It is no coincidence that the top six prospects in the Dodgers organization are pitchers, and that five of them were drafted out of high school. Logan White is in charge of the team’s amateur scouting department, and he might be the best in the business when it comes to analyzing and projecting young hurlers. He is certainly more willing than most to take a prep pitcher in the first round — seven in the last 10 years — with Clayton Kershaw being the shining star of his efforts.

White, whose official title is Assistant GM, Amateur and International Scouting, talked about the decision to draft Kershaw instead of Tim Lincecum, and his more-recent selections of Chris Reed, Zach Lee, Nate Eovaldi, and Allen Webster.

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White on 2010 first-round pick Zach Lee, biomechanical assessments, and signability: “Scouting and signing Zach was a fun time in my career, because we had the ability to go after a player above slot. The fact that he was a five-year payout guy and a dual-sport player certainly helped.

“We had what I call a video-scout draft, in January, that year. We do a lot of work on the biomechanics of the delivery and how the arm works. We match it with what our scouts have seen and come up with a list, as if the draft was that day. When we left that meeting, Zach was one of the top guys on it. Read the rest of this entry »

This morning I was scrolling through some of Dan Szymborski’s projections over at Baseball Think Factory, and I noticed that he had run a projection for Matt Stairs. I had not heard any news about the guy we all know now as a pinch-hitter. As I scoured the internets (read: typed “Matt Stairs” into Google) I quickly realized that Stairs had retired, though since he will be a studio analyst for NESN this year, all is not lost. Still, it will be disappointing to not see him on the field any longer.

Few pinch hitters struck fear in my heart the way Matt Stairs did. When Stairs came to the plate against a team for which I was rooting, I always sure that something bad was about to happen. Even still, I couldn’t hate him. A portly slugger with a great sense of humor — I will always remember Will Carroll forwarding the Baseball Prospectus email group an email from Stairs with a picture of his flexed calf muscle and promptly doubling over in laughter — Stairs was exceedingly easy to root for, and in the latter, pinch-hitting days of his career he became somewhat of a nerdy folk hero.

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Episode 136
The Washington Nationals recently signed Edwin Jackson to a one-year, $11 million deal. Does the addition of Jackson make the Nats a contender? How would the definition of “contender” change if a second wild-card playoff spot were installed? Also, the Baltimore and Colorado trade: what’s the deal with that? Managing editor Dave Cameron answers all these questions unblinkingly.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 39 min. play time.)

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Stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before. According to Nick Cafardo, both Mark Prior and Brandon Webb are on the comeback trail once again.

Everybody knows Prior’s story by now. A former second overall pick, Prior had a tremendous 2003 before injuries started to derail his career. He last pitched in the majors in 2006, and posted a terrible 6.56 FIP in just 43.2 innings. Since then, Prior has bounced around to different minor league teams, trying to recapture some of his old magic. His former pedigree continues to get him chances, but things don’t look promising for Prior. Following sports hernia surgery, Prior will begin working out for teams in March.

Webb’s last meaningful game took place on opening day 2009. Following five straight seasons with at least 200 innings pitched, the former Cy Young only last four innings before succumbing to a shoulder injury. Since shoulder surgery, Webb has failed to regain his velocity. He’ll throw for teams at some point in March in hopes that someone will give him one more chance in the bigs.

Both players have some history of elite production in the majors, otherwise, this would be a non-story. While it would be a great narrative if either player made it back to the big leagues, the odds are stacked against them. Here’s hoping for the best for the former aces.

Brad Penny’s career in American professional baseball may not be officially over quite yet, but it has been put on hold. The 33-year-old right-hander will instead pitch for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks (as passed along by Patrick Newman) during the 2012 campaign, and his contract contains an option for 2013 as well.

Penny’s performance in 2011 — a 5.30 ERA and a 5.02 FIP thanks to a staggeringly low 3.7 strikeout rate — made him look like a 43-year-old rather than a 33-year-old. It isn’t long ago that Penny was starting an All-Star Game — 2006, opposite Kenny Rogers of all matchups — and although maybe his selection as an All-Star starter was an odd one, Penny deserves some recognition for his performance from 2001 through 2007.

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The Washington Nationals have been making headlines lately with big such as trading for Gio Gonzalez and getting a one-year deal with Edwin Jackson. They were even rumored to be in on the Prince Fielder sweepstakes. Some of the Nationals’ other moves understandably have garnered less attention, such as minor-league deals for veteran outfielders Mike Cameron and (more recently) Rick Ankiel. While these are low-risk deals that may turn out to be bench insurance, given some ambiguities about the Nationals’ outfield situation, Cameron and Ankiel could form a nice stopgap platoon in center field that would allow Washington to protect other, more significant investments.

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Ideas for this post came from conversations with Dave Cameron on recent episodes of FanGraphs Audio. Most scouting info is courtesy Baseball America.

Allow me to establish immediately that the title of this post is, in part, disingenuous: insofar as every player is unique, there is no “Next Michael Pineda.” There are pitchers who will surprise us with their success in 2012, for sure — some of them in a way similar to how Michael Pineda surprised us in 2011 — but none of them, obviously, will do it in precisely the same way that Pineda did.

Having said that, allow me to also submit that Michael Pineda absolutely represents a type of pitcher who is perhaps more likely to succeed than we (or, at least, than the present author) has, at one point, assumed.

To get a sense of what I mean, let’s consider the relative prospect statuses, over the last three years, of Pineda and the player (Jesus Montero) for whom he was traded this offseason.

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Toward the end of his weekly Sunday notes column for the Boston Globe, Nick Cafardo included the following write-up on John Lannan:

Lannan, 27, is a terrific option as an end-of-the rotation starter now that Washington has signed Edwin Jackson. There is a lot of speculation that the Nationals will deal him to the Angels for center fielder Peter Bourjos, with Mike Trout on the way to play that position in Anaheim. But the Nationals could also move Jayson Werth to center and sign a right fielder. It now appears that Yoenis Cespedes is not in their plans and they have cooled on B.J. Upton. Lannan, who went 10-13 last year with a 3.70 ERA and a (high) 1.462 WHIP, would be a good option for a team like Boston, but the Red Sox don’t seem to have the center fielder to give back, especially with Ryan Kalish unable to play until June. “It doesn’t have to be a center fielder,’’ said one major league source. “They don’t have to get a center fielder in that deal as long as they get a center fielder some other way. The Red Sox make a lot of sense.’’

Again, with emphasis added:

There is a lot of speculation that the Nationals will deal him to the Angels for center fielder Peter Bourjos…

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The Chicago Cubs have long been connected to Cuban defector Yoenis Cespedes this winter, but last week, they came to terms with another Cuban free agent, 19-year-old left-hander Gerardo Concepcion.

Concepcion flew under the radar for the majority of the offseason. The focus has been on the higher ceiling Cubans, which left much of the baseball community slackjawed at the $7M price tag the Cubs had to pony up to land the southpaw. Teams simply do not spend that much money on a prospect that is largely considered to be nothing more than a back-end starter … tops.

That is, unless one factors in the fact that international spending will now be capped, starting this upcoming July. Rick Hahn, Assistant General Manager of the Chicago White Sox, predicted a week ago that teams would be “extraordinarily aggressive on Cespedes, Soler and Concepcion” due to the upcoming limitations. He turned out to be right on the money.

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The curiously formidable Estadio Quisqueya.

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Offseason Notes.

1. Caribbean Series Notes
2. Video Tribute to Caribbean Series, Set to AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: San Francisco Television

Caribbean Series Notes
Current Standings
Here are the current standings of the Caribbean Series, after four days of games, presented in a sortable HTML table.

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