Rainel Rosario Taking A Step Forward
Posted on July 7th, 2011 by Jeff in Palm Beach Cardinals, tags: Rainel RosarioWhile browsing this season’s stats for the Palm Beach Cardinals, where the park factors have a huge effect on any of the hitters there especially those that hit for power, Rainel Rosario stuck out like a heavy-hitting sore thumb. Let’s take a look closer at Rosario after the jump.
Rainel Rosario was signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2006 and I can’t find any word of his bonus, so it must not have been anything huge. Rosario played 2007 and 2008 in the Gulf Coast League as an 18 and 19 year old. He reached JC in 2009 as a 20 year old for just 36 games, but he was just above average for the league with a .758 OPS and .335 wOBA.
In 2010, Rosario started out at Batavia, but had that mastered in 25 games and a .373 wOBA (assisted by a .426 BABIP) and was promoted to Quad Cities for 39 games at the end of the year. The jump in level did not hurt Rosario in the least. In fact, Rosario got better with a .407 wOBA and 148 wRC+, which is way over average.
So far in 2011, Rosario is scoffing at the 66 (100 average) park factor for HRs in Palm Beach for right-handers as he has already hit 6 HRs and picked up 9 stolen bases. Rosario has dropped his K rate 5% this year, but his walk rate has also dropped to 9%. His slugging has dropped this year in Palm Beach and that is to be expected at Palm Beach. But, he has improved his line drive rate from his time in Quad Cities and currently is hitting about 17% line drives. And because I know you need to know, his wRC+ is 113.
As long as he can continue to decrease his K rate and keep his walk rate around 10%, Rosario will continue to catching the eyes of prospect watchers for years to come. And once he makes it to Springfield, whether that is this year or the next, his numbers should jump up with the park factors as should his profile in the Cardinals minor league system. But, Rosario is still a solid prospect. His only year with below average production was 2007, his first year in the US, so there is no reason Rosario should be slowing down any time soon.
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glad to know i’m not the only guy who is impressed by rosario’s line this yr. his slash line (.286 / .352 / .411) is nearly identical to what Adron Chambers posted at that level in 2009 at the same age (22) and what Jay posted at PB in 2007 as a 22-yr-old. also comparable to Tommy Pham’s slash lines at PB last year at 22. daniel descalso was a lot worse than this at PB, albeit age 21.
in other words, by the stats he looks a lot like a future bench player or platoon piece. i haven’t seen him play and don’t know how his tools grade out, but he seems worth paying attn to.
Thanks for the comment lboros. I agree. His line at Palm Beach is certainly a good harbinger.
Does anyone have any knowledge of his defensive abilities? Pham, Jay, and (I think) Chambers had/have good defensive tools and stats. If he’s in their league defensively I’ll jump on board.
I tried to tell people in the off season that Rosario was special by pointing out that Rosario was one of only 13 players from either the last 12 years at Quad Cities and the 1999-2004 seasons when Peoria was a Cards affiliate to put up a .900 OPS with at least 100 ab’s. Of those other 12 players, only Brandon Buckman (who was by the far the oldest when he did it) and Xavier Scruggs still in the minors) were the only ones who didn’t play in the majors and the majority had been starters. Rosario was also younger than most of these players. This doesn’t guarantee that Rosario will be a major leaguer but it sure indicates he has a significant shot.
Who are the other guys I’m missing from the list?
Player/MLB OPS
Albert Pujols 1.041
Chris Duncan .805
Daric Barton .740
———Affiliation Switch——-
Nick Stavinoha .581
Tyler Greene .609
Brandon Buckman
Paul Vasquez
Brett Wallace .716
Xavier Scruggs
Rainel Rosario
Does Anyone have Rosario splits from last year? I know Modern Woodmen Park is a hitters park when it comes to HR and Miller had a real bad ERA at home and Adams did most of his damage there but don’t remember RR’s, noting against him just like to see where his splits there fall with the others.
The others were from the Twins organization at QC in the last 6 years before it switched affiliations. It has been a while since I did this research so I hope the numbers I mentioned were accurate. Don’t remember Vasquez but I may have missed him.
The Twins list includes Mauer, Kuboch, and Morneau.
just as an update on notable future redbirds, BABIP is starting to even out for two guys – ryan jackson is back up to what looks like normal for him (.335 wOBA) and ditto adron chambers (.351 wOBA). matt carpenter is slugging a little (.137 ISO) at memphis after showing a distressing lack of power early. aaron luna continues to hit (and walk) in limited exposure at memphis (.401 wOBA in 150 PAs).
I think the important phrase in Jeff’s write up is “I can’t find any word of his bonus”. My understanding is that Taveras also did not receive an outlandish bonus. My point is that Rosario and Taveras reflect the fact that teams such as the Cards are best served by signing numerous players from the Latin American countries for low to moderate bonuses and they will have a good chance of producing very exciting prospects, at least equal to the number of prospects generated by teams spending outlandish bonuses for players who are similarly 16 years old. Most of those players will not exhibit their true abilities until they are 18-20 years old. Prior to then teams are largely speculating and they are better serve spreading dollar resources over a larger number of players rather than on one or two similarly high risk 16 year olds.
I wouldn’t say they are best served. We got Martinez because we were willing to spend the money. I still think Mateo will be a good player. It’s hard to tell whats most effective….signing 5 guys for 200k or 1 for a million. Just depends on how godo the player for a million is.
I guess a way to find out is to see the players who signed out of LA recently and see how many had big bonuses and how many seemingly came from no where.
If the million dollar player is 50-1 odds to ultimately be an excellent starting player/rotation pitcher and each of the FIVE two hundred thousand players are 100-1 to ultimately be an excellent starting player/rotation pitcher, which would you prefer?
All I am saying is that all 16 year olds are so young and so far away and need to greatly develope their tools that they are all lottery tickets with similar long shot chances to be excellent players. I guess I would prefer to have 5 such tickets versus one.
I’m squarely on the spend the money and get the best tools wagon.
The teams who spend the money are the ones who get the stars. In both the draft and the LA market. To think that signing multiple lower talent kids increases your odds of a bench player, you are correct. To think it increases your odds of getting real surplus value, it doesn’t.
The amount of money teams spend in this market is a drop in the bucket of the baseball economy. Large corporations will generally spend 12% or more of their operating budget on research and development. The baseball world spends about 1 to 2% of their operating budget on research and development (procurement of players and their development).
If I ran a baseball team, I would take advantage of this inequity, and reap the rewards.
The exception to this rule being a player like Miguel Cabrera. The exception is why teams are willing to take the risk.
I agree and disagree.
At the level of 16yo I think it is easier to scout pitching. Having a good fastball and control of said fastball is such huge indicator of future sucess that I think we should always give more money to the pitching side of the game. I havent done the study but I bet the high bonus pitchers pan out more often.
On the other side I am all for just signing as many position players as possible or reasonable with the budget at hand.
Luna, Rosario, Adams, Castellanos, Pham. Cards have a nice collection of under the prospect radar talent. The odds say at least 1 will break out and become a MLB regular.
Arguably, a lot of our under-the-radar guys (and a lot of our talent in general) look like eventual average-ish major leaguers, which is fine if you want to win 81 games, and obviously fine if you have guys like Pujols, Holliday, Wainwright and hopefully in future Miller/Martinez on your major league roster. However, it’s a bit of a problem if we end up with a logjam of average-ish players in certain positions (corner OF looks like one for us, and potentially both the rotation and bullpen have a lot of average-ish looking talent coming through), and a barren yield at other spots (middle infield in particular, but I can see catcher eventually being an issue too, and certainly in the last couple of years the rotation), and then you end up having to pay for mediocre but serviceable guys like Westbrook, Lohse, Schumaker and Theriot to fill those spots.
I’m really hoping that the system continues to churn out more and more roleplayers, so we don’t have to pay those averagey guys that money. If we weren’t paying Westbrook and Lohse next year, and had internal guys to play those spots (#4 and #5 in the rotation, possibly) then we could be in on guys like Jose Reyes.
Presumably and hopefully some of the “logjam if average-ish players in certain positions” can be traded for needed players at other positions and/or prospects who may develop into even better players. I would hope that Mo is attempting to make trades such as that, e.g. a corner OF prospect for a LOOGY prospect.