Innholdsfortegnelse for April 6, 2018 i Baseball America

Yankees prospects have been in high demand in the past few seasons. Eight prospects who ranked among the system’s top 30 in 2017 have been traded to other organizations, while another four went in the major league phase of the Rule 5 draft in December. But it wasn’t just the Yankees’ minor league players who made their way to the big leagues. The organization also lost five minor league coaches or coordinators to major league coaching staffs this offseason. That list includes two—P.J. Pilittere (co-hitting coach) and Carlos Mendoza (quality control/infield instructor)—who made it to the majors with the Yankees, and three more who left for other clubs. Tom Slater, who had bounced around the system and spent 2017 as Double-A Trenton’s hitting coach, became an assistant hitting coach with…

SWING, THEN MEASURE Every swing at Chas Pippitt’s Baseball Rebellion facility is tracked by HitTrax. Hitters can see their results in real time. ALWAYS WATCHING HitTrax uses cameras and advanced computer processing to analyze batted balls in real time. MAKING TRAINING FUN With HitTrax, coaches like having extensive data to analyze; hitters love seeing where their hits would land in a big league park.…

WRITER, ESPN.COM jerry.crasnick@baseballamerica.com If Dansby Swanson ever wanted to retreat into anonymity and ease his burden as one of the most scrutinized players on the Braves’ roster, there’s an easy solution: the 24-year-old shortstop can just pass himself off as Charlie Culberson. Fans and media members drifting through Braves’ spring training camp at Lake Buena Vista, Fla., noticed the resemblance between Swanson and Culberson. The two infielders are fellow Georgia natives who are similar in stature, have close-cropped beards, hair straight out of a shampoo commercial and the classic attribute that scouts refer to as the “good face.” “It happens way more often than you would think,” Swanson said. “I got a tweet from a person the other day who said, ‘Thanks for signing the ball,’ and it was clearly…

As requested by Major League Baseball, Minor League Baseball has adopted some of the most sweeping rules changes in history, with a new extra-innings rule that is designed to speed up the end of games. The league announced a series of rules aimed at speeding up pace of play and shortening the time of games, the foremost of which involves starting a runner at second base in each extra inning at all levels of the minor leagues. The move will be very popular with big league teams (who provide the players) and many minor league operators (who lose money once the game goes to extra innings). “The worst day of a farm director’s year is when a young team plays 15-plus innings,” a farm director said. The initial reaction has…

HAVE A QUESTION? Q Many international amateurs are already tied to major league teams, yet those teams go unpunished. What’s the difference between that and what the Braves or Red Sox were doing? —CARLOS PAGAN A There seems to be a common misconception that the Braves and Red Sox were punished by Major League Baseball for coming to unofficial terms with players in advance of the July 2 international signing deadline. So far, MLB has done nothing to punish any team for agreeing to deals with amateur players before the signing deadline. The Red Sox were sanctioned in 2016 for making package deals, which happens when a team signs multiple players from the same trainer. While that can be done above board, MLB determined that the Red Sox used package…

Welcome to our third annual Minor League Survey, in which Baseball America asks executives around the league a series of questions in order to take the temperature of the sport. Until the new rules were announced, the minor league offseason was very quiet. Just two teams changed their names, two more tweaked their logos, one affiliation changed and one opened a new park. So with most everything staying static, we decided to add a few longer form questions to the mix. We gave executives the keys to the minors and asked them to tweak the affiliation shuffle and their own ballparks to their specifications. We also asked about fishy rebrandings at high Class A Tampa and Triple-A Gwinnett and about the best in-game promotions—and can anything overtake the bobblehead in…

When a look at the Yankees’ organization tree, a theme quickly emerges. From the highest rungs of front office to the coach’s box on the backfields, many of the people working to develop the team’s major leaguers once walked that path themselves. Their farm director, Kevin Reese, played in the system for five seasons and got 12 games in the majors with the Yankees. Their pro scouting director, Dan Giese, spent parts of three years in the majors that included pitching in 20 games for the Yankees in 2008. Pro scout Matt Daley pitched two seasons in New York, and most notably, was the man who relieved Mariano Rivera in his final appearance. Four members of the big league coaching staff—hitting coaches Marcus Thames and P.J. Pilittere, infield coach Carlos…

Technology is rapidly changing hitting, but there’s still a lot of inertia that some hitting coaches believe is yet to be overcome. For Jason Ochart, lead hitting instructor at Driveline Baseball, one of the biggest anachronisms is batting practice in its current form. Pro teams hold batting practice a couple of hours before most games. They head out to the field and a coach stands at 45-50 feet away throwing at 60-70 mph to help hitters get ready for the game. And Ochart believes that, eventually, that pre-game tradition will largely disappear. Batting practice is supposed to help hitters just feel their swing in an environment where they aren’t worried about pitch recognition or velocity. As Ochart sees it, that doesn’t really carry over into games. “When you give a…

COLUMNIST, MLB.COM tracy.ringolsby@baseballamerica.com In the final days of spring training, the free agent market began to clear up. On March 12—a mere 17 days before Opening Day—four free agents signed within hours of each other. Outfielder Carlos Gonzalez re-signed with the Rockies, righthander Jake Arrieta with the Phillies, righty Lance Lynn with the Twins and catcher Jonathan Lucroy with the Athletics. Lynn, Lucroy and Gonzalez each signed for a year. Arrieta agreed to a three-year guarantee with Philadelphia. It wasn’t what the free agents were looking for, but then there weren’t many deals that met the expectations of players and their agents this winter. Among the initial 84 free agent signings this offseason, just four signed a deal longer than four years. There were 39 one-year deals, 32 two-year deals…

Throughout the season, Baseball America will present position rankings of the best college players in the 2018 draft class. Here we focus on righthanders. As is often the case, college pitching is one of the strengths of the draft class. 1. Casey Mize, Auburn: Mize this season has allayed lingering concerns about his health with a sensational start to his junior year. He went 5-0, 1.93 with 51 strikeouts and three walks through 32.2 innings and was moving to the top of draft boards. 2. Brady Singer, Florida: Singer, an unsigned second-round pick in 2015, entered the year as the top-ranked player in the draft class and has gotten off to a strong start this season. His low arm slot is unconventional, but his fastball/slider combination is electric. 3. Jackson…

BOOK SEASON For the complete line of BA books, including the hot-off-the-presses Directory and Hall of Fame Almanac please visit: Store.BaseballAmerica.com AROUND THE GRAPEFRUIT LEAGUE Associate editor Josh Norris trekked to Florida in late March for spring training. He paid a visit to minor league camp for the Blue Jays, Braves, Orioles, Phillies, Pirates, Red Sox, Twins and Yankees. Follow Josh on Instagram: @JoshNorrisBA ALL NEW! CHECK OUT THE NEW BASEBALLAMERICA.COM New look, same expertise! More in-depth reporting and information! We’ve rebuilt our Web site with a clean, responsive mobile-first look that includes more video and even more on the future stars of the game. Check it out at BaseballAmerica.com. Plus, get free access to content site-wide for one week using code BA2018 @BaseballAmerica @BaseballAmerica BaseballAmericaMag ReadBA…

Florida is a good place to be. For the 2018 draft class, it’s likely the deepest state in the country—thanks in part to a down year in Southern California—with an high number of players at the top of the draft board. For perspective, in Baseball America’s most recent ranking of draft prospects, there were 17 Florida players among the top 100, 11 among the top 50 and eight among the top 30. In 2017, on the final BA500 predraft ranking, those numbers were 15, six and two, respectively. It’s a strong year for the Sunshine State, and on top of the benefits of almost year-round baseball weather, Florida players have a lot more to gain—and in some case lose—at the start of the season, with many general managers, scouting directors…

JAMES “JIM” ANDERS, a minor league righthander who pitched in the Mountain States League in 1950 and ’53 as well as the Kentucky-Ilinois-Tennessee and Appalachian leagues in 1954 and ’55, died Jan. 27 in Birmingham. He was 87. AUGUST “AUGIE” GARRIDO, the winningest baseball coach in NCAA history best known for his five national championship seasons at Cal State Fullerton and Texas, died March 15 in Newport Beach, Calif. He was 79. Garrido retired after 48 years as a head coach following the 2016 season, ending his career with a 1,975-951-9 record. He was one of just five men to have twice been named Coach of the Year and in 2016 he received Baseball America’s Tony Gwynn Award for lifetime achievement. Before his coaching career, Garrido played at Fresno State…