PROSPECT ROUNDUP: JESUS MONTERO

Once Spring ended and the season started, the Yankees prospects that didn’t make the cut go down to their minor league teams and try to fight their way back. Some make it, others are eventually traded by the deadline and some stay and bounce around from minor league club to minor league club. It’s how baseball works.

We will breakdown the prospects on BYB the best we can. We start with Jesus Montero. A week or two ago, Casey told me I should do an article on him because he was off to a hot start. I said we should wait a little while because doing an article too soon was a bit hasty. Well, it turns out I should’ve listened to him. Montero has been keeping his average hovering around .370 with 31 hits, 5 of them doubles and 1 of them a home run, in 83 plate appearances and an OPS of .854.

Thus far, his fielding percentage is 1.000, an encouraging stat for those who worry about his defense, but if there’s any cause for concern, it’s the rate at which he’s throwing out base stealers. He’s allowed 14 stolen bases and caught only 2 runners, giving him a pretty bad 13% caught stealing rate. So few games, isn’t a huge sample, but it certainly isn’t an insignificant one, and if he can keep up what he’s been doing over the past couple of weeks for a few months. The Yankees will have no excuse to keep him down if Posada continues his slow start.

I’m starting to have my doubts about whether or not he’ll take the starting catcher job from Martin. Russell has been off to a lava hot start, hitting to a .289 average with 6 homers and 5 doubles, good for an OPS of .939. He’s certainly won over the fans early in his Yankee career and you’d be hard pressed to find a reason to remove him. However he is injury prone and Jorge Posada, as much as we love him, isn’t really getting it done at DH, yet. He is slamming homers and since it’s early on, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and see if he improves as he adjusts, but if not, Montero would likely be the first guy called for a shot at DH this year.

Some have suggested letting Nick Swisher walk and giving Montero the right fielder spot, but I highly doubt the Yankees would do that, simply because everyone in New York adores Swish and would flip at the idea of the organization forcing him to walk away. I have no doubt that Jesus Montero will be making his major league debut this season. I believe he should have a full time starting spot by 2012, I’m just not sure where it’s going to be.One things for sure, the kid's quite special.

--Grant Cederquist, BYB Staff Writer

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