SB Nation - John Van Benschoten

All Assumptions-Are-Dangerous Minor League Free Agent Team

Jeff — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:07:19 -0000

Dave at Fangraphs passed along a link to this year's crop of minor league free agents. A popular thing to do with this information is pick out a handful of guys that would make interesting and potentially worthwhile pick-ups. This is not that. This is a full team made up of guys who, years ago, were supposed to go on to do some big big things, only to end up on the fall 2009 list of mlFA's. Consider this just another reminder that you should never ever ever take a prospect's future for granted.*

C: JR House
1B: Ryan Shealy
2B: Josh Barfield
SS: Antonio Perez
3B: Dallas McPherson
LF: Wes Bankston
CF: Joe Borchard
RF: John-Ford Griffin
DH: Josh Phelps

BENCH-C: JD Closser (does Ben Davis still count?)
BENCH-INF: Eric Duncan
BENCH-OF: Dave Krynzel
BENCH-UTIL: Donnie Murphy

SP: Jerome Williams
SP: Greg Miller
SP: Kenny Baugh
SP: Humberto Sanchez
SP: Bobby Brownlie

RP: Jose Capellan
RP: Wes Littleton
RP: Casey Fossum
RP: John Van Benschoten
RP: Chad Orvella
RP: Clint Everts
RP: Andrew Brown

If there were a 26th spot, I'd give it to Dee Brown, but it would just be so damn easy to include him that I had to find an alternative. Also among the free agents are formerly established Major Leaguers like Chris Capuano and Chad Cordero, along with the astonishingly driven Jolbert Cabrera. Jolbert just wants to win. Come on, Yankees. Take the plunge. Win one for Jolbert.

If there were a 27th spot, I'd give it to Mark McGonigle, because, really? McGonigle?

* never take any player's future for granted

Pirates Can't Learn Much From Phillies

Charlie — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:05:52 -0000

More photos » by Ross D. Franklin - AP

Philadelphia Phillies' Cole Hamels throws against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Tuesday, July 28, 2009, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

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John Mehno has the right idea in this Beaver County Times column about the differences between the Pirates and Phillies--it's not primarily about spending, it's about building by acquiring amateur talent. But while the technique of comparing some great Phillies draft picks (Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, and so on) to picks the Pirates botched at similar points in their drafts is effective for an article written with a word count for a general audience, it doesn't quite tell the whole story.

The Phillies' case is really weird. If you look at their drafts under previous GM Ed Wade (that's basically the time frame described in the Beaver County article), it's very surprising they've been so successful. Working backwards, the best player they got in 2005 was current Athletics reliever Josh Outman; they also got current Reds reliever Matt Maloney. That was it. In 2004 they got J.A. Happ in the third round, Jason Jaramillo in the second, and Lou Marson in the fourth, but they also took Greg Golson as a dubious tools pick in the first round and got nothing in the later rounds. In 2003 they had no first- or second-round pick; they got Michael Bourn and Kyle Kendrick, and that was it.

In 2002 the Phils took Cole Hamels in the first round, which was obviously a great pick, but they got absolutely nothing else. In 2001, it was Gavin Floyd in the first round and Howard in the fifth, and absolutely nothing else. In 2000, they got Utley, Taylor Buchholz and nothing else. In 1999, it was Brett Myers, Marlon Byrd and nothing else. (They also drafted Joe Saunders, but didn't sign him.)

Now, maybe this doesn't sound too noteworthy to some of you. Maybe you think that if you get one good player out of a draft, that's great, and to a certain extent that's true. In this case, the results speak for themselves. But what's odd to me about the Phillies' drafts under Wade is how incredibly thin they were. Wade seemed to get a star player and almost nothing else every year for several seasons in a row. That's strange.

To see what I mean, let's take a look at Wade's first draft for the Phillies in 1998. He took Pat Burrell with the first overall pick (a bit of a no-brainer), but he also got several moderately useful players later on, such as Jason Michaels, Geoff Geary and Nick Punto.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter that much if you fail to identify the next Nick Punto in your draft, but it does raise the question of why, if the Phillies are supposed to be a good example of intelligent drafting, they were able to identify so many star players but so few other future productive major leaguers.

Here's an example. In 2000 the Phillies got Utley, who single-handedly made the draft a very successful one for Philadelphia. The same year, the Pirates got Chris Young, Nate McLouth, Ian Snell, Jose Bautista and Sean Burnett. I'd say the Pirates actually did a much better job in that draft, even though it turned out worse--Dave Littlefield stupidly traded away Young a couple years later, and first-rounder Burnett's career was derailed with a ton of injuries. Drafting players who will stay healthy and helping them stay healthy involve skills, of course, and it certainly helps to not take a pitcher in the first round every year like the Pirates did. But there's luck involved too. For example, the Phillies were notably lucky that, for example, high school draftee Hamels basically made it to the majors with his elbow and shoulder intact, particularly after he missed huge chunks of his minor league career with injuries.

In 2001 the Phillies got Floyd, later sent to the White Sox in the Jim Thome trade, and Howard. That was all. Again, the Pirates had a much more robust draft, grabbing a number of moderately useful players in Zach Duke, Chris Shelton, Jeff Keppinger, Chris Duffy, Jonathan Albaladejo and Rajai Davis. (They also might have had some shot of signing 11th-rounder Stephen Drew if Littlefield, who was hired shortly after the draft, hadn't dropped the ball.) The Pirates royally messed up their first-round pick, John Van Benschoten, and that was their fault, but again, I'm not really convinced that Wade and the Phillies had a better idea of what they were doing.

Of course, Littlefield and his team started drafting in 2002, and after that all bets are off. There's no defending much of anything Littlefield did. My point, though, is that I'm not sure the Wade-era Phillies are a particularly good model here. In fact, it looks to me that they repeatedly got very lucky with about one pick each year and totally bombed the rest of their drafts under Wade, with the exceptions of 1998 and 2004. I don't mean to take anything away from the Phillies, who have generally been pretty well run since Wade left. But If there are things the Pirates can learn from this, they are the very basic points that, first, it's generally very important not to screw up first-round picks, and second, that it's important to build a core of homegrown stars. Beyond that, the Phillies' example doesn't tell us a whole lot.

Bucs Option Brian Bixler, Sign Jorge Julio

Charlie — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:40:25 -0000

More photos » by Morry Gash - AP

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The Pirates have sent Brian Bixler back to the minors and signed Jorge Julio to a minor league contract.

I'm not usually inclined to draw conclusions from 33-at-bat samples, but Bixler's amazingly poor showing in 33 at bats this year just confirms what we should have already known--he's terrible. Bixler's spectacular 23 strikeouts in those 33 at bats are reminiscent of strikeout king Mark Reynolds, if you shrunk Reynolds to half his normal size, put a blindfold on him and spun him around until dizzy before guiding him to the plate. Bixler's performance this year has been something special, rivaling Mike Benjamin's 2002, Don Kelly's 2007 or John Van Benschoten's whole career for hilarity. (Even aside from Bixler's performance, there's also the fact that he pretty much always looks like a deer in the headlights, which isn't his fault but which heightens the already overwhelming impression that he has no idea what he's doing out there.)

I predicted that the Pirates would sign Julio as a free agent last offseason; that didn't happen, and it's a good thing, too, because Julio stunk it up in both the bigs and AAA this year. He's exactly the sort of hard-throwing, control-challenged reliever Neal Huntington loves to take chances on, though. I wonder why they're signing him at this late point in the season; Indianapolis only plays through September 7, and they won't be heading to the International League playoffs. I sincerely hope we aren't going to see Julio in Pittsburgh.

UPDATE: And Brad Lincoln will take Daniel McCutchen's spot on the U.S. World Cup team. Scott McCauley is all over all this Indianapolis news.

Biting The Hand That Once Fed You: Cubs 6, White Sox 7

Al — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:03:55 -0000

I'll freely admit I didn't see the last half of this game -- the West Coast starts wind up ending far too late for someone whose work schedule starts at 4 am -- but three former Cub farmhands were primarily responsible for the Cubs' 7-6 loss to the White Sox in Las Vegas late last night.

Michael Restovich, who Jim Hendry signed in 2006 to provide a potential platoon partner for Jacque Jones (and then Dusty Baker refused to play him), homered off Angel Guzman in the 8th inning to tie the game. Then, Ben Broussard and Josh Kroeger, who were teammates at Iowa in the Cubs' organization last year, teamed up in the ninth for the winning run, Broussard driving in Kroeger, who had singled and advanced to second on a wild pitch by David Patton.

During the part of the game that I did see, Jeff Samardzija gave up three runs in three innings, issuing no walks. That's good, but the two batters he hit isn't. The Shark seemed up in the zone throughout, and the Sox got 14 hits off Cubs pitching, five of them for extra bases. John van Benschoten, a one-time first-round pick of the Pirates who has never been able to stick in the majors, was responsible for six of those hits and allowed four of the Cubs runs. At 28 and with a 9.20 career major league ERA in 90 innings, I might gently suggest that van Benschoten try another line of work.

Good things from Cubs players: Ryan Theriot had three hits and Mike Fontenot (a triple) and Aramis Ramirez had two each. That's about it -- Cubs pitching wasn't that great, except for the scoreless innings thrown by Chad Fox and J. R. Mathes, neither of whom has much of a chance of making the 25-man roster.

Len & Bob spent quite a bit of time on the air with a PR flack touting the virtues of spending vacation time and money in Las Vegas, which gave me the impression that hotel bookings in Vegas are way down and they're getting a little desperate in these tough economic times. The attendance of 11,459 was pretty good on a cool night. We'll see if the day game attendance today is as good. I'll have a game preview/thread up at 1 pm CST.

Do White Sox Have Surprising Starter Depth?

The Cheat — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:37:27 -0000

A little over a month ago, things looked grim for the White Sox starting staff. Sure, they had a solid, young nucleus anchored by Mark Buehrle, John Danks and Gavin Floyd, but who was going to fill the other two rotation spots?

Javier Vazquez had been traded to Atlanta for a package of prospects who don't figure to contribute in '09. Jose Contreras had ruptured his Achilles tendon late in '08, and given his age didn't seem like a good bet to pitch anytime before the All-Star break.

All references to the Sox rotation included words like "competition" followed by uninspiring names like Jeff Marquez and Lance Broadway. The Sox projected rotation, even with the solid front three, appeared to be that of a 4th or 5th place club.

Yet as we sit here 4 games into spring training, I'm surprisingly optimistic about the Sox rotation picture.

What's changed?

Sox sign Bartolo Colon -- Even though we all know he's going to get hurt at some point, even though he had his elbow "cleaned up" in the off-season, even though he has yet to throw live BP to hitters this spring, I have faith that Colon will contribute positively to the Sox rotation... for a limited time.
Contreras is a miraculous healer -- Nobody expected Contreras to contribute before the All-Star break, nobody but Contreras, that is. He "ate lots of fish" in the off-season and obviously trained hard, doing what he could, to drop a reported 30 pounds from last year, and now is tentatively scheduled for live action mid-March. There's a possibility he could open the season in the rotation.
It's Spring -- It's hard not to be optimistic at the beginning of spring. Anything's possible.

The addition of the two old guys coming off injuries suddenly gives the Sox some starting depth. Granted, they're adding a couple more question marks to a pile of candidates that already sound like a round of Jeopardy. Who is Jeff Marquez? But now it seems they'll only have to count on the young, unproven guys to provide 20-45 starts instead of the 60+ that would be required from filling the final two spots of the rotation.

Who's got the best shot?

Aaron Poreda -- The White Sox top pick of the '07 draft opened his spring by serving up a homer and a single to a pair of major leaguers, but retired the next 6 batters he faced in a "B" game. He has plus command of a plus sinking fastball that sits in the low 90's, but the rest of his pitches lag behind. He can probably succeed from the bullpen as a 1-pitch pitcher, but needs to refine his secondary offerings to claim a rotation spot.

Coming North: 55% chance (as a starter: 25%)
Clayton Richard -- Richard helped his chances a great deal late last season by putting up a solid start in Yankee stadium, and cleaning up Vazquez' final two messes. He's a lot like Poreda in that he throws from a lower 3/4 slot and relies on good sink from his fastball, which doesn't quite have the zip of Poreda's (sitting just below 90). Richard seems to have a knack for adding and subtracting off his fastball with good results, but also lacks consistency with his slider and change. He seemed to take a step forward with his slider against lefties down the stretch, making him the clubhouse favorite for LOOGY duties.

Coming North: 95% chance (as a starter: 35%)
Jeff Marquez -- Derisively called [Starter Candidate 5] during our depression regarding the Sox starter prospects, Marquez doesn't have the recent minor league track record to support his name being mentioned here. His name is here, however, based on a reported 94 MPH fastball with good sink. I'll allow that Marquez' strikeout rate was hurt last season by nagging injuries, that the Sox scouts see something that I don't, but until he starts to show some ability to miss minor league bats, he shouldn't be among the lead candidates for a rotation spot.

Coming North: 40% chance (as a starter: 15%)
Jack Egbert -- Slowed by elbow soreness last spring, Egbert seemingly missed out on his chance to break into a big league rotation. He shook off a slow start in AAA to post his usual excellent K/BB/IP numbers over the final three months, but saw a spike in his HR rate in Charlotte's small park. Egbert will not wow you with his stuff. He's fringe-average with everything but a plus changeup. But he's got a funky hitch in his delivery (think: Chris Young, the pitcher) and has never really had a problem missing bats or keeping the ball on the ground. In many ways he's the opposite of Marquez, a guy without the stuff to wow scouts, but a minor league record that screams Give Me A Shot, You Might Like The Results.

Coming North: 15% chance (as a starter: 5%)
Lance Broadway -- The Sox 2005 first rounder is a bit like Egbert in that he has underwhelming stuff and good "pitchability." Though unlike Egbert, Broadway hasn't been able to translate that into the type of minor league success that precedes a solid major league career. Sox fans have been treated to two successful major league starts from Broadway, but those seem like flukes given the ridiculously high hit-rate he's allowed in the high-minors.

Coming North: 7.5% chance (as a starter: 2.5%)
John Van Benschoten -- The Pirates' failed top pick (8th overall) in the 2001 draft has a career ERA of 9.20 over 19 starts. Only the Pirates could manage to give that many starts to a guy who proved to be so totally unprepared for the major leages. Van Benschoten's minor league record isn't terrible, which is probably why the Sox bothered to pick him up this winter. I suppose there is a chance, albeit a slim one, that Don Cooper can work a little magic and make him over into an effective pitcher.

Coming North: 2.5% chance (as a starter: 1%)

I may have talked myself back down to a more pessimistic (read: reasonable) position in writing those capsules, but I still feel pretty good about one of the unproven starter candidates being able to step up his game. The bigger questions for me are, Who will it be? And will more than one of them be needed?