Wilson is a junior right-handed pitcher who transferred to Texas A&M from Winthrop in 2008. Born Nov 6, 1986 (so he’s in his age 22 year) in Saudi Arabia.
Ranked 52 by BA, and 37 by Keith Law
6’1 205 lbs…played for Falmouth in the Cape League last year…drafted by the Cubs in 08 also.
This year, he went 6-6 with an ERA of 4.46 in 89.7 innings (second on the Aggies)…struck out 120 (1st on Aggies, 2nd in Big 12), walked 25, and gave up 4 homers.
He’s also had Tommy John surgery once, and was dropped from the rotation into the bullpen for “arm fatigue,” and it’s unclear if that’s because of actual fatigue or injury.
It seemed like everyone and their mothers were predicting the Red Sox to draft a catcher in the first round. Seems logical, right? Their current catcher is a walking fossil, so why not draft based on positional need? The problem is, that’s not the way most baseball organizations think when they draft, and it’s certainly not how the Red Sox have approached the draft in the past.
Ironically, they went with the least intuitive position, the position where they are youngest: centerfield. Why? Because they likely felt Reymond Fuentes was the best overall value available at the 28th pick.
There’s not a whole lot of information on Fuentes. Here’s what we know:
- He’s a left-handed hitter out of a high school in Puerto Rico, 18 years old.
- He’s fast.
- He’s the nephew of star veteran CF Carlos Beltran.
I’m sure there will be some more scouting information on him tomorrow morning, but strangely enough it looks like the scouts and pundits didn’t focus too much of their pre-draft anaysis on him.
Added by Jeff:
Ranked 54 by BA, and 32 by Keith Law.
I’ve read some aggregate scouting reports on him (basically the stuff you’d read on the internet from sources like Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, and from MLB.com) and they basically say:
*”fastest guy in the draft
*covers a lot of ground in center
*left handed swinging
*should develop some power
*free swinger who should develop plate discipline
*has line drive, pole-to-pole swing
*poor arm in center
*potential leadoff hitter
*very similar to Johnny Damon
Ladies and gentlemen…Jacoby Ellsbury!!!
I’m not a draftnik.
I used to follow it more closely, but the old addage that the draft is a crap shoot is pretty close to accurate, and you have 50 rounds spread out over three days now to follow…that’s a time commitment I just can’t make.
In the effort to get more exposure to the draft, Major League Baseball started televising what used to be a somewhat voyeuristic conference call. If you never sat in on a draft, MLBAudio would air the call, and you’d hear the MLB rep and then 30 scouting directors call their pick in rapid fashion.
It was interesting and boring all at the same time…even when Tommy Lasorda would take over the Dodgers draft completely wasted.
The quaintness of the conference call was replaced, as I said, with ESPN (and now MLB Network) television coverage, complete with the analysis that makes the NFL/NBA drafts so contrived to all but the diehards. I don’t have a real problem with this, because the job of Major League Baseball is ultimately to give it’s fans what they want, and fans wanted more draft coverage.
Unfortunately this year (unlike last year), televised coverage starts at 6pm EDT. Which is 1 hour before the games start in the East, which includes a Red Sox/Yankees game. Now, I understand that the baseball world doesn’t actually revolve around the BOS/NYY rivalry, but it seems shortsighted to me that two teams with the biggest fan bases in the game have to choose between watching a Sox/Yankees game and the draft…a draft they are trying to get people to watch, obviously.
I’m loathe to bash the MLB for making money. I understand the game is a business, and has always been a business, and despite many claims to the contrary, MLB is very, very good at running it’s business. But running the draft against baseball games, especially when two rabid fan bases are likely not going to watch seems to be against the whole point of running the draft on TV anyway.
As Jimmy said, we’re updating Deweys House into this century, which means, hopefully, more ease of use, and better interfaces.
I’m also adding a link to my Twitter account, which I’ll be using mostly during Red Sox and other baseball games. I promise you I won’t be telling you the kind of bagel I’m eating, but I will be exposing you to some naughty language.
If there is an outage, or something like that, let me apologize in advance. My knowledge of computers is sub-elementary school, so it’s probably something I did.
You can file this one under “I guess this is good news” category. For those of you who still place blame on the WBC for Daisuke Matsuzaka’s persistently Wasdinesque earned run average, here’s some evidence showing that he seems to be operating at or near full strength.
- 4/9/09: Average FB: 89.7, Max – 91.9, 49% offspeed pitches thrown
- 4/22/09: Average FB: 88.9, Max – 91.1, 47% offspeed pitches thrown
— DL Stint, WBC Ouchies—
- 5/22/09: Average FB: 92.2, Max – 94.3, 25% offspeed pitches thrown
- 5/27/09: Average FB: 90.5, Max – 92.5, 30% offspeed pitches thrown
- 6/2/09: Average FB: 90.3, Max – 92.6, 26% offspeed pitches thrown
- 6/8/09: Average FB – 92.6 , Max – 95, 31% offspeed pitches thrown
You can see there’s a clear difference between his pre-DL and post DL outings. He’s throwing harder, and relying less on junk.
If you were hoping he’d walk fewer hitters, be careful what you wish for. No walks last night, but he was around the strikezone way too much, and that simply isn’t his game. He’ll never be Bob Tewksbury; he needs to get hitters to chase his pitches.
On a side note, I hope you like the new look of the website. The good news is that my editing capabilities have increased tenfold, I’ll be experimenting with some aesthetic stuff over the next few weeks. The downside is that we no longer hold the Guinness World Record for smallest font on the internet.
The Red Sox have played 54 games, which means that we are exactly 1/3 of the way through the regular season.
- The good: Sox are tied for first place, and the team that we are tied with has been winning at an unsustainable pace recently (at least we hope so). The team oozes pitching. They have the best bullpen in the game, and plenty of viable rotation options, with more waiting in the wings at AAA.
- The bad: huge question marks exist in several areas: SS, 3B, the entire bench, and of course…DH. (The DH problem is certainly correlated to the bench issues.) SS could be solved with the pending return of Jed Lowrie, but the other areas do not seem to be improving any time soon, barring a trade.
At this point, it becomes likely that some sort of move will happen. It’s Economics 101. When one party overproduces commodity A but lacks commodity B, a trade with a compatible party (one who has bats but needs pitching) will benefit both sides. The Red Sox have managed to hoard some arms, and barring an injury between now and mid-season, you’ll probably see at least one of those arms jutting out of a different uniform.
First Trimester Awards (award winners if the season ended today):
AL MVP: Joe Mauer – He’s hitting .436/.519/.845. I once had this video game called “Baseball 3000″ or something of the sort. It was a futuristic baseball game where the players were robots, mutants, and aliens. My team had this one batter who would hit the ball so hard that every defensive player who tried to field it would explode. I think that guy’s numbers were similar to Mauer’s.
AL Cy Young: Zack Greinke – I picked him to win the Cy Young. I picked him to win the Cy Young. I picked him to win the Cy Young. I picked him to win the Cy Young.I picked him to win the Cy Young. You are going to hear this from me all year. I’m basically the Baron Davis of baseball bloggers; I take a lot of shots and hit very few. Well, I think I may have drained a 25 footer here.
AL Rookie of the Year: Elvin Andrus – Elvis has entered the building…and given the Texas Rangers a 17.7 UZR/150 at shortstop while holding his own at the plate.
NL MVP: Albert Pujols – The underdog in me wants to write in Raul Ibanez, but Albert’s plate discipline separates him from the rest of the crowd.
NL Cy Young: Johan Santana – Yeah, remember him? While the world fawns over Tim Lincecum, Johan is still (quietly) the best pitcher in the game.
NL Rookie of the Year: Colby Rasmus – Not a whole lot to choose from here. Colby has been basically league average, and right now it’s between him and Atlanta pitcher Kenshin Kawakami (who has also been pedestrian).
As you may have heard, the Atlanta Braves shocked the baseball world by unceremoniously releasing Tom Glavine, a three hundred game winner who will undoubtedly be immortalized in Cooperstown with an “A” on his cap.
Michael Silverman of the Herald tells us that Boston is on the short list of teams Glavine would consider pitching for, and I guess that isn’t very surprising, considering he spent his formative years wearing the patented Merrimack Valley hockey mullet.
I know what you’re thinking…”you can never have enough pitching”. Hey, guess what! It turns out you actually can have enough pitching. Weird, huh? The experts have been wrong all this time. The tyrants who write the MLB rule book have decided that teams can only carry 25 players at any given time, which means that the Red Sox actually have enough pitching. The only way Tom Glavine could end up pitching here is if the Red Sox experience some sort of Marshall University football team type of event. Simply put, Brad Penny is certainly a better pitcher than Tom Glavine right now.
While a quick stop in Boston would have been the perfect final chapter to a legendary career, it’s not going to happen. If I had to guess, I’d say that Glavine threw his last MLB pitch in 2008.
In the early stages of the season, there was a dense cloud of angst and worry surrounding Fenway Park, as our top three starting pitchers provided the opposition with many spicy meatballs. In one extreme case, I witnessed some (usually knowledgeable) fans tossing around the idea of optioning Lester to the minors and replacing him with Clay Buchholz.
Well, reversion to the mean slices both ways, folks. Just as Tim Wakefield’s ERA is no longer in Eddie Cicotte territory, the Big Three are starting to perform as expected. After Beckett’s masterpiece last night, the trio of Daisuke Matsuzaka, Jon Lester, and Josh Beckett have an ERA of 2.57 and a K/9 of 9.32 in each of their last 3 starts (60 innings total). Keep in mind, this includes some clunkers from Dice and Lester, but even during their rough outings, they have maintained decent K rates and have not walked a ton of guys. Good signs.
In his last 6 starts, Beckett has a 1.94 ERA and is allowing only 6.48 hits per 9 innings.
My apologies for the recent period of dormancy here at Dewey’s House, as I just spent the past few days in the city of New Orleans. For those of you who have never been there, a couple of thoughts:
- Go. Preferably when there isn’t a parade running though the city. It doesn’t matter what your hobbies or interests are, and it doesn’t matter what your lifestyle choice is…you will appreciate the trip.
- The best way I can describe the city is it’s Wickenden Street in Providence multiplied by 1,000. A mix of eclectic restaurants, historic buildings, antique shops, art galleries, open-air nightclubs, dive bars, among other things.
- I always thought New Orleans would be a decent place for an expansion MLB team based on population stats alone, but sadly, that probably isn’t the case. The transit difficulties and the humidity make the idea of a Big Easy baseball franchise impractical.
Now, back to the important stuff.
You know it’s a sad state of affairs when a guy goes 1-5 with a double and it’s spun as a season-changing Renaissance event.
Smoltz-Watch 2009: The right-hander went 5 innings for the Greenville Drive on Sunday, striking out 6 and giving up one run on 5 hits. His next stop is likely AAA Pawtucket for two starts before joining the big team in mid June. Oh, and by the way, check out the schedule…the Sox are playing Atlanta in mid June. Hmmm.
It’s Chemistry Time! Mark Kotsay rejoins the team tonight, giving the Sox exactly what they need (assuming the object of baseball is to not score runs. Wait, that is the object of baseball, right?).
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