in the clubhouse, but the one that stands out the most was his dad’s final game in Montreal. When his dad went to the outfield to take the field, Andres Galarraga sent him behind his dad. There was a loud ovation and his father thought it was for him, but in fact it was for Junior because he was…

COLUMNIST, MLB NETWORK peter.gammons@baseballamerica.com How the 1981 All-Star Game ended really didn’t matter. There was no Twitter, no television or radio sports shock-talk and no blogs, so when American League manager Jim Frey had to bat Blue Jays pitcher Dave Stieb in the bottom of the ninth inning with one out and none on down a run, there were questions asked and answers given. Period. Frey had saved Fred Lynn for that situation. But Lynn was apparently unaware, and, as was the case with so many players in the game in the ’70s and ’80s, had left and was flying home to Boston as Stieb grabbed a bat. We were simply happy that the 1981 strike was over and we’d seen the first game played by major league players in…

@BaseballAmerica @BaseballAmerica BaseballAmericaMag ReadBA You’ve probably noticed that Baseball America has a new look and feel. From the glossy cover to the inside pages, we’ve updated the magazine with a much more modern look to enhance the experience and make the issues come to life. You’ll still find the same in-depth coverage, analysis and industry-leading authority in Baseball America. We will continue to focus on the stars of tomorrow, prospects at every level—from high school, college, international and the minor and major leagues. Only now, we’re taking more of a multiplatform approach. What does that mean for our loyal readers? Instead of trying to include everything in each issue, some of which may be out of date by the time the magazine comes out, we’re putting news on BaseballAmerica.com. That…

IIt’s a thrill every scout wants nothing more than to experience. The sensation is akin to champagne bubbles running through their veins when they lay eyes on a special talent for the first time. Paul Snyder felt that excitement when he traveled to Curacao and saw Andruw Jones. “Any one of the scouts’ wives would have been in awe,” the long-time Braves scouting director told Baseball America in 1995 while comparing the outfielder to Roberto Clemente. “Great body control, could slide on his spikes if he wanted to. Then when I watched him throw and hit and everything else, it was obvious he was a 21-year-old in a 15-year-old’s body in terms of baseball talent.” Three years after the Braves signed Jones, he made a splash in the 1996 World…

COLUMNIST, MLB.COM tracy.ringolsby@baseballamerica.com Greg Goodwin was tired of watching the number of African-Americans in the big leagues dwindle annually. He was fed up with hearing people talk about the declining interest African-Americans had in the national pastime. Instead of moaning and groaning, though, Goodwin, the long-time baseball coach at Redan High, outside Atlanta, decided to do something about it. “We started hearing about how black kids were not playing baseball, and we knew that wasn’t true,” Goodwin said. “A few of us decided, ‘Let’s put a tournament together.’ We thought we would do it a couple of years and be through with it.” So much for that idea. Th 15th annual MVP Tournament took place in mid-July on the campus of Georgia State in Atlanta. Tournament organizers hold out hope…

Teams spent more than $288 million on this year’s draft class—with Jack Conlon yet to sign—up from $267 million in 2016. For a complete list of all player signings, visit BaseballAmerica.com/draftdb Eight seconds. That’s all that separated the Reds and Hunter Greene from failing to make a deal at the draft signing dealing. But the long wait didn’t keep the Reds from signing the No. 2 overall selection, who was the top-rated prospect for the 2017 draft. And it didn’t stop Greene, the righthander/shortstop from Notre Dame High in Sherman Oaks, Calif., from receiving a $7.23 million bonus. That’s the largest signing bonus that any draft pick has received since the bonus-pool era began in 2012. However, Greene fell short of the all-time draft bonus record of $8 million, set…