Drafted in the 6th round by the A's in 1987, never got past AA ball. Best year was '89 when he hit .333 in 71 games of A ball and .339 in 16 games of AA, but never made it past that level and wound up as scout for 3 different teams.

In 1987 he had one of the greatest college seasons of all time
.529/.564/.857 with 16 HR, 90 RBi, 89 runs scored and 58 stolen bases in 55 games.
Says he was the first College Player of the Year not to make the majors.

Apparently there's a book out there called "The Hit Men and the Kid Who Batted Ninth: Biggio, Valentin, Vaughn & Robinson: Together Again in the Big Leagues" by a guy named David Siroty.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=robins003mar

The 87 draft first round included Griffey Jr. Jack McDowell, Kevin Appier, Delino DeShields, Billy SPiers, Cris Carpenter, Bidge, Pete Harnisch, and Travis Fryman.

Interesting 🤔

Here's a video of Mauricio Dubon working with Yuli Gurriel and his family pic.twitter.com/9vrzvtjDrV

— Michael Schwab (@michaelschwab13) January 27, 2023

I still am a little taken aback that Mauricio Dubon and Niko Goodrum were two different people.

Not sure why it's that hard. They were never around at the same time, don't sound alike or look alike. One was t*ts on a boat hog the latter was serviceable as a utility player but that should be all

Eso si, Que es said:

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I am super excited about the Dana hire. If you find and develop one stud a year, you have a dynasty. Obviously we had a leg up with our high picks in the early 2010's, but think about it, the Astros created this huge window by averaging one amazing player acquisition per year: Altuve, Springer, Correa, Bregman, Yuli, Framber, Alverez, Tucker, Javier, Abreu. Sprinkle in a few serviceable plus or plus plus players like LMJ, Garcia, Urquidy, Chaz.

Extend a few so you have them for 9-10 years, let a few walk so you have them for 6 years relatively cheap, and don't lock people in until they are approaching 40 except for a few short term contracts to fill a few gaps and supplement some leadership in the clubhouse.

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All that and remind me - didn't we have a couple years (before Correa) where we screwed the pooch and failed to sign our top picks - and then recently we lost draft picks because of the scandal - and we still were able to build the farm system up?

Big Al 1992 said:

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Eso si, Que es said:

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I am super excited about the Dana hire. If you find and develop one stud a year, you have a dynasty. Obviously we had a leg up with our high picks in the early 2010's, but think about it, the Astros created this huge window by averaging one amazing player acquisition per year: Altuve, Springer, Correa, Bregman, Yuli, Framber, Alverez, Tucker, Javier, Abreu. Sprinkle in a few serviceable plus or plus plus players like LMJ, Garcia, Urquidy, Chaz.

Extend a few so you have them for 9-10 years, let a few walk so you have them for 6 years relatively cheap, and don't lock people in until they are approaching 40 except for a few short term contracts to fill a few gaps and supplement some leadership in the clubhouse.

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All that and remind me - didn't we have a couple years (before Correa) where we screwed the pooch and failed to sign our top picks - and then recently we lost draft picks because of the scandal - and we still were able to build the farm system up?

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We screwed up picks with Drayton well before the rebuild. The only guy we didn't sign under Luhnow was Brady Aiken because we found something in his medicals. That caused us to get Bregman the very next season.

We didn't so much screw up signing those picks as Drayton was already bleeding the cash back out to minimize his costs. He just didn't care.

You're right. That was a really good one.

A couple of the other guy's lists had Pena at 10.

SS #top10rightnow on @MLBnetwork. A loaded position of the gods, as always. I think people forget Franco isn't even 22 yet.

Edman was here before Correa came back to SS.

Next up: Edman, Witt Jr., Tim A pic.twitter.com/H4YbmCBNfV

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) January 27, 2023

No it doesn't at all. How many Yankee fans are all ariubd the country vs hell 10 other teams combined.

Hell, if anything it proves my point. Why do think they're always trying to build the Yankees up when they're average or out juiced balls in their games. And then when Yankees are dominate they never shut up.

They have freaking fan base traffic analytics broken down to a T, and the media will skew it out they need to in order maximize profit, it's the American way.

They have to put Pena 10th because otherwise they look like idiots to say the ALCS and WS MVP isn't one of the top 10 players at his own position.

I've seen a few tweets/articles talking about how "great" the winter was for the Yankees, and how they've closed the gap with the Astros. Didn't they essentially keep the same team and add a starting pitcher? Am I missing something?

Yankees are overhyped once again, to draw ratings.

They have significant holes in LF and SS, LeMahue (?) is an improvement at 3rd. Catcher is nothing special and I'm just not a big Rizzo fan. He works counts well and plays good D, but playoff pitching handles him.

Starting pitching, with the exception of Cole, is fragile

Y'all are underselling the Yankees. They'll be good. Probably win the East. Flirt with 100 wins. I think their biggest issues are 1. Health 2. They need the next wave to hit (Paraza, Cabrera, & Volpe) to move from good to great.

I don't think we are underselling them. I think everyone here believes the Yankees will be good. If things fall into place, they could win 100 games.

We just aren't buying the hype and drinking the media kool aid that claims they are going to be significantly better than last year with pretty much the same team.

If you were going to have Pena in your top 10, 10 is where I'd put him.

I think he should be somewhere in 11-15. As you mentioned, if his postseason offense stays Apr-Sep, he'll be top 10 easily, pushing top 5 with his defense.

Spot on.

I think a realistic goal for Pena:

• Improve BB% from 3.9 to 5.0+ (League Avg vs was 8.2)
• Improve K% from 24.2 to 22.0 or less (League Avg was 22.4)

If we take his 2022 stats and apply 5% BB% & 22% K% he would have 5 more walks and 3-4 more hits (using his BABIP for the non Ks). That would move him from .715 OPS to .743 OPS. That would put Pena right in the mix with Adames, Franco, Cruz, & Anderson's 2022 then a step or 3 below Correa, Bogaerts, Turner, Bichette, Lindor, Dansy, & Seager.

.750 OPS would be a nice goal for Pena in 2023