Top 50 Red Sox Prospects of the Last 50 Years

runnels3

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Terrific piece of writing. I was thrilled that Jim Ed & Dewey made it 1-2. The possibilities for those two back then seemed as limitless as Xander's do today.
 
I'll never forget the October pennant pressure catch Evans made in only his 17th game with the senior club that fall in '72, a catch that kept the Sox in a 1-0 do-or-die game against  Detroit. Here's how Ned Martin described it with two runners on in the 5th.
 
"Fly ball left center field...Evans is over there...he falls down and HAS THE BALL! MAKES A GREAT CATCH! Dwight Evans slipped and fell in the turf out there and lying down reached the glove back and held onto the baseball!!......the youngster 20 year old Dwight Evans has made the play of the night."
 

moondog80

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I don't get this:
 
 
 
But Quinones didn't last a full season in Boston -- the collateral damage in the "Oil Can" Boyd I-didn't-make-the-All-Star-team-freakout, he was dealt to Seattle in a package for the less-talented but more stable Spike Owen and future postseason sensation Dave Henderson
 
Because Oil Can went AWOL, they had to trade for a SS and OF?  Was there a bad synergy with Oil Can and Quinones?
 

The Talented Allen Ripley

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Great series, Chad, brought back a lot of memories. Based on Gammons hype alone I'd have thought Jeff McNeely would have made the list somewhere, though. Gammo had me thinking he was the next Willie Mays. His MiL stats don't come close to bearing that out, of course, but that's what made this thought-provoking list so fun. It's hilarious to see how high our hopes were for some of these "prospects"; it's probably one of the universal things about being a baseball fan.
 

WenZink

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moondog80 said:
I don't get this:
 
 
Because Oil Can went AWOL, they had to trade for a SS and OF?  Was there a bad synergy with Oil Can and Quinones?,
My best guess:  The Sox had been cruising through the AL East up until the All Star game, with a lead of 8 games.  After Oil Can's trantum (and suspension for 3+ weeks), they went 6-15 and the lead dwindled to 2,5 games, putting GM Gorman into a position to do something to stop the slide.
 

E5 Yaz

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Finally finished reading through, Chad. Superb stuff ... and I was greatly thankful to see Ken Brett in the Top 5. As I hit No. 30, I kept thinking where was he? For some of us who were kids in 67, he was the pitching equivalent of what we'd seen arrive in Scott and Smith and TonyC
 

ngruz25

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This was awesome. One guy I don't think has been mentioned from those fruitful late 90's Duquette pitching prospects: Juan Pena. I guess the hype after his first and only two starts was greater than his minor league pedigree... but man, I thought he was a sure thing.
 

valentinscycle

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This was the most engrossing reading I've come across in a long while.  I'm always pleased to see the alternate-universe winners of the Gammons World Championship of the mid-late 90s-- the Sox of Sadler, Rodriguez, and Rose among others-- restored to memory.
 
Meanwhile, my son's Craig Hansen Sea Dogs bobblehead quietly weeps.
 

Chad Finn

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Pena is a good one. Had a great season in High A at Michigan at age 19, with just 34 walks to 156 Ks. Struggled a little in Double A the next year, moved to Pawtucket in '98 and struck out 146 in 139.2 innings. Definitely right on the fringe of the 50. Man, he really is an unsolvable what-if story. Two great starts and gone. He's only 36 now, and that feels like two generations ago.
 

Eddie Jurak

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Anyone recall why the Red Sox dealt Dom Aase to the Angels for the RemDawg?  
 
Aase's debut was the first Red Sox game I went to (not that I remember any of it).  
 
Given his injury history, and a few good years from Remy, this deal didn't go down as a terrible, Bagwell for Andersen type of waste.  
 
But it's hard to imagine a similar deal happening today - when was the last time a 22 year old, 6-2, 3:00-ish ERA starter with a strong minor league track record was dealt for an 80-ish OPS+ 2B?
 
I know the Sox of that time had a gaping hole at 2B, but still...
 

WenZink

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Eddie Jurak said:
Anyone recall why the Red Sox dealt Dom Aase to the Angels for the RemDawg?  
 
Aase's debut was the first Red Sox game I went to (not that I remember any of it).  
 
Given his injury history, and a few good years from Remy, this deal didn't go down as a terrible, Bagwell for Andersen type of waste.  
 
But it's hard to imagine a similar deal happening today - when was the last time a 22 year old, 6-2, 3:00-ish ERA starter with a strong minor league track record was dealt for an 80-ish OPS+ 2B?
 
I know the Sox of that time had a gaping hole at 2B, but still...
 
At that time the Sox were in a win-now mode, having a strong nucleus of position players, but having a gap at 2B.  Aase probably did not project to be a top of the line starter, having shown less than 5Ks/9 in his 1977 starts with the team.  They had just signed Mike Torrez as a free agent, which deepened their rotation (and a few months later traded for Eckersly.)  But if I remember correctly, Aase had a lot of sink on the ball, kept his pitches low in the strike zone and probably would have been ideal for Fenway.  (not 100% sure.)
 
And of course OPS+ didn't exist in 1977 and they probably just looked at Remy's 41 SB's in 1977, and said to themselves, "Oh boy, he'll be a great leadoff hitter!" ignoring his 17 CS, and sub-par OBP.  Ancient times, back then.  They also used Rick Burleson at leadoff, and his OBP in '78 was .295.  You wonder if a team in 1977 had hired Bill James out of the bean cannery as an advisor, how would they have done vs. the competition.
 

smastroyin

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Not only was Pena abused but his primary out pitch was the slider, which from my limited understanding of orthopaedics puts the most strain on the elbow, resulting from the lower arm action required to throw the pitch effectively.  I remember having arguments on projo or usenet with people (who are probably here) about the improbability of the line drive causing the trauma to his ligaments.
 
The slider was all the rage in the mid-90's, before Mariano Rivera turned all these people onto the cutter.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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Chad Finn said:
Thanks. I think Rose was around No. 47 and Suppan 37 if I remember correctly. Had Aaron Sele much higher originally -- he was in the late-30s range as well.
 
 
Again, thanks for the series.  I've read the first and last, and look forward to catching up in the middle.
 
BTW, if you were dumbfounded by my Suppan/Rose comment, here's the explanation.  In the final installment (http://www.boston.com/sports/touching_all_the_bases/2014/04/red_sox_top_50_prospects_of_al.html), there is a recap listing of all 50 prospects.  Suppan is left off by accident, and when I didn't see the name in that list I didn't know that you included him at 37.
 
Just mentioning in case someone wants to update that webpage.
 

E5 Yaz

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smastroyin said:
Not only was Pena abused but his primary out pitch was the slider, which from my limited understanding of orthopaedics puts the most strain on the elbow, resulting from the lower arm action required to throw the pitch effectively.  I remember having arguments on projo or usenet with people (who are probably here) about the improbability of the line drive causing the trauma to his ligaments.
Oh man, that line drive. If memory serves, hadn't they decided that Rose had won the rotation spot, and the liner came in the first ST game after that when Pena came in for relief?
 

Frisbetarian

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Outstanding series, Chad. Truly and enjoyable read.
 
I was hoping to see one of my old favorites somewhere in there, George Scott, who as a 21 year old in 1965 won the Triple Crown in AA Pittsfield, then hit 27 home runs the following season with the Red Sox. Where did Boomer rank in your prospect list?
 

WenZink

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Frisbetarian said:
Outstanding series, Chad. Truly and enjoyable read.
 
I was hoping to see one of my old favorites somewhere in there, George Scott, who as a 21 year old in 1965 won the Triple Crown in AA Pittsfield, then hit 27 home runs the following season with the Red Sox. Where did Boomer rank in your prospect list?
Scott's Triple Crown in 1965 was attained with his final swing of the bat -- a homerun with a runner on, that moved him into 1st in RBI, BA and HR.  I believe it also clinched the regular season championship for Pittsfield over Elmira.  It's on the back of one of his baseball cards, and Topps doesn't lie!
 

Frisbetarian

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WenZink said:
Scott's Triple Crown in 1965 was attained with his final swing of the bat -- a homerun with a runner on, that moved him into 1st in RBI, BA and HR.  I believe it also clinched the regular season championship for Pittsfield over Elmira.  It's on the back of one of his baseball cards, and Topps doesn't lie!
 
Great memory, WenZink.
 
1965 was a banner year for both George and Pittsfield. Scott iced a 3-1 Pittsfield victory over Springfield on the season's final day with an eighth-inning homer that gave Pittsfield the championship. That homer also won him the home run title, and the Triple Crown. Pittsfield finished 85-55, one game ahead of second place Elmira. Scott finished with a .319 average, 25 homers, and 94 RBIs. He also led the league in total bases (290), hits (167), doubles (30), at-bats (523), and games played (140). He was named the Most Valuable Player and received a unanimous vote from the National Association of Baseball Writers that named him to the Double A All-East All-Star team.
 

mabrowndog

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Chad, that addendum piece is also fascinating and thought-provoking. One wonders what a Top 50 covering post-WWII through 1964 might look like. Agganis, Dropo, Malzone, Stephens, Goodman, Piersall, White, Sullivan, Bolling, Nixon, Baumann, Consolo, Lepcio, Buddin, Pagliaroni, McDermott, Kemmerer, Pumpsie, DeLock, Keough, Gernert, Brewer, Kiely, Casale, Sisler, Daley, Zauchin, etc. along with those early 60s players.
 
And as Chad notes, Reggie Smith wasn't in these rankings either, having originally signed with the Twins. What I find both surprising and peculiar in retrospect is that Minnesota, less than 6 months after signing him, left Reggie unprotected for the December '63 minor league draft after just a half-season of rookie ball at Wytheville (VA) in the Appalachian League.
 
Granted he only hit .257 in the apparent be-all end-all offensive stat category for shortstops of the day. Hell, they didn't even keep track of walks by batters back then. But he also slugged .407, and scored 59 runs while driving in 37 in just 66 games. I mean, clearly the guy got on base and produced runs while displaying a power stroke (8 HR). This from an 18-year-old with a strong arm and great speed. He hadn't yet started to switch-hit (that would come during his tenure in Boston's system), nor had he been utilized at any other positions (the Sox moved him to 3B & CF in 1964).
 
My guess: The executive brains of the day took one look at that batting average -- and the 41 errors he was charged with -- and decided he couldn't play baseball. But I'd love to go back in time and be a fly on the wall in whatever room in Minneapolis where that decision might have been made, and to read/hear the assessments from the Wytheville coaching staff*. I'd also love to know what prompted the Sox to select him and which scouts provided the impetus to snag him. Considering the following season at Class A Waterloo he drew 49 BB in 364 PA (13.5%) with just 68 Ks, I suspect Smith earned a fair amount of walks during that rookie campaign while showing a keen eye at the plate.
 
* Reggie's manager there was Adelbert "Red" Norwood, a Warren ME native, Gould Academy star, and ex-UMaine pitcher who signed with the Red Sox in 1949, playing in their system for 5 seasons, and whose son Scott was the ill-fated Buffalo Bills kicker who missed "Wide Right!" in Super Bowl XXV.
 
Also, one of Smith's teammates at Wytheville was an outfielder named Charlie Manuel. Wonder what he thought about Reggie back then?
 

LahoudOrBillyC

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Dog, the weird rules of the time said that every "first year" player (meaning that he had played exactly one year in the minor leagues) had to put him on the 40-man roster in December or you would risk losing him in a draft (like the Rule 5 draft, but not the same), AND had you to put him on the 25-man roster in April or risk losing him to waivers.  So the Twins had to decide after one season in the minors if Smith was a major league player, and what's more, he was competing with other first year Twin prospects for slots on the team. The one exception to the 25-man-roster stipulation (at least by 1963 or so) is that each team could designate one player that they could send down without protecting. 
 
In 1964, for example, the Red Sox had four first-year players (one year minor leaguers) on the 40-man-roster and in camp (Horton, Conigliaro and pitchers Pete Charlton and Dave Gray) and had to keep at least three of them on the big league team.  They opted to keep the pitchers and decided to option Horton because they decided they needed an OF more than a first baseman -- Gary Geiger got sick in the spring, creating the need for a spare OF.  The stories from camp have both players as sure fire stars - they both crushed it.  They were also great friends -- good looking power hitters.
 
The Red Sox, as luck would have it, benefited hugely from this rule -- gaining Smith, Joe Foy and Sparky Lyle via this route.  (Other good players -- like Jim Wynn, Denny McLain and Paul Blair -- switched teams in the minors due to either to the draft or because the team could not get waivers to send them down.)  This is why the 1960s are loaded with teenagers, and many of them (like Conigliaro) made good even though with a different system he might not have been in the major league camp.
 
I think it is fair to say that Red Sox, and everyone else, considered Horton as good a prospect as Conigliaro at the time.  He got a much bigger bonus and they both had great first years in 1963 (Conigliaro was better, but he had also gotten hurt and Horton played in a higher league).  Horton was one month older -- they were both 19-year-old prodigies.  Ted Williams said that Horton was the best looking hitter (including the players on the team) in the Red Sox 1964 camp.
 
Ed Kenney, the great Red Sox scout, used to tell the story of the time Horton and Congliaro (both *17* years old) came to Fenway for a tryout (September 1962) before deciding if they would offer them deals.  From the SABR bio, to which I added this story: "Tony Conigliaro, a local 17-year-old slugger who the Red Sox also wanted to sign, was there as well, and the two Tonys pitched to each other. According to Kenney, telling The Sporting News two years later, Horton hit Conigliaro's first pitch into the center field seats, perhaps 430 feet away. The second pitch was driven to right field over the two bullpens. "To the day of my death, I'll never forget it," said Kenney. Kenney looked at the others, said, "that's enough for me," and walked into the clubhouse."  They gave Horton $125,000, five times what Tony C got.  One reason is that they had to talk Horton out of his basketball scholarship to UCLA -- he is considered one of the best athletes ever to come out of southern California, a huge basketball and baseball star.
 
Horton was caught in a ridiculous logjam in Boston, which was bleeding hitting prospects.  He got the first base job as a 21-year-old in 1966, but after a tough first week, they tried George Scott who went on a home run tear and ended up starting the All-Star game.  When Dick Williams showed up to manage in 1967, he told reporters that Scott did not have the job won, that Horton (who had starred for Williams at Toronto) was going to get a shot to win the job in the spring.  They finally ended up dealing him for Gary Bell (a huge, huge deal that year) and Horton became a star in Cleveland. And then he cracked up.
 
Had Horton been given the 1B job in 1966, or even earlier, and kept it in Boston, he would have hit a ton of home runs, maybe 500 if he had avoided his demons.  Conigliaro is a tragic what-if story, of course.  So is Horton.
 

WenZink

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Chad Finn said:
Sat down with Speier and Gammons yesterday to talk about the project, the history of Sox prospects, and a lot more yesterday. It'll air on Alex's Down On The Farm program on WEEI at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow.
 
Chad, I enjoyed your hour with Speier and Gammons yesterday morning.  Great discussion that I wished could have gone for hours.  One of the things I wondered about was the ability of some organizations to be able to scout, draft and develop position players vs pitchers, and vice versa, particularly in relation to the early '70s Red Sox.
 
One minor quibble, unless I heard incorrectly, a couple of times, legendary Sox scout, Joe Stephenson was referred to as "Jerry," who, of course, was his son who he signed to a Sox contract in the early '60s.
 

Chad Finn

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Ugh, thanks WenZink. Screwed that up in my Lynn writeup as well. Joe Stephenson has a fascinating bank of scouting reports on file on the Hall of Fame site. Pretty much a who's-who from the '70s. (That site can be wonky so the link may not work. But it's definitely worth checking out.)
 
Also, someone asked me about Rey Quinones and what happened him. Gammons confirmed the suspicions about the off-field stuff and said someone did a profile on him many years ago and found him broke and collecting crabs on a beach somewhere to make a few bucks.
 

WenZink

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Chad Finn said:
.... Joe Stephenson has a fascinating bank of scouting reports on file on the Hall of Fame site. Pretty much a who's-who from the '70s. (That site can be wonky so the link may not work. But it's definitely worth checking out.)
 
....
 
Great stuff!! First scouting report I looked up was on former Dodger/Expo OF, Willie Davis (at 17); "Fastest thing I've seen on the bases."   No lie.
 

Rough Carrigan

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Wow.  Kudos to Browndog for starting this thread and to Chad Finn for all the wonderful information.
 
The really fascinating ones for me are the late 70's and 80's guys.  I had started following baseball and goddam if Gammons wouldn't have preteen and teenage me convinced that every new Sox prospect was going to be a hall of famer.  It was obvious that he was seeing these guys a bit through rose colored glasses but damn if we didn't get Truped on a ton of prospects.
 
Great stuff Chad.
 

Rudi Fingers

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Loved the entire series, Chad, as well as this entire thread - Thanks!
Still smiling at your description of Don Zimmer as "a hypersensitive old-school manager who could neither hit nor understand pitching"