Trenton Thunder Preview

Ok, first a few disclaimers. Don’t fret too much about the non-prospect’s ratings: I put very little thought into them. They just aren’t all that important. Second, I didn’t bother filling out the bench very much, because who knows who the Yankees will slot into those spots. They aren’t important either. I did my best to fill out the pitching staff and the starting lineup, and I’m reasonably confident that they will prove to be accurate come the start of the season. The purpose of this exercise is to get a fairly accurate picture of what the Yankees’ Double-A affiliate will look like.

Trenton will be a fairly old team next season, as far as Double-A goes. Manuel Banuelos and Corban Joseph are the only particularly young players on the team. Most of their prospects are fairly old, checking in at 23 or 24 years old. Still, its a very talented group, with solid up the middle prospects and a great starting pitching staff. The organizational players aren’t bad either. The team shouldn’t see too many players depart for Triple-A before the latter part of the season. I’d imagine that they are the favorites in the Eastern League to start 2011.

More importantly, there are some positional conflicts in the lineup. Corban Joseph and David Adams both should be playing 2nd base, but I’d imagine that Adams will get the vast majority of the playing time. Corban Joseph will sit mostly at 3rd base until Adams earns a promotion to Scranton. He’ll crowd out Brad Suttle, who is looking more and more like a 1st baseman long term anyway. Keep an eye on Addison Maruszak, whom the Yankees are preparing as an 8-position superutility player. I get the sense that he’ll spent most of his time in the outfield though.

Obviously, Baneulos and Betances are the big players to watch. After that though, I’ll have my eye on Melky Mesa. He’s got much more potential than people realize, and is already on the 40-man roster. The Yankees would be smart to start thinking of him in the short-to-medium term as a potential bench player. At worst, he’s better than Greg Golson or Ramiro Pena. At best, he’s a real asset on the bench who could play his way onto the team and make on of the Yankee outfielders expendable. His Double-A performance will tell us a lot about which he’ll be.

I’m planning on making it to quite a few Trenton games this season. Usually, I have to pick my minor league games pretty gingerly by who is starting. In Trenton, there will be something to see every day. That’s a great thing. I’ll post updates on twitter while I’m there, and take lots of nice pictures. Maybe even some video.

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