IFA: The Rowland Effect

It will be awhile before we know what this year's super class of IFA's can do, but there are some reasons to be optimistic, foremost of which, we'll call the Rowland Effect.   Donnie Rowland was a Yankee Scout and crosschecker from `95 to `99, then left to head the scouting department for the Angels, who went on to win in 2002, when they shouldn't have.   From there he did the same job for KC starting in 2004, and about 4 or 5 years later we finally got him back.

By 2009, the Yanks IFA program had been rocked by a kickback scandal.  What was happening was that Yankee execs down there were signing kids who would kickback money to them.   Nasty fricking business.  Of course, it might have been par for the course down there; to wit,  Carlos Rios, one of the deposed Yanks execs sued the team in the DR and won.

The way this manifested in the pipeline was the Yanks were getting kids who weren't worth their bonuses.  Take Kelvin DeLeon, for example, kid could not hit good pitching, at all.   We'll get to another point about this as soon as we get caught up in the history.

The Yanks needed a Yankee solution on site.   Between the firings and the solution, Yankee execs were just constantly flying back and forth checking on stuff.   So right around the time they won their last WS, they asked Donnie Rowland, who had already been back and doing his thing for awhile, to spearhead, crosscheck and be the final say on their scouting efforts down there.   And guess what?

The results seem good.

Before this year's splurge, the Yanks have spent most of the Rowland Era bargain hunting in the DR, and have found guys like Luis Severino, and the guys they spent good money, like Miguel Andujar and Luis Torrens, can actually play.   Both of those hitters were aggressively promoted to the Sally after looking good in short season last year, and, though Torrens has been rehabbing, Miguel has been making adjustments and looks like a real prospect.

Here's the interesting thing, Torrens and Andujar are on the same Charleston team as Jackson Valera and Rey Nunez.   Guys that were signed during the corrupt period.  In other words the Rowland kids are in the process of lapping that slate of somewhat specious prospects.

And the kids who have come over this year to play in the GCL all look like they can play.   Now some of that might be the development that's taking place in the Academy, but most of it is about their talent being truer than those kids who were signed in the kickback.

So whatever Rowland's scouting criteria is (and they say he's thorough and rigorous down there), the change in the talent flow is palpable.   And this year they essentially gave him a blank check.   So, we should be pretty optimistic about the players he's come up with.