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Post by tonyc on Jun 6, 2015 11:49:34 GMT -5
Telson, I too am soo excited about Espinoza (no Sox prospect has had that stuff since Andy Yount)- your posts are consistently right on by the way. Danr and Silver- forgetting history is so the western cultural norm..who here has even heard of Paul Muni, a character actor playing 7 different nationalities who twice was in best picture, and (worst of all playing guitar myself)in Rock n Roll hall of fame- Beastie boys and Kiss, out- Jethroe Tull and Yes!
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 6, 2015 21:20:51 GMT -5
This. Every diminutive hard throwing hispanic pitcher = Pedro. I remember watching a Mets spring training game from a couple years ago and the announcers said that "some people" were saying Rafael Montero was being compared to Pedro. Espinoza sounds pretty exciting but lets not be the ones making lazy racial comps. Leave that to braindead announcers of other clubs. In defense, did you see the picture? Or the FB/CB/CH repertoire? Though Espinoza is Venezuelan, so you may be right about the racial comp. Comparing Montero to Pedro IS just flat-out stupid. There's a chasm of difference in pure stuff there big enough to fit Manhattan. Yeah but it's like comping Andrew Miller to Randy Johnson. They're extremely similar except that Johnson is something like the fifth best pitcher who ever lived, and Miller is... top 500? Maybe? And I get that a person who comps Espinoza to Pedro isn't necessarily saying he's as good as Pedro, but still, there's something inherently misleading about comparing nearly any prospect with one of the greatest players ever.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jun 7, 2015 12:46:45 GMT -5
I moved the tangent on the history of baseball or whatever that was about to off-topic: forum.soxprospects.com/thread/2756/espinoza-historical-discussion-spilloverThis merited keeping here since it was on-topic. Alright getting back to Espinoza, I'm pretty excited about him. Trying not to be because he's so young, but he's somebody who has the arm to be an ace and it can be thought about him that someday if everything goes right he could be a guy battling for the Cy Young award. The Sox don't have too many guys with that type of ceiling. But there's so much time and so many things have to go right between now and then that the odds are very much against it. Still, this kid is somebody to follow and be excited about. I hope he's fronting the rotation at some point next decade.
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Post by soxfanatic on Jun 7, 2015 16:34:17 GMT -5
Ben Badler @benbadler 10 sec Red Sox RHP Anderson Espinoza touched 99 mph in his start yesterday. He's 17 years old. He'd be a junior in high school. What a special arm.
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Post by vermontsox1 on Jun 7, 2015 16:35:57 GMT -5
Ben Badler @benbadler 10 sec Red Sox RHP Anderson Espinoza touched 99 mph in his start yesterday. He's 17 years old. He'd be a junior in high school. What a special arm. Whew.
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Post by telson13 on Jun 7, 2015 16:51:43 GMT -5
Ben Badler @benbadler 10 sec Red Sox RHP Anderson Espinoza touched 99 mph in his start yesterday. He's 17 years old. He'd be a junior in high school. What a special arm. Whew. Seriously. Didn't have a great game (4 IP, 4h, 2R/1ER, 2bb, 5K), but 99 is something else. I have to think that if he keeps pitching well, he'll go to the GCL in a month. Not sure what their pitch limit for the year at 17 will be, but a few piggyback starts in SS ball ought to clarify where he goes next year. Tough to imagine anything but full-season ball if he has some GCL success, given Kopech's start in Greenville and Espinoza's supposed advanced pitchability. Wish we had some video.
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Post by pedroelgrande on Jun 7, 2015 16:58:58 GMT -5
Espinoza turned 17 like 3 months ago. Staying in the DSL and building up arm strength is fine. Opening next year at Lowell would be great.
I'm not saying he won't move to the GCL this season just trying to pump the breaks a little bit. It's great to hear that he is doing great so far and is coming along great but talking about him opening next season in Low-A is too premature.
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Post by telson13 on Jun 7, 2015 17:05:48 GMT -5
Old video where he's only topping out in the mid-high 80s, but he throws a few nice curves. Also, at 2:50 or so he throws some changeups with good separation from his FB (10 mph) but (what looks to me like) identical arm action. He then throws an 87 mph fastball that looks like another change until it's in flight. Looks like he has some bore/screwballish action on his FB too. Not terrific command in this vid, and a few overthrows, but he's obviously made huge strides. Hoping someone in the DSL gets video of one of his starts.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 7, 2015 21:54:05 GMT -5
Espinoza turned 17 like 3 months ago. Staying in the DSL and building up arm strength is fine. Opening next year at Lowell would be great. I'm not saying he won't move to the GCL this season just trying to pump the breaks a little bit. It's great to hear that he is doing great so far and is coming along great but talking about him opening next season in Low-A is too premature. The last guy I remember throwing this hard this young did in fact open his age 18 season in low-A. He also was ROY at age 19 and won the CY at age 20, with a 9.8 bWAR. Not making another crazy comp. Just pointing out a big fundamental difference between pitching and hitting. If a prodigy pitcher has a great arm and great mechanics leading to plus command of multiple pitches, that's it, just about. He's a finished product. A hitter fitting a comparable description, as a general rule, still needs 1500 PA or more to learn pitch recognition. Look at how dramatically better Bryce Harper is now that he's got 2058 pro PA under his belt. There's no equivalent for pitchers. Facing 2000 hitters is going to add only a small uptick in how good you are against them. At some point later in the aforementioned's career, I took a look and found a bunch of other pitchers, including some prospects who were not great major leaguers, who seemed to peak at about age 20. All very hard throwers. (Sorry, the study is so old that it now amounts to anecdote!) You really don't want a 20 y/o utterly dominating minor league hitters if he's good enough to excel against MLB hitters. So I think the proper attitude towards Espinoza's timetable is complete agnosticism. It's very easy to see him flying through the system a la Mookie and being in the Sox rotation at age 19, like Doc and Felix before him. It's just as easy to see him take a more normal course and arrive at 22 or 23. I think the short version is that, for pitchers, there's a world, nay, a dwarf galaxy of difference between "doing great so far at age 17" and "doing great so far at age 17 while touching 99." With that arm and his exceptional mechanics, ordinary progress in acquiring muscle memory and consistent mechanics, and hence good command, is going to get you to MLB very quickly. I wouldn't put the brakes on anyone dreaming about a rapid ascent, as long as they recognize that it remains merely a distinct possibility.
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Post by pedroelgrande on Jun 7, 2015 22:38:40 GMT -5
As I said its not that I think it's not possible for him to accelerate the time table. But he has thrown 7 innings in the DSL to me is way too early to be talking about that.
King Felix was much further along from a phisical stand point. This kid is 160 right now and has a lot of growth to do yet. He needs to build arm strength to handle a full season workload. Those guys you mention were really advance phisically and were "maxout" at that point so it makes sense that they could handle moving so fast as teenagers. The comparison is not just how hard you throw.
Maybe he is phenom and moves incredibly fast like Felix or Doc. But opening next year in Lowell would be incredibly fast to me.
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Post by johnsilver52 on Jun 7, 2015 23:13:44 GMT -5
As I said its not that I think it's not possible for him to accelerate the time table. But he has thrown 7 innings in the DSL to me is way too early to be talking about that. King Felix was much further along from a phisical stand point. This kid is 160 right now and has a lot of growth to do yet. He needs to build arm strength to handle a full season workload. Those guys you mention were really advance phisically and were "maxout" at that point so it makes sense that they could handle moving so fast as teenagers. The comparison is not just how hard you throw. Maybe he is phenom and moves incredibly fast like Felix or Doc. But opening next year in Lowell would be incredibly fast to me. Think if he's touching 99mph he's already too advanced for the DSL physically, or gamewise and would need to be facing GCL hitters, now culturally? That's another question. I'd like to see him facing more advanced hitters now, if he's able to, or the Sox think he's able to in the state's culturally. People need to remember guys like Dever's took that big jump and it was thought to be a huge leap right after his 17th BD and he wasn't a pitcher.
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Post by pedroelgrande on Jun 7, 2015 23:37:28 GMT -5
Devers had already gone through instructs and spring training in the U.S. The surprise wasn't that he eventually moved to the GCL. The surprise was that he was in the DSL to begin with. Espinoza didn't go through instructs or spring training this year.
I don't think the GCL is that huge a challenge that he absolutely needs to go through. I think the objective this summer should be to build innings, arm strength into that arm. That can be done in the DSL.
Velocity is not everything. There are other aspects that are important to his development.
Having said this at any moment we'll hear he is moving to the GCL.
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Post by burythehammer on Jun 8, 2015 5:58:49 GMT -5
I love the fact that we have so many studs in the system now that we spend most of our time arguing about whether it's too soon to promote them.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jun 8, 2015 8:45:12 GMT -5
FWIW, I think some folks are vastly overrating the quality of play in the GCL. Not saying that it isn't superior to the DSL, but these are going to be mostly guys who were either just drafted out of high school, just drafted out of college and suck, or are international players of only marginally better talent than what he's seeing now in the DSL.
I'd say it's something like 20/80 that he gets promoted vs. not getting promoted.
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Post by brianthetaoist on Jun 8, 2015 9:19:43 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't think he needs to get promoted for the competition ... the only reason I could see his getting promoted would be if they wanted to give him a little time in the (relatively) structured GCL with the anticipation that he would skip XST next year and go straight to full-season ball. Which I think is a definite possibility ... I agree with Eric's point that pitchers can sometimes move extremely quickly, but we just don't know yet if that's a possibility with Espinoza.
Just because he can mow down DSL hitters over a very small sample and throws extremely hard doesn't necessarily mean he's the next [insert amazing pitcher you want to use]. But, guys like him are why it's fun to follow prospects ... the breathless reports from the Dominican about the Next Big Thing are always fun.
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Post by greatscottcooper on Jun 8, 2015 9:31:08 GMT -5
Espinoza can spend the entire year in the DSL and still plausibly move ridiculously fast up the ladder starting next year. If he's just stupid good this year and is just as impressive over the fall and during ST then they can always give him a very aggressive assignment in Greenville. Unless of course you guys think that a guy who just turned 18 playing in A ball is too conservative???
To be honest, I'm all about guys being promoted aggressively. You never want to overwhelm someone but you can't get much better playing competition that is just not on your level of play. I think when you challenge top talent you eventually bring out the best in them, but there is nothing wrong with letting a guy get his feet wet and start him off slow and get him into a routine before you let him take off.
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danr
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Post by danr on Jun 8, 2015 10:04:05 GMT -5
Where is he going to get better coaching and thus better development, the DSL or the GCL?
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Post by okin15 on Jun 8, 2015 10:15:28 GMT -5
Espinoza turned 17 like 3 months ago. Staying in the DSL and building up arm strength is fine. Opening next year at Lowell would be great. Not making another crazy comp. Just pointing out a big fundamental difference between pitching and hitting. If a prodigy pitcher has a great arm and great mechanics leading to plus command of multiple pitches, that's it, just about. He's a finished product. A hitter fitting a comparable description, as a general rule, still needs 1500 PA or more to learn pitch recognition. Look at how dramatically better Bryce Harper is now that he's got 2058 pro PA under his belt. There's no equivalent for pitchers. Facing 2000 hitters is going to add only a small uptick in how good you are against them. But, like, they still have lots of learning to do. And it's probably still best to err on the side of controlling them in their prime. And lastly, they still need to build up innings. That's probably the biggest reason I don't see Espinosa starting 2016 in Greenville (even if theoretically he could end up there before Lowell's season would begin).
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jun 8, 2015 10:28:11 GMT -5
Where is he going to get better coaching and thus better development, the DSL or the GCL? if there was an answer to that other than "it's the same," then the organization would be falling down on the job.
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Post by jimed14 on Jun 8, 2015 11:17:26 GMT -5
There is nothing wrong with letting him make a 3rd start before deciding his entire future.
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Post by telson13 on Jun 8, 2015 11:40:29 GMT -5
Espinoza turned 17 like 3 months ago. Staying in the DSL and building up arm strength is fine. Opening next year at Lowell would be great. I'm not saying he won't move to the GCL this season just trying to pump the breaks a little bit. It's great to hear that he is doing great so far and is coming along great but talking about him opening next season in Low-A is too premature. The last guy I remember throwing this hard this young did in fact open his age 18 season in low-A. He also was ROY at age 19 and won the CY at age 20, with a 9.8 bWAR. Not making another crazy comp. Just pointing out a big fundamental difference between pitching and hitting. If a prodigy pitcher has a great arm and great mechanics leading to plus command of multiple pitches, that's it, just about. He's a finished product. A hitter fitting a comparable description, as a general rule, still needs 1500 PA or more to learn pitch recognition. Look at how dramatically better Bryce Harper is now that he's got 2058 pro PA under his belt. There's no equivalent for pitchers. Facing 2000 hitters is going to add only a small uptick in how good you are against them. At some point later in the aforementioned's career, I took a look and found a bunch of other pitchers, including some prospects who were not great major leaguers, who seemed to peak at about age 20. All very hard throwers. (Sorry, the study is so old that it now amounts to anecdote!) You really don't want a 20 y/o utterly dominating minor league hitters if he's good enough to excel against MLB hitters. So I think the proper attitude towards Espinoza's timetable is complete agnosticism. It's very easy to see him flying through the system a la Mookie and being in the Sox rotation at age 19, like Doc and Felix before him. It's just as easy to see him take a more normal course and arrive at 22 or 23. I think the short version is that, for pitchers, there's a world, nay, a dwarf galaxy of difference between "doing great so far at age 17" and "doing great so far at age 17 while touching 99." With that arm and his exceptional mechanics, ordinary progress in acquiring muscle memory and consistent mechanics, and hence good command, is going to get you to MLB very quickly. I wouldn't put the brakes on anyone dreaming about a rapid ascent, as long as they recognize that it remains merely a distinct possibility. Eric, Dwight Gooden and Jose Fernandez were the first guys I thought of when I saw Espinoza's video but heard he was now 95-99. Felix Hernandez fits in there too. I agree..,pitching prodigies, especially guys with plus command and fluid, repeatable mechanics, are unlike even the best hitters. Other than Albert Pujols, I can't think of a hitter in the past 30 years who made the A-ML jump with instant success. There's always a (even if it's short) delay. But there is a chance that Espinoza may fly through the system like Urias has, or Fernandez and Doc Gooden did. I wouldn't count on it, or say it's even slightly likely, but it's a non-zero chance, and enough of one to consider it. Now, what's Christopher Acosta up to?
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Post by jimed14 on Jun 8, 2015 11:51:47 GMT -5
One great thing about Espinoza is that it appears that he was the kid that pretty much prompted the Red Sox to decide to go over the cap last year. So because of him, we also got Moncada. Or something like that.
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Post by tonyc on Jun 8, 2015 13:27:20 GMT -5
Okin has probably hit the nail on the head that young pitchers builiding up innings is more emphasized now certainly than Gooden s or king's day
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steveofbradenton
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Post by steveofbradenton on Jun 8, 2015 13:51:22 GMT -5
Where is he going to get better coaching and thus better development, the DSL or the GCL? I think you have a point there.....also better facilities. If he is dominating the DSL, why not start getting him acclimated to baseball in the USA right now. His career is going to be here eventually. If he isn't challenged after another month, why not make the move (so I can watch him) ?
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Post by beany24 on Jun 8, 2015 14:51:40 GMT -5
FWIW, I think some folks are vastly overrating the quality of play in the GCL. Not saying that it isn't superior to the DSL, but these are going to be mostly guys who were either just drafted out of high school, just drafted out of college and suck, or are international players of only marginally better talent than what he's seeing now in the DSL. I'd say it's something like 20/80 that he gets promoted vs. not getting promoted. I agree. I watch quite a few GCL games down here and it's hard to believe how raw most of these kids are. It's hard to think of them as pros, they're more like a good American Legion level team. From the 20 th round or so down, these teams must be throwing darts at a board to draft these kids.
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