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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