Innholdsfortegnelse for 1-12 AL CENTRAL TOP 10 PROSPECTS i Baseball America

JULY 1993 A two-way player at Texas, Brooks Kieschnick was named BA College Player of the Year after hitting .374 with 19 homers and going 16-4, 3.25 in 150 innings. There is no bigger fan of Shohei Ohtani than Brooks Kieschnick. “I hope he comes over here and just dominates. I think it’s going to be a great thing for baseball. It’s something exciting,” Kieschnick said of the 23-year-old two-way Japanese star who signed with the Angels in December. “You had the Cubs win the World Series (in 2016), then you had the Astros (in 2017), so baseball is in a really, really good place right now. I want it to keep it going that way, and I think this will definitely be a step in the right direction for…

The cyclical nature of baseball has put the Indians and the Twins in excellent position as the 2018 season nears. The Tigers and Royals are just starting what look to be lengthy rebuilding processes of thin farm systems. The White Sox are further along in their push to return to the playoffs but still a year or more away. So that leaves a two-team race. The Twins will try to reap the benefits of a young, talented crop of position players that arrived in 2015 and 2016. The Indians will have the best talent in the division, as well as enough on the farm to either give the lineup a boost or to trade. WHITE SOX NOTABLE GRADUATIONS: 2B Yoan Moncada (1), RHP Lucas Giolito (2), RHP Reynaldo Lopez (3)…

1. FRANKLIN PEREZ, RHP BORN: Dec. 6, 1997. B-T: R-R. HT.: 6-3. WT.: 197. SIGNED: Venezuela, 2014. SIGNED BY: Oz Ocampo/Oscar Alvarado (Astros). TRACK RECORD: When he was training with Carlos Guillen as an amateur, Franklin Perez was a strong-armed third baseman. But in reality, he was a pitcher who just hadn’t found his true home yet. When he moved to the mound, Perez quickly showed a delivery and an aptitude that seemed somewhat remarkable. He surpassed more experienced pitchers from the 2014 international amateur class, and his clean delivery and ability to work in the strike zone made Perez stand out. He signed with the Astros for $1 million in 2014 and, despite missing a month with a knee injury, he reached Double-A Corpus Christi before his 20th birthday…

COLUMNIST, MLB.COM tracy.ringolsby@baseballamerica.com Ken Bracey was baseball’s E.F. Hutton. “When you were in a meeting discussing a player, when Brace spoke you listened,” said Giants manager Bruce Bochy, who knew Bracey from Bochy’s days as a player, coach and manager with the Padres. “He’d sit over there off to the side and a player would be brought up and he would say, `He can’t play,’ and shake his head,” Bochy said. Would he be wrong? “No,” Bochy said. And if he liked a player? “He wasn’t wrong then, either,” Bochy said. At the age of 80, Bracey passed away last month, the victim of pancreatic and liver cancer, which was discovered just two weeks before his death. He was the ultimate baseball lifer. Signed by the Yankees at the age…

BOB BORKOWSKI, an outfielder who played for the Cubs, Reds and Brooklyn Dodgers from 1950-55, died Nov. 18 in Dayton, Ohio. He was 91. Borkowski played in 470 major league games during his career—318 of which came with the Reds—and hit .251/.298/.346 with 16 home runs and 112 RBIs. WILLIAM “WILLY” CONNOLLY, an infielder and outfielder who played 95 games in the Midwest League for the Twins organization in 1966, died Oct. 27. He was 74. RAYMOND “RAY” COUVILLION, a righthander who pitched in the Evangeline League for the New Iberia Cardinals in 1947, died Nov. 12 in Opelousas, La. He was 92. ERNIE FAZIO, who played both second base and shortstop for the Houston Colt .45s in 1962 and ’63 and the Kansas City Athletics in 1966, died Dec.…

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1. ELOY JIMENEZ, OF BORN: Nov. 27, 1996. B-T: R-R. HT.: 6-4. WT.: 205. SIGNED: Dominican Republic, 2013. SIGNED BY: Jose Serra/Carlos Reyes (Cubs). TRACK RECORD: The Cubs signed two of the best prospects in the 2013 international class in Jimenez and shortstop Gleyber Torres. Four years later, both have been traded away. The Cubs dealt Torres to the Yankees at the 2016 trade deadline for closer Aroldis Chapman. Jimenez, who signed for $2.8 million, was sent to the White Sox in 2017 as the grand prize in a four-player package (which also included righthander Dylan Cease) for lefthander Jose Quintana. Jimenez showed standout tools at every stop with the Cubs, played in two consecutive Futures Games and went viral on Twitter in 2017 with a home run in the…

1. NICK PRATTO, 1B BORN: Oct. 6, 1998. B-T: L-L. HT.: 6-1. WT.: 195. DRAFTED: HS—Huntington Beach, Calif., 2017 (1st round). SIGNED BY: Rich Amaral. TRACK RECORD: The Royals used the 14th overall pick in the 2017 draft to select Southern California high school first baseman Pratto. Nine years earlier, they had selected Eric Hosmer third overall in 2008. Prep first basemen are a rare commodity in the first round, with only Josh Naylor (Marlins, 2015) and Dominic Smith (Mets, 2013) serving as other recent examples. Pratto first burst on the scene as part of the winning California team at the 2011 Little League World Series in which he delivered the game-winning hit against Japan. He played with USA Baseball’s 18U national team for two summers, bringing home world championships…

The recruitment of Shohei Ohtani reached a fever pitch before the Angels emerged victorious in the pursuit on Dec. 10. Every rumor and emerging detail was treated as headline news. Hopeful fan bases changed their Twitter handles to include Ohtani’s name. Teams made specific—and largely unprecedented—trades for international bonus pool money solely to sweeten their offers to Ohtani, the 102-mph throwing, 500- foot home run hitting, 23-year-old called the Japanese Babe Ruth. When the Angels won the bidding for Ohtani, they introduced him not at a traditional press conference, but a rally in front of Angel Stadium to which all fans were invited. It was quite the circus, and one that prompted the question: “How good is Ohtani, really, and how much of it is hype?” One demographic is uniquely…

EXECUTIVE EDITOR jj.cooper@baseballamerica.com Baseball has a long history of being a game of fathers and sons. From Ray Boone to Bob Boone to Aaron and Bret Boone. From Ken Griffey Sr. to Ken Griffey Jr., baseball is a sport where sons often follow in the footsteps of their fathers. Genetics plays a part in sons of big leaguers having professional careers of their own. Growing up around the game and getting top-notch instruction doesn’t hurt either. Baseball America was first published in 1981, so the magazine has gotten a chance to follow and celebrate the careers of baseball fathers and sons for years, but we’re in an especially fertile time for prodigies who are progeny. Heading into 2018, as many of four of the top 10 prospects on our Top…

HAVE A QUESTION? @jjcoop36 askba@baseballamerica.com Q How will fantasy leagues handle Shohei Ohtani since he can pitch and hit? —TRAVIS JENKINS, OVERLAND PARK, KAN. A Baseball America has done some digging on this subject, and, as a matter of fact, one company, Yahoo!, has already announced it plans to treat Shohei Ohtani as two players—a pitcher and a hitter. That means if you’re a member of one of Yahoo!’s leagues, you can draft Ohtani twice, or even trade Ohtani for himself. For months, Yahoo! employees waded through possible solutions—eventually settling on three main choices: Give Ohtani dual eligibility and let users toggle him back and forth, disregard his hitting stats entirely and label him solely as a pitcher, or the two- Ohtanis idea. Yahoo! product director Guy Lake explained that…

1. FRANCISCO MEJIJA, C BORN: Oct. 27, 1995. B-T: B-R. HT.: 5-10. WT.: 175. SIGNED: Dominican Republic, 2012. SIGNED BY: Ramon Pena. TRACK RECORD: Mejia’s precocious talent has been apparent since the Indians signed him out of the Dominican Republic in 2012 and sent him to make his pro debut in the Rookie-level Arizona League the following season. He had an eventful path through the minors that included a historic hitting streak and nearly being included in a blockbuster trade before making his major league debut in September 2017 as a 21-year-old. Mejia broke out in 2016 and authored a 50-game hitting streak at two Class A levels that is the longest in the modern era of the minor leagues (dating back to 1963). He kept hitting in 2017 as…

1. ROYCE LEWIS, SS BORN: June 5, 1999. B-T: R-R. HT.: 6-2. WT.: 188. DRAFTED: HS—San Juan Capistrano, Calif., 2017 (1st round). SIGNED BY: John Leavitt. TRACK RECORD: Armed with the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2017 for just the third time, the Twins surprised many in the industry by passing on college arms such as Brendan McKay and Kyle Wright along with high school phenom Hunter Greene. Instead, they took Lewis, a late-blooming gamer with outstanding makeup and the potential to become a five-tool, franchise player. Signed to a Twins-record draft bonus of $6.725 million, nearly a full million below slot value, Lewis became the first 1-1 selection for the Twins since hometown catcher Joe Mauer in 2001. SCOUTING REPORT: Predraft concerns about Lewis’ hit tool proved unwarranted,…

Use Alex Gordon as an example. The Royals star dips into the dugout and runs a TheraGun device over his body, using the vibration therapy to loosen muscles. So do Yasiel Puig, Bryce Harper and an increasingly growing number of MLB players, whether pregame, in-game or postgame. What all the players have in common is the desire to use Dr. Jason Wersland’s technology to loosen muscles, whether getting them ready for use on the field or as a way to recover from the brutal travel and on-field grind of a major leaguer. “Most of the time, athletes have been worked on a lot and know what it feels like to have treatment,” Wersland said. “I witness when they put this in their hands, it speaks a language they get immediately…