Minor League Notes

I saw a blurb on mlbtraderumors.com about the Indians releasing minor league pitcher Scott Lewis today, which caught my eye, mainly because the Indians suck and Lewis has just enough to still be something of a prospect.  Lewis is 26 this year, and after three AAA starts, he has a 2.12 ERA with 18 Ks and only four walks in 17 innings pitched.

Whenever I see a player like this get cut, my mind always wondered what happened, because it obviously wasn’t his pitching.  I imagine that he screwed the owner’s daughter or did something in the clubhouse that totally ruined him as a teammate.

The answer, however, appears to be much more mundane and ultimately less satisfying.  Lewis is reportedly suffering from elbow soreness (he also appears to have had arm problems last year), which would explain why he’s only made three starts this season.  Most likely, the Indians suspect that Lewis is going to need Tommy John surgery and are cutting him loose now before they’re on the hook for paying him for a year while he recovers.

Minor league players don’t have the rights that major league players have by a long shot (no union), so an organization can cut the minor leaguers loose the moment it sniffs out a major injury in the making.  That’s the way the world works, boys and girls.

Another mlbtraderumors.com post that caught my eye was a link to a Winnipeg newspaper article bemoaning that 2009 Northern League Pitcher of the Year Andy “Ace” Walker didn’t get signed by a major league organization after his fine season.  I had a feeling I knew the reason why even before I looked Walker’s stats up, and I turned out to be right.

Ace Walker did have a fine year for the Winnipeg Goldeyes, the dominant team in the Northern League (Winnipeg is probably the largest urban area in the U.S. and Canada without at least a AA team).  He went 12-6 with a 3.32 ERA in 21 starts and 149 innings pitched, which is a lot when you consider that the Northern League only plays a 96 game schedule.

Walker’s line says it all, however:  149 IP, 156 hits and 29 walks allowed and 77 strikeouts.  In an absolute sense (i.e., compared to the overall population of North America), Walker is a fine pitcher.  The problem is, he’s no kind of major league prospect.

Walker is an extreme control pitcher, who knows how to pitch, but does not have anything close to major league stuff.  At age 26 last year, he was a great pitcher in the Northern League, which probably rates comparably to an A+ league for the major league organizations (what they used to call organized baseball).

Walker was once a 20th round draft pick of the Dodgers, and in his last year in their organization, he pitched at A+ Bakersfield at age 24.  His line was as follows: 4.99 ERA, 167.2 IP, 196 hits, 31 HRs and 30 walks allowed and 107 Ks.

Bakersfield in the California League is a tough place to pitch, so this was not as bad a year as the ERA indicates.  However, guys of this age and these statistics generally get their brains beaten out when they hit AA ball and the grade-A professional prospects.  The Dodgers beat the rush and dumped him sooner rather than later.

Walker matured over the next two seasons for Winnepeg and reached what he was in 2009: a 26 year old Ace in a A+ level league.  No major league organization is ever going to give him another chance unless he develops a strike out pitch good enough to rack up substantial numbers of Northern  League hitters.  Until then, he’s battling against the entire weight of 120 or so years of accumulated knowledge about the prospects who develop into major league pitchers.