The Padres will promote top outfield prospect Rymer Liriano on Monday, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Liriano hasn’t made many lists of top prospects throughout the game, but Baseball America’s Prospect Handbook 2014 named him the Padres’ sixth-best prospect heading into the season, praising his five-tool potential, even after he missed the 2013 campaign due to Tommy John surgery. Since then, the 23-year-old has attracted attention with a solid performance at Double-A San Antonio and a ridiculous outburst in a small sample with Triple-A El Paso, in which he’s hit .467/.536/.683 in his first 69 plate appearances. Here are more notes from the West divisions.
- The Rangers will not promote top prospect Joey Gallo this season, ESPN’s Jim Bowden tweets. The 20-year-old is hitting .255/.347/.568 for Double-A Frisco after putting up even more ridiculous numbers earlier this season at Class A+ Myrtle Beach, and he wowed fans at this year’s Futures Game. But it sounds like we’ll have to wait until 2015 before we see him hit home runs in Arlington. He’s struck out more than three times for every walk so far at Double-A, and he has no Triple-A experience, so there could be merit to allowing him to spend at least a couple more months in the minors.
- The Rockies should make seven moves to vault themselves into contention in 2015, ESPN Insider’s Jim Bowden writes. FanGraphs’ Paul Swydan recently wrote an article with a similar theme, but very different suggestions, and it’s interesting to compare the two pieces. Some of Bowden’s suggestions (like trading Kyle Parker and DJ LeMahieu to Minnesota for Brian Dozier, or dealing Brett Anderson and prospect Raimel Tapia to the Red Sox for Mookie Betts) seem a bit far-fetched, but they’re good springboards for discussion, and figuring out how to fix a 45-71 team in short order isn’t an easy exercise.
