Archive for Christian Bethancourt

Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

Mike Montgomery, LHP, Tampa Bay Rays (Profile)
Level: Triple-A   Age: 24   Top 15: N/A   Top 100: N/A
Line: 0.90 ERA, 10 IP, 10.80 K/9, 3.60 BB/9, 1.00 WHIP

Summary
No longer an elite prospect, the left-handed Montgomery appears to have adapted well enough to reduced velocity to provide some future value at the major-league level.

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Bill Baer coined the term “Goldilocks Syndrome” to describe when we, as fans, get discouraged with a player or prospect because he isn’t perfect or what we hoped he would be, and Christian Bethancourt isn’t “just right”. Signed out of Panama in 2008, Bethancourt had elite potential behind the plate with good athleticism and an incredibly strong arm. The concern, however, was whether or not he could hit enough to even get the stellar defense to the majors, and four years after his signing, there are still serious concerns about Bethancourt’s bat, especially after hitting .243/.275/.291 in AA Mississippi. Bethancourt’s stock has predictably, and deservedly, fallen from the top prospect ranks, but while he’s no longer a “top prospect”, what can we still expect from him?

The chances of Bethancourt becoming a star have, indeed, fallen. One of Bethancourt’s most common comparisons is Yadier Molina because of their strong arms and inability to hit early in their careers, and the hope was (and still is to some degree) that Bethancourt can make the offensive improvements that Molina has.

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The Braves system is not as deep as it once was and the majority of the talent is found in the lower levels of the system. With that said, there are some intriguing pitching and up-the-middle infield prospects. The outfield depth is very thin.

#1 Julio Teheran (P)

It was an off year for Teheran but it’s important to remember that the Colombia native was just 21 years old and pitching in both triple-A and the majors. He posted a 5.08 ERA with 146 hits allowed in 131 innings for Gwinnet. His strikeout rate of 6.66 K/9 was a career low, and the result of poor fastball command. Teheran fell behind in counts too often and wasn’t able to set up his curveball.

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Seeing prospects in person is my passion. In 2012, I was fortunate enough to visit parks in five different leagues — collecting information and video on 200 legitimate prospects or more. The lists released over the next few weeks will highlight the best prospects I’ve seen in person at each position during the 2012 season. The rankings will be adjusted based on projected position at the major league level, not present position. Additionally, I’ll do my best to rank based on notes/video from the park and avoid adjusting for statistics after the fact. Keep this in mind when working through the lists and understand this is not meant to be a complete list of the best prospects at each position across all of Minor League Baseball, but the best of what I’ve seen.

In 2012, the ability to travel more afforded me the opportunity to see more legitimate catching prospects than ever before. And while I haven’t been able to list 10 prospects of note in previous years, finding complete young catchers is as difficult as ever.

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