MVN - Most Valuable Network

Searching For Arms In Little Venice

Of the 224 Venezuelan players to ever play at the Major League level, care to guess how many were signed, developed and promoted to the show by your Texas Rangers? Two.

Both players signed as international free agents in the summer of 1986 along with a skinny Puerto Rican kid by the name of Juan Gonzalez. The supposed jewel of that free agent class was a thick left-handed pitcher named Wilson Eduardo Alvarez.

Alvarez excelled as a prospect and even appeared in five games at the AAA level as an 18-year-old, posting an ERA of 3.78. He started one game at the Major League level for the Rangers before being dealt to the Chicago White Sox along with Scott Fletcher and 609 Career Home Runs for Harold Baines and Fred Manrique. Alvarez promptly pitched a no-hitter two years later in his second career start. Control problems and weight issues eventually drove Alvarez out of the game, but he left his mark with 1,330 career strikeouts and a career ERA of 3.96 in 1,747 innings.

The second and last Venezuelan player to be signed, developed and promoted to the show by the Texas Rangers was switch-hitting SS Cristobal Colon. Colon, who was obviously named after explorer/mass murderer Christopher Columbus, was a marginal minor league prospect that put up a career MiLB OPS of .659 in 1,098 career games. He appeared in 14 career games for the Texas Rangers, putting up a dominant line of .167/.189/.167. He finished out his career in the independent leagues until finally retiring in 2004 at age 35.

What does this mean? It means that the Rangers have let a pipeline of talent go to waste due to poor scouting, poor development and poor front-office support. But times are a-changin’.

Thanks to people like Director of International Scouting A.J. Preller, Senior Director of Baseball Operations Don Welke, various international scouts like Manny Batista and Andres Espinosa and of course Owner and man of the wallet, Tom Hicks, the Rangers have started to stockpile Venezuelan talent at the minor league level. Of course, it’s all about the arms.

Omar Poveda, signed in 2004 out of Tumero, Venezuela, announced himself as a legit prospect after a breakout season at Clinton (Low-A) in 2007. He posted a 2.79 ERA in 125 IP with 120 Ks to only 32 BB. He has a projectable build (6′4″, 220) and sports one of the best change-ups in the system. He has a solid fastball that he can locate and an improving curve that he struggles to command at times. He suffered some minor injury setbacks to start the ‘08 season, but he has since rejoined the Bakersfield Blaze (High-A). The results so far this season have been mixed; his K/IP is excellent, but his control has been spotty. Poveda doesn’t turn 21 until September and should pitch at AA Frisco at some point in ‘09. His future is as a middle of the rotation pitcher at the Major League level.

As I discussed in a previous article (click me), the Spokane rotation is littered with talent and, in this specific case, littered with high-ceiling Venezuelan arms. Having already profiled RHP Wilmer Font, who incidentally was born in the same city in Venezuela as Cristobal Colon, I’d instead like to take a closer look at some of the other exciting Venezuelan arms currently taking the bump in Spokane.

RHP Wilfredo Boscan isn’t yet a household name, but after his early performance at Spokane that could soon change. Boscan, who was born in the same city as Wilson Alvarez, won’t even turn 19 years old until October. His fastball is a ground ball machine. Period. So far this season his ground ball/fly ball ratio is more than 2-to-1. Last season, that ratio was just shy of an unbelievable 4-to-1. He is a ground ball wizard. His fastball has heavy sink and is almost impossible to hit out of the ballpark. Boscan’s secondary pitches are raw and he is still learning how to pitch, but he has projection and should continue to develop as he matures physically. He should pitch in the Spokane rotation for the rest of the year, and he could quite possibly repeat the league next year.

LHP Martin Perez might end up being the jewel of the ‘07 international haul. He made his professional debut at Spokane at the rip old age of 17 (he just turned 17 in April!). Perez throws a heavy fastball that sits in the 88-91 MPH range with sinking action. His secondary stuff is quite advanced for what would be a high school junior. Think about that for a second. What were you doing at age 17? I can’t disclose what I was doing but I wasn’t pitching in short-season professional baseball, putting up a 2.45 ERA so far in three starts. He is 17 months younger than the second youngest player in the league. Again, think about that for a second. I’m not going to attempt to project a 17-year-old so let’s just assume his ceiling is very high.

Will the Rangers finally add number three to their illustrious list of homegrown Venezuelan products? Prospect projection rhetoric aside, I feel quite confident that one of these arms will eventually take their place alongside Alvarez and Columbus. The talent-rich country known to many as Little Venice will finally get another tally on their ever-growing list of major league players. The only question now is who will get there first?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 8:33 am and is filed under Prospects, The Season. 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.