5. Elehuris Montero | 3B


Elehuris Montero


Born: Aug 17, 1998

Bats: R Throws: R

Ht.: 6'3" Wt.: 195

Signed By: Angel Ovalles

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TRACK RECORD: The Cardinals signed Montero for $300,000 out of the Dominican Republic and pushed him quickly. After playing in the Dominican Summer League at 16 and making his U.S. debut at 18, Montero made his full-season debut in 2018 and won low Class A Midwest League MVP honors. He led the MWL in average (.322) and slugging (.504) at Peoria before a late promotion.

SCOUTING REPORT: Montero is a physical, strong-bodied hitter whose bat has a chance to be “special” in one evaluator’s words. He possesses supreme hand-eye coordination, drives the ball to all fields with plus raw power and has enough bat speed to overcome his holes. He makes quick in-game adjustments and got better at understanding pitcher’s plans as the year went on. Montero is still learning to pull the ball, and once he does evaluators project him for 25-30 home runs while maintaining a steady average. Montero has average hands and a plus arm at third base, but his big frame limits his mobility and he is fringe-average overall. He particularly needs to improve his accuracy on his throws.

THE FUTURE: Whether Montero stays at third base or moves to first or the outfield, he has the bat to make an impact. He’ll begin 2019 at high Class A Palm Beach.

although those kids could fill our needs, I am not sure the Cardinals are on the Kluber watch, are they?

QUESTION: Will the Cards front office be aggressive until the end of spring training? Comments about making a "value buy" sound like all they're looking for is a second-tier ("cheap”) pickup.

GORDO: I believe the Cardinals have already made their most aggressive moves. Now management can sit back and see how the market plays out. At this point, the team has a set starting lineup, a starting rotation overflowing with candidates and many bullpen options. The remaining needs don't really call for aggressive action.

(Gordo is Jeff Gordon, a Cardinals reporter)

Indians focused on “cheap roster fillers,” says executive who didn’t get Corey Kluber

Rumor season is the best, and also the very worst

By Matt Lyons@mattrly Jan 3, 2019

Something is going to happen eventually, it has to. Bryce Harper is going to sign, Manny Machado is going to sign, the Indians might trade a starting pitcher. Eventually, something is going to happen.

In the meantime, baseball fans the world over can enjoy Ken Rosenthal being the conduit for baseball front offices spitting gossip at each other. This time around it’s a “rival executive” who doesn’t believe the Indians are serious about trading Corey Kluber or Trevor Bauer after all. Says Ken on The Athletic:

*The chances of the Indians trading one of their star right-handers, Corey Kluber and Trevor Bauer, seems to diminish by the day. One rival executive says the Indians currently are more aggressive on acquiring “cheap roster fillers” than completing a blockbuster involving a starting pitcher.

He goes on to correctly assert that Kluber and Bauer probably aren’t going to be available at the deadline either, meaning they are pretty likely to be staying in Cleveland for at least another season. But that’s not the issue here, of course. It’s a clearly salty general manager who didn’t the trade he wanted and is now trying to throw the Indians under the bus.

It’s not my job to blindly defend the Indians and I have no interest in doing it, but this is so clearly one-sided that it’s laughable. “Cheap roster fillers” is a direct, in-quotes, phrase from an executive. That’s not something you say to a reporter without the clear intention of it getting out and receiving a negative connotation, the same connotation that Indians fans like to bring up every time they sign guys like Mike Napoli and Rajai Davis instead of making big splashes in free agency.

What business is it of a rival executive if the Indians are going to sign a cheaper player, if not because they’re mad the Indians wouldn’t agree to their offer for Corey Kluber or Trevor Bauer? Indians don’t want your players? Better go tell Ken about it.

None of this is a knock on Ken Rosenthal, either. He does a fantastic job at what he does, and without him hearing all these hilariously petty comments from front offices, we would have no idea this kind of Mean Girls discourse goes on when we’re not watching large men hit balls with sticks.

The best part is, the executive probably isn’t even wrong, depending on your definition of “cheap” and “fillers” (which is also a really encouraging way to hear a baseball executive referring to players). The Indians very well could be turning their nose up at substantial offers for Kluber or Bauer because they just don’t need to shed payroll anymore, and they believe they could grab a couple free agents to fill out the outfield and bullpen. Hell, they’ve already done it with the glut of fourth-outfield types they’ve acquired in the last year. If even one or two of them can catch fire for a season — much to the chagrin of Mr. Mystery Executive — they get to keep their two aces and still compete for a World Series.

Maybe the Indians will trade Kluber, maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll even go out and sign Michael Martinez again. Either way, this is yet another reminder this offseason that most of the rumors we hear come from general managers and others who didn’t get what they wanted in a trade and ran to a reporter about it.

Spring training can’t come soon enough.

At least the Michael Martinez signing seems unlikely unless his recovery from torn Achilles at age 37 is NOT the end of his career after all.
Obviously we've had some good results with "cheap roster filling signings" with Davis the first time and Napoli as good examples.
We really don't have enough 4th outfielders "who might catch fire for a season" on hand yet since there's Mercado and Luplow and that's really all, except for Bauers who is probably 1/2 of the 1b/dh combo and some of the other new guys are not up to AAA yet.

Again, just my personal opinion, but I don’t care if a guy does hit 30 homers. I will never view a guy striking out almost 200 times in 1 season as an example of a successful cheap buy.

Not a Gorman Thomas or Rob Deer fan?

nope. Or Dave Kingman..

Most times Rob Deer struck out in one season was 186.

Most Gorman Thomas struck out in a season was 175.

Most Dave Kingman struck out in a season was 156.

In his season with us Napoli struck out 190 times. So I guess we do the other guys a disservice with the comparisons.

Well our bullpen worries are over. We just signed Justin Grimm.

Together with the Pounders signing last week we are definitely all set.

(At AAA Columbus any way...)

I think the front office phone is on "answer only". Doubt they are actively trying to move anyone...except for maybe Kipnis.

They accomplished their goal of cutting payroll and might pick up a leftover FA after the dust settles.

After the asskickin' they got in the playoffs the last couple of years, they realized they can't compete for the WS with their limited budget. Might as well play with what you've got.

Not excited about this season.

I am sure they'd be happy to find anyone willing to take on Kipnis' contract. Although now that they have dealt Gonzalez the only option to replace him on the current roster is to move Jose back over and try Chang at 3rd, unless they would put Santana there but I doubt that on a regular basis.

If they wanted to sign a big league reliever, they could have done this deal:

-- The Philadelphia Phillies have signed right-handed pitcher David Robertson to a two-year contract. Philadelphia completed the signing on Thursday. Robertson's pact includes a third-year club option for the 2021 season. Sources told MLB.com that the deal is for $23 million, with the option coming in at $12 million. Robertson's pact includes a $2 million buyout.

And last year, we were amazed that Shaw was signed for 3yrs/$27k.

and the Rockies must be very sorry that they did so.
Who knows, maybe Jefry Rodriguez, Jon Edwards, Chih Wei Hu, Walker Lockett, James Hoyt, Pounders and Grimm may solidify the bullpen.