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Midseason prospect progress report

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

If the Sox are going to make any major additions before the trade deadline, it will require a gigantic risk or major miracle on the part of Kenny Williams, based on what little he has left on the farm.

Not much has changed since the last monthly recap, so I figure that I would focus on which players have done the most to improve or kill their stock.  As you might be able to guess, the scales are tipped heavily in favor of the latter.

More than we knew

"A little help, guys?"

Brent Morel
.291/.329/.418 over 141 ABs in Charlotte

Morel’s tour in Charlotte is progressing like his stop in Birmingham.  He had a couple weeks full of outs and singles to start the season, and then started to round out his game with extra-base hits and, finally, walks.

He’s hitting .357/.386/.571 over 42 July ABs, and while he’s hit both his homers at Knights Stadium, he’s shown his good doubles power away from Fort Mill.  When he was drafted, there were concerns that upper-level pitchers might be able to knock the bat out of his hands.  He’s quieted those, and although his ceiling isn’t particularly exciting (unless Joe Randa makes your knees weak), scouts regard him as a guy whose sum is greater than his parts.

If you missed it, I saw him play a game in Charlotte.  He looks like a low-maintenance prospect to me, and with Dayan Viciedo and Daniel Hudson on the 25-man roster, he has the highest trade value of any current farmhand.  I don’t think he’d be enough to lead a package for an Adam Dunn type, though.

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First impressions: Brent Morel

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

Before Wednesday night, the only time I saw Brent Morel play a full game was in the Arizona Fall League championship game.  That day, he didn’t get one ball hit in his direction.

The hot corner wasn’t that hot in Syracuse, either.  He had precisely two chances — a chopper that went over his head, and a bunt on which he made a beautiful barehanded play.

I’ve condensed Morel’s entire night of action into a three-minute clip for your enjoyment (you can also hear the heckler I was tweeting about on a lot of the segments):

Obviously, I couldn’t get any idea of his lateral range, but the one thing I noticed throughout the night is that he’s pretty springy.  Midway through the video, you’ll see a clip of Donny Lucy throwing out a baserunner. I left that in there because you can see Morel’s pre-pitch preparation.  He’s very methodical, repeating the same crouch on every delivery.

It transfers to the bases.  He got a huge jump on his stolen base (so huge, in fact, that I was late in hitting record), and for the few pitches on second, he got big secondary leads.  That would explain the 25 stolen bases at Winston-Salem with good, not great, speed.  He also runs back to the dugout pretty fast after the third out, for what it’s worth.

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The long and short of Morel

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

Last Thursday, Brent Morel took questions on a conference call with White Sox bloggers.  Answering a question about his Arizona Fall League season, he mentioned that he had been playing in an instructional league before getting the call to replace Dayan Viciedo, and he had played a couple of positions in order to play every day.

That’s worth noting, because against Syracuse tonight, Morel played shortstop.  That’s the first non-third-base position he’s played as a pro, not counting one game as a designated hitter in Birmingham.

That might not be a huge deal, because Josh Fields played short at Charlotte in a couple games due to injuries around the rest of the team.

Looking at the lineup, injuries don’t seem to be the reason. More likely, it could be a way to keep Dayan Viciedo warm at third while keeping Morel’s bat in the lineup.

There’s an outside chance they’re trying to give Morel regular reps at more than one position, but he’s hitting .133/.170/.156 over 45 at-bats thus far.  If he were hitting .290/.350/.430, maybe the Sox would start to see how they could shoehorn him into the major-league roster, but it seems like he’s got enough on his plate right now.

Plus, if they really wanted to get him to the majors, they’d keep him at third.  Mark Teahen will still be out for a few more weeks, so the hot corner is the thinnest spot.

Add it all up, and I’m guessing tonight was more about Viciedo than Morel. He said that he’s strictly a third baseman and hasn’t been told any differently, and I wouldn’t think anything’s happened to change people’s minds in the days since.  But it’s worth keeping an eye on as we go forward.

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Minor league monthly: Charlotte and Birmingham

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Mark Teahen’s fractured finger triggered a flurry of activity in the minor-league ranks. Here’s a list of all the movement that happened in its wake:

And somewhere along the line, Erick Threets returned to action and Jhonny Nunez received a call to Charlotte as well.

Oh, and Trayce Thompson is out for a couple months after undergoing thumb surgery (h/t Larry).

So with all that on the table for the month ahead, let’s take a look at what happened in the minors to get to this point.

CHARLOTTE KNIGHTS

Record: 21-31 (tied for last place)
Team offense: .692 OPS (12th in IL)
Team pitching: 4.58 ERA (12th in IL)

PITCHING DEPTH AT THE READY

Daniel Hudson
6-2, 4.56 ERA, 53 1/3 IP, 54 H, 8 HR, 16 BB, 62 K

It looks like Hudson just wanted to put a little scare in us.  He’s back to his old self and then some.

  • April: 2-2, 9.37 ERA, 16 1/3 IP, 6 HR, 8 BB, 18 K, .352 BAA
  • May: 4-0, 2.43 ERA, 37 IP, 2 HR, 8 BB, 44 K, .210 BAA.

The scouting reports are favorable, so it looks like he’s merely waiting for a chance. Funny how it looked like Freddy Garcia was the most replaceable, and now it’s Jake Peavy.

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Minor league monthly: Charlotte and Birmingham

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

While Larry looks at the minor-league season in terms of weeks, I like to take a look at the system in months.  April’s in the books, so what does the farm look like?

Not much, sadly.  Tyler Flowers makes it Christina Hendricks-grade top-heavy, but there isn’t anything below to balance it out.

We’ll always remember 2009. So will the folks in Birmingham.

CHARLOTTE KNIGHTS

Record: 9-14 (tied for last place)
Team offense: .720 OPS (9th in IL)
Team pitching: 5.15 ERA (13th in IL)

READY FOR WHATEVER

Tyler Flowers
.323/.432/.614, 4 2B, 1 3B, 4 HR, 9 BB, 21 K

Flowers is clearly in time-biding mode.  If Andruw Jones is ever pressed into full-time outfield duty, whether it’s due to Juan Pierre’s ineptitude or Carlos Quentin’s poor health, Flowers should be the first option to serve as the majority DH and occasional catcher.

Allow me to reiterate that Flowers seems like he’ll be a slow starter at the major-league level due to his K-rate.  For whatever reason — probably because A.J. Pierzynski is a great clubhouse source — there are a lot of people waiting, perhaps even hoping, for Flowers to fail.  But he’s the only hope the Sox have of getting an above-average hitter for the league minimum, so that kind of pressure seems to be counterproductive.

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Arizona Fall League wrap-up

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

The Arizona Fall League concluded with the thunderclap of C.J. Retherford’s boomstick, as he walloped a two-run homer well, well over the 360-foot left-field wall in the eighth inning to give the Peoria Javelinas a 5-4 lead.

Watch it for yourself. And then, watch it again. It’s fun to watch that stumpy power uncoil.

retherford1122

It was a tremendous conclusion for a so-so AFL season for Retherford. He finished with a .250 batting average, a .389 slugging percentage and an OBP around .340 or so (MLB.com doesn’t track things like HBP and sac flies).

The good news is that nothing was particularly out of whack in spite of the lukewarm results.  He struck out only nine times over 70something plate appearances, which he countered with eight walks.

One of those walks came on Saturday, and it was nearly as impressive as the homer. He fell behind 0-2, laid off a good slider, took a fastball inside, sliders, fouled three pitches off (including another good slider), then watched two more out of the strike zone for a nine-pitch walk.

Patience has been the one element that suppresses excitement regarding Retherford’s major-league potential, but he showed the ability to lay off a fastball-slider guy (Jeff Mandel) who hadn’t walked anybody in 10 fall-league innings.

The only mistake Retherford made on the day came two batters after the walk. He broke for third on a chopper snagged by Mandel, and should’ve been hung out to try.  But Mandel didn’t run him back, rushed the throw to third and ended up throwing it away.

Otherwise, he had a nice day for himself, chopping in a run on a fielder’s choice, grounding out to second on a nice diving play by Jemile Weeks, and laying a tag down on steal attempt for an out. Hawk Harrelson would be happy to see that Retherford let the ball come to him, but then again, Hawk seems like everything Retherford does. That’s just par for the course.

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Viciedo injured, and one more plan

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

We can officially call Dayan Viciedo’s first minor-league season “underwhelming.”

Dayan Viciedo.

Dayan Viciedo.

His Arizona Fall League experience came to an end on Monday. He’d missed the last handful of games, and it turns out elbow inflammation is the culprit.  His final AFL line is full of 1′s and 6′s:

18 AB, 6 R, 6 H, 1 2B, 1 HR, 6 RBI, 1 BB, 6 K.

There is a silver lining — Brent Morel, who is nearly as interesting as Viciedo, takes his place.  And with Jordan Danks posting a 1.210 OPS so far, it’s been a pretty good year for fall ball thus far.

Joe Cowley seems to think Viciedo will be good enough to attend Camp Cora in January. Hopefully that’s the case, and Viciedo won’t be dragging around a bum arm.

Since we’re on the subject of Cubans and about to introduce another offseason plan, this seems as good a time as any to mention that the Sox have expressed interest in Aroldis Chapman.

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Our final offseason plan (for now) comes through e-mail courtesy of Matt:

MUST-MAKE DECISIONS

1) Octavio Dotel: Arbitration, or not?

Dotel – Walk

2) Jermaine Dye: Mutual option, arbitration, or not?

Dye – Buyout

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