http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/minor-league-transactions-dec-10-22/
Linked is a transactions report for the last week from Baseball America. It's usually an interesting read and you typically find quite a few familiar names on there.
-Nick Masset was signed by the Washington Nationals and Dana Eveland by the Tampa Rays. I guess it goes to show you that if you’re a reliever and have ever gotten people out at the big league level, someone will have some interest.
-Yunel Escobar was traded to the Angels. The Nationals got Trevor Gott in partial return. Gott was Kentucky’s closer. His last year there was, I think, 2013. He was really good (obviously) and makes up a surprisingly robust list of Kentucky pitchers considered to be top shelf prospects in the minors or who have made their MLB debuts. (Gott has pitched in the majors already).
-That got me to thinking about Kentucky. I knew we opened up league play with them (thankfully here, as that would be a brutally cold weekend in Lexington). I visited their webpage and saw that they return their entire weekend rotation. It surprised me that the Kyle Cody kid didn't sign last year, though his numbers were nothing great (he was the Sunday starter against us and pitched a tremendous game, though). UK is a tough team to open with. They're playing a more challenging pre-conference slate than we are (which doesn't say a lot). They always pitch us well anyway, but seeing that rotation right out of the gate is going to be very difficult. We opened league play with a home sweep last year against another group with good starting pitching and a few (though not an abundance) good hitters. The home sweep to Missouri last year really put a damper on things. Kentucky will probably present a bigger challenge for us out of the gate this year. I really wish we were playing a legitimate weekend prior to league play. My fear is that we're going to have to get acclimated to SEC pitching on the fly.
-Former UGA football signee Xavier Avery has been signed by the Orioles, who drafted him originally. Avery would have been a freshman for the 2009 baseball season, the same year Zach Cone, Johnathan Taylor, and Chase Davidson were all freshmen. I remember Perno saying that they liked Avery a lot, but had JT higher.
-Speaking of JT, I'll never forget that weekend he had against Arizona in 2009, out there. What a series that was. And while Arizona wasn't as good as we thought they'd be, dominating ANY team on the road that way is no small feat. What did we have that weekend, 48 hits? That team spent a large part of the season at #1, and I really can't imagine that there was a better team in the country over the first half of that year. The collapse was one of the more disappointing things I can recall around here, and AWC hit the nail on the head in describing it in "humpty dumpty" terms.
The chemistry on that 2009 team always seemed off to me, from the stands. And I think that's why we couldn't overcome that adversity on Oxford. In looking back on it, that Saturday night wasn't THAT big of a deal, or shouldn't have been. But we let it break us, and I think if it hadn't been that, it would have been something else. That was the freshman campaign for the greatest signing class in UGA baseball history, at least on paper (and probably in terms of talent). I really thought that group, guys like Levi Hyams, Colby May, Michael Palazzone, Peter Verdin, etc left the program better than they found it. I can't justify that in terms of wins and losses, but we had too many individuals in 2009, like an all star team almost. We got back to playing team ball after that and it really carried us in 2011. I think you saw the chemistry slip again in 2013 after those players left and it really took until this past spring to get back in pretty good shape, from my vantage point. I generally think those things are over-rated, moreso in pro ball than in college, but it does make a difference to some degree, especially when the adversity inevitably hits.
I think we'll be ok in that department this spring, as well. You never know until things start rolling, but all indications are that this is a pretty close knit group.
-Finally, I didn’t realize the Astros were involved in a blockbuster trade to get Ken Giles from Philly. They sent Mark Appel (who was the #8 pick from Stanford in 2012, but went back to school and was then picked #1 overall) and Thomas Eshelman (their 2nd round pick in June, who I remember watching in the CWS from Cal State Fullerton) and Brett Oberholtzer (among others) to Philly in exchange for Giles… The Astros bullpen already has Josh Fields and Tony Sipp (who pitched for Clemson and gave up the back to back HRs to us in that regional game in 2004), but I guess they wanted a legit closer. It’s funny too that Giles was the closer in waiting for Philadelphia for so long, pending the inevitable Pappelbon trade, then they go ahead and wheel Giles anyway…
Reading the scouting report on Eshelman, he doesn’t have dominant stuff, but his control is off the charts… Philly already (for now) has Aaron Nola in their rotation, who is very similar. Organizationally, I wonder if they’re trying to move in the direction pitching wise? Eshelman and Nola appear almost identical from a scouting perspective.
Guys like Aaron Nola are why college baseball is better now than it used to be. This year in MLB there was a higher percentage of college players on opening day rosters than ever before (Nola was not on the Phillies opening day roster, I don't believe). You have to develop somewhere... There aren't 17 year old starters in major league baseball. I think more elite prospects than ever are starting to realize that they can spend those developmental years in college, playing at places like Baton Rouge, Fayetteville, Oxford, Columbia, etc. They'll ride nicer busses, stay at nicer hotels, and eat better meals. And they can get a bigger bonus afterward too (like Tyler Beede, for example). College isn't for everyone, obviously, and there are some guys who would certainly be better served going straight into pro ball (Lyle Allen comes to mind). I think about that 2014 series in Baton Rouge with Nola as their Friday night starter, Alex Bregman at SS, Mark Laird in the OF, and a young Parker Bugg pitching in relief, among others. It's really neat to be able to see that kind of talent at the college level and know that it's not far away from the major league level. Like 2012 we're down in Baton Rouge and Alex Wood starts for us and Kevin Gausman starts for LSU.... And within two years, both of those guys are pitching in the playoffs in major league baseball.
If I've said it once, I've said it 100 times.... There is nothing quite like the grind of SEC baseball. I absolutely cannot wait to get back into it.
