Also see: Caribbean Showcase Scout Blogs | Top Prospect List
Holding
a showcase in Puerto Rico has been under discussion at the Perfect
Game offices for years but it wasn’t until now that everything came
together. The thought of the four PG staffers that worked the event;
myself, Ben Ford, Kirk Gardner and Todd Gold, is “We can’t wait
for next year!!.”
Ignoring
the obvious benefit of working a showcase from a seaside resort
(actually a Courtyard Marriott with a casino and a huge salsa bar in
the lobby) and a view toward the beach that Gardner described as
“looking like a screen saver,” the overwhelming lasting
impression of this event is going to be the incredible amount of
athletic talent that was on display. There was an unmistakable
“Wow!” factor during and after the event.
First,
consider some of the numbers. The event attracted 137 players, which
roughly doubled what Perfect Game’s initial projection of
participants was going to be. That in and of itself is a great sign
of the health of baseball on the island and, quite frankly, the
respect with which Perfect Game is held in by the players and parents
here.
A
total of 102 players ran the 60. 55 of those players ran 7.00 or
less on the wet turf field at Roberto Clemente Stadium. 15 of those
ran under 6.65. You couldn’t find 55 players in the whole state of
California who could run under 7.00 and scouts who know what I’m
saying about California and running speed know exactly what I’m
talking about.
42
players threw from the outfield during drills. 12 of those threw 90
mph or above, including a 98 from Jacob Cordero and a 97 from
Johneshwy Fargas.
49
players threw during infield drills. 21 of those threw 84 mph or
above and seven threw 90 mph or above.
24
catchers threw during catching drills. 17 of those popped 2.01 or
less, including four in the 1.83-1.86 range.
The
only event on the Perfect Game showcase calendar where you expect
that type of across the board position athleticism is at the National
Showcase and perhaps the World Showcase. In fact, there were a
number of players who ran in the 6.8 range and threw 90 mph from
their position who weren’t included in the immediate post-showcase
Top Prospect List. That’s unheard of at a regional showcase.
The
Issue of Pitchers
We
touched on the issue of Puerto Rico’s rather dismal history of
producing high quality Major League pitchers in the showcase preview
last week. Boiled down, the fact is that the recently retired Javy
Vasquez (165-160, 4.22 career) is by a significant margin the best
pitcher the island has ever produced, and I mean that as no
disrespect to Vasquez. His primary competition for that distinction
is Juan Pizarro and Willie Hernandez.
Of
the 31 players from the 2012, 2013 and 2014 classes that were
included in the event Top Prospect List, only 4 of them were primary
pitchers. In a showcase where position players throwing 90 mph
during drills were the expectation, only one pitcher, RHP Joe
Jimenez, threw a pitch above 88 mph. The quality of off speed
pitches, especially curveballs, was even less than the fastball
velocities.
I
asked a number of Puerto Rican scouts why, in the big picture, this
was the case. The answer was very consistent. One scout said, “Young
players in Puerto Rico grow up wanting to be Pudge Rodriguez or Juan
Gonzalez or Roberto Alomar or Carlos Beltran. They don’t want to
be Javy Vazquez. Most have no interest in pitching at all. It would
be like a young football player going to his coach and saying he
wanted to be the punter instead of the quarterback.”
Edwin
Rodriguez (see below) summarized the story of RHP J.O. Berrios, who
became the highest drafted Puerto Rican pitcher ever last June when
the Twins selected him with the 32nd overall pick.
“Berrios had been with my Mizuno team for a couple of years and
only wanted to play shortstop despite the fact he wasn’t a
shortstop prospect. I told him I had Carlos Correa playing shortstop
and Jan Hernandez playing third base for the team, that’s what
shortstop prospects look like, you are a pitcher. He decided to
leave my team for a team that told him he could play shortstop. That
team let him play shortstop for two weeks, then told him he was a
pitcher only. Berrios fought it every inch of the way, but now he is
one of the best pitching prospects in the lower minor leagues and a
very wealthy 18-year old.”
Rodriguez
also noted that RHP Jorge Lopez, who was a second round pick in 2011,
actually played very little baseball growing up. Lopez was a top
level volleyball player to whom baseball was a secondary sport for
most of his athletic development period.
You
are very unlikely to find a two-way prospect such as an A.J. Puk or a
Trey Ball or a Travis Demerrite, to mention three 2012 PG
All-Americans, in Puerto Rico. The top prospects; Hernandez, Fargas,
Cordero and Edwin Diaz, all players with easy plus arms, don’t pitch.
Some of the next level of position prospects; Roy Morales, Angel
Perez, Josh Santos-Torres, Alexander De La Cruz, are actually the
best pitching prospects in the class but they are strictly secondary
pitchers at this point. In general, only when you reach the third
tier of baseball athlete do you find players who are actually primary
pitchers.
Miscellaneous
Notes
• Rodriguez,
who wears virtually every type of hat as a “Mr. Baseball”
personality in Puerto Rico, has been a fixture at Perfect Game events
for years with his Team Mizuno players. He was instrumental in
helping organize the showcase, although I think he was a bit
surprised by the intensity with which PG goes about its business
behind the scenes. He put together a team of event workers in
coaches John Burgos, Bert Pena and J.C. Melendez, trainer Yanira
Fernandez and his son Edwin Jr. that was as good of group as I’ve
ever seen at a PG showcase.
• The
most famous former MLB player at Roberto Clemente Stadium was 3-time
All-Star Carlos Baerga, whose son Carlos Jr. participated in the
showcase. Carlos Jr. is a left-handed hitting outfielder with a
very good hit tool and swung the bat especially well in games.
• Roberto
Clemente Stadium is a big park with standard MLB dimensions. But the
reason why only one ball was hit out of the park in both batting
practice and games was that there is so much water in the air it
should be weighed by pound weight instead of humidity. Plus, it gets
worse by the hour during the day and into the evening. It was no
coincidence that the only home run was hit by Johneshwy Fargas as the
leadoff hitter at the 8:00 am game on Sunday. Edwin Diaz hit a monster
bomb to straight away centerfield on Saturday night that would have easily gone 440 feet on an Arizona afternoon. It was caught just short
of the warning track in front of the 404 sign. A 17-year old can’t
hit a ball much harder than Diaz hit that ball.
• Fargas,
by the way, may be the best baseball player in history named
“Johneshwy”. No professional player, according to
Baseball-Reference.com, has ever had that name. Baring unfortunate
circumstances, Fargas will definitely play professional baseball.
• The
way baseball at the high school age level in Puerto Rico works is
very complicated and not necessarily positive for development of
players. The public high schools do not play baseball, despite it
being arguably the island’s most popular sport. The only schools
that play baseball are the private academies (Carlos Beltan Academy,
Puerto Rican Baseball Academy, Caguas Military and Sports Academy,
International Baseball Academy, etc.). But these academies, for a
myriad of reasons, mostly political, do not play each other except
for in one tournament a year and just train players without outside
competition. The competition on the island is provided by a group of
club teams such as Rodriguez’ Team Mizuno that play mostly on
weekends. It is a disjointed system that is closer to what is the
reality in the Dominican Republic than the United States.
• I
didn’t have many conversations about the thoughts in Puerto Rico
among the baseball community as to where it will be included if an
International Draft is established in 2014. According to Rodriguez,
the feeling in Puerto Rico is 50/50 whether Puerto Rico is best
served by staying in the June Draft with the players from the United
States and Canada or being grouped with the rest of the world (i.e.
the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico, Europe, etc.) in an
International Draft. My personal opinion is that the players would
be best served, should such a scenario happen, by being included in
the US/Canada portion of the draft.
• The
number of professional scouts at the event was also a pleasant
surprise, as it probably numbered in the 50-60 range and included
many international scouting directors, U.S. based cross-checkers and at
least one Scouting Director, the Reds’ Chris Buckley. There were
also a number of junior college coaches in attendance. NCAA Division
I coaches are in a dead period where they are not allowed on the road
and one of the goals next year is to schedule the event at a time
when they can attend the event as well.