by Bart Klett on February 8, 2012
Vinnie Catricala, 3B Seattle Mariners
10/1/1988
Height:6’2″ W:224
Vinnie Catricala was drafted in the 10th round and 293rd overall in the 2009 draft by the Seattle Mariners. Coming out of the University of Hawaii, Catricala was not well known. Now coming into his 3rd year of professional ball, we are seeing a player that the world needs to get to know a lot better. The first thing you need to know about Vinne Catricala is that he will have one of the coolest nicknames in baseball. Ladies and Gentlemen allow me to introduce the one, the only: V-Cat.
But there is a lot more to know about V-Cat than just his name. He has spent his short professional career raking with the bat everywhere he goes. In just three professional seasons, Catricala has been promoted a total of 4 levels and he is getting better with every level. As far as his bat is concerned, he can do a little bit of everything. In total, he has a combined batting average of .322 with an on-base percentage of .397. It is fair to say that V-Cat gets on base his fair share of at-bats. However, that average is far from empty. Catricala has a combined slugging percentage of .536 and has knocked in 225 RBIs in 1236 at-bats. Those numbers look good in and of themselves but what is more striking is that his 2011 season was significantly better. In 2011 he played about a half of the season in High-A ball before being promoted to Double-A ball. The slash line across those 2 levels is .349/.421/.601. He hit for average, exhibited good plate discipline, and smacked the ball around the yard with authority. With 25 home runs and 106 RBIs in 521 at-bats, he was a source of solid power numbers throughout. In addition to all of this, V-Cat swiped 17 bags in 2011.
With his fantastic stats and impressive bat, Catricala has forced his way up the prospect charts. He came in at #69 on our Baseball Instinct 360. He has been pushing rapidly up the Mariners organization as well. We rated him as the #6 prospect in the Mariners organization. What is it that makes Vinnie Catricala such an interesting prospect? Let’s take a further look at his game. [click to continue…]
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by Thomas Belmont on February 5, 2012
Continuing our run through the Top 10 Lists for prospects, we find ourselves at the catchers position. A position that finds some right now players that could make a serious impact as early as the beginning of this season and down through the Top 10 into our 360 for some really young backstops that could be flying up the charts this year with the likes of Realmuto, Maron, Hernandez and Alfaro. So once again, let’s take a step back and take a broad look at the minor leagues as we go position by position and bring to you the Top Position Lists with some additional players and information.
Because as we said, we’ll be analyzing the Baseball Instinct 360° not only full circle, but 365 days a year. The deeper we get into the video and our customized Instinctools Stat System the more the view changes from the top.
So let’s get into the catchers position and give you the list and some of the current thoughts.
In the Top 100
5°. Jesus Montero, C/DH, Mariners, 11/28/1989 - Montero came in at #1 on our 2011 Top 100 List based on his advanced bat at a young age and making it all the way to Triple-A as a catcher. As we said in his Prospect Instinct, a perfect storm of events have led to him being in line for a shot at the catchers position in the Bronx. His contact ability is elite regardless of where he plays. He’ll have above average power as a 20-something and elite level power in his prime. How long he actually sticks at catcher is dependent of how well Joe Girardi and Tony Pena are able to cultivate him. But those two are the reason for my optimism of a future average regular on defense and glowing reviews on offense. ETA 2012.
Update Instinct – Well, the trade to Seattle finally happened. It looks like Seattle thinks he can handle a full catchers workload. He’s not going to be the best defender in the league, I think we all know that already. But the bat is legit and fantasy players should take note now. Real baseball? His bat will need to carry him and we think it can. [click to continue…]
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by Bart Klett on January 18, 2012
James Paxton, LHP Seattle Mariners
11/6/1988
H: 6’4” W:220
It’s funny how fragile draft stock of a player can be. James Paxton, Seattle Mariners pitching prospect is a great example of this point. He was drafted in the 1st round and 37th overall in 2009 draft by the Toronto Blue Jays. However, he was “advised” by mega sports agent Scott Boras. Based on input from Boras, Paxton chose not to accept Toronto’s offer because the signing bonus was insufficient. Because he didn’t abide by NCAA rules governing the relationship between an NCAA player and professional agent, Paxton was not able to return to play college baseball. He elected to play independent league with Grand Prairie. Due to some nagging injuries and a late start to the season, his 2010 performance was less than expected. As a result of this combined with the perception that there may be character issues with Paxton, he slipped to the 4th round and 132nd overall pick of the 2011 draft. It makes one wonder what could have happened if it weren’t for the developmental interruption in 2010.
Fortunately, James Paxton was able to overcome the poor beginning to his professional career. After signing with the Mariners and shaking off the rust from having pitched less than 18 innings between the end of the 2009 season and the beginning of the 2011 season, Paxton began to remind the prospect world why he had been considered a 1st round talent. He spent time in both single-A and double-A ball and his numbers seemed to get better as the level of competition increased. He breezed through the 1st half of the season compiling a 3-3 win-loss record with 2.73 era. His SO/9 ratio 12.9 is quite remarkable, but is somewhat diminished by the BB/9 ratio of 4.8. However, the good start was then taken to another level (literally and figuratively) when he went 3-0 with 1.85 era in 7 starts at double-A Jackson. The strikeout/9 remained high at 11.8, but the walk rate dropped nearly 2 points from his single-A performance coming in at 3.0 walks per nine innings-pitched. He finished the season extremely well. In his last 3 starts he pitched 20 innings allowed a stingy 2 earned runs while issuing only 2 free passes and fanning 28 hitters.
We recently covered the trade of Michael Pineda from the Mariners to the Yankees. This trade has some implications to James Paxton because there is now an extra opening on the Mariners starting rotation. There are a few candidates for the starting rotation; including recent draft pick Danny Hultzen. However, Paxton does have a chance to make an impression on the Mariners and earn big league time in 2012. Coming in at #22 on our Baseball Instinct 360° list, he is a prospect that needs to be evaluated further. Let’s break down his game and what he has to offer to the Mariners as he fights for a big league opportunity coming into spring training. [click to continue…]
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by Thomas Belmont on January 14, 2012
Inside of the loud silence surrounding the New York Yankees this off-season grew the end result of a trade 2 years in the making. One with the Seattle Mariners that is now making big noise. On Friday the 13th of January 2012, the Yankees traded Top Prospect C Jesus Montero and RHP Hector Noesi to the Seattle Mariners in return for 2011 Rookie sensation Michael Pineda and their #2 overall RHP prospect, Jose Campos.
Montero was the key piece in the 2010 deadline deal with the Mariners for Cliff Lee two seasons ago. The deal that never happened. Well, Montero is finally heading to Seattle.
Pineda is far and away the key piece to this deal as he heads to New York to fill a glaring hole in the rotation. Here is what we had to say about Pineda heading into the 2011 season on our Top 100 Prospect List where he came in at #5 overall: [click to continue…]
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