Will Kevin Youkilis make it four straight years for a Red Sox first baseman to be voted the AL starter?
Yankees rival Mark Teixeira is making a strong bid to end Boston’s run by garnering 17 percent more online votes than Youkilis over the past 72 hours in hopes of closing a 40,000-vote gap.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/articl.....p;c_id=mlb

That’s good news, but that’s only gonna make Sox fans vote even more for Youk over the next 12 hours. We need to continue to vote for Teixeira, vote as much as you can to make him the starting first baseman representing the AL.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06.....ckson.html

He was a ranked baseball player at age 12 and age 15 and then focused on basketball to prove he could do that to.

So, the kid has very good instincts and baseball is not all that foreign to him.

I agree Montero shouldn’t be pushed to DH. But if this kid has the kind of bat he promises to have, waiting for his catching skills to get there could be a big loss. That’s why I was thinking the Yanks might decide to move him to RF and get him up as soon as he’s ready to hit major league pitching.

I suspect it will depend on how fast the Yanks think his catching skills will progress, and whether his catching is holding back his hitting.

Defensive stats in the minors are not very illustrative of ability. Offensive stats are much more predictive, especially if viewed through the appropriate context of age, experience, ball park and league.

That’s why some of us are extremely high on Montero. At his age those stats in Charleston would be very impressive. In Trenton they are off the charts incredible.

Similarly we are impressed by Austin Jackson’s numbers considering almost everyone in the International League is older than he is.

Nothing wrong with debating # 1 versus # 2 in terms of prospects. I rank them based on this simple Question — if the Yankees were offered a tremendous player that they just had to have but they had to give up one of the two which one would they move? (you can’t chant and say neither for this exercise) I’m convinced they would trade anyone in the minor league system before they’d move Montero.

“You don’t move Montero from catcher anytime soon because that’s where he’s most valuable on the diamond.”

That thinking is not necessarily true. It ignores the value of time and it ignores risk.

Just as you would rather have money today than three years from now, you would rather have runs today than three years from now.

If Montero could hit in the majors next year, for instance, then you lose a lot by waiting three years (for example) for his catching skills to catch up. Plus, you take the risk that he will never develop sufficient catching skills to be a catcher in the big leagues.

It is far from an easy question to answer.

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Montero is far from helpless behind the plate. The kid only needs to be adequate behind the plate to have real value to this team.

They can’t have a 20 year old everyday DH with the A-Rods, Jeters, and Posadas of the world in the lineup everyday as well.

GB7 – I always wondered the same thing. It seems simplistic to chalk it up to good old-fashioned Yankee hating on the part of analysts who write these things, but it seems like I always see prospects/young players on other teams praised for qualities that are not always cited as positives in Yankee prospects. The big catcher thing is one (and Pablo Sandoval is big also, I know he doesnt catch much now but I’d assume he will more when Bengie’s no longer there?)

…but what enraged me even more is I once read an article saying something to the effect of Austin Jackson is a typical Yankee bust because he’s all athleticism and not enough baseball instinct or some other such nonsense. I think it was Ken Rosenthal who wrote it, but not positive. But…..what on god’s green earth? Since when is athleticism a bad thing? And I think his instincts are just fine considering baseball wasnt even his primary sport in college, right?

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Sandalvol will most likely be the 2nd catcher or emergency catcher because, unless he flops, Buster Posy is scheduled to be the catcher by this September for SF. regardless of who the #1 catcher is in 2 or 3 years, they’ll be young and talented. They have 5 of the top 10 or 15 catching prospects in baseball right now. If they all show something, they’ll switch to other positions or will become gold mines in trades.