When the team rosters were released for the ’07 season, the consensus was that the T-Rats as a team would be playing quite differently in the second half from the first one. The assumption was that, with many younger players on the roster (tied for first with youngest staff, younger than average for lineup by the end of year), they’d take some time to adjust to the league before they really started showing their talent. What we didn’t know is that it would instead be a different team playing, following a major lineup overhaul. Though they did have a better record in the second half, 31-39 to 22-46 in the first, they also had 57 different players in uniform for the season, 55 if you take out the rehabbers. By comparison, the rest of the league averaged about 46, and only two others were close to the T-Rats. Tacoma still has them beat in overall roster appearances, if only for the sheer number of pitchers that were on that roster, but it’s still quite a few to be going through, considering neither High Desert nor West Tenn topped fifty. In terms of overall roster construction, it might suit my needs better to treat them as two separate teams, but that would end up with a lot of unnecessary repetition, so I’ll just take them as they come.The offense primarily comprised a group of players who were either young and raw or undeveloped for whatever reason. Hitters like these tend to play in similar ways, they strike out a lot, they don’t always walk, they’re streaky, and sometimes their power production is lacking. Some variation exists between them, however, and we can expect certain divides to only deepen as time goes on. Some of these guys still have a chance to develop into solid prospects in their own right with further refinement. Others are trending towards being short-term organization filler, as are the vast majority of minor leaguers. We expected there to be greater positive strides as soon as this season, but since that didn’t come to pass, we’re stuck waiting until next year again where certain performances in the California League may require closer examination.
Let's play a game of How Many Catchers?
One position that saw a great deal of turnover was that of catcher, where the T-Rats tried out eight different players. Since I’ve already talked about a few of them with Everett, I’ll stick to the primary two in Jair Fernandez and Juan Beltran, though one or the other was generally on the DL to start out. Fernandez is as natural a backstop as you’ll find, and has the potential to be a decent bat for position, but his focus tends to come and go. He decreased his passed ball rate significantly this year, but his errors climbed somewhat. With the bat, he had the sixth highest OPS in the team with .720, better than the league average, though not too much to brag about. One problem that seemed to plague him was consistency. He usually stayed around a .280 average, but one month he would be taking walks, and the next he wouldn’t, one month he’d hit for power, and the next would see little in the way of extra-base hits. Until he fixes those things, he’s little more than organization fodder, but if he puts all those pieces together for a longer stretch, he’ll vault up the lists.
Now. A game of How Many Second Basemen?
The T-Rats also used six different second baseman, but I’ve already talked about [Luis] Nunez and Ogui Diaz, so I’ll gloss the three “primary” players in Ron Garth, Trevor Lawhorn, and Alex Meneses. Garth gets the nod here was being the leader, with forty-eight games logged. His second tour of the MWL came after a two-month run in the Cal League that can’t be characterized as anything other than abysmal. That he rebounded while moving down a level isn’t at all surprising, but for a guy who turned twenty-three a month ago, he should’ve at least been in High Desert for most of the season. His hitting has to carry him, because his defense doesn’t quite make the mark.
Here's something I probably knew -- the key number being 400, but haven't pointed out here. That's what Jay does.
With that, we come to Alex Liddi, the only player in the roster to crack 400 ABs, even it was that number exactly. Scouting types still love Liddi and are quick to point out that seeing a teenager struggle in the Midwest League is hardly an uncommon thing. I’d side with that notion still, even if his overall numbers were worse than the last couple of times we’ve seen this happen and he’s already on a corner position (though he’s reportedly far stronger defensively there than his numbers would indicate). If you’re going off his stats purely, you’re not going to see much because month to month he was pretty much the same player up until August with minor variance here and there and some slugging improvement in June and August. Weak numbers, but decent peripherals, as his OBP was .068 higher than his average and his SLG was .142 higher. The main red flag here is the strikeouts, as is really the case for most of the team. Roughly five out of every sixteen at-bats would result in a K for him, and that’s not going to hold up in the future. Nor did it show any clear signs of improvement over the course of the season. There’s still hope that he’ll adjust with better hitting environments and increased playing time, but the numbers don’t show much headway.
Plenty more information over there. Go read it all. I would guess that the pitching review will be up over there later.
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