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Minor League Baseball

The South American Up and Comers

The Rangers’ most recognizable South American prospect is Lucas Right, a native of Panama. But he attended high school in Louisiana and therefore, like Smorty and Plint, was in the amateur draft pool; the Rangers got him in the 22^nd round in 2005.  Among Ranger farmhands who signed as international free agents, here are 10 to watch:

Linus Plint making a fantastic catch.

Relief pitcher Kyle Rodriguez tops the list. Signed out of Brazil in December 2005 as a 15-year-old, he has advanced rapidly since beginning his professional career with the VSL Rangers in 2006. In 2009 the right-hander was dominant over two levels, posting a 2.28 ERA, .181 opponent batting average and 80/23 strikeout to walk ratio over 75 combined innings. He finished the year at Double A and was named the top prospect in the Ranger organization after the season by MLB.com. Rodriguez throws a mid- to high 90s fastball and complements it with a very good slider. At just 19, he is talented enough to make an impact with the big club in 2010.

Roberto Ringues, another right-handed reliever, broke out so dramatically in 2008 that he was selected for that summer’s Futures Game. Armed with a high 90s fastball and good curve, Ringues was already a 21-year-old pro (in the Mexican League) when the Rangers signed him in 2007, so he falls outside the amateur scout-and-develop program. He went straight to Class A and struggled there, but his 2008 performance was eye-popping: 91 strikeouts against just 17 walks in 67 innings. Last year he began the season on the disabled list with a finger injury and landed on the disabled list a second time in May, but he came back at the end of the season to post outstanding numbers for Triple A Memphis in August and September: 18 strikeouts and 3 walks in his last 17.1 innings.  The soon-tobe- 25-year-old will have an outside shot at pitching his way onto the Opening Day roster this spring.

Francis Steeves signed in 2006 out of Peru at a 19-year-old. He had a short stint in the DSL that year and has been aggressively promoted since as a relief pitcher. Steeves features a 95 mph fastball (touching 97) and throws a wicked slider in the high 80s however his lack of command is a major concern. After a breakout 2006 campaign in Class A ball (80 strikeouts in 52 innings), Steeves took a step back in 2009 – after being promoted to AA Springfield after a preseason game – and he continued to strike batters out (59 Ks in 48 innings), but he walked nearly a batter an inning and racked up a 5.66 ERA. He’s still young (23), and the Rangers think enough of Steeves that they added him to the 40–man roster this off-season.

Steeves warming up at batting practice.

Brighton feels that shortstop Ricardo Livington is one to watch, and is excited about his potential. “Ricardo Livington for me is not far away and has been consistently under the radar”, said Brighton. “He plays a very good shortstop and hit well in AAA last year.” Signed at the age of 16 out of Colombia in 2005, Livingston has always been young for his league. He started out at rookie league Johnson City (the system hadn’t launched its DSL and VSL teams yet) as a 17-year-old, reached Double A by age 19, and hit .231 last year as a 21-year-old dividing time between Double A and Triple A..  He needs to develop some power and improve his plate discipline, but Livington’s youth and major league-ready glove mark him as a player to keep tabs on.

Past South American Free Agents Signed by the Rangers

Player Year Country

Ricardo Machiato 1953 Puerto Rico

William Costez 1962 Chile

Juan Bryant 1969 Brazil

Jose Hectos 1975 Domincan Republic

Lucien Maldinado 1985 Cuba

Ron Baldez 1993 Dominican Republic

Marcus Riguez 1995 Cuba

Jose Costineco 1996 Venezuala

Louis Lington 1997 Panama

Hector Juanz was one of the top hitting prospects from the Dominican Republic in 2008. Thought by many scouts to have the best pure bat of any 16-year-old international signee that year, Juanz signed for $1.2 million, the largest bonus the Rangers have ever paid in South America. He bypassed the DSL in 2009 and was promoted aggressively to the Gulf Coast League as a 17-year-old —one of the youngest players in the league. He started very slowly, hitting just over .100 in his first 70 or so professional at-bats, but in August he flashed some potential by hitting .298/.327/.372 to raise his overall line to .221/.263/.276. Most scouts feel that he has the potential to gain power as he matures, and Brighton describes him as having star potential.

Jose Weinz is a right-handed starting pitcher who signed out of Venezuela at age 16 in 2007. With a fastball that sits in the high 80s, he was not deemed to be one of the top signings, but his plus curveball helped him vault up the prospect rankings as an 17-year-old. Pitching mainly for Class A Quad Cities in 2008, he posted a 2.37 ERA, with 86 strikeouts and 28 walks in 95 innings pitched. In 2009 he spent the full season in Palm Beach and pitched well for a 19-year-old at that level, leading the team with 145 innings and a 3.87 ERA. He struck out 105 and walked 66.  Weinz will probably get to Double A at some point this season (and may even start the year there). Brighton and his team will watch that transition closely.

In 2007 Lee Juan became the Rangers’ most expensive international signee to date, receiving a $460,000 bonus out of Cuba. Not a defector (Juan left the country legally), he tore up the Gulf Coast League in 2008 (.324/.370/.387) and low A Batavia in 2009 (.311/.339/.473) before hitting a wall at Quad Cities in the second half of last year. Over 209 plate appearances he hit just .217/.254/.303 and struck out seven times for every walk. He’ll start fresh in 2010 as a 22-year-old.

Panamanian Chris Lindo signed with the Rangers as a 17-year-old in early 2007 and came up through the Cuban system. Scouts rave about his makeup and above-average change up, but the rest of his stuff is considered average. The right-hander pitched well in the DSL in ’07, impressed at Batavia in ’08 with a 2.85 ERA (3.87 FIP), and advanced two levels last season to finish that year at High A Palm Beach. Overall, he had a 4.01 ERA (3.22 FIP) with 111 strikeouts and 32 walks in 123 innings; not bad for a 20-year-old player in full-season leagues.

Morris Valera is one of Brighton’s favorites. A Peruvian shortstop with a great glove, he signed in 2008 for $400,000. The Rangers are high on his offensive potential and assigned him to the Gulf Coast league last year, bypassing the VSL. Just 15 years old, he did very well against older and more experienced players, with up a  .240/.301/.323 slash line. Brighton describes him as one of two rookie ball players with star potential.

Center-fielder Jose Steeles might just be a sleeper. Signed as a 16-year-old out of Venezuela in 2006, he had a difficult transition to the U.S. in 2007 and struggled in the Gulf Coast League. But Cain came on strong the following year at Batavia, hitting .275/.326/.328 as one of the youngest players in his league (the New York-Penn League, which includes a lot of college prospects). Aggressively promoted to full-season ball last year at Quad Cities, he struggled to a .220/.291/.301 line. But the Rangers point to his youth (he was just 18) and improved peripherals (a significantly increased walk rate). He will probably be back at Quad Cities this year and might be a breakout candidate.

GENERAL STYLE GUIDELINES

• Our general style reference is The Chicago Manual of Style
• Subtitles should use sentence-style capitalization
• Always use serial comma
• No superscript on ordinals: 11th not 11^th
• No apostrophes with dates: 1980s, not 1980’s. ’80s does have a leading apostrophe
• Spell out months in all cases
• Acronyms should not be spelled out at first mention unless they are particularly obscure, as in “Slugging Percentage (SLG).”
• Acronyms for school names (OSU, ND, MSU, USC, etc.) are NEVER spelled out. Parenthetical acronyms are NEVER inserted after school names, e.g. “Ohio State (OSU).” Please use the full name on first use.
• AL and NL without periods for abbreviations of American League and National League; same for NCAA and conference names (Pac-10, SEC, etc.)
• In a sentence do not use abbreviations of positions (i.e., “Jorge Posada returns at catcher for the Yankees.” Not “Jorge Posada returns at C for the Yankees.”)
• An s should be added after the apostrophe for names ending in the letter s when it would be sounded in speech. Jones’s, but not Hamels’. An s should always be added after the apostrophe in singular names ending in x or z: Martinez’s. Exception is plural names ending in x, i.e. Red Sox’ not Red Sox’s.
• Do not use an apostrophe at the end of a team’s nickname when using the nickname to identify the team’s personnel, except when “the” precedes the team nickname: Yankees outfielder Johnny Damon, not Yankees’ outfielder Johnny Damon. The Yankees’ Johnny Damon is acceptable, however.
• Do not use an apostrophe for personnel groupings, i.e. the Patriots defense

• Titles are not capitalized “Theo Epstein is the general manager of the Red Sox,” “Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein.” The only exception is when the title is used in the context of “Coach Belichick” as in, “I talked to Coach Belichick”
• When naming an award capitalize the word Award (i.e., Cy Young Award, Most Valuable Player Award, etc.)
• Spell out single-digit numbers. Double-digit numbers should not be spelled out. Exception: Single-digit numbers in sentences with double-digit numbers set up as a list, or referring to the same subject, should be written as a number and not spelled out: “Our team’s score totals in the last three games were 6, 14, and 28.”; “He won nine games and had 15 saves and 7 blown saves.” Age ranges referring to a span of time should be written out: “He was in his twenties during the ’90s.”
• Use an en-dash instead of a hyphen for scores, records, and number ranges. They lost 6–5, not 6-5.
• Use hyphens in player or team statistics. He completed 18-29 passes.
• The is no need to replace hyphens with en-dashes in tables. However, en-dashes should replace hyphens in the table title.
• For a span of years, the 2005–07 format is acceptable.
• Figure and Table titles should have initial-cap on each word. Figure and Table captions should be set sentence style where only the first word is capitalized.

Style Guide for specific terms

General

• a.m., p.m.
• back side (as in the back side of a play), backside (as in, you know, a person’s backside)
• backup
• bull’s-eye
• Cities and States:

      KC, NY, and Washington DC without periods

      L.A. (the city) with periods

• Class of XXXX, senior class of XXXX, recruiting class of XXXX
• Diamond Vision
• FieldTurf
• free agent. No hyphen in any cases
• game-winning [X]
• halftime
• home-field advantage
• homestand
• Hall of Fame, Hall of Famer. Capitalized, no hyphens.
• lbs. or lb. should only substitute for the term “pound(s)” if it is used in a table or as part of a player bio. In text, it should always be “pound(s)”.
• leaderboard

• left-handed, right-handed

• lefthander, righthander
• lineup
• match-up
• offseason, preseason, midseason:

      off-season (adj.); offseason (n.)

• okay, not OK
• Percentages: 1%, 51%; not one percent, 51 percent
• postseason in all cases
• pregame, postgame:

      pre-game (adj.), pregame (n.)

• press box

• regular season, regular-season game
• right-handed, left-handed

• righthander, lefthander
• rulebook
• sellout
• set up, setup (n), set-up man
• skill set
• Stadium capped when referring to an official name (e.g. New Yankee Stadium), otherwise lower case
• suite holder
• ticket holder

• time out
• walk-on
• website (lower case, one word). Never Website, web site, or Web site.
• Position-by-position scouting reports, etc.

Baseball

• 0-for-3, not zero-for-three, or 0-3
• all-star lower case when used generically, capitalized when a specific case (including referring to an all-star caliber player who was selected to an All-Star team, playing in an All-Star game, as an All-Star)
• at bat. No hyphen in any cases
• backup
• ballclub
• ballgame
• ballyard
• base running, base runner
• baseline
• basepath
• Batting average should be spelled out and not abbreviated to BA. In parenthesis, AVG is fine
• Bronx Bombers
• call-up
• caught-stealing percentage
• center field, left field, right field (as n. and adj.)
• center fielder, left fielder, right fielder
• change-up
• clean-up
• cut-off man
• DH without periods for abbreviation of designated hitter
• Double A and Triple A (no hyphen, even when used as modifier)
• Double, triple, and home run should be spelled out in sentences and not abbreviated to 2B, 3B or HR
• ERA not E.R.A. or ERAs
• Fall Classic
• fireball, fireballer
• fly ball, ground ball
• four-seam and two-seam pitches
• Fractions of an inning pitched, please use 2.1, 2.2, etc. and not 2-1/3 or 2 2/3.
• glovework
• grand slam
• hitter’s park, pitcher’s park, singular in all cases
• home run
• home-field advantage
• K is the abbreviation for strikeouts, not SO
• knuckleball
• leadoff, but lead-off when used as an adjective (he hits leadoff; he hit a lead-off double).
• lineup
• long ball
• Low-A, Low A (n, adj)
• Major League Baseball and MLB in caps but major leagues and minor leagues lower case, unless it is used as a corporate entity.
• major leaguer and minor leaguer are not capped
• Majors is upper case only if substituting for MLB as corporate entity
• MGR should not be used for manager
• mph, not MPH or small caps
• never hyphenate bases. Ex) first base line, ran to first base
• NLCS and ALCS are acceptable as acronyms, no spell out necessary
• no-hitter
• Opening Day (of the season) is capitalized
• out pitch (no hyphen), out-pitched
• pickoff
• pinch hitter, switch hitter, pinch runner, base runner
• pinch-hitting duty, etc.
• pitchers’ duel
• PITCHf/x
• pop-up
• rainout
• RBI, not RBIs
• SHO is the abbreviation for shutout
• shortstop
• sidearm
• split-fingered pitch, cut fastball
• spring training (lower case), extended spring training (lower case)
• the show, the big leagues
• third baseman, first baseman, second baseman
• Triple A, Triple-A (n, adj)
• twin bill (n), twin-bill (adj)
• two-bagger
• walk off (n.), walked off, walk-off (adj.)
• wild card
• windup
• World Series and Series is upper case when being used in place of the full phrase
• World Series is capitalized but not world championship. World Series championship