Cleveland Sports Forum

ESPN:

Cleveland Indians: Aaron Bracho, 2B and Angel Martinez, SS
Cleveland gravitates toward hit-first middle infielders in the international market: sometimes players of Bracho's type -- just OK raw tools, probably not a shortstop, limited physical projection -- and sometimes the more traditional athletic-style players most teams are signing every year.

Bracho still got a seven-figure bonus because his hit tool and pitch selection are so advanced, he is a switch hitter, and he was seen widely in game situations as an amateur. He's still a teenager and has played only 38 pro games, so he could shoot up the list with a higher level of proof that the hit tool is what I'm suspecting -- and even higher if the power is too.

Martinez is a plus runner with a plus arm who has the tools to stick at shortstop, still has that advanced hit tool that Cleveland desires and is a teenager who has played only 56 pro games.

A fair to middling report on how minor league baseball has changed by Hoynes

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Fans of the Indians minor league system are going to have to get used to a new order. MLB on Friday announced the biggest restructuring in minor league history.

For over a century MLB and the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues worked together to run the minors. Control now rests solely in the hands of MLB and Commissioner Rob Manfred after the basic agreement between the two parties was not renewed following cancellation of the 2020 minor league season because of the coronavirus pandemic.

MLB will now be affiliated with just 120 minor league clubs including four with the Indians -- Class AAA Columbus, Class AA Akron, Class (high) A Lake County and Class (low) A Lynchburg. The Indians will retain one complex club at their training facility in Goodyear, Ariz., and two teams in the Dominican Summer League, but those three teams aren’t included in the 120.

An estimated 40 minor league teams were dropped by MLB. That included the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, the former Indians affiliate in the now defunct short-season New York-Penn League. The Scrappers are a member of MLB’s Draft League.

In Class AAA there is no more International League or Pacific Coast League. The teams have been dispersed to Triple-A East and Triple-A West. Triple-A East has three divisions with 20 teams. Columbus will play in the Midwest Division along with Indianapolis (Pirates), Iowa (Cubs), Louisville (Reds), Omaha (Royals), Toledo (Tigers) and St. Paul (Twins).

Double-A teams will be divided among Class AA Central, Class AA Northeast and Class AA South. Akron will play in the six-team Southwest Division of Double-A Northeast. Joining the RubberDucks will be Altoona (Pirates), Bowie (Orioles), Erie (Tigers), Harrisburg (Senators) and Richmond (Giants).

This will be Lake County’s first year as a High-A affiliate. They switched designations with Lynchburg at the end of last season to make travel easier on players progressing through the Indians system. [that's not exactly what happened but it doesn't really matter why]

Last year Lake County played in the Midwest League, but now High-A has been divided into High-A Central, High-A East and High-A West. The Captains are in the six-team Eastern Division of High-A Central with Dayton (Reds), Fort Wayne (Padres), Great Lakes (Dodgers), Lansing (A’s) and Western Michigan (Tigers).

Low-A teams have been divided into three groups -- Low A East, Low-A Southwest and Low-A West. Lynchburg is located in the North Division of Low-A East with Delmarva (Orioles), Fredericksburg (Nationals) and Salem (Red Sox).

“We are excited to unveil this new model, which not only provides a pipeline to the majors, but continues the minor leagues’ tradition of entertaining millions of families in hundreds of communities,” said Manfred in a statement. “In modernizing our minor league system, we prioritized the qualities tha make the minor leagues such an integral part of our game while strengthening how we develop professional athletes on and off the field. ”

Columbus, Akron, Lake County and Lynchburg agreed to 10-year player development league contracts with the Indians through 2030.

MLB says the sweeping changes will:

* Increase player salaries ranging from 38%-72% in 2021.

* Modernize facility standards.

* Improve amenities and working conditions for players and staff.

* Reduce in-season travel for players and coaches.

* Allow for better geographical alignment.

I do like that minor leaguers will be compensated better for sure.

But as a fan, say you live in Columbus, that team will now be playing fewer other teams so you see fewer prospects of other organizations.

For some reason they're dumping league names and going with straight geographical divisions. It makes it sound too mechanical and boring. What's wrong the American Association or the South Atlantic League, even if teams are nowhere near the Atlantic.

BA tells me that:

In an effort to go even deeper, we added 10 more prospects to know in each minor league system who rank outside of every team's Top 30. You can find that exclusively in our 2021 Prospect Handbook, which you can order here.

]Well I ordered it and they sent me the wrong book but this is on the way. In the meantime: ]

Below is one sleeper identified from that 31-40 group for each organization, and a brief explanation as to why they could surprise in 2021

Junior Sanquintin, SS

Sanquintin was the Indians' second-biggest signing in the 2018 international class, behind only Gabriel Rodriguez. He's a switch-hitter who produces premium bat speed and above-average raw power.

[He was in past Top 30s; he's out now only because of the other guys who have been added in. But as one of the rare talented shortstops in the system he could rise fast. Especially if he can convert to CF or RF]

Tribe prospects from Fangraphs

Cleveland Top Prospects
Rk Name Age Highest Level Position ETA FV
1 Nolan Jones 22.7 AA LF 2021 50
2 Triston McKenzie 23.5 MLB SP 2021 50
3 George Valera 20.2 A RF 2022 50
4 Brayan Rocchio 20.0 A- SS 2022 50
5 Tyler Freeman 21.7 A+ 2B 2022 50
6 Daniel Espino 20.0 A- SP 2022 50
7 Bo Naylor 20.9 A C 2023 50
8 Aaron Bracho 19.7 A- 2B 2024 45+
9 Gabriel Arias 20.9 A+ SS 2021 45+
10 Lenny Torres 20.3 R SP 2023 45
11 Angel Martinez 19.0 R SS 2023 45
12 Ethan Hankins 20.6 A SP 2023 45
13 Sam Hentges 24.5 AA SIRP 2021 45
14 Owen Miller 24.2 AA SS 2021 45
15 Carlos Vargas 21.3 A- SIRP 2023 45
16 Daniel Johnson Jr. 25.5 MLB RF 2021 45
17 Joey Cantillo 21.1 A+ SP 2022 45
18 Emmanuel Clase 22.8 MLB SIRP 2020 40+
19 Carson Tucker 19.0 R SS 2025 40+
20 Tanner Burns 22.0 R SP 2024 40+
21 Logan Allen 22.4 R SP 2024 40+
22 Petey Halpin 18.6 R CF 2025 40+
23 Junior Sanquintin 19.0 R SS 2023 40+
24 Nick Mikolajchak 23.2 A- SIRP 2023 40+
25 Josh Wolf 20.4 R SIRP 2024 40+
26 Cody Morris 24.2 A+ MIRP 2022 40+
27 Gabriel Rodriguez 18.9 R 3B 2023 40+
28 Isaiah Greene 19.4 R CF 2025 40
29 Hunter Gaddis 22.8 A- MIRP 2023 40
30 Bryan Lavastida 22.1 A C 2022 40
31 Richard Palacios 23.7 A 2B 2022 40
32 Jose Tena 19.8 R SS 2024 40
33 Trevor Stephan 25.1 AA SIRP 2021 40
34 Jose Fermin 21.8 A SS 2023 40
35 Milan Tolentino 19.2 R SS 2025 40
36 Raymond Burgos 22.1 A MIRP 2021 40
37 Bobby Bradley 24.6 MLB DH 2019 40
38 Alexfri Planez 19.4 R RF 2024 40
39 Angel Genao 16.7 R SS 2021 40
40 Yordys Valdes 19.4 R SS 2024 35+
41 Cameron Hill 26.6 MLB SIRP 2021 35+
42 Eli Morgan 24.7 AAA MIRP 2021 35+
43 Robert Broom 24.3 AA SIRP 2021 35+
44 Nick Sandlin 24.0 AAA SIRP 2020 35+
45 Scott Moss 26.3 AAA MIRP 2020 35+
46 Jean Carlos Mejia 24.4 A+ SP 2020 35+
47 Jhonkensy Noel 19.5 R 1B 2022 35+
48 Adam Scott 25.3 AA SIRP 2022 35+
49 Steven Kwan 23.4 A+ CF 2022 35+
Reading Options

One new to me:

39 Angel Genao 16.7 R SS 2021 40 I guess he's the latest International signing. SS of course.

Must be using a different value rating than Baseball America. On their scale 70 is super. We have about a dozen guys with 55s or 60s which is more than most any other team.

When major league and minor league teams announced their 2021 schedules, there was always one big caveat. Major League Baseball told minor league teams that the commissioner’s office would inform teams by March 15 whether the Triple-A season could start on schedule in April.

A little less than two weeks before that deadline, Triple-A teams learned on Tuesday night (March 2) that they will have to wait another month. MLB has canceled the first month of the Triple-A season because of continuing concerns from the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, the Triple-A season will begin on May 4 (Triple-A East) and May 6 (Triple-A West). That cuts 24 games from each season. The new schedule eliminates the two-day break around the MLB all-star game, so the new schedules are set for 120 games with 10 home series (six games each) and 10 road series. Triple-A East will end on Sept. 19 while Triple-A West will end on Sept. 21.

Instead of having games in April, MLB teams will set up alternate training sites, some of which will be at the sites of Triple-A teams. Lehigh Valley, the Phillies’ Triple-A affiliate, has already announced that it will serve as an alternate training site.

The decision to delay the start of the Triple-A season largely came about because of the difficulties of blending Triple-A travel with the reality that players frequently move back and forth from Triple-A to the majors and vice versa.

At the MLB level, teams travel entirely by charter. At the Triple-A level, bus trips are by charter, but all flights are commercial. MLB’s Covid-19 protocols are quite strict in ensuring that MLB players do not cross paths with the general public to reduce risk of a coronavirus outbreak.

But those protocols cannot apply to a Triple-A player brought up from the minors—in many cases those players will have flown commercially in the past week. By switching to alternate sites, teams will be able to keep their pool of potential call-ups under similar coronavirus protocols to the MLB team.

The hope for MLB and minor league teams is that the coronavirus vaccines will become much more widely available to the general public in April. If that happens and players can get vaccinated, the concerns about bringing players up from Triple-A would dissipate.

The travel issue is not nearly as difficult for Double-A and Class A. Those leagues are almost entirely bus leagues, which means that players travel by charter.

Players at the alternate site will be paid their normal in-season salary, so a player on a split MLB/MiLB contract will be paid their Triple-A salary. Players on minor league contracts will be paid as if they were in Triple-A.

Baseball has 30 teams. Each franchise has 4 minor and 1 major team. Lets say there are 300 people per franchise including players, staff, office and maintenance workers. That's 9,000 baseball involved people. Let's round it up to 10, 000.

20,000 vaccine doses. Should be easy to find.

Get it in their arms.

mlb.com finally posts its top 30s for each team

https://www.mlb.com/indians/news/indian ... -preseason

The list is a modest variation on the standard theme.
Top 5:
Jones, McKenzie, Freeman , Naylor, Valera
Next 5:
Arias, Espino, Rocchio, Bracho, Hankins
11-15:
Wolf, Torres, Tucker, Martinez, Rodriguez [Wolf is generally much lower]
16-20:
Burns, Clase, Miller, Vargas, Bradley
21-25:
Johnson, Greene, Halpin, Cantillo, Logan Allen Jr. [these guys have no love at all for Logan Sr.]
26-30:
Tena, Hentges, Moss, Lavastida and Sanquentin

Biggest jump/fall

Here are the players whose ranks changed the most from the 2020 preseason list to the 2021 preseason list.

Jump: Lenny Torres, RHP (2020: 23 | 2021: 12) -- Recovered from Tommy John surgery in May 2019, he's regaining the power stuff that made the Indians excited to get him in 2018's supplemental first round.

Fall: Scott Moss, LHP (2020: 18 | 2021: 28) -- Pushed down the list by a number of Draft and trade acquisitions, he still looked like a three-pitch starter at Cleveland's alternate training site last summer.

Well, this is about the minors:

Reassigned to … where? MLB clubs aren’t sure how to make cuts this spring


By Andrew Baggarly Mar 11, 2021 25
It is one of the greatest moments of dramatic tension in one of the greatest films ever made.

All right. That might be overselling it. But it was a good scene:

***

(Players in hallway, approaching clubhouse)

RICK VAUGHN: Final cut down day, right?

JAKE TAYLOR: ‘Fraid so.

VAUGHN: I don’t want to go in there.

TAYLOR: Look, whatever happens, just keep it to yourself until you get out of the clubhouse. You don’t want to celebrate in front of guys who just died.

(Taylor walks into clubhouse. Vaughn pauses in hallway with WILLIE MAYS HAYES)

HAYES: Yeah. But what if we’re one of the deceased?

***

It is the scene from “Major League” that depicts the waning days of spring training, when Cleveland manager Lou Brown puts together the roster that will open the season. The film’s writers and producers nailed many elements of major-league clubhouse life, including the anxious mind of a fringe, end-of-the-roster player as Opening Day approaches.

“C’mon Jake, it’s only your life,” says Taylor, before he whips open his metal locker door to reveal nothing more than sunglasses and a can of shaving cream.

Hayes approaches his locker with trepidation, flings it open and takes cover as if from an exploding mortar shell. When he finally opens his eyes, he swallows a yelp of joy, quietly walks out of the clubhouse, exits to the parking lot and does a celebratory dance in his sanitary socks.

Other players weren’t so lucky. Their lockers contained the dreaded red tag, signifying that they had been cut. (Vaughn stormed into Brown’s office after finding a tag in his locker and began to chew the manager out — until he realized that Roger Dorn had pulled a cruel prank on him. Calamity ensues.)



Granted, maybe we’re overselling the infallibility of those writers and producers, too. Major-league clubhouses don’t have metal lockers straight out of a high school P.E. class. And the “red tag” or some equivalent harbinger of doom hasn’t been a part of major-league spring training for a long, long, long, long time. You won’t find a current player or even a current coach who received bad news in such a brusque, impersonal way.

“But they did have it, I know that,” former Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “Old-timers told me that’s how they found out. That’s the way it was done. Similar to high school, I guess: you looked on the board outside the gym and saw if you made the team or not.”

Former Angels manager and Dodgers catcher Mike Scioscia never saw a red tag during his many springs at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Fla. But he’s familiar with the black and white photos that used to line the hallways, depicting hundreds of faces of Class D players crowding into the frame.

“That might have been something that happened back in the ’50s when they had 700 guys in spring training,” Scioscia said. “I’ve heard stories about that. It never happened to me. That’s brutal. I would never want a system like that.”

These days, when it’s time to cut a player, a team uses a more humane approach: a discreet tap on the shoulder, a beckoning hand to the manager’s office and a closed-door meeting.

Younger players will receive a tidy evaluation and instruction on what skills to continue developing. A position coach or two will often join those meetings. For someone with major-league service time, or a six-year minor-league free agent whose dreams might be crushed, or a player with a sense of entitlement who is liable to let off a little steam, the GM or another representative from the front office will be there to answer questions or absorb the airing of grievances.

But cut day has featured one constant: Waves of players packing up a locker, removing the name plate, slinging a duffel bag over a shoulder and accepting banishment to minor-league camp or unemployment. Here one day, gone the next.

Until this spring.

Take this line from MLB’s transactions page for March 4: “Colorado Rockies assigned LHP Jack Wynkoop to Colorado Rockies.”

Such are the oddities when a team reassigns a player with no place to send him. Minor-league camps won’t open until April 1, after the major-league club departs to open the season — one of many COVID-19 protocols designed to reduce crowding and ease contact tracing as rosters remain in a quasi-bubble.

As a result, four weeks into spring, some teams haven’t optioned or reassigned any players in major-league camp. Giants manager Gabe Kapler said discussions are ongoing, but for now, there are no plans to cut players in early waves. Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he wasn’t sure how cuts will work, although the club is running a parallel spring camp with some pitchers off-site at the player development complex. White Sox manager Tony La Russa and his staff are discussing the topic this week, but are in general agreement that keeping everyone in big-league camp till the end of spring would be counterproductive.

Others have begun the process. The Rangers optioned two pitchers, Tyler Phillips and Joe Gatto, to Triple-A Round Rock on Sunday. The Orioles made their first cuts on Sunday, too. The Angels made their first cut of the spring Wednesday, optioning left-hander Hector Yan. The Rockies have been the most proactive, “reassigning” seven players from March 1-5. For now, anyway, they are paper moves. Here one day, here the next!

And you thought “optioned to the alternate site” sounded like something out of “The Twilight Zone.”

The absence of traditional cut-down days actually has been a logistical easement for managers and coaches this spring. Cutting players is a time-consuming process. Consider that teams are allowed as many as 75 players in camp and they’ll have to pare down to an active roster of 26 on Opening Day. That’s almost 50 closed-door meetings, 50 reassuring conversations, 50 sets of marching orders.

And that doesn’t count the time it takes to track down the players you want to cut.

“I can’t tell you how many times we couldn’t find guys,” Bochy said. “There were times we’d send (a coach) up to the batting cage or the trainer’s room, looking all over the place. Maybe you’d find them in the parking lot about to drive off. The players know when it’s cut day. You wondered sometimes if they caught word they were getting sent down.”

Or, to riff on another movie plot, “Cut Me If You Can.”

Players have every motivation to elude getting cut for another day. As long as they stay in major-league camp, they receive major-league meal allowances. For 2021, a player on a Cactus League team who doesn’t make his year-round home in the Phoenix metro area is entitled to a weekly allowance of $345.50, a supplemental weekly allowance of $61.50, a daily room allowance of $40 and a daily meal and tip allowance of $98.

Traditionally, meal money — envelopes filled with cash — is handed out on Tuesdays. It’s no coincidence that teams often make cuts on Mondays.

Both league and union sources confirm that nothing has changed in the Collective Bargaining Agreement this spring. So yes, a player “reassigned” all the way back to his locker will not receive major-league allowances for the rest of the spring. The Rockies pinched themselves a few pennies, then.

But there will be valid reasons for teams to reassign or option players in the coming days. One example: Players who are optioned on or before March 16 can continue to take part in exhibition games until the end of the spring. But if they haven’t been optioned by that date, and sustain a disabling injury in an exhibition, then teams would be forced to place them on the major-league injured list — and pay them major-league salary.

And, of course, players are still being designated for assignment when the club makes another roster move that necessitates creating space on the 40-man roster. Even some of those players boomeranged back into the clubhouse. The Giants designated right-hander Trevor Gott for assignment on Feb. 21. After he cleared waivers, they outrighted him to Triple-A Sacramento and then re-invited him to major-league spring training on March 6.

As La Russa said, though, there comes a point when it’s counterproductive to have close to 75 players occupying the same facility. Something happens when the lockers empty out toward the end of spring. The players who remain can begin to envision coming together as a team. They sometimes begin to form an identity. They enjoy the extra space, too.

(One spring in Scottsdale, Jeff Kent’s locker moved to the side of the Giants clubhouse where he was among the minor-league non-roster invitees. When reporters asked him about it, he said he wanted to be a mentor to the kids. Another clubhouse source reported a different reason: He knew those kids would be the first to be cut, and he wanted to spread out.)

With no split-squad exhibitions this spring and no minor-league camp scrimmages all month, teams are currently discussing the possibility of scheduling B games against each other — a practice that used to be commonplace in the spring. Although the Triple-A season isn’t expected to begin until May, teams will need to keep a depth of replacement starting pitchers and others at their alternate sites to help them cover injuries or roster needs.

“Teams will have to get creative with that many players,” Bochy said. “I don’t know why all the teams wouldn’t schedule B games. There are starters who need to get stretched out, pitchers who need work. I’d imagine that will crank up as you get deeper in camp.”

It’s those final days of camp when the toughest cuts must be made. Those are unavoidable, even without red tags or minor-league camps.

“There’s always those three to five really tough conversations that you have to have, and honestly, you hope to have,” said Scioscia, “because that means it’s a competitive team and it was a competitive spring.”

Scioscia and Bochy would use the same tact in those conversations: get the news out of the way first.

“Within the first 10 seconds in the room, you want to tell them what the decision is,” Scioscia said. “You don’t want to start a long oratory and then tell them that they didn’t make the team.”

“Be honest with them: that’s all you can do,” Bochy said. “If you start trying to sell it in a different way, trust me, they’ll sense that. Just be straight with them. Yeah, you’ll have a few who disagree with you. Everyone handles it differently. Some get emotional. Some get upset. Some thank you for the opportunity. You’ve got to be ready to react to everything. But you understand it’s what you’ve got to deal with. There’s a big difference between breaking with the club and going to Triple A.”

Unlike Scioscia, Bochy wasn’t an All-Star or a first-string catcher. He recalled the spring of 1984 with the Padres when he and his wife, Kim, had rented a condo in the city and were all prepared to break with the club. Then the team traded for third baseman Graig Nettles on Opening Day. Manager Dick Williams had to break the news to Bochy: the Padres couldn’t carry a third catcher.

“Devastating,” Bochy said. “I was crushed. I got upset about it. But that’s what you’re dealing with.”

The flipside are the end-of-spring meetings when managers get to break the good news to players. For Scioscia, it was telling a Double-A player claimed on waivers, future World Series MVP David Eckstein, that he realized his major-league dream. Bochy is fondest of those moments when he got to tell a career minor leaguer, or a prospect who hadn’t yet broken through, that they would get to stand on the chalk line on Opening Day.

Who could forget the scene in the Giants’ 2011 Showtime documentary series when Brandon Belt wiped teary eyes, and Bochy responded by gesturing to the minifridge in his office.

“Need a beer?” Bochy said. “Grab a beer.”

Now there’s a scene that could’ve come straight out of “Major League.”

Great article.

Anyone that has to make cuts, knows the feeling.

Major League Baseball on Thursday announced sweeping rules changes to be implemented in the minor leagues in 2021.

At Triple-A, the size of bases will increase from 15-by-15 inches to 18-by-18 inches. By doing so, MLB expects the slightly shorter distance between bases will lead to a higher success rate on stolen bases and more infield hits on grounders and bunts.
is the reason cost savings, the reduction from a 324 square inch base to a 225 square inch base is a 30.55% reductionn/b]

At Double-A, efforts will be made to limit shifting and the ways teams can position their infielders. All teams must have at least four players on the infield during play, which is defined as having both feet “completely in front of the outer boundary of the infield dirt.” If the results of the rule change are deemed positive in the first half, the league may require teams to have at least two players on either side of second base in the second half. Essentially, these are gradual steps toward eliminating or reducing extreme shifts and making batters more successful on balls in play.

High-A teams will implement a rule which was in play in 2019 in the Atlantic League. In these leagues, pitchers will be required to disengage the rubber completely before throwing to any base. With this rule in play, the Atlantic League saw a significant uptick in stolen bases. The rule was scheduled to be implemented in the minor leagues in 2020 before the coronavirus pandemic canceled the season.

Across Low-A, pitchers will be limited to two step-offs or pickoff attempts per plate appearance. If a pitcher tries a third pickoff in a plate appearance, the move will be considered a balk unless the runner is successfully picked off. Depending on the results of the rule change, MLB will consider reducing the number of pickoffs or step-offs per plate appearance to just one.

At Low-A Southeast only, select games will use the automatic ball-strike system, which was tested in both the Atlantic League and Arizona Fall League in 2019.

At Low-A West only, teams will add timers to enforce time between pitches, inning breaks and pitching changes. The release announcing the move noted “new regulations beyond the system currently used in Triple-A and Double-A.”

The automatic ball-strike system was supposed to be implemented in the Florida State League in 2020, but that season was cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“These experimental rules are designed to put more balls in play, create more excitement on the basepaths and increase the impact of speed and athleticism on the field,” MLB senior vice president of on-field operations Raul Ibanez said in the release. “As another important goal of the rules approved by the Competition Committee and the Playing Rules Committee, we expect the new larger bases to increase player safety. We look forward to testing these rules in the Minor Leagues.”

The release also announced MLB would continue its partnership with the Atlantic League in order to test new rules for the future. Any rules changes for the Atlantic League will be announced later. The Atlantic League was supposed to move the mound back during the 2019 season, but that move was postponed and never implemented. It is not clear whether that move will return in 2021, but it was one that left some pitchers promising they would leave the league if it was implemented.