Monday, January 12, 2009
Royals invite five
Today the Royals signed and invited to big league spring training camp catcher's John Suomi and Jeff Howell, outfielder's Derrick Robinson and Jose Duarte and infielder Cody Clark. Suomi was a Rule 5 Draft pick this season from Philadelphia while the rest of the group are 2008 members of the Royals farm system.
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2 comments:
What chance do any of these guys (other than the rule fiver) have at making the team. It seems like for the first time in a long time we do not have a lot of open positions or question marks for this team. I know we have position battles but we seem to know the names. That seems like a big deal to me. We don't have to many unknow commadaties.
Josh, it isn't likely any of these players (including the Rule 5 pick) will make the big league club (at least out of Spring Training) this year.
Robinson is an interesting invite considering he hasn't seen any time above high-A and is still relatively new to professional baseball. The thing with Robinson is his dynamic speed/skills on the basepaths. He steals a lot of bases and projects to be of the Juan Pierre mold.
Clark, whom I saw play several times last year, is a decent player. He likely won't ever be a starter in the big leagues. He's a good defender and can hit some, but he's likely a career backup or 'tweener at the big league level.
Duarte, whom I also have seen many times, made the Texas League All-Star team last year and was probably the weakest position player on the roster. He needs more time in the minors.
I just think these moves were more of an award for each of these players having good seasons at their respective stops last season. There could be something with Robinson, though. They are certainly high on his skills.
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