Rhiner Cruz? 1st Pick? Seriously?
In seeing Rhiner Cruz‘ name as the top pick in this year’s Rule 5 draft, my first thought was this would be the last time I ever spent a tangible amount of time prepping for it. In a moment of clarity, the Houston Astros helped me understand just how important the Rule 5 draft is NOT.
Even after reading Adam Foster’s piece breaking down Rule 5 draft picks between 2007-2010 which hammers home the fact players selected essentially have zero value on average, I was still hopeful for something…. anything worthy of excitement from a prospect perspective.
No offense to Rhiner Cruz specifically, but I spent the entire 2009 season watching him close for Savannah, the New York Mets full-season Class A affiliate and never felt the need to actually scout him. At the time, Cruz was 22 and lived off a bit of a funky delivery and a fastball which topped out at 92. With a fringy little slurve, it was enough to keep lower-level hitters off balanced, but not an arsenal that would translate well at the big-league level.
My most vivid Cruz memory was watching him come in to close out a one-run game only to walk the bases loaded on twelve pitches before being pulled.
In fairness to Cruz, good friend in baseball Mike Diaz of Mets Minor League Blog scouted him more recently than I to verify Cruz’ fastball was now in the 94-96 range, touching 97 MPH on a number of occasions. Excellent velocity, for sure, but if his command and at least one secondary pitch didn’t also improve dramatically over a couple of years ago, Cruz would throw 107 MPH and I’d still wonder how well the stuff played at the big-league level.
And this scenario kind of played out at the double-A level as Cruz posted a 4.58 FIP while walking nearly six batters per nine innings. Even more concerning is the fact he struck out less than eight per nine as an older “prospect”. With the Houston Astros in full rebuilding mode, Cruz may very well be stashed and used in the most low leverage of situations through 2012, but I simply can’t envision a larger bullpen role than that.
In 2011, I had the opportunity to scout a couple of other prospects worth at least a brief mention for the most hardcore of prospect followers in Erik Komatsu (Cardinals) and Luis Rojas (Giants).
Luis Rojas is one of the hardest throwers I’ve ever had the opportunity to scout. This is not to say he’s a particularly good prospect, but kudos to the Giants organization for taking a shot on a guy the Mets organization really never gave a legitimate shot to.
As somebody who watched the Savannah Sand Gnats roll out reliever-after-reliever with fastballs upper-80s and no upside, a young righty pumping 96 MPH should have been granted consistent innings and the opportunity to work through his serious command issues. It’s more than likely Rojas will amount to little in the end, but he was all but guaranteed that outcome until yesterday.
In Erik Komatsu, the St. Louis Cardinals selected an outfielder who fits what they look for in versatile bench players quite well. For me, he’s similar offensively to Skip Schumaker who played some centerfield before making the conversion to second base. And while the ability to play a middle infield position, plus some outfield chops leaves Schumaker a more valuable player defensively, the fact Komatsu can play all three outfield spots – at least in a pinch – leaves him a potential steal at the league minimum when Schumaker made more than five times that in 2011 and is projected at a salary of a shade above three million through arbitration. With a number of non-tender candidates with similar offensive skill sets on the roster at present, Komatsu may very well stick.
I should have learned my lesson last season after another Mets farmhand, Elvin Ramirez, went third to the Nationals, but I was fooled twice so shame on me. Next season, I hope to see virtual crickets in the @ScoutingtheSAL Twitter feed come Rule 5 draft day.
Is Schumaker likely to be non-tendered now? (Along with Theriot, this would be great for the Cardinals.)
He’ll most likely be non-tendered and then the Cards will try to re-sign him for less.
Certainly not a focus of the piece, but in a brief glance around the interwebs, Schumaker is a hot non-tender candidate right now.
I’m not exculpating the Astros, just trying to dig into their rationale: His BB rate is alarming, maybe a scout has seen something in his delivery, and thinks they can fix it.
Frankly, I thought this pick cried out starting pitcher. If Astros lose Myers and Rodriguez, they will need some sort of major league replacements, rather than relying on Lucas Harrell, Henry Sosa and Aneury Rodriguez for the entirety of 2012. I’ll reserve judgement for now.
Thanks for your views as usual Mike.
The pick is “whatever” for me. The point of the piece is that these picks should pretty much be “whatever” for everybody. Every word written about these guys is on average a wasted word – me included.
The Rule 5 Draft isn’t important? Roberto Clemente, Josh Hamilton, Johan Santana, Jose Bautista were all selected in a Rule 5 Draft. Alexi Ogando and Scott Podsednik were selected in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 Draft.
Dusty, almost all of that occured before the rule change to give teams an extra year to evaluate players. Under the current rules the interesting talents are far too raw to stash and those that a close to MLB ready just arn’t very talented.
Good call PiratesHurdles. That’s why I specified 2007-2010 from Adam Foster’s piece. The rules did change and picks are much less significant than they used to be.
Bautista hardly counts as a rule 5 triumph — after being selected in the rule 5, he went through four more organizations before he became any good. If anything, he’s an example of how the rule 5 process can mess with the development of a promising prospect.
‘Seriously?’ is over, dude. Just let it go..
Que?
Though “Que?” can be translated to What or Which, Spanish speakers generally say “Como?” when misunderstanding someone. But, I guess your name is Mike Newman, so Que should suffice.
Thanks for throwing this story in here because you gave me a lot better information than if you had just shot off some response in the chat!
You’re quite welcome! I always enjoy my opportunity to be counter programming for the regular Fangraphs crowd.
How was Gorman Erickson not selected with so many teams needing catchers? I have to believe teams have stopped taking this draft seriously or there is some kind of understanding among teams that they are not going to pilfer other teams players of any prospect caliber. Erickson is ranked the Dodgers #11 best prospect right now by Sickels… unreal.
It’s hard to hide a rule 5 catcher on your roster for an entire season. There has been one notable exception I can think of and that’s, Jesus Flores. Most teams don’t want a green, not necessarily MLB ready, out of organization catcher handling their pitching staff, even if the said catcher has gotten positive marks in the minors for his signal calling. An idea situation to hold onto a rule 5 catcher would be on a team willing to carry three catchers. There are not many of organizations that will do it.
I don’t remember a thing about Erickson this year. Mike, was he catching any of the Lookout games I caught with you? I can only remember seeing Wallach and Gimenez catching for the Lookouts.
and so what’s the worst that can happen? you have to return him back to the Dodgers if it doesn’t work out??
c’mon… if you see he can’t get it done during ST, then call off the experiment and send him back. what do you lose, $50K?
Chris,
We had a conversation about Erickson and I was pretty pissed he wasn’t in the lineup come playoff time. He looked like an adonis and I just couldn’t imagine him being a lesser player than the guys they had back there.
Other than that, I have no info on him.
The Mets are going to hide Mike Nickeas on their roster. It can be done.
If a prospect is practically smashing down the door to the bigs, Ned will give a two year deal to veteran worth twice the AAV of his previous one year deal to block that prospect.
I was stunned Brett Lorin fell so far.
Why waste your preparation? If you have the time, I’d like to see a mock draft (after the fact, of course), with the picks teams _should_ have made. It might be nice to follow up a year or so later with the picks actually made and the picks you would have made.
Josh Hamilton was a worthless pick? Darren O’Day?
Bump.
Astros having the last laugh here. Cruz is FILTHY.