apparently carlos almanzar is on the red sox payroll but hasn't appeared in a game at any level this year? is that right? if so, probably not a coincidence that they signed his kid.

Thats how you make up for not having first round pick.

Sox seem to be rebuilding their Latin programs, which is good to see.

Question - I think it was Temple who mentioned Anthony Alvarez, a 17-year-old who made the GCL roster, skipping the VSL. There's now a guy on the GCL team named Jose Alvarez, who's 18, who was born in Venezeula and who seems to have the same physical characteristics as Anthony. Is this the same guy, but with new documentation? Either way, he's still quite young, and he's been pretty good, 5 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 4 K.

Are these players 16 years old or "16 years old"?

I assume age-gate risks are really low with $1.5M bonus babies - there are a lot of teams in the running, all with great incentive to make sure the documentation is right. It's the $10k signings where the risk lies.

His father is 33. I suppose he could be older than 16, but I'd rather not think about it.

Are these players 16 years old or "16 years old"?

I think with Jairo Garcia/Santiago Casilla, we may have seen the last of "16 year olds." A lot of the dust has been shaken off the pre-9/11 documentation and now the standards are a lot more rigorous.

Or am I talking out of my butt?

besides, even if he was "16 years old" it's not like he's really 24. at most, they're going to shave off a couple years. if he's still as good as advertised, and like 18-19, that's still not that bad.

or am *I* talking out of my butt? =)

or am *I* talking out of my butt? =)

Yeah, I think you are. Imagine if Lars Anderson were 22 years old - he'd be having a pretty nice season, but he'd be far away from being an impressive prospect. If this kid were 18, he'd need to be ready to hit in the sally league next year to have a ranking that fits with the outlay.

Further, bonus babies generally don't fake their age - if they're that good, they want the money as soon as possible, and they're showcased to the teams as soon as possible. The age-gates with high dollar signings have been with players who faked their age in the other direction, claiming to be 16 when they weren't yet. (Edgar Renteria, Adrian Beltre)

I agree with MC. If there's any faking going on here, it'd be boosting his age rather than reducing it.


Since this is the minor league thread, Adam Mills has recorded 27 outs for Lowell: 7 Ks, 18 GBs, and 2 FBs. That's a 9.0 GO/AO ratio.

Oscar Tejeda continues to tear it up in the GCL, going 2-for-4 with a double, again. He's up to 340/426/553, half his hits have gone for extra bases, and, oh yeah, he's a 17-year-old shortstop. I know it's still too early, but I'm very excited about this kid - he looks like the real deal.

Who is Oscar Tejeda?

I could google it but I wouldn't want to deprive you the pleasure of being all, "OMG you don't know who Oscar Tejeda is?"

oh, i'm not disputing that if he's age-gating, that he's actually older, but i was saying that if they say he's 16 and he's age-gating, chances are he's still only 18-19, and is it so horrible that he's 18-19? it's not like he's 22-24 and should already be posterizing AA or AAA ball. 18-19 is still young enough to rip through some of the lower leagues, right?

Question - I think it was Temple who mentioned Anthony Alvarez, a 17-year-old who made the GCL roster, skipping the VSL. There's now a guy on the GCL team named Jose Alvarez, who's 18, who was born in Venezeula and who seems to have the same physical characteristics as Anthony. Is this the same guy, but with new documentation? Either way, he's still quite young, and he's been pretty good, 5 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 4 K.

Different player. Anthony Alvarado hasn't pitched yet. He has an injury which the Sox aren't considering serious; but they're trying to be cautious with.

Who is Oscar Tejeda?

He signed for 4-500k last summer. I got the impression from BA/ESPN that he was just as good as the guys that signed for 1 million. Besides that and what he's done in the GCL, I don't think anybody knows anything.

Different player. Anthony Alvarado hasn't pitched yet. He has an injury which the Sox aren't considering serious; but they're trying to be cautious with.

Oops! thanks.

Reports on SoSH that Buchholz will be called up to Pawtucket after the Futures Game.

Gave up an oppo HR to the second batter he faced in the Futures. That ball was crushed.

Make that first batter. Came back to get the next three, including two Ks.

Where does the term "oppo" come from. It's so annoying I want to cry (or maybe I'm thinking of today's game).

Boo Buchholz. You are not making me think you're shut-down reliever material.

Lowrie 3/6 today with 2 HRs. His stats are now 307/408/516 with a 49/50 BB/K ratio. Among position players, his stock has risen the most this season.

Michael Bowden:

high-A (Lancaster): 46.0 IP, 46 SO, 35 H, 8 BB, 1 HR, 1.37 ERA
AA (Portland): 49.1 IP, 39 SO, 53 H, 23 BB, 4 HR, 5.11 ERA

So did the thin air in Lancaster help keep his pitches from moving out of the strike zone? The other numbers don't bother me as much -- if he's having trouble throwing strikes, he's probably going to have times where he'll try taking something off a pitch and end up allowing hits and home runs -- but that's a lot of walks in AA.

I can't imagine anyone has looked to see if he's changed something in his rhythm or whatever, but if they have, I'd be interested in hearing if anything has changed.

theres no need to go looking for a post hoc explanation to explain away all the variance between two tiny samples.

Fine. I totally agree. There's no need to look. So, that said, has anyone looked? Not out of need, but out of curiosity?

The fact that he has about three times as many walks in roughly the same length of time (and in a context that might even be easier for a pitcher -- better opposing hitters, but also easier park/league for pitchers) doesn't make you wonder if there might not be something going on besides the random variation of performance?

he age-gates with high dollar signings have been with players who faked their age in the other direction, claiming to be 16 when they weren't yet. (Edgar Renteria

I never heard about this. Who signed him when he was too young? bbref has him being signed at a legal age by Florida.

I don't see much need to look for an explanation - Bowden's facing much better hitters. They lay off more pitches out of the zone, they make contact with more pitches in the zone. He needs to adjust, he hasn't. It's possible that it's random, of course, but if it isn't random, it's almost certainly the normal struggles that so many prospects face upon jumping to AA - qualitative differences in opponents require qualitatively different strategies.

I would be very interested in exactly what the specifics of Bowden's adjustments are, and I'm sure there are people in the Sox org discussing it. But I think that locating the issue - if one exists - in the normal adjustment struggles on moving between levels is pretty much a certainty.

On Buchholz, I was pretty impressed. The pitch Votto hit wasn't bad - 93 mph at the knees, just caught a bit too much of the plate and Votto put a really good swing on it, and Buchholz dominated the next three batters even though he only threw one good curve - he just switched to fastball-changeup, and three straight hitters looked lost against him. K on change, weak grounder on change, K on change (I think).

Who signed him when he was too young? bbref has him being signed at a legal age by Florida.

Florida did. If you look around in the BTF archives around the time of the Renteria signing, you can see the discussions - it was revealed in a long profile of Renteria a while back that Renteria is actually a year younger than his listed age. The revelations were so far after his signing that no one ever did anything about it.

Florida did. If you look around in the BTF archives around the time of the Renteria signing, you can see the discussions - it was revealed in a long profile of Renteria a while back that Renteria is actually a year younger than his listed age.

So he's a year younger than his listed age? That's good news for the Braves.

The newly promoted Justin Masterson goes 6.2 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 9 Ks in his AA debut. Must be happy to get away from Lancaster.

Mistake on that line. It should be 0 Hits, and 2 BBs.

bowden is still impressive ... he's very young still. however, i think masterson could be a very good reliever very quickly as well as a good starter down the road.

Masterson survived at High A in part because of a good GO/AO ratio. What about him makes you think he could relieve soon?

Ellsbury 0-5 tonight with 3 Ks. That blows.

Ryan Kalish, one of the 2006 late-round signability picks, had been plugging along well in Lowell, commanding the strike zone, playing center, and hitting singles, but he hadn't shown much of any power.

Tonight, he knocked a pair of homers, and he's now a 19-year-old CF hitting 330/430/480 in the worst hitter's league in baseball.

darren, did you read the globe piece on the lancaster team? i don't think a go/ao ratio is necessarily the recipe for success there ... the desert air and high winds make for a rock solid infield, so ground balls go for hits, too.

There's some reports that Almanzar got $1.5 million to sign, plus another $1.5 million over the next 6 months. So basically a $3 million signing bonus. I think that would make him the biggest Latin bonus baby ever but I'm not really sure. This probably means he is going to become the best player ever to come from Latin America.

Another 0-5 for Ellsbury. This time only 1 K!

Bubba gets 3 hits and his first AA HR. Now at 307/357/462. If he could maintain that as a 24-year-old CF in AA, he'd be something resembling a prospect.

darren, did you read the globe piece on the lancaster team? i don't think a go/ao ratio is necessarily the recipe for success there ... the desert air and high winds make for a rock solid infield, so ground balls go for hits, too.

Meh. the globe should ask kevin, he knows what leads to success at lancaster: daniel bard's sweet mechanics.

Daniel Bard's been struggling but it's only because he doesn't get to face hitters like Callaspo, Stephen Drew, and Chris Young.

So true.

i don't think a go/ao ratio is necessarily the recipe for success there ...

There is no particularly good recipe for pitching success at Lancaster.

-- MWE

There is no particularly good recipe for pitching success at Lancaster.

I'm sure Theo has a plan.

one thing lancaster is good for is overhyping mediocre hitting prospects, right, levski?

yup. watch the red sox farm system swarm with awesome 24 year old centerfielders...

Buchholz pitched tonight, but I want to focus on another minor-leaguer who pitched tonight: Kason Gabbard.

Oh, wait, did I call him minor-leaguer? 'Cause after posting a 131 ERA+ last year, he's got a 133 ERA+ through tonight's complete game. He's only pitched 55 MLB innings, so it's hard to say that we should project anything going forward.

Here's what he did in the minors to date (from Baseball Cube and MiLB.com):



What I see is someone who has trouble at a new level initially, but adjusts to it just fine. Tonight he went against the Royals, so I wouldn't say it was a true test of his MLB pitching ability... But we don't get too many complete game shutouts from even our big-name pitchers these days. Otherwise, though, he's done about as well as I would have hoped for from a 20-something-round draft pick from the Delcarmen year.

I'd been thinking of Gabbard as decent trade bait for a while now, figuring that we could "sell high" on him based on his limited success. But I'm starting to wonder how high on the depth chart he is now. (Obviously pretty high if he's in the MLB rotation.) Looking at the MLB roster, Schilling and Timlin are likely gone next year, and who knows how long Wake will be there. I think the Piniero fascination will end this year as well. I'm thinking Lester needs more time to build strength, and Hansen won't be ready, either. For one of two or three open spots (Buchholz getting the other one), it would seem like Gabbard has earned a place in the discussion for next year, hasn't he?