So? When was the last time the Yankees developed their own RFer?

agee, you’re on this big kick about Mets scouting and minor league development, it seems all your replies to ALL questions go right back to that. I really don’t want to read about the history of scouting as an answer to all posts here.
Sometimes it’s okay just to debate the present issues at hand.

really the only requirement of a RF are a decent arm and a Good bat! And the good bat is a qualification ONLY because the fielding is so unimportant that you have to have something important to look at when filling the position.

Both hitting and Throwing are physical traits. You don’t really develop those in the Minors you merely HONE those skills.
But if you have a weak arm or a weak hitter no manner or time will change that!
If you get a guy who can throw AND hit you normally make him a RFer. It is a veryt easy position to transition players to and therefore those positions are best served as a place to save some other positional player who has a great bat and good arm but neither the range or the quick reactions needed to play at 3rd or 1B (which are also traditional power hitting positions.)

It does not pay to develop talent for roles that other failed picks might be salvaged in.

It makes much more sense to develop for the more important and critical positions on the field and if they can’t cut it you can at least retain some of their value as an OF. Why do you thnk Murphy was thrown out there first? I personally feel his best destiny is as a DH (useless to us) or he should be converted as a Catcher! Unless we plan on trading Wright sometime soon! Maybe if we had let him play OF in the Minors for longer than we did it might have worked out! Maybe he will after ST is over and someone else wins the 2B job!

Duda is a classic case of what you normally make a RFer.
His lack of showing not withstanding, He has power (bat) and while his fielding isn’t all that great has a decent arm.

The bottomline on drafting is you need to be able to use them at some point. Since it is common to throw people into right for having a good bat and not much more it makes little sense to develop for that instead of developing for a solid hitting 3B who needs a much better glove or a 2B who can field, or a CF who can easily play any OF position without missing a beat should his bat prove better than anyone else and there is another competent CFer to take his place!

When you were a kid what position did the worst guy on your team usually play?
It was either Catcher, 1B or RF!
Why? Because it didn’t matter how good he could field as they got the fewest chances, the 1B merely had to be able to play catch. Anyone could play there and as long as they hit the ball there were no issues!

LF is the easiest position to play defensively, why not get a huge bat and back it up in the 7th 8th or 9th inning with a bench glove? 40 years since we have developed an All Star LFer, maybe a differnt approach might bring better results.

Same in RF. Sign and draft guys who’s bats project to play well there and let them fight it out.

Just because a CFer could play corner OF doesn’t mean he’ll be among the leagues best corner OFers.

You don’t bother drafting and developing RF and LFers. You develop CFs who when they hit but can’t field as well, move to Right or Left field!

We have a ton of OFers in the Minors, FMart is still too young to get it right now. But he was supposed to be a CF and now that Pagan Beltran are here he will go into RF instead.

Just like in Football, rarely does anyone draft a Guard high in the draft they all take Tackles and if he can’t cope there he is usually put at guard which is pretty much the same job only less talent needed.

I know we are all about what someone has done for us lately which is why people hate Beltran and love Pagan but what if what they do lately means we need to send Beltran back to center and find a RF to take over for a back to normal Pagan?

Not saying it will happen but it very well could!

Well anyway, Beltran is still a very good hitter, I’m not saying he won’t get injuried, but if he doesn’t, I think he will drive in over 100 runs – I think he’s the best hitter on the team.

I can’t disagree with you there either….i won’t feel totally comfortable with Beltran until I see him playing for a period of time.

My point is that while it’s great on paper having 2 regular CF’ers it comes with a drawback. CF is a take charge position and, while the SD incident is isolated it can happen when 2 players, accustomed to taking charge, forget to communicate w/ each other in those situations. The key is for Beltran and Pagan to make sure they work on their communication this spring. Hopefully, since Beltran has been involved in such an accident that he’ll remember that Pagan is now the take charge guy in CF and he’ll make sure the communication is there. That’s the hope anyway.

Yes his numbers weren’t that good last year, but i think that was because he missed so much time with injuries. In Sept he hit over .320. His batting average, RBI, and OB% went up every month. so I think his low numbers were because he missed a lot of time, not because he is declining as a hitter.

so if they really are improved from last year, hitting does not seem to be the problem.

standing up to a full season of pounding could be though!