Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports has the following note buried in one of his weekend columns:
The Braves' front-office shakeup is expected to prompt the departure of scouting director Roy Clark, who could become Brian Sabean's No. 2 man with the Giants...
Well, hee haw! No, it’s not that Roy Clark — I think — but if he makes the move, the Giants will suddenly have one of John Schuerholz’s key lieutenants in the fold. Under Clark, the scouting director since mid-1999, the Braves have drafted and signed excellent positional talent. We discussed this a few posts ago, but in case you don’t feel like backtracking: Jeff Francoeur, Kelly Johnson, Brian McCann, Jarrold Saltalamacchia, Yunel Escobar, Calix Crabbe (sorry, I had to throw one All-Name guy in there). Clark’s draftees and signees have also helped Schuerholz trade for big names like Mark Teixiera (Saltalamacchia, Elvis Andrus) and Edgar Renteria (Andy Marte).
Dig into the drafts and prospects here if you’re a Baseball America subscriber, or here.
One question lingers, though. When the Braves made a couple big promotions in mid-2006, why didn’t Clark move up the ladder? Perhaps he didn’t want to. Perhaps he was too valuable where he was. Perhaps he’s not as good as we think.
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P.M. UPDATE:
Being part of the biased West Coast non-mainstream media conspiracy, I haven’t seen much of Dustin Pedroia until the playoffs, so I was a bit surprised to see how well he did this year:
.317 / .380 / .442
Nice rookie year, rookie. Here are his lifetime minor league numbers:
.308 / .392 / .453
Barely any difference. It’s worth noting that he hit like the dickens this year after a rough major-league debut last year (.191 / .258 / .303 in 89 at-bats).
Compare Pedroia’s minor-league numbers to Mystery Player X’s minor-league numbers:
.328 / .393 / .459
Uncanny! And in about the same number of at-bats, too. Mr. X has about half the major-league at-bats as Pedroia and a career OPS about 100 points lower (.785 to .683). He’s also more than a year older. Question: Who is Mr. X, and how likely is to be as good as Dustin Pedroia?
