Written by Greg Fertel | 27 December 2006

Last Friday I mentioned a list of guys the Yanks cut, and one player slipped completely under my radar until I flipped through the Yanks 2005 Draft recap in the Prospect Handbook this weekend and recognized the name. That guy is Karl Amonite, who wasn’t cut, he was signed instead. Amonite’s got a bit of interesting story worth sharing. The Yanks drafted him in the 13th round of the 2005 draft, but he didn’t sign because he was recovering from a pretty serious knee surgery at the time. Amonite was also sidelined by a right arm injury in 2004, which prevented him from playing at all that year for Auburn. Amonite didn’t take a medical redshirt that year, therefore when he was drafted and didn’t sign, he was out of college eligibility. I dunno what Amonite did during the 2006 season, but it wasn’t play college or minor league baseball. Maybe he caught on with an independent team, maybe he sat on the couch. I dunno. Anywho, during the 2 years in which he actually took the field for Auburn, he was a beast, putting up these aggregate stats as the Tigers’ cleanup hitter:

120 G, 414 AB, 82 R, 144 H, 38 2B, 2 3B, 33 HR, 115 RBI, 74 BB, 70 K, 9 HBP (.348-.449-.688-1.137)

Those are some ridiculous numbers, metal bats or not. For the fun of it, I’ll extrapolate those out to a 162 game season:

162 G, 552 AB, 109 R, 192 H, 51 2B, 2 3B, 44 HR, 153 RBI, 99 BB, 95 K, 12 HBP

Yeah, so the kid can hit. Here’s what BA’s scouting report said about Amonite in 2005:

Karl Amonite missed the 2004 season with a right arm injury, but has been the Tigers’ cleanup hitter for most of his two seasons on the Plains. He lacks athleticism and his bat speed is just fair, but he’s strong and should hit in the middle of a minor league lineup. As a Canadian, he benefited from a recent change to visa rules that should allow him to start his pro career this summer.

Assuming Amonite kept himself in shape and baseball ready (for lack of a better term) during 2006, he should be set to join Low-A Charleston to start 2007, where he could eventually threaten Ben Jones’ career Charleston records in HR (35) and RBI (165). I’m not saying he’s the next hot prospect by any means, but he’s a real good hitter, and having guys in the organization like Amonite makes everyone around him better, especially the young prospects he’ll have hitting around him. But hey, that Pujols guy was a 13th round back in 1999… ********** Here’s the first list of 2007 draft prospects that includes some scouting info that I’ve seen. Vitters is obviously the head of the HS hitter class, and that’s been known for months. Justin Jackson seems like a a more refined CJ Henry to me, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing. I’ve liked Jack McGreary for a while now, he’s more of a Tom Glavine/soft tossing lefty though, and I’m partial to the hard throwers. Matt LaPorta’s a monster if he’s healthy, thankfully he didn’t sign with the Red Sox this year. Mitch Canham is an interesting guy, the lasting image I have of him is the College World Series saving block on a would be Dallas Buck wild pitch he made in the late innings of the CWS Title Game. I’ll have some Yankee focused draft stuff sometime in the near future. Hopefully Santa treated you and yours well, my holiday was the best I’ve had in years (mostly because I wasn’t near the crazy half of the family). Update: Forgot to mention this before, but if you’re bored out of your mind and looking for a way to kill some substantial time, start a career with the Superstar thingee in Madden, but do it as a guard, not one of the glory positions. It’s pretty sweet trying to hold the line and stuff like that, but make sure to do it as a guard and not as a tackle so you can pull occasionally and throw a mean block on a running play. At first it’s frustrating because you end up going everywhere but where you’re supposed to, but once you get the hang of it it’s one of the coolest things you could possibly do in a sports game. Sadly you’ll get bored with it after a few hours…

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