Per Ken Gurnick of Dodgers.com, the club has announced the 13 players who will attend the annual Winter Development camp, to be held this year in Arizona since Dodger Stadium is undergoing renovations.
Pitchers Steve Ames, Onelki Garcia, Zach Lee, Matt Magill, Rob Rasmussen, Chris Reed, Paco Rodriguez & Chris Withrow will be joined by catchers Tim Federowicz & Matt Wallach and outfielders Jeremy Moore, Joc Pederson,& Yasiel Puig.
I did a bit of a double take at Moore’s name, because we’d heard nothing about the former Angel signing with the Dodgers and his baseball-reference page still doesn’t even note the transaction. The outfielder, 26 next June, got into 8 games for the 2011 Angels and was ranked as Baseball Prospectus’ #9 Anaheim prospect headed into 2012:
The Good: Moore can do a little bit of everything. He’s an impressive athlete with plenty of bat speed and nearly average power; he has reached double digits in triples in each of the last four seasons. He’s an above-average runner who can steal bases, and a very good defensive outfielder in all three positions.
The Bad: Moore has always been an impatient hitter who gets into trouble when fed breaking balls early in the count. His arm is his lone below-average tool, but none of his tools are star-level, either.
Moore never did play in 2012 thanks to hip surgery, and he was outrighted off the roster in October. He’s likely headed for what looks to be a crowded Albuquerque outfield.
Otherwise, this is a good look at the prospects the team considers worth their effort to bring to Arizona in January to spend additional time with. As Gurnick notes, 8 of the 15 participants last year – Michael Antonini, Rubby De La Rosa, Stephen Fife, Shawn Tolleson, Josh Wall, Alex Castellanos, Federowicz & Scott Van Slyke — saw time with the big club later in the season (well, sort of, for Antonini). I’d say it’s not a promising sign that catcher Gorman Erickson, a past participant, was not invited back, which should tell you a lot about his falling prospect stock after a very disappointing 2012, and you can probably say the same for hopefuls Aaron Miller & Kyle Russell.
