(Jamie Scott Lytle/The North County Times)

Daniel Camarena | LHP

Background
A Southern California kid from just south of San Diego in Bonita, Camarena grew up a fan of the Yankees and Andy Pettitte. He starred both on the mound and in the outfield for Cathedral Catholic High School, pitching the Dons to the California Interscholastic Federation title this spring. Camarena struck out 76 and walked just six in 49 IP as a senior, and four of those walks came in one outing. He took home a ton of hardware in high school, including Rawlings First Team All-American and California All-Region in 2011. He was also named First Team All-CIF and an AFLAC All-American in 2010.

Camarena was strongly committed to The University of San Diego, where he would have both pitched and played the field. Baseball America (subs. req’d) ranked him as the 15th best prospect in SoCal and 138th best prospect overall prior to the draft, but the USD commitment caused him to slide to the Yankees in the 20th round, the 629th overall pick. He agreed to an above-slot $335k bonus about a week before the signing deadline, but did not appear in a game after signing.

Scouting Report
Standing 6-foot-1 and 200 lbs., Camarena is a three-pitch lefty that sits anywhere from 85-91 with the fastball. His best secondary pitch is an average changeup that is light years ahead of the typical high school draftee’s. He turns the pitch over well and it fades away from righties. Camarena’s curveball is also a solid pitch that generates swings and misses at its best. All of his stuff plays up because of aptitude and control, which is advanced for a teenager thanks in part to his simple delivery.

Camarena also has legitimate pro ability as an outfielder, using a sweet line drive swing to spray the ball to all fields from the left side. He has more long-term potential on the mound however, so that’s where the Yankees will keep him. Here is Camarena’s MLB.com draft video, and there are a number of clips of him both pitching and hitting on YouTube.

2012 Outlook
Camarena is a little more advanced than some of the other high school arms the Yankees have drafted in recent years, but he’s still likely to held back in Extended Spring Training before debuting in the Rookie Level Gulf Coast League next June. An assignment to Short Season Staten Island instead isn’t out of the question, but I wouldn’t count on it.

My Take
I’ve always preferred high school pitchers to their college counterparts because they haven’t had a chance to be run into the ground or develop bad habits at the hands of their college coach, and Camarena is no different. He’s a legit three-pitch lefty with decent size and an idea of how to pitch, and I think he’s the best pitching prospect the Yankees drafted this summer. I can see an argument for Jordan Cote, but I’ll take the polished lefty over the raw righty in this case. I’m excited to see what he’ll do during his pro debut this year, and whether or not the Yankees bump him up to Staten Island before the end of the season if he’s pitching well. I wouldn’t say Camarena’s upside is significant, but he has the tools to pitch in a big league rotation down the line.

Interview with John Manuel - Question 2

The Seedlings To Stars 2012 Top 100 Prospects, #17: Gary Sanchez

AUTHOR: Nathaniel Stoltz | IN: Lists/Rankings | COMMENTS: Comments Off |

Name: Gary Sanchez
DOB: 12/2/92
Organization: Yankees
Position: Catcher
Notable 2011 Stats: .256/.335/.485 with 16 2B, 1 3B, 17 HR, 93/36 K/BB, and 2-for-3 SB in 82 games with Charleston (A)

Why He’s This High: Much like #18 prospect Xander Bogaerts, Sanchez played the entire season in Low-A as an 18-year-old and put up some ridiculous power numbers. His .229 ISO was 20 points below Bogaerts’ and seven below Bryce Harper‘s, and Sanchez probably has the best chance at staying at a key defensive position out of those three players.

His offensive outburst is nothing new for the precocious young catcher, who is a career .283/.356/.506 hitter. He also threw out 31% of basestealers last year. His approach at the plate is nowhere near on par with Harper’s, but he takes his share of walks and makes hard contact when he connects.

Why He’s This Low: Like Jesus Montero before him, there’s growing concern that Sanchez won’t be able to stay behind the plate. He doesn’t have Montero’s huge frame, but he’s pretty big already, and he allowed 26 passed balls in just 60 games last year. That’s not particularly uncommon for such a young catcher, but Sanchez has a ton of work to do defensively.

The 27.1% strikeout rate also needs to come down quite a bit if he’s going to hit for much of an average.

Conclusions: Sanchez has a number of skills that are well-developed at age 18, which is fantastic. However, he does have big flaws with his defense and strikeouts; while it’s easy enough to brush those off with “he’s just 18, what did you expect?!” right now, that excuse will only fly for so long. If he’s going to retain his top prospect status, he needs to make at least some progress at rounding out those parts of his game in 2012. Like Montero, he should be the rare catcher who will hit enough to play elsewhere, but that’s still far from an optimal outcome.

Whither Ramon Flores?

Tweener.

With the noteworthy exception of ‘bust,’ I am unsure that there is a more dreadful label in the scouting community than ‘tweener’ – particularly when such a label is affixed to a prospect within your team’s organization. It may not quite evoke the kiss of death as we associate with a bust, yet it is almost always offered hand-in-hand with terms like ‘fourth outfielder’ or ‘utility infielder’ or ‘spot starter.’ While it is a matter of fact that a team needs players to fill such roles, it serves as a sobering reminder that the minor leagues are not brimming with potential franchise players and staff anchors.

Tweener.

Ramon Flores, signed for $775,000 in 2008, has been pigeonholed as a tweener. Standing at 5’10″ and generously listed at between 150 and 160 lbs., the 19-year-old Dominican lacks the range to play center field, yet his power and potential for power (or lack thereof) profiles best up the middle. As it stands, projections for double-digit home runs may be considered overly ambitious. Flores’ above-average to plus arm strength and average range will certainly allow him to be a solid-average left or right fielder, yet he does not offer the premium speed nor the awe inspiring glovework of Brett Gardner to enable him to shatter the mold.

None of this is to say that Flores is a non-prospect, or anything of that nature. Rather, what Flores lacks in flash, he makes up for in strike zone judgment, plate discipline, and contact skills. In 2010, he led the Rookie Level Gulf Coast League in OBP, and placed second in BB and BB/K as one of the youngest regulars in the league. This past season, Flores placed in the top-ten in BB and BB/K in Low-A, despite checking-in at roughly three years younger than the average South Atlantic League Regular. Only a handful of regulars younger than Flores finished the season with a higher OBP – the list includes Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, and Jurickson Profar, none of whom should fall outside of the top thirty or so of most major prospect lists. It would be quite a stretch to suggest that Flores is within the same stratosphere of such prospects, to be sure, but it remains indicative of fine discipline and a discerning eye at the plate.

Flores’ contact skills and willingness to take a walk should also serve to mitigate his lack of power, and critiques of his power potential should not be taken as insinuations that pitchers can simply knock the bat out of his hands. The slight lefty utilizes the entire field, and his above-average bat speed allows him to drive the ball into the gaps, which should help him rack up extra-base hits. Aggressiveness and strong base-running instincts should translate into a surprising number of triples and stolen bases, as well.

To many, this may conjure images of Brett Gardner with twenty-pound ankle weights. For the less pessimistic observer, David DeJesus serves as an almost ideal comparison (or at least as ideal as a comp can be). The lack of over the fence power will likely leave much of Flores’ value tied into his BABIP, yet he should walk at an above-average rate while providing above-average glovework in either corner. In the best case scenario, Flores may well be an ideal two-hole bat.

Brandon Laird, 3B/1B

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