#21 Leonardo Fuentes, OF. 6'4", 215 lbs. BD: 11/29/1992. B-R, T-R.
Rookie AZL: .257/.306/.425, 13 2B, 1 3B, 5 HR, 10 BB, 55 K.
I think us prospect watchers all have our white whales. I know I have several, but none bigger than Leonardo Fuentes. I've never seen him play. I've never even seen a real scouting report on him. All I know is he is one of the Giants mid-6 figure bonus babies that they've been signing on the international market.....and he's big....and he plays OF...and he's young. That's really all I need to know to envision an absolute monster standing in one of the corner OF's at AT&T Park some time in the mist shrouded future.
At first glance, his batting line is nothing to get excited about. Keep in mind though that he played last year at age 18, a year in which if he was from the states, he would have been drafted out of HS and possibly not signed in time to play pro ball at all! There were 14 players who hit more HR's than Fuentes in the Arizona League, but only 5 of them were age 18 or younger. He didn't just hit HR's either. 41% of his hits went for XBH's. Fuentes put up very similar numbers in the DSL in 2010. His BB% went down but his ISO power went up significantly. I don't know if it will be in 2012, but as some point I think he's going to put it all together and be a monster prospect.
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He bats right handed! That's a start. He's from Cartagena, producer of six big leaguers so far, headlined by our buddy Orlando Cabrera. Hope he makes lucky #7.
ReplyDeleteCasilla signed, 2.2MM with 200K in incentives. If you're scoring Sabey Sabes trades down to the nose, old friend Ramon Ramirez signs for 2.65MM with the Mets. It looks like MLBTR salary predictions are a tad low so far.
And Melky Cabrera is signed to a 6MM deal. That's an extra 1MM over expectations I think. Career years will do that.
Ryan Ludwick off the board to the Reds. Oakland is trolling for a RH bat to pair with Seth Smith, it looks like Damon or Johny Gomes.
I'm going to predict the Giants don't bother with a 4th OF RH bat type right now. They have 5 players for 4 positions and 3 speedsters ready to go as 4th OF alternatives. As much as we'd love RH pop off the bench, it might be a luxury at this time.
Sounds like a great prospect to get excited over!
ReplyDeleteAlso wanted to note that the average age of pitchers in this league was 21, whereas average for hitters was 20. So Leonardo was facing pitchers 2-4 years older and more experienced than he was, and many of them came from college programs, whereas this was his first exposure to real professionals (not sure of composition of DSL, but assume much lower grade quality competition). That should account for a good amount of his strikeouts (55 in 179 AB, almost one every three ABs).
But, wow, what a specimen, is he near RafRod's size? Being among the leaders in HRs while also being one of the youngest in the league bodes well. Think he'll get Augusta in 2012 or Salem-Keizer?
Torres gets 2.7MM from the Mets. Great for Andres! So with rounding Sabean shipped 5.4MM in contracts for 4.9MM and a throw-in that hasn't come back yet. No word yet on Johny Sanchez so we can't compare the Melky trade yet.
ReplyDeleteAmazin' Avenue has a good retort on a Jeff Passan article blasting the Mets for failing to retain Jose Reyes. Some of the points would apply to Giants fans expectations of roster building as well.
Dirty Sanchez comes in at 5.6MM with 200K incentive bonuses. So Sabey Sabes took on some salary and lost Verdugo on that one. Almost a wash salary wise, depending on these incentives. He could save 400K and lose as much as 100K. I can understand delay with Timmy and Pablo, but I'm sort of surprised NTG and Romo aren't done.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Yahoo, NTG signed, no $: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-giants-lincecum
DeleteNot too surprised by Romo, he did something as a reliever few if any had ever done, his rep probably sees a big payday involved.
OCG -
DeleteSorry, but I'm wondering what is it that you're referring to which Romo accomplished that has rarely been done before? I think he's awesome and well underrated, but he's been a bit injured each year I believe and it's not like he's racking up saves. Generally lower-pressure situations and rarely out there for more than an inning, if I'm not missing some things or misremembering.
You by any chance Giantsrainman?
DeleteRomo had a 21.2 inning scoreless streak during the season, as well as a 9 inning no-hit streak (or rather 27 straight batters, adding up to 9 innings). I consider those to be historically rare. He also had a 14.0 K/BB ratio, which you normally don't see for a reliever unless he came up in September and had 14 K's vs. 1 BB, that is extremely good (closers ideally should have K/BB of at least 2.5, if I recall Shandler right, so he is way above that).
DeleteYes, he does have some injury problems, probably because of his elbow under the stress of his sliders. And he doesn't get saves, but he usually pitches in the late innings, 40 of his 48 IP were in the 8th and 9th.
And almost half of his batters faced were in high leverage situations according to Baseball-Reference.com and overall his aLi, which is a measure of leveraged situations, is 1.5 where 1.0 is average pressure. He and Lopez were tied for second on the team with 1.5 and The Beard led with 2.3. The other relievers were at 1.1 and lower. Romo was 25th in the NL in aLi (he actually had 1.479 while Lopez had 1.540). Only 7 non-closers had a higher aLi.
And I see I may have given the impression of a huge payday, but I meant relatively, for a reliever. It has been reported that his side asked for $1.75M and the Giants offered $1.3M. So the Giants are valuing him around $3.25M and his side $4.375M (assuming 40% of market value for first year arbs). Given that they paid Lopez and Affeldt more than Romo's implied market value, I can see the argument made by his side that their asking price was very fair.
I think that they will try to sew him up for three years, around $5M, heck, looking at this more, I think closer to $6M would be realistic, $1.5M, $2.2M (Casilla), $2.7M (Ramirez), OK, that's $6.4M.
Nobody commenting today? Check out Baggs tweet: Bobby Evans brought up non-roster invitee Gregor Blanco as possible OF depth guy. Blanco was just named MVP of the Venezuelan Winter League.
ReplyDeleteWay to go Blanco, last week it was heavily rumored Hector Sanchez was the unanimous MVP of the VWL. This to me seals the fate of the 4th OF type. Its going to be Blanco, Christian or the Oregon State hustler who got put on the 40.
This aligns with what I have been saying about the Giants keeping spots open for their top prospects plus perhaps says something about what they think of Nate too.
DeleteIf they went out and got a 4th OF type, he'll probably want some money, maybe $1M like Fontenot. The bench is already looking full, backup catcher (Hanchez or Stewart), Pill (1B/LF/2B?), Burriss (MI/O), Fontenot (MI/3B). Leaves one spot.
If Belt should win a starting spot (yet to be determined, 1B, LF, RF; he was good defensively at all the spots, particularly LF), then Nate would get the last bench spot. If they got a 4th OF type, Nate should still beat out this guy and the 4th OF gets dropped. If Nate should win starting RF, then Belt probably goes to AAA to hone batting, while Christian probably wins the last bench spot or this Gregor Blanco guy.
LIncecum is asking for $21.5 M in arbitration and the Giants are offering $17 M. Call me crazy, but I tend to think the Giants offer is closer to what the arbitrator would think his true value is. Even at $21.5 M, the Giants can afford to dig in and tell Timmy the alternative is a 4 year deal at right around $80 M. Is Timmy going to walk away from that?
ReplyDeleteI'll predict this ends up playing out very similar to 2 years ago where they went with a 2 year deal with the Giants number in the first year and Timmy's number in the second. I'll say he signs a 2 year deal at $17 M in 2012 and $21.5 M in 2013.
Good call, though I wonder if it will be more like they will be close to the mid-point $19.25M as the salary for 2012, then maybe $21.5M for 2013.
DeleteSando signed a 3 year deal. Baggs hasn't given the #s yet. That looks good to me as a good midpoint. Maybe they give Posey and MadBum some attention as well after this clears.
ReplyDeleteYou can reply to yourself now!
DeleteThe Sandoval breakdown: $3.2 million this year, $5.7 million in 2013, $8.25 million in 2014. Takes him through all three arbitration years.
Didn't buy out any FA years but that's a pretty nice deal.
I think that's no biggie, they will just sit down and talk with him again probably after 2012 or more probably 2013 and extend it again, much like they did with Cain.
DeleteThis clears the deck for Lincecum (sorry Romo...), plus maybe signing Cain, Posey, and Bumgarner to long-term deals too, though the latter two probably can wait to next year, whereas Cain needs to be dealt with by spring training.