Phillies Sign Garcia
January 31, 2007 by Geoff Young
Filed under Hot Stove
The Philadelphia Phillies have signed outfielder Karim Garcia to a minor-league contract. Remarkably, he’s still just 31 years old.
Here’s a fun exercise. I’ll give you groups of three players. Two of them were considered top prospects in 1996, the other was not. You tell me which is which:
Group A — outfield
- Mike Cameron
- Karim Garcia
- Andruw Jones
Group B — middle infield
- Luis Castillo
- Derek Jeter
- Donnie Sadler
Group C — catcher
- Jason Kendall
- Javier Valentin
- Jason Varitek
Group D — right-handed pitcher
- Keith Foulke
- Jason Schmidt
- Paul Wilson
Group E — third base
- George Arias
- Phil Nevin
- Scott Rolen
Again, in each set of three players, two were top-shelf prospects in ‘96 and one was not. Without digging too deeply, can you identify each?
Updated to include answers.
The following players were not considered top prospects in 1996:
- Group A: Cameron — toolsy but raw, and not young for his level
- Group B: Castillo — questions about his bat
- Group C: Varitek — considered a bust in the Mariners’ organization, a Scott Boras “get rich quick” special
- Group D: Foulke — marginal stuff
- Group A: Nevin — thought to be a wasted #1 overall pick by the Astros
Without looking it up:
Group A:
Cameron
Group B:
Castillo
Group C:
Kendall
Group D:
Foulke
Group E:
Arias
You’re listing the guys who were not considered prospects, right? If so, you’ve correctly identified “the pretender” in three of the five groups.
Hmm. I was going to agree with four of those five (all except Arias – I say Rolen). Maybe Schmidt rather than Foulke?
I still have my 1996 Baseball America Top Prospects list at home somewhere, so I should remember this. I know the list featured a picture of Andruw Jones at #1.
Not Prospects:
Group A: Cameron
Group B: Sadler
Group C: Varitek
Group D: Foulke
Group E: Arias
I’ve added answers to the bottom of the post. Isn’t it amazing how difficult it is to identify the prospects in retrospect? Who knew that guys like George Arias and Donnie Sadler were so highly regarded at one point…
Wow, I knew that George Arias was highly regarded by the Angels at one time but for Nevin to be a wasted pick in front of Derek Jeter was suprising.
George Arias — urgh — those terrible times as a Padres fan.