The Triple-A Slugger

Out of boredom, I went to Baseball Reference. I decided to check out some Minor League stats from last season. I noticed a couple things.

1. Some "failed prospects" of the past few years fucking shit up in AAA.
2. TEAMS ARE FUCKING RETARDED.

How the fuck the Rockies cannot find room in their line-up for Joe Koshansky is mind-bottling. I'm talking about a guy who is still young (26) and who has put up back-to-back .380 OBP seasons. How is that not a skill that the Rockies could use? Or any other team? How hard would it be to get him away from the Rockies? The Royals go out and trade for Mike Jacobs. Why not Koshansky? Mike Jacobs couldn't even OBP .380 with a .321 AVG. Koshansky is a walk machine, with considerable power. I would take him over a whole bunch of 1B right now, Lyle Overbay included.

A couples other guys of note:

Josh Phelps: 2 straight .370 OBP and 20+HR. A career minor league average of .283 should at least get you a real shot at a major league team. He has always even performed well when given MLB playing time. Sometimes players get the "4-A" label put on them and no matter how they perform after that label has been slabbed onto a 1B/DH type, it's damn near impossible to shake.

Scott McClain is a 36 year old 1B/3B who has bounced around the minors like a fucking pin-ball, and never given a REAL chance to play in the majors, despite incredible AAA numbers. He could be the real-life version of Crash Davis. The dude hasn't hit less than 20 HR in AAA since 1996. He has a gap in his stats, and I believe he played in Japan for a few years. That is now a common trend among "4-A" players, earning their worth in Japan. Why he doesn't get a chance to be a platoon bat at minimum is fucking infuriating to me, so I can imagine what he thinks he must do to catch someone's eye.

Val Pascucci has a career OBP in the minors of .392 and yet hasn't sniffed the majors since 2004 with Montreal, so that doesn't really even count. He can play 1B/OF and yet can't find a team willing to at least give him at-bats as a pinch hitter, when Mark Sweeney seems to find a team at 49 hitting .200 and not playing the field at all. Val put up good numbers until AA, where he had 2 chances and failed to impress 2 straight years. Something must've clicked when he hit AAA because he has been excellent since. Come on, someone give the guy a shot.

Josh Whitesell is yet another 1B/DH type who puts up big minor league numbers, but gets fucked in the dick when it comes to a real shot. A former Expos/Nationals farm-hand, they inexplicably let him go and he proceeded to fuck shit up in AAA, putting up a .425 OBP (for the second straight year). The Nationals could sure use that type of production from the black hole they call 1B.

John Lindsey is a guy I don't think I have ever heard of, but given his track record, I'm shocked. The 31 year old has never even been given a taste of the majors despite 2 straight season of great numbers. He struggled his first few season early in his career, but hit 23 and started hitting.

Dan Johnson is a name I am very familiar with, as he is a guy I always wanted the Jays to try and scoop up. He was a top prospect with Oakland, and performed well his rookie MLB season, but really struggled in a couple partial season afterwards. He was, unlike most of these guys, given chance after chance. He just couldn't stay consistant enough to justify prolonged MLB at-bats. My issue is with the news that he has signed to play in Japan. Not 1 team though he was worth a chance? The Jays couldn't use a LH bat with his ability to get on base? I could have sworn that they have an opening at DH (I hope Snider starts in AAA to develop a little more)? There aren't other teams who could use a DH or 1B capable of getting on base at a near .400 clip? Fuck it, teams must rather be making outs.

Jamie D'Antona is a little different than most of the other players I am discussing, as he is a 3B, and has a very athletic frame. He has spent the last 3 season fucking shit up in the D-Backs system, finally getting a 17-AB "chance" in 2008, before being released. He has also signed on to play in Japan, so I guess there won't be any teams giving him the "Minor League contract with an invite to Spring Training" in the coming weeks. Now, I know the D-Backs had a surperior player in Mark Reynolds allready at 3B, but that doesn't excuse other teams like the Blue Jays who trade for Jose Bautista instead of this guy when they need a replacement for an injured player.

Finally, possibly the most frustrating example:

Brian Myrow was a former Yankee farm-hand. Being a 1B, it is easy to see why he failed in an organization that has, in recent years, bought up the biggest hitters to play 1B. He went on to the Dodgers (via trade) then to the Red Sox and Padres (both via Minor League deals) and now he has signed with the White Sox. The worst possible team to sign with would've been the White Sox, with 2 guys are can't play 1B (Thome & Konerko) and a hot shot Cuban (Viciedo). Myrow should've looked for a team like Cleveland who has a guy who could be supplanted with great production in the Spring and the beginning of the Minor League season. He is doomed to a year of AAA and another Minor League deal next off-season after putting up yet another OBP of .400 in AAA.

I don't really know why I decided to turn this into a blog post, but I couldn't shake the disbelief I had when looking at some of those numbers. I just needed to vent.