Earlier this week I looked at some of the more interesting names on the Arizona League Reds roster who came from the international side of things. One guy stood out from the rest simply due to his age. Alberti Chavez. The Reds brought him stateside at just 17-years-old. They don’t do that with guys, so I decided to take a look back over the last 10 years at the Arizona League Reds or the Gulf Coast League Reds and charted out the age of players who showed up on the roster who were 23 or younger (some guys were older, mostly guys getting in some rehab before heading back to another club). Here is what it looked like:
This chart includes players both drafted and signed on the free agent market. Yorman Rodriguez has been the only 16-year-old on the team. There have been four players at age 17 come through in that time frame, but two of them were 17-year-old draftees in Theo Bowe and Gabriel Rosa. The other two players were Juan Duran and Ronald Torreyes. Torreyes, if you can recall, did not start his season that year stateside, but rather tore through the Venezuelan Summer League before a call up to Arizona. That really only leaves Yorman Rodriguez, Juan Duran and now Alberti Chavez as the only three players brought stateside to begin their season at age 17 or younger. That puts him in some really rare company and must say something about how the Reds feel about him. With that said, I know absolutely nothing about him other than the fact that he hit .314/.356/.396 last season in the Dominican Summer League with the Reds/Diamondbacks team that the two clubs shared. Interestingly enough, Chavez is not the youngest player on the 2013 Arizona League Reds. That goes to Shedric Long who was the Reds 12th round pick this year who is nearly a month younger. Both players will turn 18 before the season is over.
As I was writing this post up, Baseball America’s Jim Callis confirmed that the Reds have officially signed 2nd round pick Kevin Franklin for $675,000. I have updated the 2013 Draft Tracker to reflect his signing and updated the “cap” numbers.
Mo Wiley, the Reds 28th round draft pick from 2012 has made an interesting decision. After dominating the Pioneer League in 2012 he began the year in Dayton. He wound up tearing his UCL. Rather than going through Tommy John surgery and the rehab again (he has already had it in the past), he decided that he would just give throwing a knuckleball a try. Apparently it worked well enough that the Reds have put him back in Billings. He made his debut as a knuckleballer last night and allowed a run in an inning of work with a walk 2 strikeouts.
Looking forward to Monday, I will have up a scouting notebook on Junior Arias and two teenagers in the system who just started their 2013 seasons this past week.