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Minor
Miracle
John
Donovan, SI.com |
 Kevin
Thompson knows that most baseball fans,
even those in New York, have never heard
of him, don't much care about him and
don't particularly want to know about
him. Of course, those people had never
heard of Chien-Ming Wang, Robinson Cano
or Melky Cabrera, either. And now, every
Yankees fan knows their names.
That's exactly Thompson's point. The
much-slammed Yankees' farm system -- as
dry as a Sahara summer, as barren as a
beach in a hurricane, as empty as David
Wells' brain sometimes, the prevailing
so-called wisdom goes -- is really not
that bad off, Thompson insists. Not at
all.
So cut out all the ripping, already.
"Honestly, a lot of us down there, that
bothers us," said the young outfielder,
who reports to the Yankees' Class AAA
team in Columbus, Ohio, later this week.
"We'll be sitting around the clubhouse,
and ESPN will be on, and somebody will
say that, and it's like 'What are they
thinking?'
"The way they tell it, it's like we're
pulling people off the street and
putting them in uniform."
Thompson was venting about faulty
perceptions from a spot in the dugout at
Comerica Park, just before Sunday
afternoon's Futures Game, a minor-league
all-star game that precedes Tuesday's
Major League All-Star Game (the one with
all the capital letters).
The Futures Game has been filled
throughout the years with soon-to-be
All-Stars -- the capital-lettered kind
-- including Alfonso Soriano and Hank
Blalock of the Rangers, Lance Berkman of
the Astros, Barry Zito of the A's,
Aramis Ramirez of the Cubs and Rafael
Furcal of the Braves.
The Yankees have had many players in
this game before -- Soriano was a Yankee
when he earned the game's MVP in the
inaugural Futures Game in 1999 -- and,
in fact, the Yanks had another player
scheduled to take part in this year's
game before Thompson stepped in.
Instead, Cabrera was called up to the
big club late last week, opening a spot
for Thompson, who found out he was
headed to Detroit before a game Friday
in Norfolk, Va.
Numbers-wise, Thompson certainly looks
like he belongs in this group. In 81
games with Class AA Trenton, he hit .329
with 12 homers and 43 RBIs. After the
All-Star break, he'll join the Yankees'
top farm team, the Columbus Clippers, a
team that features first baseman Mitch
Jones, who leads the International
League with 21 homers in 87 games.
Thompson will leave behind a Trenton
team that includes sluggers like Shelley
Duncan (a Class AA Eastern League
All-Star, with 22 homers in 89 games)
and third baseman Eric Duncan, a
first-round pick of the Yankees in 2003
who is considered the organization's top
prospect.
Those guys may not yet be ready to join
a veteran-stocked major league team. But
they're certainly doing all right in the
minors.
"We've got three guys who are knocking
the walls down," Thompson said of the
two Duncans and Jones. "If you watch the
guys there, you'll see. There's a lot of
talent."
The Yankees, to be clear, have done a
hatchet job on their minor-league system
in recent years. Their drafts,
especially in the late 1990s and in the
early part of this century, were
considered by many as nothing short of
terrible.
What talent the Yankees did have often
was traded away to get major league
players. Among the minor leaguers the
Yankees have traded away recently are
outfielder Wily Mo Pena (now with the
Reds), pitcher Yhency Brazoban (now with
the Dodgers) and pitcher Brad Halsey
(now with the Diamondbacks).
Still, it's not like the Yankees' farm
clubs are, say, the Royals'. Baseball
America ranked the Yankees' minor-league
system 24th this spring, but the
magazine pointed out that the team has
"plenty of emerging players." The
problem is, the best ones might still be
a year or so away.
That's all Thompson wants people to
know. There is talent in the Yankees
system. Look at Wang. Look at Cano, and
now Cabrera. Look at other rookies that
the Yankees have used this year,
including pitchers Scott Proctor and
Jason Anderson, and outfielder Kevin
Reese.
A 25-year-old center fielder from Fort
Worth, Texas, Thompson opened in left
field for the U.S. team on Sunday in the
Futures Game, led off and went hitless
in two at-bats. But if he plays in
Columbus like he did in Class AA,
Thompson could be in the Bronx before
Yankees fans can say Chien-Ming Wang.
"I sense a little change," Thompson
said. "I hear it every day. 'We got to
do something different, because the
other way hasn't been working.'"
The Yankees have proven this year that
the minor leaguers are at least worth a
look.
Updated on Sunday, Jul
10, 2005 9:12 pm EDT |
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