Five Interesting 2009 Lines: Burlington Royals

by royalsreview on Aug 31, 2009 2:19 PM EDT in Royals Minor Leagues Comment 11 comments

Here are five interesting 2009 seasons from guys on the Burlington Royals.

Gabe MacDougall: MacDougall has hit .207/.378/.276 in his first 37 PAs as a minor leaguer. Even if it's only in eight games, a .378 OBP is a rarity in the Royal system. I can't pretend to know much about this 27th round pick from this year's draft, but he's shown up and started taking walks, which I like.

Yowill Espinal: Espinal's .719 OPS is the highest on the B-Royals, on the strength of his .396 slugging. Trust the process.

Jovan Pickett: Pickett leads the team with 23 steals. As we might expect from a Royals minor league team at this point, the B-Royals have a number of guys who steal bases, many of them not actually that well. Yowill Espinal, for example, has 19 steals, and has been caught 14 times. Pickett, however, has only been gunned down 7 times. Now if the leftfielder can just build on his .259/.318/.296 line.

Gregory Billo: Billo, a 28th round pick from 2008, has 51 strikeouts in 54.2 innings (8 starts, 5 RP appearances) pitched this season. His walk numbers are pretty good (16) and he's posted a 1.81 ERA. So far a nice start for a Illinois HS prospect.

Keaton Hayenga: Hayenga leads the B-Royals in innings pitched at 60.1. Used exclusively as a starter, Hayenga has posted a 3.88 ERA, 1.34 WHIP and middling strikeout numbers (31). Hayenga is a regarded by some as a top Royals prospect.

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Wow, I thought I was up on my Royal minor league players...

Keaton Hayenga…. 31st draft choice in 2007. Time will tell if he can surpass the greatness of Rowdy’s 15 win season at Wilmington. My hat is of to you KH. A bright spot in an otherwise dismal offensive season in Burlington. The city council almost voted to condemn the stadium.

By the way RR, where did the poetry go? I enjoyed it and even had to google a couple of them to learn all about the authors. Bring it back, please. We could use some distractions now.

by grudz96 on Aug 31, 2009 2:51 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

will do

probably tomorrow

by royalsreview on Aug 31, 2009 3:01 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

espinal's OBP is like .90 points higher than his AVG

conveniently left out.

most interesting line was left out too.

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?pos=P&sid=t483&t=p_pbp&pid=543741

baseball rules.

by doublestix on Aug 31, 2009 4:44 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

espinal has to be considered the top prospect of the bunch

a SS who shows power, is only 18 and showed much progress in terms of plate discipline from last season. His avg leaves something to be desired, but he’s probably the best prospect we have below Idaho falls and I would maybe only rate Myers higher than him were I to take them into account.

by 9il on Aug 31, 2009 5:04 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

*i forgot about lamb

by 9il on Aug 31, 2009 5:50 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

+1

The Domincan and other international free agents have a bigger learning curve, starting out in the system at 16. The international signings are going to take even longer to produce than draft picks, but there’s also a lot of upside to the right ones. Another year or two will tell us how Espinal will really rate (sorry for those who hate to wait).

If you look closely, it really says "CentralChamps2012."

by CentralChamps2009 on Aug 31, 2009 10:39 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Sample is better

but it’s close

baseball rules.

by doublestix on Aug 31, 2009 10:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

hope McDougall likes front office work

because you cant make it in the majors if you refuse to swing at non-strikes

Graduate with a B.S. from the Dayton Moore School of Stats Analysis

by BHWick on Aug 31, 2009 8:03 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

BRoyals Prospects

Spent two weeks watching the BRoyals this year.

Billo was baffling to hitters and to me. Good movement on an 80(!) – 89mph fastball – but seriously, he hit every speed from 80-89, I couldn’t tell if it was change because velocity was all over the place. Maybe it’s a key to his effectiveness – OUTSTANDING numbers and year with a 1.81 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP in 54+ innings.

Best pitchers through Burlington in order…

Dusty Odenbach – 0.55 ERA and too good for the league. Moved to Iowa a good jump for the ’09 8th rounder.

Lamb – He either dominated or melted down. Either way he was specatcular. If his head matures he’s a golden opportunity for the Royals.

Scott Kelly – another ’09 pick – he moved to IF but was dominating with a 92-93mph FB with movement and control.

Sample had some rough outings, but his last 3 were outstanding… 2.84 ERA

Hayenga should be given a pass after two years of no competion. OK year, just not as fabulous as people were hoping. He was a hurt by the BRoyals defense as he pitched to about 50% more batters than necessary. He was probably the most consistent of the starters, always ahead in counts, but pitching to too much contact – especially for a team with as many holes in the infield as the BRoyals. His numbers don’t stand out.

The BRoyals had good pitching most days, but weak offensive and defensive efforts.

Espinal – The Royals should think about outfield as he has offensive potential with some power, but he was not very good defensively this year (largest error/game of SS in Rookie ball). I’m not sure if the Royals can turn around an erratic arm and glove even if he is only 18 years old. He topped the team with 24+ errors.

To be fair he had plenty of help letting balls through the infield and throwing them away as the BRoyals topped 100 errors in 73 games (They came in bunches of 4,5,&6 -making it hard to watch at times). Most disturbing to me though is the number of balls that looked like they should have been fielded but were scored hits – in other words hustle/range were suspect – from a number of infielders.

Pickett was a late arrival, but made a statement when he got there. He can out run a bunt and handle the bat. He is worth keeping tabs on.

by WARoyal on Sep 1, 2009 11:37 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

reply

good post here. i am jealous that you got to see these guys play.

re Odenbach: he looks terrific so far. getting strikeouts and tons of ground balls. thought he may have been a bit of an overdraft in June, but no complaints so far.

re Billo: yeah i heard he doesn’t throw hard at all. doesn’t crack 90 but has a young arm so he might be able to get there at some point. terrific numbers though. wanna see how he does in the other Burlington before rating him too high.

re Espinal: he should stay at SS so long he has the actions/body for it. there is plenty of young SS’s that make tons of errors in the lower minors. i’m fairly certain Andrus for the Rangers made like 40 or 45 errors a few years ago in A ball. either way he’s got some serious talent and upside. should be in BA’s top 20 Appy league ’spects.

baseball rules.

by doublestix on Sep 1, 2009 5:15 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs