Jose Ramirez's Stock Rising

Written by Sean P | 02 May 2010

Over at Blogging About Baseball, Dylan Sharek wrote up a nice piece about Jose Ramirez. He has some great photos and a video, which I embedded below. It's certainly worth a read and Dylan does a very good job over there so you should check it out.

Ramirez has quickly gone from "sleeper" to a well known and talked about prospect. Here's our write up on him from earlier this year. Through April, Ramirez has a 10.7 K/9 and has walked just 6 batters all year. His FIP is a robust 2.05 and the SAL isn't providing a huge challenge to him right now. Part of his allure is his room for growth physically as he's a slender 155 lbs despite being almost 6'1. The Yankees simplified his delievery last year, and it looks much better, which you can see in the video courtesy of Dylan. Hopefully he'll add a bit of velocity to his fastball which already sits in the mid 90s and continue to refine his curve ball. The change up is his best pitch right now, a rarity for most international prospects, and Dylan raves about it in his report. Baseball America also wrote the following about Ramirez this past week:

"Jose Ramirez, rhp, Yankees: The Yankees mine Latin America for talent as well as any team in baseball, and Ramirez looks like another promising find. Signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2007, Ramirez has a 1.93 ERA in 23 1/3 innings and a 29-6 K-BB mark for low Class A Charleston. Ramirez, 20, does it with a plus fastball that can reach the mid-90s, a plus changeup and the ability to pound the strike zone. That should be enough for Ramirez to cruise through the low minors, though he will still need to bring his breaking ball up to par as he moves up the ladder."

As a programing note, later today we'll start rolling out our look at how our top prospects faired in April.