The BA write-up on Dominguez gushes with legend-building hope, stroking the prospect erection of every secret-14-year-old fan; it reads like the jacket from a beefcake romance novel:
"... advanced hitter... low chase rate for someone his age... strong hands, wrists and forearms... power from both sides... exit velocities of up to 108 mph..."
Yowzer! He's practically Fabio. Now there's a cabana boy that Jerry Falwell Jr. can appreciate!
Listen: I don't want to be a downer here. Prince Hal has shelled out the biggest bonus for a 16-year-old Latino in the history of 16-year-old Latinos. Every fan worth his lucky fork is projecting Fabio - uh, I mean Jasson - in the 2022 Yankee lineup - (he'll be 19) - if not in the 2044 Hall of Fame class, (which I probably will not live to see.)
Of course, this is decadent Yankee fantasy, and in the privacy of your bedroom, I suppose there's nothing wrong with it. Still, it's sort of exploitative and desperate, because Yankee prospects come and go, and most of them end up sinking without a bubble. Remember Jesus Montero? Remember Ruben Rivera? They were BA Top 100s. My recollection is that Rivera reached BA's Top 5. He's now remembered for stealing Jeter's glove.
Insert sigh here. These guys are simply meant to our hearts.
Mostly, I'm thinking of Jackson Melian, a Venezuelan kid who couldn't miss. In 1996, the Yankees signed him - age 16 - to a $1.6 million contract, the highest ever for a Latino teen. His Dad had named him after Reggie Jackson. He was one of Scott Boras' boys, a world class swimmer, said to have given up a shot at the Olympics to play baseball.
Out of the shoots, he made the BA Top 100, clocking in at Number 40. (Keep that in mind when Dominguez gets rated. Will he beat Melian?)
Jackson bumped around the Yankee farm system, hitting around .265 with mediocre power. He was dealt to Cincinnati in 2000 with Drew Henson, Ed Yarnall - (both prospect legends with their own histories) - and Brian Reith for Denny "Train Whistle" Neagle. Melian bumped around the Reds and Brewers systems and actually re-signed with the Yankees as a minor league free agent in 2004. From there, he tried the Braves, Tigers and Astros. Nothing. He never reached the Majors.
One other thing about Melian: I still remember the moment of silence the Yankees held at Yankee Stadium in late August of 1988, the day after Melian's parents had died in a car crash. They'd been following the Yankee farm club in North Carolina. I don't know how a kid recovers from such an event. I'm not offering an excuse; maybe it had no effect on his overall career. But it happened. Whenever I write about Melian, a moment of silence is in order.
Ladies and gentlemen, will you please rise for a moment and remove your hats.
........
Thank you.
Maybe a more meaningful comparison to Dominguez belongs to Esetvan Florial, who last year was the Bull Goose rookie in Camp Tamp, and who then slogged through a miserable, injury-laden season in the lower minors. Last year, Florial ranked Number 2 on the Yankee list. This year, he doesn't even make some of the Top 10s. It's a make-or-break season. He either hits, or he'll start to slowly disappear like superheroes on Thanos' hit list.
Remember Jose Tabata, who's wife was old enough to be his mom? Or Jorge Mateo, the fastest Yankee in the system? Or Dustin Fowler, who in his first-ever MLB game wrecked his knee on a metal protrusion at Comiskey Park, bringing Joe Girardi to tears.
These prospects, they raise your hopes and then break your heart.
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Did Beltran bring his sign stealing skills to the Yanks last year? Redsocks have hinted as much. If so, he didn’t do much of a job judging from all the swings at balls outside and in the dirt.
Dammit Beltrán. You were once magnificent. Note you're not worth 99¢ a pound.
Indeed. Great piece, Duque. Yes, they all seem so great when they're still in their sealed, plastic container.
One can never know with prospects—and one knows even less when one signs them at 16. Every now and then, they're DiMaggio, or Mel Ott. 99 times out of 100, they're Clint Hartung.
About prospects:
1 -- I think the most meaningful number for any prospect is how many games did he play in a "season." I don't know how to get the answer on Jasson.
2 -- I think I do know these things:
a. Tanaka came to the Yankees after a 24-and-0 season in Japan, over 212 innings. He has not topped 200 innings yet in the U.S. He's 75-and-43 in the U.S. (6 seasons, 1000 innings pitched). His ERA = 3.75 in MLB (it was 1.27, unreal, in his last year in Japan). The test comes every day. Masa has mostly done well -- but he has not provided dream-like performance, game after game, season after season.
Didja really except any different?
b. To move away from the Yankees, there's Ohtani. He was the unacknowledged child of Godzille and Babe Ruth. He was rookie of the year (a BS call, but so what). He could even, like Ruth, pitch!!!
Except.....he's hit .285 and .286 in 2 MLB seasons. He's played in 210 games over those 2 years (fewer than Aaron Judge!!!). His two-way-player thing was unused in 2019 -- he only pitched in 2018.
So: OK player, but no Godbino. Or Bamzilla.
3 -- One of the things most of us know (without saying it) is gonna be said here: Most of us are not heroic. Most of us have to push ourselves to just show up every day -- day after day -- put in 8 hours (or whatever it is) to support ourselves and our families. The "test" we each face (quietly, usually, except for those poor folks addicted to opiods or worse) is the showing up, the taking it from management, and then showing up again. And again.
4 -- this same deal is gonna be the test for any MLB prospect. Isn't it?
5 -- A bit more, and I apologize if bores the crap out of you:
My dad once asked me how I was doing at work. This was maybe 20-25 years into my work career. We could not have been 2 more different working stiffs -- he worked on the Staten Island Ferry, I worked as a writer/editor/publisher (on publications and websites you don't know about and wouldn't care about if you did).
Instead of answering (I did not want to depress him) -- I asked him how he had felt, going to work, over those years when he worked. His answer tells it all: "Like a Machine, Joe."
I'm not whining. This is the way it is, in real life. It's the way it is for the Gio Urshelas and Mike Tauchmans of MLB. And for this new guy.
Why should our baseball fantasies include forgetting what real life is actually like?
6. Also: I once told my dad I blamed him for my working so hard, and so many hours, boatload of money, I said -- well, he should have left me unborn.
I was, of course, joking.
He seemed to take it seriously -- and apologized.
Is Mason Williams still only 22?
Joe FoB, my dad basically worked himself to death when I was a child. He didn't take care of himself, ignored the signs and symptoms of serious illness of which he was very well aware as he was a doctor. Plus, he was a manic force of nature. After 12 hours at the office he'd come home and build furniture and frame out the basement. He left the family well off allowing me to be the a disconsolate drunken wastrel in my early 20s. And then I began to hear my dad's voice in my head. Not speaking to me directly or anything like that, but my memories of him just welled up. The drinking became a consolation prize not the be all, end all goal. I went to graduate school and then medical school. Honors society and everything. Residency at a university medical center. Fellowship in NYC. And now I do some of the heavy lifting of medicine. I always know where I need to be when I wake up. My skill set will never out-date. I'll always have work as long as I want it or need it.
Gio and Mike? All athletes? They're like us, but also not. They all go to work every day, but they also have an expiration date. It may be in their 20s or 30s. The very rare lucky few will play into their 40s. That looms over them. It's something I will never face.
Hal? The miserable prick was born in Fort Knox and thinks he shits gold bars. Fuck him.
Thanks for that, Winnie.
You're most welcome, bitty.
These days, whenever I look into a mirror, my dad stares back at me, shaking his head.
I expect he's shaking his head in wonderment and joyful amazement, Duque. I know we are.
I don't know how to respond to that other than to say, "Huh?"
Thanks very much, Joe FOB and Warbler.
Yeah, fathers and sons. My father was basically the one guy who, when he died, people said he should've spent more time at the office. There is, I think, so much honor in doing something you don't especially like to provide for other people.
That aside, there is a line in Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park with George," where someone says, "Work is what you do for other people."
Doing work you love, for yourself, can still be completely backbreaking, miserable, difficult, and exhausting. But at least it's what you want to do.
I think too many ballplayers forget that. Yes, the tedium and the wear of the long season gets tough. But they need to tell themselves, hey, this is not so many hours a day and it will, almost certainly, end in my mid-30s. With a mint load of money to get me through the rest of my life.
What I worry about with this kid—"The Martian," as they call him—is all the stress he is putting on himself, and at such a young age.
However it works out, I hope he enjoys himself. How's the line in the song go? "I hope you had the time of your life."
That 9:03 comment, translated. Almost sounds like lyrics to a very strange song:
Sewerage wiring company in Qatif
Sewerage wiring company in Dammam
Sewer wiring company in Al-Ahsa
Drainage company, Jubail
Sewerage wiring company in Al-Khobar
A carpet cleaning company in Qatif
Carpet cleaning company in Jubail
Carpet cleaning company in Al-Khobar
Carpet cleaning company Al-Ahsa
Carpet cleaning company in Dammam
@JM are all of those terrorist targets?
Oh dear Lord, we're being set up! HAL is going to have Homeland Security kicking in our doors!
No need to worry, Hoss. Remember, you cannot spell "HALAL" without "HAL"
There's a secret code working here and it revolves around end-stage capitalism, "shareholder value," secret crimes against humanity, the Panoptican surveillance state, global climate collapse and unfettered Jeter-ism, which is the unifying force behind these end times.
Remember, the next time you see a food cart in the city that says "HALAL," every penny it's making is going straight into the Yankee coffers. We have no need to worry about the Middle Eastern carpet cleaning cartel. They know who we are already.
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