Minor League Fantasy Draft- Round Six Elehuris Montero

With my final pick, I was thinking about taking another lower level player to develop and hope for an impact player.
However, one player stood out as in "Why is this guy still on the board"?

I mean really, it seemed like he had been taken, but I scanned the results and nope, still available.
I was surprised, but I also was hoping for a younger, albeit riskier, player, but in the end class and performance won out as I finished the draft with the selection of Elehuris Montero, a third baseman from the St.Louis Cardinal system.

The 20-year-old Montero hit .322 with 15 homers and 69 RBI in 103 for Low A Peoria in 103 games before a promotion to High A Palm Beach for the final 24 games where he hit .298 with a homer.
Montero is one of three excellent young third base prospects with the Cardinals along with 2018 first rounder Nolan Gorman and international signee Malcolm Nunez, so it's not out of the question that Montero could be a trade piece near the deadline, should the Cardinals be in playoff contention.

Montero is from the Dominican Republic and was noted by Baseball America to have "Plus raw power" "bat speed to overcome swing holes" and could be an eventual "25 to 30 homer with a steady average player".
Montero's defensive position is less certain as some scouts think he could stay at third as an average defender with work, while others think he will wind up at first base or even possibly left field.
Montero won the Midwest League MVP last season and was expected to be assigned back at High A Palm Beach where he finished last season, but was challenged with advancement to AA Springfield to start 2019.

It'll be interesting to see if Montero zooms up the prospect charts if he plays well at 20 (turns 21 in August) in the Texas League, but should he do there what he did in Peoria, Elehuris Montero will be a name that you hear often not only around the trade deadline but in the 2021 Hot Stove League as well.

Minor League Fantasy Draft- Round Five Miguel Vargas

Mandatory Credit: Kevin Johnson/Ogden Raptors

The fantasy draft was nearing its end and fewer teams still had selections remaining, so there were only a handful of players taken between my fourth-round pick, Luis Patino and my looming pick in the fifth round.

With two rounds to go, I usually like to take players that are lower in team systems with very high upside.
When you are taking a chance on a prospect of that type, it's preferable to do so later in the draft, so if the player struggles, you are more likely to cut bait faster and not keep him around.

I had a handful of players on my post-it with this type of background and level to choose from and almost all of them were still on the board- only one had been taken.
I looked over them closely and decided to take the one that had the highest upside, but having the least experience, was carrying the highest risk.
In the fifth round, I didn't look at it as extremely risky with a lower rounder when I selected 19 year third baseman Miguel Vargas of the Dodgers.
Vargas played 22 games with Rookie-level Ogden of the Pioneer League, where Vargas raked to a .394 2 homers 22 RBI tune and an OPS over a thousand before moving to Low A Great Lakes.
With the Loons, Vargas didn't hit as well in hitting only. 216 without a homer and struck out in 20 of his 75 at-bats.

Vargas is the son of one of Cuba's greatest baseball legends, Lazaro Vargas, who played 22 seasons for the Cuban national team and won two Olympic gold's with that national team.
The 6'3 Vargas signed for $300,000 and is expected to may have to eventually shift to first, but is thought to have plus power and line drive potential once he fills into his still growing body.
Vargas needs work on pulling the ball for power and if he is going to stay at third base reports say he'll have to keep from gaining weight as he is said to have "Slow Twitch" reflexes, although good hands defensively.

Miguel Vargas has the pedigree and background for success but comes with some questions as most younger Cuban prospects have about the competition level that they have faced along with the adjustment of moving to the USA.
Still, his bat looks like it has the chance to be special and was worth taking a chance on at this time of the draft.
I'll finish the draft series sometime on a slow day and I'll try to keep updates through the season on how the system is doing.

Boxing Challenge: Derevyanchenko slips Culcay

Minneapolis isn't known as a huge boxing town, but the PBC has been running cards more often in the northern city and the two main events were not only boxing challenge bouts, but more importantly- two title eliminators brought to you by the IBF and the people that might have the fairest manner of determining their mandatory challenge and yet consistently seems to have the worst mandatory contenders.

The bout that actually was completed saw Sergiy Dereyvanchenko defeat Jack Culcay by a close and unanimous decision to become the IBF's mandatory contender to the winner of the May 4th unification match between Canelo Alvarez and Daniel Jacobs.
Jacobs currently holds the IBF title after winning the vacant championship via split decision over Dereyvanchenko but is an underdog against Alvarez for their fight.
The rugged Dereyvanchenko was expected to walk down and wear down the naturally smaller Culcay, who has spent most of his career at junior middleweight, but it was Culcay that was rallying later in the fight and staggered Derevyvanchenko in the tenth, almost knocking him down and pulled even on my card after ten rounds.
That was all Culcay seemed to have left as it was then Derevyanchenko winning the final two rounds, the twelfth by a sizable margin to win 115-113 on my card.
Derevyanchenko will give anyone a rugged fight and against the right fighter on the right night could pull an upset, while Culcay continues a run of coming very close in surprisingly entertaining fights and losing close decisions (Demetrius Andrade, Maciej Sulecki, and Dereyvanchenko) in them.

The main event was supposed to determine who would become the IBF's mandatory contender to their super middleweight champion Caleb Plant with former IBF champion Caleb Truax (PBC owns the market of super middleweight Caleb's) battling former WBO middleweight titleholder Peter Quillin.
The battle of the Caleb's or Plant-Quillin will have to wait as a clash of heads in round two opened a deep cut over Truax's eye/nose that forced a no-contest.
I suppose there could be a rematch, Plant could make an optional defense or the IBF could make their current highest rated contender Germany's Vincent Feigenbutz the mandatory contender for Plant, but when it comes to sanctioning bodies, trying to figure them out can be maddening.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica earned two points for Sergiy Dereyvanchenko's victory to my one and shaved a point off my lead.
My current lead is 79-71.

Boxing Challenge: Lomachenko crunches Crolla

This will be part of a two-post boxing challenge as I type from the bumpy road home from West Virginia and I have yet to see the FS1 fights from Saturday, so I'll try to give an update on those tonight or tomorrow.

Friday saw the return of Vasyl Lomachenko as he destroyed former WBA champion Anthony Crolla in stopping him with one right hand in the fourth round in Los Angeles to retain his WBA and WBO lightweight titles.
Lomachenko looked to be completely healed from his shoulder injury in 2018 and at peak form after dominating but not quite as sharp against Jose Pedraza in his last fight following the surgery.
Lomachenko dominated every round and almost halted Crolla in the third when Crolla was called for a technical knockdown when his bottom rested on a rope which kept him from falling to the floor.
Lomachenko celebrated and members of the California commission entered the ring as well thinking the bout was concluded before being told of the knockdown call by referee Jack Reiss and being chased from the ring.
With seconds remaining, Crolla made it to the bell but was living on borrowed time and that time was only fifty-eight seconds when Lomachenko smashed Crolla with a right that sent him face down on the canvas, where Jack Reiss may have counted to one before waving the fight off.
Lomachenko broke a knuckle on his right hand with the punch that ended the fight but is still expected to defend his titles as expected in September, possibly in a unification event against IBF champion Richard Commey although Commey may decide for another bout due to his own hand issues and the unification could wait until December.
The fight most would want to see for Lomachenko would be unifying against the other lightweight champion Mikey Garcia, but that continues to be unlikely until 2020 at the earliest.

The ESPN card also would see the light heavyweight debut of WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto Ramirez against journeyman Tommy Karpency and Ramirez looked more impressive than he has in recent fights at 168 pounds.
Ramirez won every round in dominant fashion and a body shot that broke the ribs of Karpency caused the veteran to not come out of his corner after the fourth round.
Ramirez could return to super middle for a rumored title unification fight against WBA champion Callum Smith or go after one of the three champions that Top Rank promotes at light heavyweight.

Meanwhile, in Monterrey, Mexico on DAZN, the Hamburglar made an appearance as heavily favored Jaime Munguia kept his WBO junior middleweight belt by a controversial majority decision over lightly regarded Irishman Dennis Hogan, who fights out of Australia.
Hogan started quickly, banked some early rounds and surprisingly considering the reputation of Munguia as a puncher, landed the harder shots throughout the bout.
Munguia did rally late in the fight and the final three rounds were filled with toe to toe action, so Munguia did manage to make the fight close and I could maybe see a draw if you gave Munguia a close round or two someplace, but I had Hogan a 7-5 winner (115-113) and that may have been mildly generous to the champion, who certainly was given the benefit of the doubt in his home country.
Munguia should give Hogan a rematch, should he stay at 154, but weight problems may have to send him to 160, where his struggles in his last two fights make me think that he may be caught between a rock and a hard place- Stay at 154 and allow that problems making the weight are causing problems with fighters that he should outclass, move to 160, where the weight should be easier on him physically, but a talented class could take advantage of his still being green against top competition.

In the boxing challenge, I added six points (three from Ramirez, two from Lomachenko, and one from Munguia) to Ramon Malpica's four (two from Ramirez, one each from Lomachenko and Munguia) to move my lead to 78-69.

Back tomorrow with a look at the PBC on FS1 card, which I haven't watched yet 

Cleaning out the inbox:Baseball

The inbox is bursting at the seams and I'm going to start the chore of cleaning with an only baseball edition.

Fred Landucci sends me this very poignant article from the Los Angeles Times on the tenth anniversary of the tragic death of local star and Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart from a drunk driver hitting the vehicle he was riding in.
Former Angel teammates are spoken with and Adenhart is remembered by other members of the organization as well.
The article also discusses the tragedy with the driver of that vehicle, who serves a 50-year prison sentence, who offers the standard cliche's used by people that have caused such senseless deaths.
I hope that person is sincere and I couldn't imagine what he has to live with, but in these situations, it's usually all about ministries these folks are involved in or other such works and that's all well and good, but it always smacks of a working rehabilitation in the eyes of others- even if it could be true.

We move to the Athletic for what I could not recommend higher with an article by Emily Waldon on the conditions of minor league baseball for the players that play there.
I know that the Athletic is behind a paywall, but if you can or would take advantage of a trial run sometime, consider checking this out.
Baseball may be glamorous, but the minors are certainly not and even at AAA where cities that host major league teams in other sports, the conditions aren't great with the increased cost of living.
The wages that minor league players are paid (other than a signing bonus when they sign their first contract, which is where the real money is until the big leagues are reached) is downright paltry when you consider the expenses of living the dream.
The article is extensive, so I'm not going to get into details, but they are certainly there.
I know many of us would like to think that with the skills to play pro baseball, we would pay our dues, but would we really all things considered if we were not sure the gold at the rainbow was within reach?
I'm just not sure.

Another Athletic piece discusses the 25th anniversary of Jacobs (don't call it Progressive) field in Cleveland.
This article writes of the dreariness of old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, the process of what it took to be able to build the Indians the Jake, the rumors of where they could have been headed had a vote for a stadium tax failed and the pomp and circumstance of the home opener where the soon to be contending Tribe faced off against the most feared pitcher in the game- Seattle's future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson.

Veteran baseball writer Marty Noble writes on the website of another longtime baseball writer, Murray Chass about his conflicting thoughts on another Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver.
Seaver, who we noted recently in another cleaning of the inbox, has been diagnosed with dementia and has retired from public life,
Seaver always had an almost regal aura about him that came off at times as condescending on television (I've never met Seaver) and the article shows that to be true, although it appeared that Seaver mellowed with age.

Boxing Challenge

After a weekend without anything meeting the exacting standards of the boxing challenge, this weekend roars back with a vengeance with cards on ESPN+, DAZN, and FS1 before arguably even larger events over the following three weekends!

ESPN+ has one of the top pound for pound fighters in the world headlining their show as Vasyl Lomachenko defends his WBA and WBO lightweight titles against former WBA champion and mandatory contender Anthony Crolla Friday night from Los Angeles.
Lomachenko had been hoping to add another championship from IBF titlist Richard Commey, but when Commey dealt with a hand injury after his title-winning performance, the WBA stepped in to mandate their top contender in Crolla immediately.
While Crolla is a former champion, a top ten fighter in the division and acquitted himself well in losing his title and in the subsequent rematch against Lomachenko victim Jorge Linares. there is a world of difference in talent between these two and even though I wouldn't say Crolla is an undeserving challenger in a less than strong division, this is still a match between two different levels of lightweights.

The co-feature brings the move up to light heavyweight of WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto Ramirez against former title challenger Tommy Karpency.
If you thought the difference in talent between Lomachenko and Crolla was large, the comparison of Ramirez and Karpency is downright canyon-like.
Ramirez was expected to vacate his 168-pound championship after a victory, but rumors are flying of a return to the division for a big unification fight against WBA champion Callum Smith in Great Britain.

Saturday night on DAZN will have the WBO junior middleweight title on the line from Monterrey Mexico as young champion Jaime Munguia defends against mandatory contender Dennis Hogan of Australia.
Munguia looks to be far too big and strong for Hogan, who lost to the only world class opponent he's met in Jack Culcay and with only seven KO's in thirty wins, doesn't seem to have anywhere near the power to keep Mungia off of him.
In other words, it's a borderline squash and yet against the number one contender,bleech.

Fox Sports One has the better Saturday bouts with two IBF title eliminators with both fights have the ability to be decent affairs.
In an eliminator for the 168-pound title of Caleb Plant, former IBF champion Caleb Truax faces former WBO middleweight champion, Peter Quillin.
Quillin, who has been basically inactive since his 2015 one round loss to Daniel Jacobs in fighting only twice since should have the advantage in talent against Truax, who upset James DeGale to win this very title in December 2017, only to lose the rematch a few months later.
The questions are these- how much has Quillin lost by not fighting and does Truax, who has been more active, but other than the DeGale victory has beaten no one of world-class ability, have the skills to best Quillin?

In a middleweight eliminator to fight the winner of the Canelo Alvarez-Daniel Jacobs title unifier in a few weeks, Sergiy Dereyvanchenko battles the aforementioned Jack Culcay.
The aggressive Dereyvanchenko lost a split decision to Jacobs for the vacant IBF title in a very fan friendly fight and no matter who wins the Alvarez-Jacobs fight, a fight vs Dereyvanchenko could be a fun fight to watch.
In order to get there, however, Dereyvanchenko will have to get by Culcay, who lost a split decision to WBO middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade and defeated the previously mentioned Dennis Hogan before losing a unanimous decision to Macjej Sulecki in an excellent fight.
This could be a very good fight, but I think the stronger Dereyvanchenko wears down Culcay late and pulls away on the scorecards.

In the boxing challenge, I lead Ramon Malpica 72-65

WBA/WBO Lightweight Titles. 12 Rds
Vasyl Lomachenko vs Anthony Crolla
R.L: Lomachenko Unanimous Decision
TRS; Lomachenko KO 9

Light Heavyweights. 10 Rds
Gilberto Ramirez vs Tommy Karpency
R.L: Ramirez KO 7
TRS: Ramirez KO 4

WBO Junior Middleweight Title.12 Rds
Jaime Munguia vs Dennis Hogan
R.L: Munguia KO 4
TRS: Munguia KO 6

Super Middleweights. 12 Rds
Peter Quillin vs Caleb Truax
Both: Quillin Unanimous Decision

Middleweights. 12 Rds
Sergiy Dereyvanchenko vs Jack Culcay
R.L: Dereyvanchenko Unanimous Decision
TRS: Dereyvanchenko KO 10

Eric Musselman hired at Arkansas

Photo Credit: David Gottschalk-Whole Hog Sports

The Southeastern Conference performed well in the 2018-19 basketball season as the SEC placed seven teams in the "Big Dance", four of those survived until the Sweet 16 and were a controversial foul away from Auburn playing on Monday night for the national championship.

However, even in the best of years, someone has to be the weak sister that gets sand kicked in their faces and as teams have to finish at the top of league play there are teams that have to finish at the bottom as well.

Four of those teams decided to make head coaching changes and each decided to hire successful coaches, but from different backgrounds as their hire.
Alabama replaced NBA veteran Avery Johnson with Buffalo's Nate Oats, who had been very successful in making his Buffalo Bulls the bully of the Mid-American Conference in winning three of the four MAC tournaments under his watch and averaging 84 points a game last season.
Texas A&M decided to go with the more proven veteran as the Aggies swapped Billy Kennedy with Buzz Williams, who had won over 20 games in each of the last four seasons at Virginia Tech.
Vanderbilt released Bryce Drew and hired Jerry Stackhouse, a former NBA star that had served as an NBA assistant, but has never been a head coach at any level or coached at any college ever.
That left Arkansas and they hired a coach that blends all of the best qualities of the above three coaches and might give them the best of them all.

Eric Musselman has the NBA experience of Stackhouse (including a head coaching stint with the Warriors), the program building of Williams and the upbeat style of play of Oats and his hiring at the University of Arkansas seems to me to be a situation where the second choice is actually the better choice.
Arkansas had shown interest in Houston coach Kelvin Sampson, but with the continuing investment in Cougar sports by booster Lorenzo Fertitta, the Cougars don't pay their coaches like a mid-major school (as shown when they went after and grabbed Dana Holgorsen from West Virginia to head the football program) and signed Sampson to a six-year, eighteen million dollar extension to take what appeared to be the Hogs top choice off the meat market (pig pun intended).

Musselman's teams at Nevada averaged 80 points a game last season, won the Mountain West three times (regular season) in four years, appeared in the NCAA three times and finished with a four-year record of 110-34.
To put that into perspective, Nevada had losing records for each of the three seasons before Musselman's hiring and won only nine games in the season preceding his hiring.
In four seasons, Nevada increased their PPG by twenty and came within one basket on an elite eight appearance, so the turnaround was remarkable under Musselman's guidance.

Arkansas is a school that has basketball tradition, winning a national title under Nolan Richardson in 1994 and going to a Final Four under Eddie Sutton, but only occasionally have popped up with strong season since Richardson's departure in the 2001-02 campaign.
Arkansas has strong facilities, is the main school in the state and for a state of its size has a better than average pool of in-state players to recruit from.
Add those facts to a rabid in-state fan base and you should at minimum have a program that consistently in the top of their conference along with the capabilities of national contention.
Why hasn't Arkansas been able to live up to those standards?
I'm not sure, the Razorbacks appear to have everything, if not more than most schools that have been finishing ahead of them and even though I haven't seen any games recently, I've never thought that their last head coach, Mike Anderson was awful to the point of being a severe hindrance to contention.

Eric Musselman will bring a fun brand of basketball to Fayetteville and will hit the recruiting trail with intensity.
Musselman could use the JUCO and transfer route as he did at Nevada to give the program an instant jolt of energy or he could attempt to leap into the Arkansas recruiting class to immediately establish his credibility with the high school coaches of the state, but Musselman recruited nationally at Nevada and he'll have a larger and more visible platform at Arkansas to recruit from.

The other three SEC newcomers may have bigger names from their playing days, bigger coaching names from a Power Five school or even the hot young coach from a mid-major, but I have a feeling Arkansas just may have added the best of all to their bench and the Hogs will be returning to prominence in the next two to three seasons, if not sooner.
The energy and enthusiasm will be contagious in the Fayetteville area and I'm just glad that I can kick back and root for Arkansas without the worries of Eric Musselman coaching a team in Big Ten or Big East play!