Rangers Top 6 Infield Prospects

1) Adrian Gonzalez (1b)

It seems impossible, but in spite of a very solid year in the PCL at age 22, Adrian Gonzalez's stock fell considerably this year because he failed to hit home runs with any significant degree of regularity. But the harder I looked at his season and the more I studied it, putting it in context, the more impressed I was.

Gonzalez, who turned 22 midway through the 2004 season and dropped about 20 pounds of baby fat between the 2003 and 2004 seasons, hit .304 / .364 / .457 at triple A Oklahoma. Gonzalez is younger than Juan Senreiso, Vincent Sinisi, Drew Meyer, Ian Kinsler and fully two years younger than Jason Botts. He has already made his MLB debut and he hit comfortably over .300 in triple A. What's not to like? Evidently, hitting only 12 homers is what drove his stock down.

But before we bury Gonzalez on the basis of the theory that he lacks the power to hold down first base for the Rangers, let's try to put the fact that he slugged "just" .457 in triple A at the age of 22 / 23 in context. When Jason Giambi was 22, he slugged .470 at high A Modesto. Todd Helton slugged .333 at single A Asheville. Jim Edmonds slugged .490 in triple A Edmonton. Erubiel Durazo slugged .464 in the Mexican League. Moises Alou slugged .464 in the low A Sally League. And when Rafael Palmeiro was 22, he slugged .442 at double A Pittsfield. All went on to post career slugging averages right at or comfortably over .500 in the big leagues.

Bottom line: It's too early to give up on the idea of Gonzalez developing power.

Once upon a time, folks projected Palmeiro onto Gonzalez because they share the same textbook, silky smooth left-handed swing, but lately Gonzalez is more often (and probably more accurately) compared to Mark Grace, John Olerud and Doug Mienkiewicz. He is a high average hitter with some gap power who uses the whole field, wields an exceptional glove and is burdened by unbelievably slow feet. I can't overstate that last fact: he is probably the slowest professional athlete I've ever seen. He's so horribly slow, that I've often heard fans who evidently assume that no one could possibly be that slow complain that he is lazy, which he obviously isn't. His "technical" footwork around the bag, however, is above average.

Scouts are split on whether or not Gonzalez will ever develop fence power and as this past season wore on it seems as if more and more of them moved into the camp believing that he never will. But before we pigeonhole Gonzalez as a powerless, slick-fielding first baseman in the Mark Grace / Doug Mienkiewicz / John Olerud vein, let's allow for the possibility that he could change. Last year, he dropped a lot of the baby fat. If he hit the weight room hard this winter and packed some muscle onto his frame, he could certainly could be in line for a breakthrough power season.

Whether the power comes along or not, he can hit and you can be reasonably sure that he always will, no matter who is throwing. He has great balance with a short, quick swing. He distributes line drives all over the ball yard, hitting fastballs and offspeed pitches alike. Gonzalez hits lefties and righties almost equally well, with a slightly better average against lefties and a little more power against right handers (.298 / .360 / .473 vs. RHP and .319 / .373 / .420 vs. LHP). For those of you who believe in "clutch hitting," get this: Gonzalez hit .343 with runners on base, .353 with runners in scoring position, .320 with runners in scoring position and two outs and an incredible .538 with the bases loaded.

I can't find a trend in his season. He had a power burst in June, going .360 / .439 / .640 for the month only to regress to .307 / .358 / .409 in July and bounce back a bit to .321 / .372 / .450 in August, which was probably his most representative month.

PROJECTION: I can't wait to see AG in spring training. I'm hoping to see a stronger, more muscular hitter and if I do, I'll be very excited because if the power does come, he's the whole package. If someone wants him to round out the right deal, I have little doubt that the Rangers will be willing to send him packing, but do not be surprised if Mark Teixeira moves to the outfield at some point this season to make room for AG at first.

2) Ian Kinsler (SS / 2b)

In case you ever wondered what Buck Showalter knows about evaluating young talent, let me share something with you that could clear things up.

Tucson native Ian Kinsler spent a lot of time last winter hanging around in Surprise, getting in as much work and as much face time as possible. Even after Fall Instructionals, Kinsler was at the Rangers spring training facility on a regular basis, working out. By all accounts, Kinsler changed. He added 15 lbs. of muscle, shortened his swing and dramatically increased his bat speed. When spring training rolled around, Showalter rewarded him for his long hard winter of work with a few appearances in big league games.

Here was a kid, picked in the 17th round, coming off of a pretty ordinary short season NWL performance, and yet game, after game, after game, Buck was putting a big league uniform on the kid and he was showing up in big league spring training box scores. Why?

It wasn't as if the Rangers lacked options in the middle infield. In addition to Michael Young and Alfonso Soriano, there were Jason Bourgeois and Drew Meyer, David Newhan and Marshall McDougall and Manny Alexander. Texas didn't need to use Kinsler in those games for any reason. No. Kinsler was in big league camp for one reason: the skipper loved looking at the kid.

Kinsler was sent off to Clinton where he broke out with a big month to open the season, hitting .361 / .432 / .583 in April. At that point, it was virtually inconceivable that his big month was anything more than that. Just one big month. But it turned out to be his worst. In May, he amped it up to .407 / .465 / .637 and during the first half of the month of June he entered the stratosphere with a .462 / .522 / 1.051 opus that got him kicked out of the league--and the next one too.

So the 17th rounder landed in double A one year and one week after he was drafted. Surely he would hit the wall. Surely there was no way he could maintain anything close to the ridiculous .402 / .465 / .692 he had posted in Clinton. Indeed he couldn't maintain it: he got better still, going .365 / .470 / .764 in his first month of Texas League action. Impossible.

Ultimately, Kinsler finished up .300 / .400 / .480 in Frisco. To put those numbers in perspective, Kinsler would have finished eighth in the league's batting race, fourth in OBP and and seventh in slugging percentage had he gotten enough plate appearances to qualify (he was short by about 60). Then, to top it all off, they threw the kid to the wolves in the Arizona Fall League where he erased all doubt, hitting .306 / .369 / .500.

To put it mildly, this was no fluke. This was no hot streak. This was a legitimate breakthrough. Kinsler hit 51 doubles this year. That's how many Albert Pujols hit in the majors--in about 90 more at-bats. He hit 20 homers. He drove in 98 runs. He stole 23 bags. In Frisco, he hit .352 when leading off an inning.

Kinsler is a notorious plate hog and it gets him plunked on a habitual basis. I don't have the numbers to back this up, but I did read play-by-play recaps of every game the kid played this year, and it was clear that he is a dead pull hitter. The vast majority of his extra base hits were to left field in Clinton as well as in Frisco where I had the chance to see him play on a fairly regular basis over the second half of the season. He rarely goes the other way, looking to turn on everything, frequently opening up his body.

I asked John Hudgins--who specializes in looking for ways to expose hitters weaknesses--if he thought that Kinsler's approach would soon be exposed and got this response: "I doubt it. A bunch of the pitchers in the AFL threw 97 and Ian had no problem turning on them either. He has the bat speed to do that." Hudgins went on to marvel "I have trouble when I face him. I don't know what to do with him."

Of minor concern: Kinsler hit .323 / .425 / .490 against right handed pitching and .247 / .340 / .459 against southpaws in the Texas League. What little concern there is, however, is tempered by the fact that Kinsler got to lefties at a .450 / .521 / .625 clip in the MWL.

Defensively, Kinsler--who is a solid 6'0", 185 lbs., physically resembling Michael Young-- got better reviews in college than he has as a pro, but he still appears to be at least a serviceable shortstop with average range and an above average arm.

PROJECTION: He'll start off in Oklahoma, where he will probably play second base instead of short. Unless Alfonso Soriano is dealt, the Rangers will probably try to leave Kinsler in the PCL until September. If Soriano is dealt, Kinsler could be in line to take over at second base in Arlington by mid-season.

3) Joaquin Arias (SS)

One look at Joaquin Arias and, no matter how much or how little you know about baseball, you can't help but begin to project. And worry. In spite of the spindly body, you see the tools right away. The quick hands. The footwork of Nijinsky. The whip of an arm. The foot speed. The bat speed. They're all there. But you also wonder what's going on between this kid's ears and I'll be the first to admit that that's probably not fair.

Among the enduring images from spring training 2004 is the one of Arias, off by himself, evidently near tears talking on the cell phone. And then around the ballfields, Arias, standing off by himself, quiet. Sad looking. Either refusing or afraid to interact with his teammates.

I imagine that things got better emotionally for Arias, who I'm told struggled with his sudden and unexpected departure from a Yankee organization who had claimed this teenager for a couple of years already, but I still have to wonder if he has the personality to handle all that is about to happen to him.

If you listen to Buck Showalter, you quickly realize that the Rangers would love to see the spindly Arias force his way onto the major league roster sooner rather than later. Yes, he had a very fine year for a teenager in High A, but the club didn't throw any curves at him after he struggled adjusting to the paradigmatic change in his career path and I have to wonder how he will handle the pressure and unavoidable changes that will come with what the organization very obviously hopes will be his fast path to the top.

At 6'2", 160-170 pounds he has a long, lean body that has yet to mature. Known as "Spiderman" because his arms and legs seem disproportionately long in relation to his short and narrow torso (though one report says the nickname came from his incredible body control), Arias hit exactly .300 (.293 vs. RHP and .330 vs. LHP) with an OPS of .740. He makes contact consistently, fanning just 53 times in 500 at bats, primarily as Stockton's leadoff man, using his plus speed to succeed in 30 of 44 stolen base attempts.

Apparently still depressed after his sudden departure from the Yankees, Arias struggled through the first month of the season, going only .250 / .281 / .346 in April and then improved dramatically to have his best month of the season in May, going .308 / .351 / .449. He regressed to .264 / .310 / .308 in June and then settled in by finishing up right at .300 / .350 / .370 the rest of the way. Incredibly, he gained 10-15 pounds during the season.

Scouting reports almost invariably project Alfonso Soriano onto Arias, but at this point, he is a vastly superior defender to Soriano. Arias has plus-plus range and a plus arm which allows him to play deep. He almost never dives for a ball, but "he doesn't have to" according to one observer. He makes every play he should make and quite a few that he shouldn't, but he does it all so smoothly, that he sometimes looks as if he isn't trying very hard.

PROJECTION: This is a huge year for Arias, who turned 20 this winter. He will start off in Frisco and should stay there all year. Clearly, the club has very high hopes invested in him and at this point, there can be little doubt that he is aware of it. And the question becomes: can he handle that pressure? The other question is: will he continue to develop physically at the rate he did last year? In the (not so) long term, it seems that the club would like to move Michael Young back to second base and hand short over to Arias. If Soriano is traded this spring and the Rangers aren't able to find a legitimate starter to take his place, Arias could be asked to step in at some point during the season.

4) Jason Botts (1b / LF / DH)

I'll never forget it. It was just an intrasquad game in Surprise, but it was the first time I'd ever seen Jose Garcia pitch. He'd been scuffling a bit, putting two men on and then Jason Botts stepped to the plate. On the second pitch, the switch-hitting Botts, swinging left handed, turned on a Garcia offering and slammed it into the atmosphere. It went through clouds, arced, and landed in short left--on the next field over. The thing flew an easy 500 feet and reached such an altitude that it came down with icicles on it. It was, it turned out, a harbinger. The Herculean Botts--6'6" and a rock-solid 245 lbs.--stamped himself as the best power hitting prospect in the Rangers system in 2004 (not that there is a ton of competition for that honor right now).

For years, Botts has disappointed scouts because, in spite of his incredible size and strength, he hasn't hit the long ball with regularity. After signing in 2000 as a DFE out of a California junior college (giving up a scholarship to USC to do so), Botts took just six balls yard while hitting .319 / .440 / .503. He then belted nine bombs in 119 games at low A Savannah in 2001 where he hit .309 / .416 / .449 and nine more at high A Charlotte in 2002 where he hit .254 / .387 / .401. In 2003, splitting his season between high A Stockton (.314 / .409 / .473) and double A Frisco (.263 / .341 / .392), he hit a combined 13 dingers.

This year, Botts broke out, ranking second in the league in homers (24) and RBIs (92) and fourth in on-base (.399) and slugging percentage (.507). And those 2004 home runs were, as often as not, jaw droppers with several of the 500' variety, some leaving stadiums altogether. Switch hitting, which he took up only after becoming a professional, he was better from the right, hitting .369 and slugging .581 from that side as opposed to .255 and .470 from the left.

In spite of being dogged by a mysterious bug that caused him to drop 15 pounds in short order this fall (and if you've seen this guy, you know that it wasn't 15 pounds of unwanted fat), Botts carved up Arizona Fall League pitching, going .355 / .461 / .570 in 107 at bats. His OBP was second best in the league and his six homers were fifth best.

Botts has always shown well above average plate discipline and the ability to learn. His progression through the system invariably includes an initial period of struggle at each level, which generally lasts for approximately two months, followed by his becoming one of the league's premier hitters. His 2003 season was typical. After ranking among the Cal League leaders in virtually every offensive category (in Stockton's notorious pitchers' park), Botts struggled during his first month at Double A Frisco and then went on an 11 game tear in August during which he hit .457, finishing the month with an average over .300, a couple of dingers and 20 RBIs, prompting me to state in last winter's "Prospect Previews": "Given his pattern of acclimation-followed-by-dominance, and his strong finish in the Texas League last season, I expect Botts to have an enormous season for the Riders."

The theory stays in place for this season. Botts will move up to triple A to start the 2005 season and it is likely that he will not set the world on fire right away. There will be a month or two when he studies the pitchers, learns the PCL strike zone, and makes adjustments, as he always does. He should hit his stride some time in June.

Botts is still in search of a home defensively. He has moved from first base to the outfield and back again several times during his professional career. Ultimately, he projects as a DH who can play a little at 1b and a little in the outfield (think Lee Stevens), but you probably don't want to go with him full time at either spot.

PROJECTION: I've heard several people suggest that the Rangers ought to go with Botts as their opening day DH. For the reasons stated above, I think that is an incredibly bad idea. If all goes as it should, Botts will be ready to take over at DH in 2006 and since the Rangers won't pay big bucks for someone to DH, he probably won't have much to beat out for that job. He is often compared to Travis Hafner but a Lee Stevens comp is probably more accurate. However, given his steady and consistent improvement, I wouldn't rule out anything with Botts.

5) Ramon Nivar (2b / OF / SS)

If I had put this list out two months ago, Nivar--who topped this list last year--would have been somewhere in the bottom third. But something happened this winter that, quite honestly, can only be characterized as a paradigmatic shift in Ramon Nivar's profile as a player. After years of flailing away at everything, he suddenly started to take pitches and draw walks this winter in the Dominican.

In 139 at-bats for Escogido, Nivar posted a batting average of .324 and an OBP of .401. It was the first time that Nivar had ever posted an OBP over .400 at any level (including his 79 games at Frisco in 2003 when his batting average was .347 and his OBP was merely .387). It comes on the heels of a very disappointing season during which he hit .264 and got on base at a .290 clip.

I am certainly making too much of a winter league performance, but it is so remarkable--and represents such a clear and profound difference in Nivar's game--that I feel fairly justified in making a big thing of it. In 2003, coming off of his breakthrough season, Nivar was sent to the AFL with specific instructions to focus on taking more pitches and drawing more walks. While he whacked away in the AFL at a .381 rate, he took just two freebies. Both coming in the same game. The performance clearly disappointed the club. During the 2004 PCL season, Nivar took just 14 bases on balls in 462 at bats. And then this winter, he drew 12 walks (fanning just 11 times) in 139 at bats.

Nivar is a serviceable second baseman and passable in center field where his incredible speed covers up much of what he doesn't know about playing the position. He has played short stop in the past and could certainly hold down that position in a pinch. He has decent arm strength, plays with high energy and exudes a positive attitude. He's an eminently likable guy. He gets from the dish to first in 3.9, but is not an especially good base stealer, typically getting caught as often as he succeeds, but his speed alone is a distraction.

PROJECTION: Buck Showalter would love to find someone to fill the super utility role that Eric Young filled last season. He used Randy Velarde in that role on his early-to-mid 90's Yankees teams and Tony Womack on his late-90's D-Backs clubs. Nivar is the best candidate in the system capable of filling that role right now (Drew Meyer is probably the other candidate for that gig). It is highly unlikely that Nivar will ever become a regular at any position, but his speed and defensive versatility might make him a good 25th man at some point. What appears to have been a long-awaited change in his approach at the plate makes it possible.

6) Drew Meyer (SS / 2b / OF)

Grady Fuson's first selection as the Rangers draft-day grand poobah, Drew Meyer has simply disappointed. Feelings about Meyer don't any better when you look at who was selected in the first dozen or so picks after he went off the board: Khalil Greene (Padres shortstop), Scott Kazmir (Devil Rays starter), Nick Swisher (A's outfielder), and Joe Blanton (A's starter) are big leaguers. Jeremy Hermida (Florida's top prospect), Jeff Francour (Atlanta's top prospect) and Matt Cain (Giants' top prospect) are almost universally ranked among the top ten or so prospects in all of baseball. Meanwhile, Meyer went unprotected in the Rule 5 draft...and nobody took him.

When the Rangers took Meyer, he was regarded as a true baseball rat. Gutsy, gritty and tough. Speedy and versatile. A Ryan Freel with much more talent, if you will. In his first public statement as a Ranger, Meyer proclaimed that "I'm the guy with the dirty uniform. All I want to do is play." In 2003, a pretty nice season we'll get to later, he looked like that guy. But in 2004, he didn't play enough to get dirty and when he did, he looked fat, slow and, as often as not, apathetic if not lazy. "The last time I saw him, he didn't look like a first-rounder," an AL scout told Baseball America last summer. "His body looked dumpy, almost like Mike Gallego."

Meyer arrived in the organization after an exceptional college career at South Carolina, but with significant questions about whether or not his game would translate. His two horrible summers in the Cape Cod League only confirmed suspicions that his funky swing was not made for wood bats and the organization set about trying to retool his stroke.

His rookie season at low A Savannah in 2002 was a statistical disaster (he hit just .243 / .274 / .318), but this was due in part to the fact that he was rebuilding his swing. He jumped up to high A Stockton to begin the 2003 season where he started to put it together, hitting .281 / .330 / .405 through 94 games, getting better in leaps and bounds each month. He hit .238 in April, .248 in May, .290 in June and .351 in July before earning promotion to double A Frisco where he went .316 / .385 / .347 in 26 games for the Riders.

Meyer returned to Frisco to begin the 2004 season obviously out of shape and was horrible from the start, hitting .229 / .289 / .265 in April, .238 / .315 / .338 in May and .229 / .296 / .313 in June before hitting the DL with a broken collarbone on June 12. There was also talk that he had played the first three months with a bad shoulder and wrist that were injured in spring training and never fully healed. Meyer sat out two months, rehabbed briefly with the rookie AZL club and returned to Frisco in September for the championship run, hitting a robust .389 / .421 / .444 in regular season play before going 6-12 (all singles) in the playoffs.

There is some good news (and I readily admit you really have to look hard to see it). Though the sample is small, and you have to ignore the first three months of the 2004 season, there is evidence that Meyer can handle double A pitching (.316 / .385 / .347 in 2003 and .389 / .421 / .444 in September of 2004). The club was also quite pleased with Meyer's fall instructional performance.

Meyer probably has the second best arm in the system (behind Juan Senreiso), a good glove and when he is fit, he's got great speed and baseball instincts.

PROJECTION: If Meyer is ever going to make it, it is probably going to be in the super utility role that Ryan Freel fills in Cincinnati, Chone Figgins fills in Anaheim and Eric Young filled last season for the Rangers. Like Ramon Nivar, what Meyer can bring to the table--assuming he gets his act together--is speed and defensive versatility. What he has over Nivar is pedigree and a left-handed swing.