Innholdsfortegnelse for May 18, 2018 i Baseball America

Jim Abbott travels the country these days passing along a motivational message as part of his speaker’s bureau. It is quite a message from the former lefthander whose major league career spanned 10 seasons, all without the use of a right hand. “Obviously, missing a hand growing up played a big part in who I was and my drive and my ambition,” Abbott said. “From that, you can’t help but take away the idea that sometimes a little adversity, a little challenge in our lives can be the push that we need to find the strength and the resiliency inside of us, and really to win an appreciation for the other blessings that we have.” Abbott went 87-108 with a 4.25 ERA in stints with the Angels, Yankees, White Sox…

ROBERT WOODARD USED TO WRITE DOWN EVERY MOVE AND POSITION, AND EVERY NIGHT HE’D RELIVE THEM ALL. What could I have done differently? How should I have responded here? Woodard wasn’t any sort of math prodigy. He never expected to outsmart or outthink the kid on the other end of the chessboard—kids who could memorize complex patterns and strategies with relative ease. But he knew he could outwork them. Before he ever seriously picked up baseball, Woodard spent innumerable hours of his youth studying chess. The North Carolina native played in national tournaments every weekend. In sixth grade, he won North Carolina’s K-6 state competition. That same year, on a national level, he placed 35th. Through his voracious studying, he reduced the game to five steps: “It’s very basic,” Woodard…

For international prospects, July 2 gets most of the attention, and rightfully so. It’s the annual opening of the international signing period, marking a wave of players signing their first professional contracts, led by the top players in a given class. But between July 2 and the time that most of those players make their professional debuts nearly one year later, a lot can change. That comes with the territory of signing players as young as 16 years old. They can grow taller, get stronger, improve their skills or simply get more time on the field in unofficial games, instructional league and other winter programs to give the team that signed them a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. While the million-dollar signings get plenty of attention, here are…

GERALD “NATE” BEAMAN, a minor leaguer who played in the Kansas-Oklahoma-Missouri League in 1948 and ’49, died Feb. 21 in Fort Scott, Kan. He was 93. DEMPSIE BRITT, a minor leaguer who pitched in the Florida State and Piedmont leagues from 1950-51 and 1953-54, died Feb. 25 in Ivor, Va. He was 88. BILLY CARR, who played in the Sooner State League in 1952, died Feb. 16 in Calhoun, Tenn. He was 84. HARRY COLLIAS, a minor league catcher who played in the Brooklyn Dodgers and Washington Senators organizations from 1949-52, died Feb. 22 in Orlando. He was 92. JOHN DUFFIE, a righthander who pitched for the Dodgers in 1967, died April 19 in Douglas, Ga. He was 72. Duffie made two appearances—both starts—for the Dodgers, striking out six batters…

Baseball America determined the signing age for every Dominican and Venezuelan player who appeared on a full-season roster on Opening Day this year. We present the major league results in FIGURE 1 and the minor league results in FIGURE 2. Note: Five Dominican players are active in 2018 who misrepresented their age when they signed: Adrian Beltre, Santiago Casilla, Bartolo Colon, Nelson Cruz and Fernando Rodney. For the purposes of this examination, we used the age at which major league clubs believed the player to be, rather than his actual age when he signed. FIGURE 1: MAJOR LEAGUE PLAYERS FIGURE 2: MINOR LEAGUE PLAYERS…

JOE_SHEEHAN “Plastics.” “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.” “Draft bats, buy arms.” So maybe the last bit of advice is from a movie that hasn’t been made yet, but when “Draft Day 2: Electric Boogaloo” comes around, in which Kevin Costner plays a major league general manager fighting for his job while awaiting the birth of his granddaughter, that will be the tag line. When in doubt, take the hitter. Look, the baseball draft is simply harder than the NFL one. The NFL outsources player development to the NCAA, and takes players who will, by and large, be playing on fall Sundays a few months after they hug commissioner Roger Goodell. In baseball, only a very small handful of players show up in the bigs that quickly, and the top…

LITTLE BOY BLUE Eight-year-old Vincent Stio is a regular at Carolina Mudcats games, but he’s not there for the players, or the peanuts, or the Cracker Jack. He’s there to watch the balls, strikes and outs. Stio gained national attention for his love of umpires, which includes wearing umpire gear to every game he attends. Check out the panels on the right for a taste of Stio’s story, which includes an appearance at Charleston’s “Umpire Appreciation Night” last year. THE BATTLE RAGES ON! After 2 weeks of intense voting LogoMania is down to 8 teams! Keep voting at BaseballAmerica.com/logomania and follow on social media via #2018logomania for more updates. Teams with the top votes keep moving on! Upcoming schedule: May 21 North and East Regional Finals May 22 South and…

HAVE A QUESTION? @jjcoop36 askba@baseballamerica.com Q How concerned should Reds fans be about Hunter Greene’s rough start? —BRYAN RAMSEY, CHICAGO, ILL. A Four starts into his first foray into full-season ball, Reds righthander Hunter Greene’s stat line is a Salvador Dali-esque creation of impressive and frightening indicators that don’t seem to fit together. Selected No. 2 overall last year out of high school, Greene had struck out 17 batters through eight innings at low Class A Dayton. But the 18-year-old also ran up an almost unfathomable 14.63 ERA through four starts. Greene had allowed 18 hits and six walks early in 2018, and his career WHIP stood at 2.68. Greene’s stuff looked just as high-octane as advertised. His fastball sits in the upper 90s and has touched 101 mph this…

Keston Hiura got away from being the hitter he wanted to be at the start of the season. He began the year batting .185 with one home run and 18 strikeouts in his first 65 at-bats for high Class A Carolina, an uncharacteristic showing for a player who was drafted ninth overall last year because his bat was so prodigious. Hiura sat back and re-examined what he was doing at the end of April, giving an honest appraisal of himself and his at-bats. After a few days of reflection, he found the problem. “It was more of just me kind of staying in my approach,” Hiura said. “I’ve been swinging at a lot of pitches that have been out of the zone or pitches that I’m not really good at…

The first time Triston Casas popped onto Steve Bernhardt’s radar, the Florida high school first baseman was being talked about as not only one of the best 15-year-old hitters in the country—but one of the best in the world at that age. After USA Baseball’s 15U National Team won gold at the COPABE Pan Am Championships in 2015, Bernhardt remembers a conversation with a scout about Casas, who had just hit .429/.556/.893 with two home runs while starting all nine games. “The first time I heard about him, I was talking to a scout who had seen him play for the 15U national team,” said Bernhardt, the executive vice president at Baseball Factory and chairman of the Under Armour All-America Game selection committee. “I talked to an international scout who…

Major league organizations spend years scouting and eventually invest millions of dollars signing Latin American amateurs each year, primarily from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. The highest bonuses go to the youngest international amateurs, who become eligible to sign professional contracts at age 16. Demand for the top international talent can push signing bonuses well into seven figures. Just last July, the Rays signed Dominican shortstop Wander Franco, the top prospect in his signing class, for $3.85 million. Yet even though signing bonuses correlate strongly with youth, future success is hardly guaranteed when it comes to signing 16-year-old players, and the reasons are myriad. Players develop at different ages, both physically and emotionally. Some develop or refine skills more than expected. Some players just plain outwork the others. Still, one…

As the headline states: Age isn’t everything on the international market. A number of major league superstars were passed over on the international market before signing. In fact, Robinson Cano, Starling Marte and Carlos Santana were passed over at both age 16 and 17 before signing at 18. The table below creates all-star teams of active Dominican and Venezuelan players who signed at age 16 one side and those who signed at 17 or older on the other. With the exception of shortstop, where seemingly all the top talent is signed as young as possible, the 17-and-older all-stars compare favorably with the 16-year-olds. Note that Felipe Vazquez was known as Felipe Rivero prior to this season. Turn your eyes to the horizon, and the following young major leaguers signed at…