Like the major leagues, the minor leagues also begin play this week. We’ll look in-depth at the rosters of each of the Mets and Yankees farm teams that begin play this week, starting with the Scranton/Wilkes Barre Yankees, the Bronx Bombers’ Triple-A affiliate. The roster of the SWB Yankees has about every level of player you can expect to find on a Triple-A squad: top-level prospects, former top-level prospects still hoping to fulfill their promise, and some “Quadruple-A” players who will likely never be able to break through to the majors.
The top level prospects are pitchers Alan Horne and Jeffrey Marquez, along with centerfielder Brett Gardner. According to Baseball America, Horne and Marquez are the fifth and seventh overall prospects in the Yankee farm system, and they have been among the names bandied about with the likes of Chamberlain, Hughes and Kennedy as part of the Yanks’ youth movement on the mound.
Both men proved that last year at Double-A Trenton, as each dominated in their 27 starts. Horne finished the year 12-4 with a 3.11 ERA, allowing 149 hits in 153 innings. He also struck out 165 batters while walking 57.
Marquez was just about as good as Horne, finishing at 15-9 with a 3.65 ERA. He allowed 166 hits in 155 innings, and had 94 strikeouts to 44 walks.
Gardner has gotten much less publicity than either of the two pitchers, mainly because of the fact that despite being eighth on Baseball America’s list of Yankee prospects, he is behind fellow centerfielder (and super prospect) Austin Jackson. That said, Gardner is a nice prospect. While he has practically no power (one home run in 217 games the last two seasons) he is a career .289 hitter in the minors, and has stolen 97 bases over the last two years.
The other three top-30 prospects on the SWB roster are No. 21 Juan Miranda, Scott Patterson (No. 28) and Edwar Ramirez (No. 29).
Miranda, a listed 24-year-old (but possibly is 26) Cuban exile, is a left-handed hitting first baseman who has passed former super prospect Eric Duncan in the Yankee system. Miranda hit .264 with 16 homers and 96 RBI in 122 games between Single-A Tampa and Double-A Trenton last season, and will be in position to make a run at a spot on the Yankees major league roster next season – perhaps as part of a platoon at first base with righty Shelley Duncan.
Patterson and Ramirez are right-handed relievers, and could see time this year in the majors – especially if the Yankees do as they have said they will all along, and move Joba Chamberlain into the starting rotation during the middle of the season.
The other two players whose names fans should recognize are first baseman Eric Duncan and pitcher Kei Igawa. Duncan, a former No. 1 overall pick by the Yankees (2003), as well as a former No. 1 overall prospect in the organization by BA (2005), Duncan was dropped from the team’s top 30 this year, and now ranks behind both Miranda and Shelley Duncan on the organization’s depth chart at first base.
However, before Eric Duncan is completely written off by fans, he is still 23 years old, and won’t turn 24 until the this December. In other words, the Seton Hall Prep product still has a chance to make the leap that the Yankees – and, in fact, most of baseball – has been expecting him to make. All it will take is a strong 2008 in Triple-A.
The only question now is if he can do it.
As for Igawa, every Yankee fan knows all too much about him. After a disastrous 2007, in which he was 2-3 with a 6.25 ERA for the Yankees after plenty of fanfare surrounding his arrival in the States, the fans are right to expect little to nothing from the left-hander in 2008.
Before he is completely written off, though, Igawa did right the ship with SWB last season, and finished 5-4 with a 3.69 ERA in 68.1 innings for the Triple-A club. Combine that with a spring that, outside of his first start (when he gave up a grand slam) was also solid, and it’s possible Igawa could be a contributor to the major league team this year.
All in all, the SWB Yankees have a roster that bears watching in 2008, and there will be no better place to keep track of them than in this space all season long.
