Saturday, September 10, 2011

2011 Rays Prospects Reader Choice Players of the Year: Princeton Rays

The poll has closed for the P-Rays and here are the results.

Princeton Rays Hitter of the Year: Joel Caminero
Princeton Rays Pitcher of the Year: Matt Spann

Caminero found himself in the top of most of the P-Rays offensive categories. He finished the 2011 season with a team high .330 batting average, 9 doubles, a team leading 6 triples, 3 home runs and 22 RBI's in 48 games this season. Defensively, Caminero patrolled the Princeton outfield with a .924 fielding percentage. Caminero was signed by the Rays as a non-drafted free agent in July 2007.

Spann was the P-Rays strikeout leader for the 2011 season. He finished the season 4-1 with a 3.13 ERA and 61 strikeouts in 14 games. Spann closed out the 2011 season by recording a personal best 8 strikeouts against the Elizabethton Twins on 8/29. Spann was the Rays 25th round pick in the 2010 Draft.

285 readers participated in the Princeton Rays poll. Below are the top five of each category as chosen by the readers of Rays Prospects.

Hitters
1. Joel Caminero (24.91%)
2. Jake Hager (16.36%)
3. Taylor Motter (15.24%)
4. Cameron Seitzer (12.64%)
5. Drew Vettleson (10.78%)

Pitchers
1. Matt Spann (64.10%)
2. David Kubiak (8.97%)
3. Ian Kendall (5.56%)
4. Jose Molina (3.85%)
5. Jeff Ames (3.42%)

The next poll will open tomorrow and will focus on the Hudson Valley Renegades.

3 comments:

  1. What happened to Princeton to make them fall apart? I truly thought this team was stacked when the rosters were first posted. But, obviously, that didn't seem to help.

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  2. I went with Motter and Spann, Seitzer was a close 2nd to Motter for me.

    Princeton looked like it had a nice offense if you just look at other Rays affiliates, 4.78 runs per game was 2nd to Montgomery (4.91) among US affiliates. But in the Appy 4.78 was only good for 8th place, out of 10 teams. Pitching was in 7th in runs allowed per game at 5.25 and 6th in ERA at 4.41. So it was a little bit of everything.

    Offensively Motter, Seitzer, Junior Rodriguez, Brett, Caminero and Vettleson were good. But Sale, Dixon, O'Conner and DePew were pretty bad, with over 800 plate appearances between them.

    One thing to remember is Princeton had the 2nd youngest hitters in the Appy this year. Of the 4 bad ones listed above, all were 19 years old this season. Of the 6 good ones, only Brett and Vettleson were 19, the rest were all 21 or older. So about what you'd expect, older guys do well, most of the young guys struggle.

    For the pitchers, of the 5 with the most starts, only Matt Spann had an ERA under 4.30. Henderson, Kendall and Rivero were all between 4.30 and 4.62, and Quinonez was at 6.61 over 12 starts. Don't have to dig much further than that. Again age was a factor, the threesome of Henderson-Kendall-Rivero were 3 of the 4 youngest pitchers on the team (all age 19, along with Marcus Jensen out of the pen).

    So long story short, the P-Rays were very young and, with a couple of exceptions, the youngest guys on the team all struggled.

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  3. I honestly think Ryan Brett was really over looked in that poll. He led the team in doubles, Hits, total bases, And runs. His strike out percentage looks relatively lower than the others and Batted .300 for the year. I would have almost mistaken him for an older player but he is only 19. I'm curious to see where he ends up next year.

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