[m0ng00se]

1957 OFFSEASON

RETIRED
Corky Stell - will comment on my big retirees when I'm at a computer that has their player pages available
Dennis Kitterman -


TRADE1
We traded to Boston: C John Dirtbag Degal, IF Mike Kreitenberg, and our 3rd round pick.
We got from them: 3B/C Ben Lutske, RF Jack Caufield, 1B Rye Allen, 2B Luke Logan and their 1st round pick.

TRADE2 - had one other trade I thought was going to give us the depth to help us field a winning team this year, but at the moment it appears to be dead in the water.

C/3B Ben Lutske - Ben started at Catcher for Boston last year. He'll likely start at 3B as a Tiger until either Camacho is ready for prime time which will (hopefully) be soon or until we can get that 3B we were hoping for via trade. Gale Adams (who backed up Degal for us last year) is more than competent behind the plate and will keep Ben's spot warm. The bottom line is we really have no one that can competently cover 3B and bat with any kind of skill. Hopefully Ben will enjoy the extra at bats until we can return him behind the plate. We like Ben's HR potential and his ability to hit to the gaps. He'll probably bat somewhere around 5th in the lineup.

1B Rye Allen - Rye is a nice power hitting 1B prospect. At 21 he already hits for more power than a lot of our active roster. I'm hoping he puts a serious challenge to Coleman for that 1B spot in a year or two. Not only does Rye have serious HR potential, but he also has a reliable glove at 1B. He finished last season in AA, but we hope that he has a strong spring training and earns the 1B spot at Buffalo-AAA.

LF/RF Jack Caufield - This 22 y/o lefty is yet another power hitting prospect. He should be a better all around hitter than Rye with nearly as much power. He looks best at RF and has a good arm there in the OF. He's not overly fast and his defensive range in LF is lacking a bit. He finished last season in AA, but I'm hoping he has a good spring training and earns the RF spot at Buffalo-AAA.

2B Luke Logan - Yet another AA guy who's could step up to AAA this year. He's got very nice range at 2B. He's also fast and should be a good OBP guy as he is has an awesome eye for drawing walks. He doesn't have any power hitting potential and can't bunt to save his life so it's lead off or bottom of the lineup for this guy. Hopefully he'll exceed our scouts expectations in contact hitting and become that solid leadoff guy that we lost when we traded Kreitenberg away.


1957 DRAFT
1R5 - SP Randy Bazer - We were so very much tempted at taking 2B Clarence Gaines at this spot, but we only saw 1 SP in the draft that we really liked. Randy was that guy and we didn't expect him to be around at pick 11. He's a very good all around talent who (at 22) is only a year or two away from the majors. He's got a 96MPH fastball. He's also been known as a great leader. He doesn't have much defensive range or as much endurance as we'd like, but otherwise could be an top starter in a few years. He'll likely be the ace of Buffalo-AAA.

1R11 - 3B Nestor "Nasty" Camacho - Nasty is a solid contact hitting 3B. He's also got decent power to the gaps and decent HR potential. He's a bit on the average side defensively, but can cover 2B & SS in a pinch. Despite being only 18 his bat is nearly developed enough that he could step in at 3B if we had a critical injury to Lutske or Adams. We'd prefer to leave him in the minors for a year or two. But if he were to have an a good spring training, it could change our post trade lineup plans. He will most likely start at 3B for Buffalo-AAA.

2R11 - C Will Hundley - Unfortunately Warren Pope and Tom Allen were nabbed. He had hoped one of these guys would fall to us. Given how short we are on young C prospects we went ahead and went with the best catcher available. Will is very solid in every way except for the fact that he's a slow runner and has had injury problems in the past. He's decent defensively and has a good arm for throwing out runners. At 18, he has a long way to go before he's ready for the bigs. He'll almost certainly start at C at Augusta-A.

4R11 - MR Jay Wilson - We traded away our 3rd round pick so Jay was our next pick in the draft. He's a MR who relies on the strikeout. His control and movement on his pitches is somewhat lacking, so it remains to be seen if he will ever make a major league roster. His control is especially under developed for a 21 y/o, so I'm not holding my breath on this guy. On a positive note, he does regularly throw 94mph and has some of the best defensive instincts I've ever seen on the mound... phenomenal range and almost never commits an error. He'll almost certainly be throwing to Hundley at Augusta-A.

Between the trade and this draft, we hope to see our Farm System rating jump up considerably. We were rated dead last at the end of last season with Knox being our only legit "rated" prospect.

Coming up next.... spring training. I'm so very curious to see how the new guys and the draftees sort out after a full spring training.