The Arizona Fall League kicks off today, and as always there are a number of interesting players participating. Baseball America’s Bill Mitchell previews the action with a closer look at Dodgers righty Jharel Cotton and Astros third baseman J.D. Davis. For a full breakdown of the notable names, check out these videos from BA’s John Manuel and take a look at MLB.com’s Jim Callis preview of the top prospects to watch.
Here are the latest prospect notes from around the game:
- Young Cuban lefty Adrian Morejon has left the island in search of a deal with a big league club, Baseball America’s Ben Badler reports. The 16-year-old is better compared with traditional July 2 prospects from elsewhere in Latin America than he is to the generally older Cuban prospects we’ve seen in recent years, and Badler says that Morejon is a high-end talent by that measure. His market timing remains to be seen, but he has a chance to be deemed eligible to sign in the current July 2 period based on recent policy precedent, which would potentially make him available to teams that will otherwise begin serving $300K+ signing bans next summer. Morejon’s move could be the latest sign of a potentially growing exodus of younger Cuban talent, Badler notes.
- The Cubs may have been closer to getting Yoan Moncada than has previously been known, despite the fact that the team was not eligible to sign him last winter. According to MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez (Twitter links), Chicago asked the budding Cuban star to consider waiting until this July to sign, and even dispatched skipper Joe Maddon to spend a full day with him and his camp. That effort nearly worked, says Sanchez, though obviously Moncada ended up heading to the Red Sox in March. Chicago went on to make a big splash in the international market without Moncada, but somehow managing to land him would’ve been a true coup.
- Baseball American has wrapped up its series of prospect rankings in each of the minor leagues. Most recently, it covered the best youngsters from the International League, many of whom have already ascended to the majors. You can find all of BA’s league-based rankings here.
They have to sort out the intake of international players a bit more. It’s still a mostly arbitrary process if you can make under the table deals to circumvent the rules.
Moncada had 23 errors at second base last season, not very good at all. And I don’t ever see him taking Pedroia’s spot in Boston. So what is more likely, a trade or a position change for Moncada?
He will most likely turn to third base, and Devers most likely to first base. I agree, Boston has had elite second base prospects in the past change positions necause of Pedroia.
Mookie Betts, for example.
They aren’t going to trade him. He costed too much for them to do that. He will likely end up at 3rd base, or perhaps the outfield. He could stick at 2nd so long as he fixes his footwork, but Pedroia has him blocked.
Error totals in the minors are meaningless. There are very good defensive SS’ s that had high error totals in the minors.
The bat is good enough to play pretty much anywhere if he does move off of short. A lot can change over the next 18 months, he’ll be starting somewhere for the Red Sox in 2017.
Yea the only players the Red Sox would even consider moving him for start and end with one name and that player is not moving anytime soon so I’m not going to even bring him up. He will also probably move to 3rd as others have mentioned or I could possibly see him moving to LF as well. I don’t see JBJ being consistent enough to merit a spot in the team’s OF long term. And I also think last season was a flash in the pan.
He has the ability to basically play anywhere. Third seems to be the most logical spot because of Bogaerts at third. He is raw defensively but has shown good strides over the past year.