MVN - Most Valuable Network

‘07 Wisconsin Timber Rattlers Preview

First complete roster I saw, so let’s start from the bottom here and work our way up…

Rotation: RHP Ricky Orta, RHP Chris Tillman, RH P Anthony Varvaro, LHP Tony Butler, RHP Nathan Adcock

Again, the T-Rats rotation might be the most interesting, and most volatile, in the organization.
Orta is trying to live up to his draft billing as a 4th round pick last year out of Miami, and pitched a bit better than his ERA (5.20) and record (4-5) would have indicated in Everett. He’ll need to keep the walks around the same levels and try to suppress the hit a little more to be effective. The strikeouts and the stuff are already there.

Varvaro is the other experienced arm in there, but the most important thing for him may be just to log innings after his Tommy John surgery two years ago. The Mariners were quite protective of him last season, holding him back at the slightest indication of soreness and limiting him to eleven innings overall. The reports have otherwise been good, and he could break out if he’s pitching anywhere near the way he did in college, but I don’t expect him to be let loose right away.

The rest of the group is filled out by kids who were playing high school ball a year ago at this time. Tillman has received rave reviews about the addition of a change-up to his arsenal, already featuring a low-to-mid 90s fastball and a power curve, and could drive himself to show more of his stuff in the challenging environment.

Butler will also presumably be working on his change-up along with some minor mechanical issues in how he finishes. His fastball and curveball are already dominant, particularly for a left-hander, and there’s more velocity potential there. With him, I’m going to watch whether he maintains the velocity he was showing late in the high school season and after he was drafted. Getting the change-up to work for him as a better offering is just a bonus at this point, as it already seems to be somewhat effective.

As for Adcock, there isn’t much to say except that he must have done something in Spring Training because his Arizona League tour wasn’t quite as dominant as those who were picked before him. Like Butler, nailing down some things mechanically is going to be important to his progress, but he may need it a little more as Butler’s outstanding body control should already be helping him to avoid unnecessary stress.

Bullpen: LHP Steve Uhlmansiek, LHP Rollie Gibson, RHP Andy Barb, RHP Natividad Dilone, RHP Robert Harmon, RHP Joe Kantakevich, RHP Justin Souza

Uhlmansiek, coming from a similar background to Varvaro, is probably the first man out in long relief and the top candidate to fill a rotation spot if needed. He’s been a little slower to come back than Varvaro, and his command still hasn’t returned to where anyone would like it to be.

Another candidate to fill the swingman role is Dilone, who spent most of last season in the Aquasox rotation. The only issue with him is that he hasn’t shown much strikeout ability since coming up from the DSL last season, and that tends to make his performances a bit unstable from one to the next.

I’d like to suggest that Gibson might do nicely as a left-handed setup guy, but his control can lapse at times and last year he showed a crazy reverse split, going .181/.337/.313 against right-handers while lefties hit him for .292/.370/.444, a .165 OPS difference. The K difference is substantial too, with for more right-handed bats striking out per nine. Keep an eye out for any changes there.

Kantakevich is probably going to be one of the setup arms, and his low-90s FB / curveball combo yielded terrific results in Everett last season. His BABIP was unusually high last year, consistently around .400, so the hit rates are likely to drop. I’m not sure who the closer will be at this point, but he’s definitely on the short list to fill the role.

The local guy on the list, Barb graduated from Juanita High School and played at Everett Community College before being drafted by the Phillies and traded over in the Moyer deal. His walk rates aren’t passable just yet, but no one hits him and he strikes out about as much as Kantakevich, putting him in position to get a look as closer as well. He did log eighteen saves in thirty-eight appearances last year for Lakewood in the South Atlantic League.

As with a few others, I’m watching Souza mostly for the velocity. He was lighting up the radar guns last year for Sacramento CC, but I didn’t see anything of the sort the one time I saw him in Everett. He’s quick to the plate, and that helps, but the velocity was the main thing he was drafted on and without it, he’s not the same.

Harmon, I left for last because he’s the mystery man of the staff for me. He walked more guys than he struck out, or gave up hits to for that matter, and didn’t show much control his entire stint in Peoria, and yet, amidst assorted cuts of college-level arms who underperformed, he survived and got himself a ticket to full-season ball. Time will tell whether he’s keeping a spot warm or if there’s clear reasoning behind it.

Catchers: Juan Beltran (R), Leury Bonilla (R), Jair Fernandez (R)

Not a native English speaker on the list here. I’m looking for Jair to be the primary catcher on the staff here, because he’s shown flashes of leadership on the field and the potential to be a plus defensive receiver. Being the only one who was solely a catcher last year doesn’t hurt either. His bat didn’t translate quite well in the jump from the VSL, but he took his share of walks and that was nice to see. It goes without saying that he’ll need to hit more.

Beltran played a curious role last year in Peoria, as eh took some games in at second base when he wasn’t behind the plate. I don’t know how often I expect to see that during the regular season, but it’s one of the spots in the lineup that isn’t so concrete. Like Fernandez, he struggled a bit in the adjustment to pitching in the US, and needs work there.

After playing the hot corner for the Aquasox last year, Bonilla looks to be donning the gear a few times for the T-Rats this season. He has some power that he’s shown, with 42% of his hits going for extra-bases last season, but power may be the only thing that helps him to stand out. Bonilla is from the era when our Dominican scouting wasn’t yielding much of anything, so proving himself to be more versatile might be an attempt to hang on in affiliated ball.

Infielders: 1B Gerardo Avila (L), SS Luis Nunez (R), SS Carlos Triunfel (R), 3B Alex Liddi (R), SS Ogui Diaz (R), 1B Andy Hargrove (R)

The only left-handed bat in the lineup, Avila was right there in the thick of the league’s home run race, along with Carlos Peguero and Wellington Dotel who were also tied for the lead. His swing is a bit long for the liking of some, which may affect his ability to adjust, but his overall strikeouts were well below the levels set by some of his other teammates. The same can be said for almost all young hitters out there, but it would be to his benefit if he learned how to take a few more walks.

To his immediate right, it seems likely that we’ll see Nunez jumping straight from the DSL, though as Helfgott pointed out in an e-mail, it’s mostly because cutting Vogel, Villezcas, and others left them with fewer options. Nunez was the top hitter on his team all-around, and one of the better hitters in the DSL last season. He’s a little better at taking a walk than past graduates have been, but he doesn’t have power to help him stand out. His slugging and his OBP shouldn’t be too far off his average, but what his average will be is hard to say as I can’t recall seeing a jump like this before.

Anchoring the shortstop position is one of the highest profile international prospects we’ve signed in years. Triunfel already ranked as the best infield arm in the system by BA, but his solid swing leaves him with some very interesting offensive potential. It’s too early to tell how much he’ll develop, but his ceiling is huge and his placement speaks directly to his status. It’s extremely rare to see anyone this young starting out in a full-season league.

While there were other guys on the Peoria M’s last year who provided more power shots, Liddi seemed to be down as the guy with the fewest flaws in his game. For a guy coming in from Italy, hardly a hotbed of baseball talent, his defensive game is pretty polished and he held his own last year as a seventeen-year-old in Arizona. Triunfel is the only guy on the roster who’s younger than him. By all accounts, his work ethic is great, so with any luck we’ll be talking about him more in years to come.

Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by years of going up to Everett and seeing guys like Oswaldo Navarro and Asdrubal Cabrera, but I wasn’t that impressed with Ogui Diaz and it seems as though he’ll be the backup middle infielder on the roster. His offense went down from one month to the next after a lucky June, so I don’t know how he’ll manage from here. He’s a bottom-of-the-order bat right now, for sure.

Through two years in the system, Hargrove has excelled at two things mainly: standing around and not swinging at the ball. Even when he was promoted to Inland last year, he managed to have an OBP nearly a hundred points over his average. That’s about as glowingly as I can speak of him though; his power should be more developed than the other guys and isn’t anything to get excited over and he has no defensive versatility whatsoever. He may provide a walk threat in a lineup sorely lacking anything of the sort, but otherwise, I can’t tell how they’re planning on using him.

Outfield: Kuo-hui Lo (R), Gavin Dickey (R), Greg Halman (R), Kalian Sams (R)

Lo is a five-tool outfielder, but my issue with him is that I’m afraid he might end up as a tweener, not having the defensive ability to play center, but lacking the bat to stay at a corner. We’ve only seen so much of him at this point, and in Taiwan he compared favorably to Chin-feng Chen, so perhaps something was just lost in the weakness of the sample size. Lo has already seen time in Wisconsin (not in April though, perhaps a big qualifier), so he should have a feel for what he’s going up against and may be better prepared for it this time around.

Giving up football to play baseball full-time, Dickey signed with the M’s as a junior even though he probably could have boosted his status by giving it another year at Florida. He possesses an interesting combo of speed and power, along with some on-base potential, but he stumbled on hitting pro ball. Still, I don’t see him losing much playing time, and there’s a chance we’ll see all four outfielders get relatively equal playing time, possibly with the aid of the DH.

Halman lost significant playing time last year after busting his hand in a fight on field. He’s as raw as the other international guys, but he’s a beast physically and has already dominated one of Europe’s better baseball leagues in the Netherlands. The power potential is immense, and if he can stick it out in center, all the better, but he didn’t look to be improving his ability to draw a walk in limited time in Everett. I feel I’m saying this with almost all the hitting prospects, but getting more playing time is huge for Halman.

Earlier in the offseason, I mentioned that Sams was going to need to hit the ground running as an older international signee. He’s a year older than Halman, but has a similar (though not nearly as illustrious) pedigree coming from the Dutch leagues. I’ve heard good things on occasion, but just like with Triunfel, it’s hard to tell what exactly what we have in him until he takes the field. I do appreciate that the M’s are giving him every opportunity to prove himself so far.

Overall Analysis:

I can’t recall seeing a roster with the same kind of frightening potential, but that often translates to a lot of growing pains. The two college starters in the rotation have their own issues, with Orta still trying to harness his pitches and Varvaro trying to build up endurance while getting his stuff back. Tillman and Orta will have to deal with getting loose in the cold weather, something the others are mostly familiar with. The field otherwise seems fairly even throughout, though any one of them could take off. The bullpen should remain strong, and provides a decent fallback should there be the occasional bad game. I don’t know how much work they’ll see, but it’s a good mix of guys who can provide innings of solid relief and guys who can shut the door immediately if needed. They should help ease in some of the younger pitchers in the rotation.

On the field, there just isn’t that kind of experience. While previous years might have seen a college drafted backstop or middle infielder, the closest thing the T-Rats have to that kind of presence is Dickey in the outfield, coming from three years in college where baseball wasn’t always his focus. Dickey, Hargrove, and maybe Lo are the only ones who have shown some ability to get on without getting a hit, and as a sum they may represents a fairly streaky offense. Threats for power throughout the lineup should help score some runs, but manufacturing one or two in key situations may prove more difficult.

I don’t expect it to be a smooth ride straight to the top with this squad, but I’m fascinated by the idea of how it might turn out, both for the individuals and the whole. I’m really quite jealous of Chris Mehring, who will be able to see the whole season play out from up in the press box.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.