Ivan DeJesús, 25, is the newest Bucco, and if his name sounds familiar to the older fans, it's only because it should. He's the son of Ivan DeJesús, Sr, a shortstop who spent 15 years (1974-88) in the majors, 13 in the NL. Junior was only three years old when his dad retired as a player, but got to soak up plenty of baseball vibes with Senior, who has been coaching and managing since, even scoring his son a gig as batboy.
Junior was born in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, and went to high school at American Military Academy. He was drafted in the second round (51st overall) of the 2005 draft by the Dodgers and inked with a $675K bonus as an 18 year old.
He signed on early enough to play 53 games between the GCL Dodgers and the Ogden Raptors of the Pioneer Baseball League, both short-season rookie divisions, and hit .290. Like his dad, he was a shortstop.
In 2006, he advanced to the Low A Sally League with the Columbus Catfish. DeJesús hit .277 and stole 16 bases, but for the second year his slugging % was lower than his OBP, as he showed just occasional gap power. Still, Baseball America had him as the Dodgers’ sixth best prospect and LA's best defensive infielder after the campaign and showed enough for another promotion.
DeJesús moved up to High A San Bernardino's Inland Empire 66er's squad of the California League in 2007. He hit .287 and even banged out 22 doubles while walking at an 11% rate. At the end of the year, he was rated as the #12 Dodger prospect by Scout.com and #13 by Baseball America
Junior continued moving up a step at a time, which is a pretty fast track for a high-school draftee, now with the Jacksonville Suns of the Class AA Southern League. DeJesús had a breakout season, batting .324 with a .419 OBP and .423 slugging %, ending the campaign with a 23 game hitting streak.
He was selected as Southern League All-Star and played in the 2008 All-Star Futures Game. DeJesús was selected to the Baseball America Minor League All-Star Second Team as a second baseman and their #6 Dodger prospect. The Dodgers named him their 2008 Minor League Player of the Year.
To keep his roll going, DeJesús played in the 2008 Arizona Fall League and was chosen as a Rising Star, and followed that with a stint in the Puerto Rican Winter League. His glove, line drive contact and ability to draw walks was getting him on the radar screens.
The Dodgers gave him a non-roster invite to camp during 2009 spring training after his big year, but that may not have been such a blessing. Just as his star was on the rise, DeJesús broke his left leg in a home plate collision during an exhibition game and had a rod inserted in his tibia. He missed virtually the entire year, getting into four rookie rehab games at the end of the season.
In 2010, he went off to the Class AAA Albuquerque Isotopes of the Pacific Coast League. DeJesús was flipped in the infield, getting a lot more time at second than short, a concession to his leg. He still hit pretty well, banging the ball around at a .296 rate, with the caveat of being in the hitter heaven of the PCL. DeJesús wasn't nearly as disciplined at the dish, earning just 32 free passes, not quite a 6% rate. Still, it was a decent enough bounce back after a big-time injury.
He broke 2011 camp with the Dodgers, but got into just 17 games, hitting .188 with 11 whiffs in 35 at-bats before being sent down. DeJesús did get to share the field briefly with his dad, though, on April 22nd at Wrigley Field. He came on as a defensive sub late in the game against the Cubs, while Senior was coaching for Chicago from the third base box.
DeJesús was solid again at Albuquerque, hitting .310 and getting his walk rate back up to 10%. Again, most of his field time was at second - he played that position exclusively in LA - and it was looking like he wasn't going to recover enough range to return to short, at least on a full time basis. He was named to MiLB.com's Dodger's Organization All-Star team, but the fact that he wasn't called up in September was a better indicator of where he stacked up on the LA depth charts.
When you're hot, you're hot. The infielder suffered a torn oblique muscle in his side while taking a cut during a spring training game in 2012 and didn't rejoin the team until May. He was a seldom-used utility guy, playing second and third while yo-yo'ing back and forth from Albuquerque. DeJesús hit OK, with a .273 BA in LA in just 33 PA and .295 for the Isotopes.
He was also involved in a bit of history. On June 1st, DeJesús was penciled in by Don Mattingly along with Tony Gwynn, Jr., Jerry Hairston, Jr., Dee (Tom) Gordon and Scott (Andy) Van Slyke, all sons of MLB players. In fact, the infield was entirely filled by legacies: 1B Van Slyke, 2B Hairston, SS Gordon and 3B DeJesús. Both were major league firsts.
On August 25th, he was traded to the Boston Red Sox along with James Loney, Allen Webster, Jerry Sands and Rubby De La Rosa for Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, Nick Punto and $11M as part of Beantown's great salary dump of 2012.
After the season, the Red Sox DFA'ed him and DeJesús cleared waivers. The Pirates officially got him yesterday, along with RHP Mark Melancon, OF Jerry Sands and RHP Stolmy Pimentel for Joel Hanrahan and Brock Holt. He has no options remaining, though not on the 40 man roster, and can become a minor league FA after the season.
You can mark his prospect status by before-and-after his broken leg. DeJesús now is a second/third baseman with a bit less than average speed, a spray hitter who shows some discipline in the minors but not much in very limited opportunities in the show (33% K rate) and not much of a base stealer anymore. The Puerto Rican projects as a utility guy at the major league level, although the jury is still out on whether he's destined to be just another AAAA player.
And there's the rub. The Bucs have reserve infielders Josh Harrison, Jordy Mercer, and Chase d'Arnaud on the 40 man roster already; DeJesús will have to beat one or two of them out to claim a spot out of camp. Unless the Pirates are really disenchanted with their bench (which could be entirely possible) and plan to give DeJesús a long look, he's destined for Indianapolis, where he'll join Anderson Hernandez as upper-level insurance up the middle.
Showing posts with label ivan dejesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ivan dejesus. Show all posts
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
The Trade Part II: Holt for Melancon & DeJesus
Well, the Hammer fell in part one of the Bucco-Bosox swap. Now for the second act. The Bucs sent infielder Brock Holt, more accomplished with his stick than his mitt, to the Red Sox for RHP Mark Melancon and IF Ivan DeJesus.
Holt .292 in September with the Bucs, but his glove limited him to a bench role. He was going to be in a battle to break camp with the big team. Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports thinks he's a good grab by Boston, saying "The Pirates didn’t want to trade him, but they evidently considered him more of a second baseman than a shortstop, and Holt wasn’t about to supplant Neil Walker."
The 25 year-old DeJesus, like Jerry Sands, came to Boston from LA in the big August Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett deal. He's a good glove guy with some pedigree in the minors (he was a second round pick in 2005), putting up career .298 BA and .370 OBP, though without much power. In 2008, De Jesus hit .324 with an OBP of .419. DeJesus was named to the All-Star Futures Game and Baseball America's All-Star second team. But he broke his leg the next season and hasn't had the same panache since.
Sox Prospects tabs him as a utility infielder., and DeJesus has lived up to that projection in a very small, 80 at-bat sample. He's hit just .205 in a couple of MLB stays, and Boston DFA'ed him in November (while keeping Pedro Ciriaco). At least DeJesus doesn't count against the 40-man roster, which needs cut down by a player. (EDIT - later in the day, the Bucs announced that RHP Chad Beck was DFA'ed.)
RHP Mark Melancon came into the league as Mariano Rivera's heir apparent in 2009; last year, he found himself tossing BP in the AL East and ended up back in AAA. Sox Prospects thinks it's the neighborhood, with this report: "Late inning reliever with a 92-95 mph fastball with decent movement and a plus low-80s curveball. Has shown success in small market of Houston, but mental toughness is still a question mark."
The snowball effect may be the mental jello they're referring to. Melancon's ERA was blown up by five beat downs out of 41 appearances when he gave up 21 of his 31 runs and six of his eight homers. Without them, he pitched to a 2.14 ERA. Good and bad outings all count the same in the stat book, of course, but show the volatility of judging a reliever's effectiveness by ERA alone.
He can touch 97 with a cutter and a curve, and even with a dismal 2012 line of 0-2/6.20, he struck out 8.2 batters and walked 2.4 per nine with a 50% ground ball rate. His problem last year was the long ball; he gave up eight in 45 IP while the rest of his peripherals were well in line. So the FO is betting on 2012 being an outlier season, and the metrics agree with them.
Melancon's two years in the NL Central with the Astros were strong (20 saves in 2011), and that's the guy the FO was looking at. The Bucs will give him every opportunity to be Jason Grilli's Tonto and be the set-up guy in 2013. He's 27, but controllable as he doesn't hit arb until 2014.
The Pirates couldn't get the Red Sox to surrender two guys prominently hyped as their targets, LHP Felix Doubront or SS Jose Iglesias. So the debate will go on whether they may have gotten a better haul if they waited until camp or even the deadline and dispelled the questions regarding Hanny. That was apparently a risk they didn't care to take in his walk season. Additionally, it avoids a round of musical chairs in the bullpen.
The FO was said to have also been in talks with Tigers, Royals, Rangers and the Dodgers before dealing Hanny to the Red Sox, so it seems like there just wasn't a robust market for him, at least for a big-time prospect. So they got a set-up guy and some kids. It's unfortunate, but the Bucs' big payoff for Hanny would have been at the last deadline, not 2013's; that August/September Pirate nose dive cost more than pride.
Still, it's probably fair value. Rosenthal's article header is "Pirates, Red Sox both score in deal," although the Bosox picked up a frontliner, which is more than it appears the Buccos did.
Holt .292 in September with the Bucs, but his glove limited him to a bench role. He was going to be in a battle to break camp with the big team. Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports thinks he's a good grab by Boston, saying "The Pirates didn’t want to trade him, but they evidently considered him more of a second baseman than a shortstop, and Holt wasn’t about to supplant Neil Walker."
The 25 year-old DeJesus, like Jerry Sands, came to Boston from LA in the big August Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett deal. He's a good glove guy with some pedigree in the minors (he was a second round pick in 2005), putting up career .298 BA and .370 OBP, though without much power. In 2008, De Jesus hit .324 with an OBP of .419. DeJesus was named to the All-Star Futures Game and Baseball America's All-Star second team. But he broke his leg the next season and hasn't had the same panache since.
Sox Prospects tabs him as a utility infielder., and DeJesus has lived up to that projection in a very small, 80 at-bat sample. He's hit just .205 in a couple of MLB stays, and Boston DFA'ed him in November (while keeping Pedro Ciriaco). At least DeJesus doesn't count against the 40-man roster, which needs cut down by a player. (EDIT - later in the day, the Bucs announced that RHP Chad Beck was DFA'ed.)
RHP Mark Melancon came into the league as Mariano Rivera's heir apparent in 2009; last year, he found himself tossing BP in the AL East and ended up back in AAA. Sox Prospects thinks it's the neighborhood, with this report: "Late inning reliever with a 92-95 mph fastball with decent movement and a plus low-80s curveball. Has shown success in small market of Houston, but mental toughness is still a question mark."
The snowball effect may be the mental jello they're referring to. Melancon's ERA was blown up by five beat downs out of 41 appearances when he gave up 21 of his 31 runs and six of his eight homers. Without them, he pitched to a 2.14 ERA. Good and bad outings all count the same in the stat book, of course, but show the volatility of judging a reliever's effectiveness by ERA alone.
He can touch 97 with a cutter and a curve, and even with a dismal 2012 line of 0-2/6.20, he struck out 8.2 batters and walked 2.4 per nine with a 50% ground ball rate. His problem last year was the long ball; he gave up eight in 45 IP while the rest of his peripherals were well in line. So the FO is betting on 2012 being an outlier season, and the metrics agree with them.
Melancon's two years in the NL Central with the Astros were strong (20 saves in 2011), and that's the guy the FO was looking at. The Bucs will give him every opportunity to be Jason Grilli's Tonto and be the set-up guy in 2013. He's 27, but controllable as he doesn't hit arb until 2014.
The Pirates couldn't get the Red Sox to surrender two guys prominently hyped as their targets, LHP Felix Doubront or SS Jose Iglesias. So the debate will go on whether they may have gotten a better haul if they waited until camp or even the deadline and dispelled the questions regarding Hanny. That was apparently a risk they didn't care to take in his walk season. Additionally, it avoids a round of musical chairs in the bullpen.
The FO was said to have also been in talks with Tigers, Royals, Rangers and the Dodgers before dealing Hanny to the Red Sox, so it seems like there just wasn't a robust market for him, at least for a big-time prospect. So they got a set-up guy and some kids. It's unfortunate, but the Bucs' big payoff for Hanny would have been at the last deadline, not 2013's; that August/September Pirate nose dive cost more than pride.
Still, it's probably fair value. Rosenthal's article header is "Pirates, Red Sox both score in deal," although the Bosox picked up a frontliner, which is more than it appears the Buccos did.
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