Abe Alvarez

[yeszir]

http://soxprospects.com/players/images/abrahamalvarez.jpg

Age: 21

Born: October 17, 1982

Resides: Fontana, CA

Height: 6-3

Weight: 185

Bats: Left

Throws: Left

Drafted: 2nd Round, 2003

How Acquired: Draft

College: Long Beach State

High School: Fontana High School

ETA: late 2005

 

Scouting report (from http://www.soxprospects.com):

Tall and lanky lefty. Has been compared to Orel Hershiser and Jamie Moyer. Changes speeds well and hits his spots with consistency. Fastball isn't fantastic, topping out in the mid to high 80s, but throws all of his pitches with pinpoint control. Best changeup and command in the Sox farm system. Curveball needs some work. Very mature, knows what he needs to do to prepare for each game. Very focused.

 

He is considered, as of right now, to be the frontrunner as a replacement on the big league club in case Schilling goes down with that ankle injury.

[RedSoxRooter]

FIX THAT DAMN HAT

[yeszir]

Hat aside, here are his stats:

GO TROT GO TROT GO TROT (he just hit a homerun)

Pitchers W-L	ERA	G	GS	CG	GF	SH	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	WP
A.Alvarez	6-5	3.84	13	13	0	0	0	0	70.1	72	38	30	9	19	52	1

[Zenny]

At the big-league level, he'll fall somewhere between Tom Glavine and Jamie Moyer. That's great company to be in.

 

The hat and the hair are really going to piss people off, but don't let it fool you. He's a hard worker, mature and very focused.

[yeszir]

If the biggest complaint about him is his hat, I say we have a winner.

[yagmaster]

At the big-league level, he'll fall somewhere between Tom Glavine and Jamie Moyer.

 

Is he really this good? We're talking 20 game winners. I think this might be too much optimism for a pitcher with mediocre stuff.

[Zenny]

Originally posted by yagmaster@Jun 16 2004, 10:06 PM

At the big-league level, he'll fall somewhere between Tom Glavine and Jamie Moyer.

 

Is he really this good? We're talking 20 game winners. I think this might be too much optimism for a pitcher with mediocre stuff.

No, it's really not over-exaggerating. The only thing "mediocre" is the speed on his fastball. He controls the fastball amazingly well, has a superb changeup (a 70 on the 20 to 80 scouting scale) and a great, and still developing, curveball. Once people get past the fact that he throws 88, they'll find the 20 game winner under there.

[yagmaster]

I hope you're right, we could sure use a homegrown ace.

[YanksHater213]

Originally posted by yagmaster@Jun 16 2004, 11:26 PM

I hope you're right, we could sure use a homegrown ace.

especially a lefty one at that

[yeszir]

Alvarez is legally blind in his left eye. That's amazing that he can still pitch at a high level.

[Zenny]

Another thing to keep in mind about Abe is his age. He's only 21 in a standardly 23 to 24 year-old's league. So, take in the ~3.85 ERA and ~1.30 WHIP and you say, "he'll be OK". Then factor in the age, the great hitter's league that the Eastern League is and the fact that his pitches are still developing and you have a lot of factors working against Abe, yet he's doing great.

[yeszir]

Tonight, he faces off against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. I'll make a post after the game.

[yeszir]

The Sea Dogs lost, but he only have up one run. His line:

Abe Alvarez	6.0	2	1	1	0	6	1	3.76

 

6 K's and only 2 hits in 6 IP is not too shabby if you ask me.

[Zenny]

Yep, Abe was very good tonight (well, it's now Saturday, so I guess it's yesterday). He has given up a lot of homeruns, but his 1.23 WHIP and 3.10 K/BB ratio only suggest that his ERA is going to continue to decline. Don't forget, he's still about two years younger than the rest of the league.

[Old Hoss]

Originally posted by yeszir@Jun 18 2004, 11:41 PM

Alvarez is legally blind in his left eye. That's amazing that he can still pitch at a high level.

How the hell did that happen?

[YanksHater213]

wow, Abe makes me think of old bruins player Bryan Berard who had a great comeback season this year

[yeszir]

Since my last update which, admittedly, was a long time ago (Hey, I was away), abe's stats look like:

W	L	PCT	ERA	WHIP	G	GS	CG	SH	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	SO	BB	BK	WP	HB
9	7	.563	3.43	1.23	21	21	0	0	0	110.1	110	52	42	11	91	26	0	2	4

He's looking mighty impressive so far. I'll continue with game by game updates from now on, now that I actually can.

[yeszir]

In his last outing (August 7th), Alvarez went 5 innings, allowing 2 runs on 5 hits with 1 strikeout, but he got the loss.

[yeszir]

I promise to update this as soon as I get back.

[yeszir]

Ok, this is it, the REAL update that I havent done for oh-so-long:

 

As most of you may know, but I didnt since I was away, Alvarez was called up to make a spot start on July 21st. He allowed 5 runs on 8 hits over 5 innings.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=..._id=24490&rfi=6

"I like him," said catcher Jason Varitek. "He did a pretty good job. He had good demeanor on the mound, he didn't press, and he was able to get out of some jams, which was good. He stayed very composed. He went out to pitch and not to give in. I think there'll be a time when this kid helps us."

 

"The reason Abe came here and pitched today was because we thought he could handle it," added manager Terry Francona. "I think we all think he has a bright future. Maybe not quite yet, here, but I thought he showed a lot of good things that we thought he would show - poise, having some character and some guts."

 

At Portland, Alvarez's stats stand at:

A.Alvarez	9-9	3.59	25	25	0	0	0	0	130.1	129	63	52	12	29	102	2

He still has a very respectable ERA, and a halfway decent record for a AA pitcher. His strikeouts are also pretty high (102 in 130 innings) for a pitcher, who accord to most people, throws softly.

 

He is also rated by http://www.soxprospects.com to be the sox top pitching prospect, with a grade of "B". He's also a 2004 Eastern League all star. I'm having extreme difficulty finding game-by-game performances on the sea dogs website, but when I find them I'll post them.

[YanksHater213]

I was at the game when he pitched. I thought he pitched fairly well. Hes gotta work on his velocity as he threw only mid to upper 80's on his fast ball. His curve is a big looping Barry Zito type of thing, it is only in the upper 60's lower 70's. Hes also got a changeup he threw a few times, it wasnt really that good. The thing was that he got beat by the good players on the Orioles (Tejada and Mora) and not some of the worse players. For him to become a good ML pitcher, I think that he will need at least one more pitch, possibly something more of a strikeout pitch. A splitter? Slider? Forkball? Who knows. I think that he pitched well for, a person of his ability, a person that made his first ML start, and a person that was only in AA.

[Zenny]

Originally posted by YanksHater213@Aug 29 2004, 08:34 AM

Hes also got a changeup he threw a few times, it wasnt really that good.

I don't agree with that at all. If anything, his changeup is his best pitch. Most scouts rate it a 60 or 70 on the 20-80 scouting scale.

[YanksHater213]

His change up was drilled that game...

[Zenny]

Originally posted by YanksHater213@Aug 31 2004, 06:50 PM

His change up was drilled that game...

Not everybody is perfect every time, but he truly does have a very good changeup. One game doesn't mean a whole lot.

[RedSoxRooter]

Great article on Abe here

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1873839

 

Gangbanger? Try Modest Abe

By Brian Triplett

ESPN.com

 

PORTLAND, Maine -- The national anthem ends. He picks up his hat from the dirt, places it upon his bushy black hair, and deliberately turns the flat-billed cap nearly 45 degrees to the left.

 

He steps onto the pitchers mound as those who have never met him instantly form opinions.

 

Probably cocky. Likely arrogant. No doubt he's disrespecting the game.

 

Based solely on appearance, Abe Alvarez is judged.

 

But the strangers are wrong.

 

The 21-year-old minor league pitcher hears the bashing on the radio broadcasts and the heckling from the stands, and he brushes it off like a veteran, seeming almost amused by the ignorant, inaccurate stereotypes.

 

"I'm not worried about the way I look or the way people look at me," he said. "They probably think I'm weird or some wacko or something, but they're not going to be someone close to me, so it shouldn't matter."

 

He makes his presence known on the field for the Portland Sea Dogs -- the Double-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox -- and keeps to himself when he steps off it. "A speak-when-spoken-to kind of guy," described one teammate.

 

So it's not often Alvarez opens up about the poverty he grew up in. The robberies, the food shelters, the dangerous neighborhoods.

 

Never does he bring up the fact that he became the fastest player in organization history to move from short-season Single-A ball to starting a game in the majors.

 

And rarely will he bother to give the reason why he wears his hat to the side.

 

Unless you took time to look past his crooked bill, you would never know Abe Alvarez is legally blind in his left eye.

 

And you would never know Abe Alvarez.

 

Only then would you realize that baseball really doesn't need a guy like him.

 

It needs one on every team.

 

Seeing is believing

Sitting in the Sea Dogs dugout hours before game time on a hot August afternoon for Maine standards, Alvarez uses his hand to cover his right eye.

 

A notebook with fairly legible handwriting is placed a few feet in front of him.

 

"I can't read any of it," he says.

 

The notebook is moved in closer.

 

"Nope."

 

Now inches away.

 

"I can see it's there, but I can't read anything."

 

It's true.

 

The pitcher with the most wins on the Sea Dogs roster this season has an eye as useful as a stereo without sound. But he says it rarely affects him. Not with reading. Not with driving. Not with pitching.

 

He has to turn his head a few more notches to look toward second base, but that's if a batter even gets that far.

 

His eyes appear normal. One just doesn't work.

 

And he's never known it any other way.

 

Imagine the crust in your eye when you wake in the morning multiplied by a hundred. That's the infection Alvarez was born with.

 

His mother began dripping prescribed drops into her newborn child's eye, but the infection would not clear. There were alternate medicines, more powerful ones, but they would put his vision at risk.

 

His mother had no choice but to try the stronger drops. The side effect occurred.

 

"I'm still looking out of one eye," Alvarez says. "I don't know what it is to see clear."

 

He began playing T-ball at age five in southern California, and he began to love the game. Until high school, he wore glasses while on the mound, with one thick frame and one skinny one.

 

"It kind of looked dumb," Alvarez laughed.

 

He tried wearing one contact, but nothing made a difference, and his eyes are naked now.

 

He wouldn't let his condition get in the way of his dream. Just because he had trouble seeing didn't mean he couldn't believe.

 

The chance

His bio was impressive. A two-time Big West Conference pitcher of the year at Long Beach State. A lefty with not a ton of speed, but plenty of control.

 

After his junior year in college, he was ready for the pros. Then, two weeks before the draft, Major League Baseball came to conduct routine eye tests.

 

"I already knew what the results were going to be," Alvarez said. But the scouts didn't.

 

For the first time in his life, Alvarez heard the term "legally blind" used to describe him.

 

Although he was never quick to tell anyone about his condition, he knew it was inevitable that people would soon find out.

 

"I couldn't care less if they knew I had a bad eye," he said. "It never stopped me before with what I wanted to do."

 

The phone began to ring off the hook. Scouts began showing up to conduct their own tests. Alvarez began to worry.

 

"They're going to think I won't be able to pitch," he thought. "But I just trusted myself and what I had done already to show that I could."

 

A handful of teams were scared away by the news.

 

"There were about five or six that got a little bit nervous," said Paul Cohen, Alvarez' agent. "But there were definitely seven or eight that fell in love with him. And you only need one team to love you."

 

With the 49th pick of the 2003 June draft, the Boston Red Sox selected Abe Alvarez.

 

That summer, he pitched 19 scoreless innings in short-season Single-A ball for the Spinners in Lowell, Mass. -- a 20-minute drive from Boston -- allowing him to leap straight to the Double-A level the following season.

 

"We think he's going to be a good major league pitcher," said Ben Cherington, the organization's Director of Player Development.

 

The opportunity would come sooner than anyone, including Alvarez, ever imagined.

 

The news

It was a Tuesday night in late July. The Sea Dogs were on the road in Norwich, Conn., for a three-game series when manager Ron Johnson called Alvarez into his office.

 

The calm, laid-back kid didn't believe what he was hearing at first.

 

Start for the Red Sox. Against the Orioles. In Fenway Park. Leaving tomorrow. Pitching the following day.

 

"That's the most excited I've ever seen him," Johnson said. "He actually kind of turned his head a little bit and smiled. It was perfect Abe."

 

Nervousness settled in soon, but sleep didn't come that night until 5 a.m.

 

Alvarez flew his parents from California to Boston the next afternoon, knowing that he was heading into the most important day of his life.

 

Although he gave up five runs and eight hits in five innings, he was commended for his control on the mound.

 

"He possesses what I consider well-above-average composure and maturity for a 21-year-old man just coming out of college," said Sea Dogs pitching coach Bob Kipper. "He has an ability to separate what just happened and get into what he needs to do with his next pitch. That's maturity."

 

The day after Alvarez' start in the majors, his coaches found the pitcher running the treadmill back in the Sea Dogs workout facility.

 

He didn't mention a word of his "dream-come-true" to any of his teammates until asked about it.

 

"It was unbelievable," Johnson said. "Most guys would come in with a boatload of stories. Nah, not Abe."

 

A disappointing tone rang in the voice of Alvarez when he spoke of his performance, but the reality that he had just pitched in Fenway Park at age 21 made him crack a smile.

 

"I'm out there facing Rafael Palmeiro, a future Hall of Famer. Miguel Tejada's hitting bombs off me. You look back and you're like man, that was fun."

 

Fortunately or unfortunately for Alvarez, how he pitched wasn't the focus of the highlight reels the following day.

 

A handful of Red Sox, including Curt Schilling and Johnny Damon, were seen in the dugout wearing their caps tilted to the left, offering support for the rookie.

 

Alvarez had worn his hat the same way since Little League, but for the first time, he and his hat were in the national spotlight.

 

A reaction was inevitable.

 

The perception

Todd Jamison was driving home when he heard the reaction.

 

The Sea Dogs radio broadcaster sat in his car and listened to a national sports talk show host rip on Alvarez and his appearance following his start in Fenway.

 

"Ruining the game of baseball."

 

"A gangbanger."

 

"He said some pretty harsh things I thought, especially for not knowing anything about the kid," Jamison said. "It was harsh enough to where I thought I should set the record straight."

 

Jamison dialed the number on his cell phone, and after a 10-minute hold, he got through to the radio show.

 

He explained that Alvarez wears his hat to the left to balance the lighting because he is legally blind in his left eye.

 

For a few seconds, the show went silent.

 

They're quick to judge Abe Alvarez, but hesitant to get to know him.

 

Even the Sea Dogs manager admits he had bad thoughts running through his mind when Alvarez showed up for spring training.

 

"When I first saw the hat, I thought he was some screwball," Johnson said. "But when he goes out, he competes and he gives you everything he has. I don't give a s--- if he wears his hat backwards."

 

It may look peculiar to others, but it feels natural to Alvarez.

 

"That's just the way it goes on," he says.

 

"If it's a big deal and people want me to put it on straight, I'll try. It just feels comfortable on my head.

 

"I'm just who I am. They can say what they want to say."

 

The reality

At first glance, he looks more like a rock star than an athlete.

 

His hair has been many shades since his mother, a stylist, likes to get creative with it, but for now it is dark and curly and hidden beneath a black Los Angeles Clippers cap - tilted to the left of course.

 

A yellow rubber band clings around his wrist for no good reason.

 

The armband resting under his shirt is worn at all times for good luck.

 

Along with being religious, he's superstitious as well.

 

After what he's gone through, he could use a little support.

 

Ironically, he wasn't that far from becoming a "gangbanger."

 

Three blocks away to be exact.

 

While growing up in Maywood, California, he would see helicopter spotlights and hear sirens through the window of his bedroom, which he shared with his older brother and sister.

 

Gangs hung out down the street, and his house was robbed on more than one occasion. But he was too young to know what had happened.

 

"I didn't really understand," Abe said. "My parents didn't make it a big deal. They didn't take much because there wasn't much that we had."

 

His parents, Alex and Mercedes, did all they could to raise their children right, and kept them inside to avoid the danger.

 

"My parents kept us safe, and that's all that pretty much mattered," Abe said.

 

It was a struggle for Alex and Mercedes to start a family after moving from Mexico to California at a young age. Job opportunities were limited and Abe's father faced the horrors of unemployment after all three children had been born.

 

After landing another job, Alex moved the family to Fontana, California, when Abe was seven, in hopes of providing his children a safer upbringing.

 

The house was bigger and the neighborhood nicer, but it was still far from a perfect world.

 

Abe was in high school when he came home one day to find his door broken down.

 

His house had been robbed. His mother was crying.

 

He remembers this one.

 

"You walk into your parents bedroom and all their stuff is gone too, and it hits you. You got all your stuff taken away, and you're not getting it back."

 

Abe had to wear some of his brother's old clothes to school the next day. He packed what he could scrape up for the trip his family was taking to Mexico to see family over the weekend.

 

This time, when they returned, everything was gone. The house had been robbed again.

 

Alvarez was never used to having money. During grade school, he would often have to explain to friends why he brought quarter stacks to school to pay for lunches.

 

In college, he spent a semester sleeping on a friend's couch because his scholarship did not cover the cost of living.

 

He has money now. A $700,000 signing bonus and an $8,100-per-month salary for making the 40-man roster.

 

But when asked to describe how he spends it, he simply says, "I don't." Except for when he gives back.

 

Soon after signing his contract, he put his parents names on his bank account. He's offered to pay off the remainder off their house payments, but they decline.

 

He hopes to someday build them a home in southern Arizona on the Mexican border, close to his mother's family.

 

"He'll do anything for my parents," said his sister, Andr?a.

 

Throughout his childhood, Alvarez avoided the trouble, and became the opposite of the people he grew up seeing every day.

 

"He doesn't get in trouble," said Johnson, the Sea Dogs manager. "If they don't get in trouble, I don't know what they do. He's a manager's dream."

 

When he goes out with friends, Alvarez is the responsible one of the group. He stops his car to let old ladies cross the street and says "thank you" to the waitress after every drink refill.

 

His English is perfect and polite and his Spanish is fluent.

 

His host family, Rod and Cheryl Tibbetts, often find him writing letters home to his real family on the opposite coast.

 

"He's one of the nicest ballplayers I've ever met," said Cheryl, who along with her husband has hosted nearly 20 Sea Dogs in her home, including Abe.

 

He hopes that you like him, but he doesn't want your sympathy.

 

And although he doesn't know it, he rubs off on you.

 

The yellow rubber band that sat in the Sea Dogs parking lot on that hot August afternoon looked identical to the one Alvarez had been wearing on his wrist.

 

But this one has a meaning.

 

It's kept to remember Abe Alvarez.

 

To remember that perception is a funny thing.

 

To remember that to him, we're all wearing our hats crooked.

[yeszir]

It's late, it's a long article, I admit I only read half. That said, it was a great article, and Alvarez seems like a genuinely nice guy. I'll read the other half tomorrow.

[yeszir]

His final stats:

A.Alvarez	10-9	3.59	26	26	0	0	0	0	135.1	132	65	54	13	32	108	2

 

He was also named the sea dogs pitcher of the year.

[CrespoBlows]

If Lowe needs to go on the DL, do we call up Alvarez or Castillo?

[stocker323]

I say we should use Astacio but I think the pro-yankee announcers are making it out to be worse than it is.

[yeszir]

Originally posted by CrespoBlows@Sep 18 2004, 02:42 PM

If Lowe needs to go on the DL, do we call up Alvarez or Castillo?

No way do I ever want Castillo to pitch a major league game for the sox again. Not onyl does he suck, but he takes 8 hours per pitch.

 

What about Mendoza? He can make a few spot starts to get us to the playoffs, and if need be we could use pedro schill bronson wake and just leave Lowe out of the rotation.