March 1st, 2022: Meulens, Jeter, Prospects

Lockout, Day 90: MLB and the MLBPA bargained deep into the night yesterday and it seems more progress was made in the last 24 hours than in the previous three months. Ron Blum has the best all-in-one-place update on the proposals (hopefully MLBTR updates this soon). A deal is not done, though it seems possible it gets done today.

I wrote a thing yesterday when it appeared regular season games were on the verge of being canceled and I was mad. It's in the content graveyard. If they get a deal done today (or even tomorrow), I'm planning a separate post to break it all down. For now, here are today's non-Collective Bargaining Agreement thoughts.

1. Yankees hire Meulens. The Yankees have their new assistant hitting coach and (I think) he’s a good one: Hensley Meulens. The team announced the hire yesterday. Bam Bam replaces Eric Chavez, who left to become the Mets primary hitting coach two weeks after the Yankees named him their assistant hitting coach.

Meulens, 54, interviewed for the managerial job that went to Aaron Boone four years ago, and I imagine the tabloids will run with the “the Yankees are struggling and Boone has to look over his shoulder with Meulens there!” storyline whenever the Yankees have a bad week. Meulens seems overqualified for an assistant hitting coach job. His resume:

• 1988-2002: Player in MLB, Triple-A, Japan, and Mexico.
• 2003-09: Minor league coach and manager with several organizations.
• 2010-19: Giants hitting coach.
• 2020: Mets bench coach (under new Yankees third base coach Luis Rojas).
• 2021: Worked at his academy in Curacao.

The Giants weren’t exactly an offensive powerhouse during Meulens’ tenure (sixth worst park-adjusted offense), though there’s something to be said for having championship experience and being in that kinda demanding environment. Meulens understands what it’s like to have those expectations and relate to players on that level.

"I was groomed to be a winner,” Meulens told Erik Boland following his managerial interview four years ago. “Everything that was instilled in me, especially winning and becoming a true baseball player, I learned here in the Yankee family."

What more could you want in an assistant hitting coach? Meulens spent 10 seasons as a primary hitting coach and one (60-game) season as a bench coach, he’s played all over the world, and he was said to be extremely popular with his players in San Francisco. Also, he speaks five languages, and that’s always a plus (English, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Papiamento).

The Yankees reportedly wanted to replace Chavez with another former player to balance out hitting coach Dillon Lawson and assistant hitting coach Casey Dykes, two analytics dudes who didn’t play above college. Meulens hasn’t played in two decades, but he certainly knows the job and can fill that former player role vacated by Chavez.

Of course, Meulens is one of the most famous prospect busts in Yankees history, though there’s not much correlation between being a good hitter and being a good hitting coach. Barry Bonds and Ted Williams were bad coaches (“do what I do” doesn’t quite get the message across) while Kevin Long flamed out in the minors, then took three teams to the World Series as a hitting coach (Yankees, Mets, Nationals).

The Yankees have a pretty inexperienced coaching staff. Meulens and bullpen coach Mike Harkey have a combined 26 years of big league coaching experience. The entire rest of the staff has 16 combined, and most of that has come with the Yankees the last few years. I don’t think inexperience is a bad thing, necessarily, but it is nice to have someone who’s been there, done that in Meulens.

I can only feel so strongly about an assistant hitting coach. From where I sit, Meulens seems like a slam dunk hire given all his experience. Now excuse me while I get pre-mad about the Yankees signing Andrelton Simmons and saying it’s because he has a good relationship with Meulens (Meulens coached and managed Simmons in all sorts of international tournaments with the Netherlands).

2. Jeter leaves Marlins. In a surprise move, Derek Jeter stepped down as Marlins CEO on Monday. Right when the Yankees are looking for a shortstop? Coincidence??? Anyway, the first notable act of Jeter’s tenure as Marlins CEO was trading his 59-homer hitting reigning MVP to his former team for pennies on the dollar. Absolute king move.

“Through hard work, trust and accountability, we transformed every aspect of the franchise, reshaping the workforce, and developing a long-term strategic plan for success,” Jeter said in a statement. “That said, the vision for the future of the franchise is different than the one I signed up to lead. Now is the right time for me to step aside as a new season begins.”

Joel Sherman says Jeter believed the Marlins had another $10M to $15M to spend on payroll after the lockout, but ownership pulled that off the table, and that was “central” to his decision. I’m not sure that’s the entire story – was another $15M in 2022 really the reason Jeter left? – but the Marlins need Jeter more than Jeter needs the Marlins. Why put up with that nonsense when you can be Derek Jeter elsewhere?

Current players rallied around Jeter leaving the Marlins, seeing it as a former player walking out on an owner engaged in anti-competitive behavior. Francisco Lindor and Jason Castro, members of the MLBPA’s executive subcommittee, made social media posts suggesting Jeter stepped down in solidarity with the players. The timing sure is interesting.

Three things about this. One, vice president of player development and scouting Gary Denbo is not said to be a popular man in the Marlins front office and his biggest backer just walked away. Denbo spent a long time with the Yankees in many roles (minor league coach, big league coach, farm system director, etc.) and is among Brian Cashman’s most trusted confidants.

Should the Marlins dump Denbo, he could wind up back with the Yankees in some capacity. It’s not a guarantee (I keep waiting for Cashman to bring Trey Hillman back and he hasn’t yet), but whenever someone Cashman trusts hits the market, it’s not hard to connect the dots. We’ll see what happens with Denbo.

(Jeter and Denbo poached a small army of Yankees personnel for their coaching staff and front office over the years. Maybe the Yankees lure some of those folks back? Could be a few, but those people have all been replaced already. I know this much: Marlins GM Kim Ng is more than safe. She’s running that show and everyone else listens.)

Two, I wouldn’t count on Jeter rejoining the Yankees as a minority owner or anything like that (he had a 4% stake in the Marlins). He had a ton of control as Marlins CEO and I don’t see the Steinbrenners giving him that, and I don’t think Jeter would do it without that power. Also, if Jeter truly did step down over issues with payroll, then he’s probably persona non grata to all teams anyway.

And three, does this mean Jeter will finally come to Old Timers’ Day? Jeter hasn’t been back to Yankee Stadium for any on-field ceremonies since joining Miami (the No. 2 retirement ceremony was a few months before he took over the Marlins) and any weirdness about inviting an executive with another team is no longer a factor. You know the Yankees want him there, if only for ticket-selling purposes.

That’s about all I have to say about Jeter leaving the Marlins. I think Denbo is more likely to rejoin the Yankees in some capacity than Jeter, and I hope this means Jeter will show up to Old Timers’ Day. The rest of the Core Four has been there many times over. The Captain taking part in the festivities is long overdue.

3. Prospect rankings roundup. The weeks leading into Spring Training are prospect season, and while we’re still waiting for Spring Training, all the prospect lists have arrived. Top 100 lists, organizational lists, farm system rankings, the works. As a reminder, the lockout has no bearing on the minor league season other than 40-man roster players not being able to participate.

With the various prospect lists released, let’s round them all up for a consensus big picture view of the Yankees farm system. MLB.com hasn’t released any rankings because of the lockout (Josh Norris did the legwork and found 32% of players on 40-man rosters are prospect-eligible), so they don’t get to be included in the roundup. I’m not waiting around for the lockout to end. Let’s break down the lists.

Top 100 Prospects

The Yankees had nine players appear on top 100 prospect lists this year but only two appeared on all six major lists. Here’s the rankings averages (for players who did not appear on a top 100 list, I plugged in 150 to calculate their average) and here are the links: Baseball America (subs. req’d), Baseball Prospectus, ESPN (subs. req’d), FanGraphs, Keith Law (subs. req’d), and ZiPS.

* Baseball America (subs. req’d) had Gil among their 15 just misses, so I included him in their rankings at No. 115.

Volpe is not quite a consensus top 10 prospect but he’s damn close, and every top 100 list other than Baseball Prospectus has him no worse than the third best shortstop prospect in baseball behind Royals SS Bobby Witt Jr. and either Padres SS C.J. Abrams or Pirates SS Oneil Cruz. Baseball Prospectus has him fifth behind Abrams, Cruz, Witt, and Giants SS Marco Luciano.

Jim Callis recently did a feature looking ahead to the top 10 prospects in baseball going into 2023 and he had Volpe at No. 1, which isn’t a stretch. Just looking at the FanGraphs top 100, eight of the 11 ahead of Volpe should graduate to MLB this year, with Mets C Francisco Alvarez, Rangers 3B Josh Jung (because of his injury), and Blue Jays C Gabriel Moreno the exceptions. It’s not a given, but Volpe has a real chance to be the No. 1 prospect in baseball at this time next year.

As for Peraza, there’s a pretty huge range on his rankings, which isn’t uncommon for a second tier top 100 prospect. There usually isn’t a ton of difference between, say, No. 30 and No. 50, or No. 60 and No. 90. The Dominguez range is wild. Top 30-ish on two lists and out of the top 100 completely on another. Here's what ZiPS, a projection system unswayed by hype, says:

After ZiPS passed on Jasson Dominguez for years because he hadn’t actually played professional baseball, he finally made his debut in 2021, and while some might be disappointed he didn’t make opposing pitchers simply quit the sport in terror, his performance was very good for an 18-year-old, and rather well-rounded for a teen. This season could shoot him into Wander Franco status in the best-case scenario.

Talent should be ranked in a vacuum, right? An organization’s development track record should not be considered (because players can get traded at any moment) and neither should the hype. Relative to the hype, Dominguez was a disappointment last year. Relative to other 18-year-old ballplayers, he’s head and shoulders above the pack. Dominguez is going to go from scattered placement on top 100 lists this year to firmly in the top 20 next year, I bet.

Dominguez, Peraza, and Volpe are the clear top three in the farm system. The other six Yankees to appear on top 100 lists did so because that particular publication likes the player more than everyone else. That’s all. Baseball America noted 88 players -- 88! -- who did not make their top 100 received a top 100 vote at some point in the process. It’s a wide net that gets cast.

Farm System Rankings

My read on the system right now is it has star power at the top in Volpe and Dominguez, much more upper level depth than a year ago, and a few long shot high ceiling guys like Vargas and SS Roderick Arias. For the MLB team, the upper level depth is key. Having, say, Gil or RHP Hayden Wesneski a phone call away is better than leaning on Asher Wojciechowski for spot starts.

Last year’s farm system rankings had the Yankees in the middle of the pack, specifically in the No. 9 to No. 18 range. Last year’s average rank: 14.0. This year’s average rank: 13.75. Progress! Considering how many prospects the Yankees traded away last summer, yeah, that qualifies as progress. Here are this year’s rankings with a short blurb from each (all links are subs. req’d):

• Kiley McDaniel: No. 7. “There's plenty here for Brian Cashman to make about five more Joey Gallo-type trades, but I think he'd rather hold off and see how they turn out.”
• Baseball America: No. 13. “Few organizations win like the Yankees in the minor leagues, and they do it with both position and pitching talent, as exemplified by Luis Gil, Hayden Wesneski and Luis Medina.”
• Baseball Prospectus: No. 13. “The Yankees has been kind of a confounding system to rank over the years, because they’ve had very specific scouting and developmental strengths that rarely involved hitting on their top picks or IFA signings.”
• Keith Law: No. 22. “The Yankees have long been among the best at improving velocity, but it looks like there’s a solid group of potential fourth starter types – don’t scoff, those guys are worth a lot of money – on the way, along with a group of high-upside Latin American prospects who were all in Low A or below last year.”

McDaniel’s rankings are based on Craig Edwards’ work assigning dollar values to each level of prospect (a 50 pitcher on the 20-80 scale, etc.), so that’s the ultra-nerdy farm system ranking. His individual prospect rankings put the Yankees at $269.5M in value. The Orioles are No. 1 at $344M and the Yankees are within striking distance of No. 5 (Diamondbacks at $276.5M).

I’m not sure I’d say the Yankees have enough ammo to make “about five more Joey Gallo-type trades” (the Yankees traded top 10-ish and two other top 30 caliber guys in that deal), it might be more like two more Gallo-type trades, but as long as there’s depth to make meaningful trades, that’s all that matters. Role players are easy to get. Impact guys are another matter.

Also, the comment about the Yankees being difficult to rank because “they’ve had very specific scouting and developmental strengths” relates back to what I said earlier about each team’s player development track record being irrelevant to prospect ranking. A separate prospect ranking and player development ranking would be neat. If you could somehow marry the two, I bet the Yankees would rank much closer to the top than the farm system rankings.

Composite Organization Rankings

Top 100 and farm system rankings are fun in their own way, but the composite organizational rankings interest me the most. These are each publication’s top 20, top 30, top however many Yankees prospects list averaged out to create a master prospect list. When you do that, the rankings tend to sort the players into tiers. I find it interesting.

Here is my composite rankings spreadsheet and here are the Yankees prospects list links: Baseball Prospectus (subs. req’d), FanGraphs, Keith Law (subs. req’d), and RAB. Baseball America’s rankings come from their 2022 Prospect Handbook. Now here are the tiers that emerged:

• The Volpe Tier: SS Anthony Volpe
• Tier 2: SS Oswald Peraza and OF Jasson Dominguez
• Tier 3: RHP Luis Gil and RHP Luis Medina
• Tier 4: IF Oswaldo Cabrera, OF Everson Pereira, RHP Clarke Schmidt, SS Trey Sweeney, SS Alex Vargas, RHP Randy Vasquez, LHP Ken Waldichuk, C Austin Wells, RHP Hayden Wesneski

Volpe is a legitimate top prospect in almost any organization. Dominguez and Peraza are a more than respectable second tier, and the Luises are a notch below them. The bevy of fourth tier guys, the guys who are top 10 caliber prospects in just about any system, is where the Yankees have their system strength. They have a lot of guys who project to be quality Major Leaguers but not necessarily All-Stars.

Last season was a weird year because no one knew what to expect coming out of the lost minor league season. The minor league season will be played as scheduled this year, only without 40-man roster players during the lockout (i.e. Cabrera, Gil, Medina, Peraza, Pereira), so things aren’t completely back to normal, but they’re getting there. My hope is a few of those long shot high ceiling guys break out, and some of those Tier 4 players play their way into Tier 2 status.

4. No scouts at minor league camp. According to Kiley McDaniel, several teams are not allowing scouts in their minor league camp, and more are expected to follow suit. It’s unknown whether the Yankees are among those teams. Teams that do not allow scouts into their camp can not send their scouts to see other teams (that applies to regular season games too, not just Spring Training).

The Rule 5 Draft remains in limbo during the lockout and McDaniel says these scouting bans are intended to prevent teams from seeing Rule 5 Draft eligible prospects. This is to protect against, say, Jhony Brito showing up to camp with an extra 3-4 mph on his fastball, making him a much more attractive Rule 5 Draft candidate. These big offseason improvements are common now.

I think these scouting bans are hot garbage, and MLB should immediately step in and mandate scouting access at all camps. We all knew the lockout was a possibility (if not a likelihood) at the time of the Rule 5 Draft protection deadline (Nov. 19). Now teams are hiding eligible players in an effort to reduce their chances of being selected, and getting to the big leagues? Trash.

This isn’t all that different from service time manipulation. It’s not technically against the rules, but it is a bad faith tactic that could ultimately keep money out of a player’s pocket. Leaving players exposed to the Rule 5 Draft is a calculated gamble, and an MLB-initiated work stoppage should not give teams the ability to reduce their risk. MLB should open camps (but they won’t).

5. Remembering a random Yankee: Romulo Sanchez. This week’s random Yankee is a player I completely forgot about until seeing the request email, which I suppose is the entire point of this feature (I always confused him with fellow random Yankee Humberto Sanchez). Here’s the random Yankee archive. You can find links back to everyone we've covered there.

Sanchez (Romulo, not Humberto) originally signed with the Dodgers as an international amateur free agent out of Venezuela in March 2002. He lasted only two years in the organization and did not make it out of the Dominican Summer League. Los Angeles released him in March 2004 and the Pirates signed him a few weeks later.

Injuries and poor performance hampered Sanchez from 2004-06. It wasn’t until 2007, his age 23 season, that he had his breakout year. That season he threw 57.2 relief innings with a 2.81 ERA and 52 strikeouts in Double-A, earning him a September call up. Sanchez allowed 10 runs in 18 big league innings in the season’s final month. Baseball America (subs. req’d) ranked him the No. 13 prospect in Pittsburgh’s system after the season. A snippet of their scouting report:

He's a big, hard thrower who can run his fastball up to 96 mph and routinely hits 92-93 mph. If he can keep improving his curveball, Sanchez could be a dominant late-inning reliever. He held his own in his first taste of the major leagues last season and showed good mound presence. Though he finished the season in the majors after making the jump from Double-A, he could use a little time in Triple-A to tighten up his curveball and add polish to his game.

Sanchez spent 2008 on the bullpen shuttle, pitching in 33 Triple-A games and 10 MLB games. In his 10 big league outings, Sanchez allowed six runs in 13.1 innings, and walked twice as many batters as he struck out (six walks, three strikeouts). His Triple-A numbers were a bit more respectable: 3.46 ERA with 19 walks and 32 strikeouts in 54.2 innings.

Following the 2006 season, the Yankees had an organizational eureka moment and realized they needed velocity. There were too many Jeff Karstenses and (random Yankee) Darrell Rasners coming up through the system with fastballs you could catch with your teeth. When Phil Hughes first came up in 2007, it was a revelation. A guy who could throw a fastball by hitters!

The Yankees prioritized velocity when they added Humberto Sanchez and Kevin Whelan in the Gary Sheffield trade with the Tigers, and they did it again in May 2009. They acquired Sanchez (Romulo, not Humberto) in a minor trade with the Pirates on May 16th. Going the other way was minor league righty Erick Hacker, a soft-tosser who had been designated for assignment to clear a 40-man spot for Angel Berroa a few days earlier.

“In general, we like the depth of their system, but we do not have a particular affinity for Yankee players,” Pirates GM Neal Huntington told Joe Brescia about their frequent trades and waiver claims* with the Yankees. “Generally speaking, we scout their system the same as any other team. We have basic coverage for all organizations. The teams that we believe we have a potential match with, we work to get additional looks.”

* In a 10-month span starting in July 2008, the Pirates acquired six prospects from the Yankees through waiver claims and trades (most notably the Xavier Nady and random Yankee Damaso Marte trade). The six: RHP Eric Hacker, RHP Steven Jackson, RHP Jeff Karstens, RHP Daniel McCutchen, RHP Ross Ohlendorf, and OF Jose Tabata.

The Yankees assigned Sanchez, then 25, to Triple-A Scranton after the trade, and asked him to do something he had done since 2005: start. He was a full-time reliever from 2006 through the end of his time with the Pirates. The Yankees started to stretch Sanchez out and it was a bumpy process. He struck out six in 3.1 scoreless innings while on a pitch count on June 29th. Three weeks later he gave up six runs in 3.1 innings. So yeah, bumpy.

All things considered, Sanchez pitched well in his new role, throwing 64.2 innings with a 4.04 ERA and 64 strikeouts with Scranton. He walked 34. Despite Sanchez’s relative success, the Yankees did not give him a September call up in 2009. He made his MLB debut in Sept. 2007, went up and down in 2008, then spent the entire 2009 season in Triple-A.

The Yankees brought Sanchez to Spring Training as a starting pitcher in 2010 and he opened the season in Scranton’s rotation. On May 7th, he was called up to the Yankees for the first time as part of a bullpen shuttle move that saw Mark Melancon get sent out. Two days later, Sanchez made his Yankees debut, throwing 3.2 scoreless innings to spare the rest of the bullpen in a blowout loss in Fenway Park. Here’s his best inning.

When you’re the last guy in the bullpen and you throw 3.2 innings and 52 pitches, and it doesn’t matter how effective you are, you’re going to the minors for a fresh arm the next day. So, Sanchez was sent out after his strong Yankees debut, and Ivan Nova was called up to replace him. That was Nova’s first big league call up.

Sanchez spent most of the rest of the season in Scranton (3.97 ERA in 104.1 innings), only returning to the big leagues as a late September call up (late because he had a minor injury in Triple-A). His second and ultimately final appearance as a Yankee was a no contact outing in a loss to the Red Sox on Sept. 25th (four batters, two strikeouts, two walks).

Going into 2011, Sanchez was out of minor league options and on the bullpen bubble. He didn’t pitch all that well in camp (7 IP, 9 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 7 BB, 4 K), but Pedro Feliciano’s injury opened a roster spot, giving Sanchez a chance. The spot eventually went to random Yankee Luis Ayala. Sanchez was 27, not yet established at the MLB level, and he didn’t have a roster spot. Not a good place to be.

That led Sanchez overseas. He agreed to a deal with the Rakuten Golden Eagles in Japan, and the Yankees released him at the end of Spring Training. Sanchez finished his Yankees career with one hit and three walks allowed in 4.1 scoreless innings spread across two appearances. He struck out five. Sanchez allowed 15 runs in 45 innings as Masahiro Tanaka’s teammate with Rakuten in 2011.

After spending 2011 in Japan, Sanchez bounced to Triple-A with the Rays in 2012 to the Mexican League in 2013 to the Chinatrust Brothers in Taiwan in 2014 to San Marino in the Italian Baseball League in 2015. Now 37, Sanchez is still active! He’s pitched in the Venezuelan Winter League every year since 2015. He allowed 13 runs with 18 walks and only five strikeouts in 18.2 innings this year. Sanchez finished with about half a year of service time, so MLB earnings were in the $250,000 range.

(Send your requests for Tuesday's random Yankee series and questions for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com.)