As promised, we're now going to shift our focus on catching up with
some of the alumni to come through the ABL, and boy do we have a lot of
catching up to do. With so many former ABLers in the minor league ranks
it takes a fair amount of effort to stay on top of them all. In order to
make it more digestible for you the reader -- not to mention give me,
the blogger, a bit of a break -- I'm breaking this update up into two
posts of roughly half the players each. Below the "fold" you'll find a
listing of all notable transactions regarding the up-and-coming pro
prospects who've logged ABL time. Some of this is old news, so I hope
you'll excuse me, but I'm just posting up everything of note that has
occurred since the last time I updated the Pro Prospects spreadsheet
(which was before the ABL season began).Most notable, of course, are the players who have escaped the minors and are now logging valuable time in MLB. Ike Davis (Bucs, 2006), of course, came up with the Mets early in the season and seems to have stuck in the big leagues. I know Mets fans -- and Bucs fans! -- have been pulling for him to break in to the bigs and they've had their wishes granted. Hector Ambriz (Pilots, 2003) is now with the Cleveland Indians, although as a Rule Five draft pick we knew that was a matter of time. They could only milk his "rehab assignment" for so long before they had to choose between putting him on the MLB roster or losing him. Jason Castro (Bucs, 2006) -- ranked 49th State Hardball's #1 ABL Pro Prospect -- has come up with the Astros; Barry Enright (Oilers, 2005) has looked very impressive for the Arizona Diamondbacks; Chris Gimenez (Bucs, 2002) has joined Ambriz with the Indians. Congrats to all of those former Alaska League players for making the jump, and hopefully they all stick around for a while.
