Thursday, April 10, 2008

Minor League Catchers

Posada has a 4-year contract, and the Yankees have two catching prospects. This can work well as the two prospects are just 18 and 19 years old, in Jesus Montero and Austin Romine, respectively.

My favorite is Montero who many think is by far the best hitter to come out of Venezuela since Miguel Cabrera. The Yankees decided, due to their age and inexperience, both were only ready for low-A ball, playing in the Sally League.

I actually like it a lot. Every day they both play. One catches and the other DHs. They have been alternating every day, so they are both in the starting lineup every day, and are getting very little abuse to their bodies, as they're not even catching two days in a row.

Montero's bing weakness so far is that he's only walked one time in 8 games, but has a .960 OPS nonetheless. If he keeps hitting like that, the two may get split up.

My favorite most underrated Yankee prospect remains reliever David Robertson. With 7 shutout so far at AA, he now has a career 0.89 ERA in 91 minor league innings. He's from the same draft class as Chamberlain and Kennedy. The only problem that I can see at all with Robertson is his height. He's 5'11". With his stuff, I don't think that will be a problem at all at AA or AAA, but we'll see (my guess is this season) if it's a problem at the big league level with ML hitters getting a little longer look than they do against the taller pitchers.

1 comment:

Ross said...

Montero is now at a .356 batting average and Romine has been on fire and is second in the league with a .396 average. They are two of only three qualifying catchers in the Sally League batting above .240.