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| Mike Ekstrom beat out veteran competition to earn an opening-day spot with the Rays. Photo courtesy of OilersBaseball.com |
In celebration of that, I'm pleased to bring you the second installment of our look at where our ABL-turned-Pro players are headed this spring. In Part 1 we followed some of the transactions in the independent minor leagues. Today we're going to look at some noteworthy ABL alumni in the affiliated minor leagues, including one who technically can't say he's in the minor leagues anymore...
The one who made the cut
As spring training worse on, there were several prospects who looked to be grinding their way to a big league opening day. But one by one the GM's roster scalpel claimed its victims, and our hopeful players were sent back to the minor leagues. All of them, that is, except for one...
Mike Ekstrom (Oilers, 2003) beat out the competition and secured the final spot in the Tampa Bay Rays' bullpen. Ekstrom landed the job over veteran reliever Joaquin Benoit in a race that came down to the last days of spring training. One thing that endeared Ekstrom to the Rays was his durability; he's a recently-converted starter which gives him the endurance to pitch back to back games, while the club is not eager to push Benoit while he's recovering from shoulder surgery.
Ekstrom has had some short major-league stints with San Diego the past two seasons, but this will hopefully be his first long-term engagement in the show. In six minor league seasons, he's gone 48-40 with an ERA of 3.82. Most of that was as a starter; he converted to relief in 2008, and was used almost exclusively in this role in 2009 at AAA Portland. That's where he's posted career-best figures in WHIP (0.96), BB/9 (2.3) and H/9 (6.4). This could be the year that he finally sticks in the bigs. Best of luck to Mike!
Potential call-ups
And then there were the ones who weren't so lucky. Over the course of Major League spring training, a lot of our former players looked like they had a shot at breaking the opening day roster. But when it was all said and done, the rest of them find themselves back in the minors. All is not lost, though, because several of these players are an injury or trade away from breaking into the bigs mid-season.
One interesting case is that of Hector Ambriz (Pilots, 2003) who was taken in the rule five draft by Cleveland this off-season. Because the rule five draft stipulates that players chosen in the major league round must remain on the parent club's 25-man roster or be offered back to the team they were taken from, you would think that Abriz would have either be living the good life in the big leagues or packing his bags. However, he has been placed on the DL with a case of elbow tendinitis retroactive to March 27. This allows the Indians to send him back down to the minors for some rehab starts without having to offer him back to Arizona. Interesting that they would shut him down on March 9th but not place him on the DL until the end of spring training, huh? Anyway, they're going to have to deal with him eventually, which means he'll either break into the Indians' bullpen or perhaps go back to the Diamondbacks system.
The big surprise to me this spring was that RP Blake Wood (Bucs, 2004) did not make the Kansas City pitching staff. If I was a gambling man I would have bet on Wood before Ekstrom (no knock on Mike) but, as I've said before, maybe that's why I'm not the GM of a baseball team. Wood moved to the pen in the Arizona Fall League this year and seemed like he was going to muscle his way onto the big Royals' opening day roster. He was big league camp until the final week of cuts and I thought for sure he had it in the bag, but I guess the KC big shots didn't see it that way. He'll start the season at AAA Omaha. I'm sure some jobber in the Royals' pen will prove to be a dud and, if so, I think Wood is next in line.
Oakland A's fans got a glimpse of their future this spring, but it was just a little teaser: Michael Taylor (Miners, 2005) is widely considered to be a middle-of-the-order threat on the horizon for the A's, but he had a challenging spring in big league camp and will begin the year at AAA Sacramento. Taylor is a little bit of a long-shot to get a call-up before the rosters expand this fall. For one thing, he's still a little raw and the brass want to see what he can do at Triple-A before bringing him up. For another, they don't have anywhere to put him. So he'll be waiting in the wings for a late-season call-up or a flurry of transactions that make room for him.
Here's a guy who's been overlooked for years and may finally get his shot with the Atlanta Braves in 2010: Matt Young (Miners, 2003). Young was signed as an undrafted free agent in 2005 and was generally considered to be organizational filler. As he quietly climbed the ladder up the minor league hierarchy, he raised no eyebrows. When he got his first major league spring training invitation, it didn't seem too promising. Then something funny happened: he survived until the last round of cuts. He hit .296 this spring and finds himself ahead of veteran backup Gregor Blanco in the Braves' depth chart. If the Braves get in a bind and need to call up an outfielder, it's probably going to be Young. At 27 years old he's finally become a legitimate prospect.
Everyone else
Obviously this is barely even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to tracking down who is going where in the affiliated minor leagues this year. Want to know where your favorite former ABL star is headed? Check out the big list of ABL Pro Prospects. It might have what you're looking for. You may also want to check out our article about offseason moves in the independent leagues.
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