Clever Farming-Related Title, Part II

Today we'll continue looking at the New York Yankees' farm system as we move on to their Double-A affiliate, the Trenton Thunder. Yesterday, we examined the Yanks' unimpressive Triple-A squad and explained the statistical measures we will be using throughout this process.

Without further ado, the Trenton Thunder:

Trenton Thunder Batting Stats
Player	Age	AB	BB	SO	XBH	H	BB/AB	SO/AB	BB/SO	XBH/H
Kevin Thompson	25	245	41	48	35	81	0.167	0.196	0.854	0.432
Shelly Duncan	25	244	21	51	32	68	0.086	0.209	0.412	0.471
Melky Cabrera	20	243	17	41	20	68	0.07	0.169	0.415	0.294
Eric Duncan	20	240	26	54	14	55	0.108	0.225	0.481	0.255
Bronson Sardinha	22	221	18	50	23	57	0.081	0.226	0.36	0.404
Andy Cannizaro	26	198	11	18	12	49	0.056	0.091	0.611	0.245
Omir Santos	24	160	4	27	9	44	0.025	0.69	0.148	0.205
JT Stotts	25	111	8	12	5	26	0.072	0.108	0.667	0.192
Yobal Duenas	33	80	2	20	7	18	0.025	0.25	0.1	0.389
Jason Brown	31	64	7	15	5	18	0.109	0.234	0.467	0.278
Eric Crozier	26	51	4	18	3	9	0.078	0.353	0.222	0.333

The ideal age for a Double-A player is between 21 and 22 years old. Being younger is a plus, obviously. Three Trenton position players are under the age of 22: Melky Cabrera, Eric Duncan and Bronson Sardinha. Of the three, only Duncan has shown much patience at the dish and only Sardinha any legitimate power.

The rest of the team's position players are old and unimpressive with the exception of Kevin Thompson. The 25 year old outfielder has strong internal numbers and is batting .328/.427/.536. I have to wonder why he is still in Trenton when Columbus is so old and untalented.

Trenton Thunder Pitching Stats
Player	Age	IP	K	BB	K/9	BB/9	K/BB
Jeffrey Karstens	22	70	57	15	7.33	1.93	3.8
Matt Desalvo	24	52.7	59	31	10.08	5.29	1.9
Jon Skaggs	27	46.7	30	22	5.78	4.24	1.36
Matt Smith	25	41	38	19	8.34	4.17	2
Ben Julianel	25	40.7	56	26	12.38	5.75	2.15
Eduardo Sierra	23	40.3	31	29	6.92	6.48	1.07
Charlie Isaacson	25	39	45	17	10.39	3.92	2.65
Ramon Ramirez	23	37.7	35	18	8.36	4.3	1.94
Justin Pope	25	33	24	11	6.55	3	2.18
Charlie Manning	26	32.7	33	12	9.08	3.3	2.75
Carlos Artiles	24	22.7	14	12	5.55	4.76	1.17
Danny Borrell	26	13.7	12	5	7.88	3.28	2.4
Steven White	23	12.3	9	7	6.59	5.12	1.29
Aaron Small	33	5	3	1	5.4	1.8	3
Marc Valdes	33	5	3	0	5.4	0	N/A

As previously stated, the age group we're hoping to find on a Double-A team is under 23. The pitching staff has one such prospect, Jeffrey Karstens. Luckily for the Yankees, Karstens is not only the youngest, but the best pitcher on the staff. He is not terribly far away from K'ing one per inning and his control is excellent as he is averaging fewer than two walks per nine innings. A 3.80 K/BB is very strong.

The rest of the pitchers finding success with Trenton are all 25 or older and/or benefitting from a particularly small sample size. At least it won't be hard to make room for Philip Hughes when he's ready.

Double-A Trenton is barren. The average age on the squad is 25.4 and the median 25. There are only a couple of bright spots and they're still nothing to write home about.

Spreadsheets:
Click here to download Batting spreadsheet
Click here to download Pitching spreadsheet