SS A Taku Organizational Update 6-20-2010

Taku fired out of the gate with a 7-2 start, but a recent three game losing streak has dropped the Winds to 7-5 on the season, 2 games back in their division. Still, to be above .500 at this early stage with such a young team is really exciting for us.

How young is the Taku team? Consider, we have 13 players at Taku who are 17 years old. We have 6 players who are 18 years old. We have 8 players who are 19 years old. Thats 27 players out of 45 on the roster who are 19 years old or younger. We have two players who are 20 years old, 14 who are 21 years old, and 2 who are 22 years old. When Blake comes back from his injury and returns to Drumright, we will likely only have one player over the age of 21 years old on the Taku squad.

We discussed a lot of the present Taku pitching staff a few blogs back when discussing the draft. We have a lot of 17 year old pitchers riding the bench as well, and we won't waste a lot of time discussing any of them yet. One pitcher we did not talk about was off season signing Carlo Arcusa, a Filipino native we signed as a minor league free agent. Arcusa can hit 92 on the gun, and scouts think he will possess decent control. He's absolutely huge for a Filipino, 6 feet 5 inches tall. This is his first crack at professional ball, but our scouts are excited about his potential.

Over on the offensive side of things...

At catcher, 19 year old's Roberto Luna and Felipe Oliva are getting most of the playing time. Each is also getting some time at the corner infield positions to keep their bats in the lineup as often as possible. Luna was a 5th round draft choice in the 2009 draft, while Oliva was taken in the 7th round, so this is the second go around for both at the short season level. Oliva, a San Antonio native, has batted .480 through 8 games to this point, while Luna has batted .351 with a .405 obp through 10 games. 18 year old Jose Gonzales, a 7th round pick this season, will see limited playing time in a backup role. Also hanging out on the bench is 17 year old Felix De Jesus, an offseason free agent signing from Mexico. Felix has great size and good skills behind the plate, but our scouts believe he has zero talent with the bat in his hands. We brought him to see if our coaches can work some magic with the youngster.

22 year old Cristian Reyna is seeing the majority of playing time at first base. He's a little long in the tooth to be at short season ball, at least in our minds, and we don't project a lot of upside for Reyna. He's basicly filling a position until we find something better.

20 year old Alex Wilson is getting the majority of the playing time at second base. Our scouts have some hope that he could be a decent singles hitter and play average defense, but other than that there is not much to get excited about.

19 year old Tomas Rivera is a defensive specialist manning shortstop for the time being. He couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat and this is a position we will be looking for a serious upgrade at next season.

18 year old Roland Brown will see some limited time at 3b, we talked about him in the draft recap. He'll defer most of the playing time to the catchers, but should see some spot starts at the hot corner when those guys need a day off.

Riding the pine are a pair of 17 year old infielders, Jose Viera and Jose Ramirez. Scouts aren't real high on either, but well take a look and see if they can make any strides over the next year to determine whether they are worth keep around. We are particulary intrigued by Ramirez's size.

In the outfield, we think we have quite a collection of interesting players at Taku. We have 10 outfielders on the roster, 8 of whom we are trying to juggle playing time for. Late round draft pick Sharp is not likely to see much playing time, and 17 yr Manny Elias is generally limited to pinch running duties. But Elias has done a tremendous job in that role in his two seasons. He has played in 47 games over two seasons, with just 18 at bats. But he has stolen 9 bags and scored 16 runs. Not bad for a player with 3 career hits.

We are genuinely excited about the other 8 outfielders we are trying to get at bats for. We talked about Bobby Wilder in the draft recap. He has the ability to put the bat on the ball, but his at bats will be limited this season. We would love to see him earn more regular playing time next season. 19 year old Charles Miller has great speed and plays great defense, but hasn't done much with the bat in his first two seasons in very limited at bats off the bench. Still young, so we have time with him.

19 year old Jeffery Thomas is a former second round pick by Tempe who has done little with the bat to justify his draft pick. But he has great speed, and great bat control. We see slight improvements so far this year, but he is barely a year removed from high school and we believe we have lots of time for this talented to player to develop.

21 year old Lester Colcheeper has tremendous power, and great speed. The only question is will he hit for a high enough average to justify keeping him in the lineup. A free agent signing in the offseason, he has already blasted 4 home runs in his first 47 professional at bats.

19 year old Tomas Gonzales is a speed/defense type who has shown the ability to handle the bat reasonably well in his limited playing time in two seasons at Taku.

18 year old Charles Green was discussed in the draft recap. He won't get a lot of playing time this season, but we love his speed and he'll be in line for some stepped up playing time next season.

19 year old Curt Ramey was a 12th rd draft pick last season, and we like his bat enough to make sure he gets regular at bats. While we don't see stardom for him, we do think he might make an average ballplayer someday. He has slightly above average speed, plays better than average defense, and projects to have average power. The big question is whether he can cut down on the strikeouts enough to keep his bat in the lineup. He has hit .415 with 2 hr and 9 rbi through his first 11 games this season.

Well, that's our quick look at the Taku Winds.