Scout’s Honor
by Earl Valentine, special to American Baseball Perspective
March 7, 2009
FARGO, ND – You wouldn’t know it from talking to the fans, but the Fargo Dinosaurs are not a very good team.
“It really stinks how no-one has really heard of Ramón Flores,” complained season ticket-holder Dan Watkins. “He’s as good as any other slugger in the SL. He led the league in intentional walks last year – that tells you how much pitchers fear him.
“We’re gonna have a great season. Most people are writing us off already – tough luck for them.”
When asked how the club has been improved over the offseason, Watkins pointed to the $10 million shaved off of the payroll. When asked for a reason why the club would play better baseball, Watkins stared blankly.
That’s the thing about the Dinosaurs – GM Cristian Shofar has worked tirelessly to reshape the decrepit franchise he inherited in mid-2007, but the Dinosaurs just aren’t competitive yet. His bubbling optimism notwithstanding, Watkins is in for a disappointment this season.
A close inspection of the work done by the new GM, however, reveals hints of a deep secret – the Dinosaurs will compete for a Wild Card berth by 2011. How, exactly, could the team that averages 103 losses per season hold its own against the likes of Bakersfield, Palm Springs and Kalamazoo?
The secret is the best scouting staff in the PEBA, my friends.
Take a look at the 2007 amateur draft. First baseman Mike Arnopp was taken with the 11th overall pick and sent to single-A Bismarck, where his transition to wooden bats was relatively smooth (.265/.303/.359). After spending a full season at Bismark last year and going .309/.390/.424, Arnopp was named the 9th-best prospect in the PEBA by Baseball America and has proven that Fargo’s pick was a slam-dunk. He’ll most likely arrive in Fargo as a September call-up in 2010 at the latest.
It gets better. In the third round, the Dinosaurs selected outfielder Manny Rodríguez. After an abysmal first professional season, he rebounded to post a .301/.353/.411 line and will join Arnopp at AA Toronto this year. Fourth-round pick Carlos Ríos has earned a ticket out of single-A (.282/.367/.379), as has sixth-rounder Ronnie Russell (.288/.351/.385), and seventh-rounder Raúl Espinoza will journey from SS-A Kenai to Bismark thanks to his .344/.400/.506 line. The Dinosaurs had seven picks in the draft, and five can be considered successes at this point. One of them is a top-10 PEBA prospect. This is high-quality drafting at its finest.
Although it’s been a scant half-season for the draft class of 2008, initial signs point to another success. First-round pick “Chopper” Toro threw a perfect game for Kenai on his way to a mouth-watering 3.05 ERA in his pro debut, and the most of the draft class will be advancing to Bismark as scheduled.
We haven’t even discussed the success of the Fargo international scouting department yet. This is the institution which both found Ken Keddy and convinced him to forgo his hockey career and sign to play baseball. You may recognize the name – he was the cover boy for Baseball America’s prospect rankings issue this winter, the inside of which declared him the best prospect in the PEBA and named him an “unquestioned franchise player.” He is eighteen years old.
On the page opposite Keddy’s profile was a picture of a diminutive left-handed pitcher with a peach-fuzz goatee. His arm was contorted in an almost frightening, twisted formation – it looked as though it had broken. At the bottom of the page, a box listed the velocities of ten consecutive pitches he threw at a tryout camp hosted by several PEBA teams in Australia. 103, 100, 98, 99, 105, 104, 104, 101, 100, and 105 MPH. His name is Randolph Teague. He is eighteen years old, and in 2008 he went 7-1 with a 2.81 ERA in short-season play. He is the second-best prospect in the PEBA, and he was signed by the Fargo Dinosaurs.
That same issue went on to list four more foreign free agents signed by Fargo to the Top 100 list, including #8, Cuban defector Alonso Méndez, age nineteen.
What has allowed the Fargo staff to have such incredible success? Somewhat unsurprisingly, and somewhat disturbingly, GM Shofar forbids any member of his scouting staff to talk to the press.
The end result is that, starting around early 2010, these players will start to arrive in Fargo. Any general manager in the Great Lakes division who is not terrified of that prospect should be fired, immediately.
“I am terrified,” stated one anonymous GM. “I work with a picture of Keddy sitting on my desk, to remind me what I’m up against.”
So, Dan Watkins, I salute you for your naive optimism towards the 2009 season. Keep rooting for the Dinosaurs, because you won’t have long to wait until your optimism will be rewarded.