MWL1 Dayton Dragons

Dragons 2013 Preview, Part 6: Outfielders

Published on March 18, 2013 under Midwest League (MWL1)
Dayton Dragons News Release


The potential roster for the 2013 Dragons is filled with outstanding prospects all over the field, but the outfield picture could be the strongest area of the club of all. Typically, the Dragons roster has featured five outfielders. In 2013, those five players could include the top corner outfield prospect in the Reds organization plus four other players who played key roles in 2012 in helping their teams to the College World Series.

Jesse Winker was a Reds supplemental first round draft pick in 2012, the 49th overall selection in the draft. He was taken with an extra pick between the first and second rounds that the Reds received as compensation for losing free agent catcher Ramon Hernandez. Winker, 19, was drafted out of high school in Orlando, Florida. He opened his professional career in an advanced league for a high school pick, with the Billings Mustangs of the Pioneer League, yet he performed exceptionally well. Winker played in 68 games for the Mustangs and batted .338 to rank third in the league. He finished first in on-base percentage at .443. He added 16 doubles, three triples, and five home runs at Billings while driving in 35 runs. Winker's swing has been compared to former Dragon Jay Bruce. Baseball America's Prospect Handbook called Winker's first season of pro ball "fabulous" and added that "he's a potential No. 3 hitter in a contender's lineup." A left fielder, he enters the 2013 season as the #6 prospect in the Reds organization. The only other outfielder ranked higher is center fielder Billy Hamilton at #1.

Beau Amaral was the center fielder on the 2012 UCLA Bruins, a team that went to the College World Series and finished the season as the #5 team in the nation. Amaral, 22, is the son of Rich Amaral, who spent 10 years in the Major Leagues from 1990-2000, mostly with Seattle. Beau Amaral started all three seasons at UCLA and was drafted after his junior year by the Reds in the seventh round. Amaral hit .354 as a freshman, the highest average by a UCLA frosh in 12 years. His career batting average with the Bruins was .322, and he hit .313 in 2012, collecting four home runs in 64 games. He broke the school records for post-season games, hits, and at-bats as his team reached the College World Series in two of his three seasons.

Amaral is known as a tremendous defensive center fielder. He was selected to the 2012 Rawlings NCAA Division I Gold Glove team.

Amaral also played at Billings after signing with the Reds and batted .295 with one home run with the Mustangs. Between UCLA and Billings, Amaral also stole 33 bases in 121 games. He served as the lead-off hitter at both UCLA and Billings and could do the same for the Dragons.

Jeff Gelalich played right field, next to Amaral in the UCLA outfield, and was the Bruins best player. He earned Baseball America 1st Team All-American honors in 2012, batting .351 with 11 home runs as he started all 64 of the Bruins' games. He led UCLA in batting average, home runs, slugging percentage, and stolen bases. He was picked as the Most Outstanding Player at the 2012 NCAA Los Angeles Regional after going 3 for 3 with two home runs in the final game.

Gelalich was drafted in the supplemental first round by the Reds, just eight picks after the Reds took Winker, with a compensation pick awarded after losing free agent reliever Francisco Cordero. He joined Winker and Amaral at Billings but battled a hand injury that kept him from playing at his highest level. He hit .244 in 35 games for the Mustangs. Baseball America ranks Gelalich as the #13 prospect in the Reds organization. An outstanding linebacker in football in high school, he is also part of an outstanding sports family. One brother is a starting outfielder at Pepperdine while another is a strong high school prospect.

In most seasons, Daniel Pigott could easily be the most impressive outfield prospect on the Dragons roster, but in this group, he is one of many strong players. Pigott was a key contributor to the 2012 University of Florida team that finished as the #3 team in the nation and made its third straight trip to the College World Series. Pigott spent four seasons with the Gators and hit over .300 three times. In 2012, he batted .318 with eight homers, 41 RBI, and 12 stolen bases in 67 games. He was also selected to the Southeastern Conference Academic honor roll in both 2010 and '12.

Pigott was drafted in the ninth round by the Reds in 2012 and played at Billings. He performed well, hitting .308 with three home runs in 38 games. He hit .329 with runners on base. Pigott, like any of the three previous outfielders, could be an all-star candidate for the Dragons.

Adam Matthews is another outfielder who contributed to one of the eight teams in the 2012 College World Series, in his case, with the eventual runners-up, the University of South Carolina. Matthews was a team captain with the Gamecocks and spent four years there, playing on national championship teams his sophomore and junior seasons. He posted a career batting average of .270 with 19 home runs, 82 RBI, and 22 stolen bases in 593 at-bats. He did not have the same kind of statistical impact on his team as Amaral, Gelalich, and Pigott had on their CWS clubs, but he did play in many big games in college and then went on to post an excellent first season in professional baseball.

Matthews was a finalist for the Mr. Baseball Award in South Carolina as a high school senior in 2008. He was a part-time player as a college freshman in 2009, batting .290, and enjoyed his best game in the NCAA Regionals against East Carolina when he went 4 for 5 with two home runs. He improved to .307 with seven home runs as a sophomore in 2010, but dropped to .264 as a junior as he battled a hamstring injury. He was drafted by the Orioles in the 23rd round in 2011 but elected to return to school for his senior year. In 2012 at South Carolina, he batted .236 with five home runs. He was selected as the Most Valuable Player of the Columbia Regional and started all seven games in right field in the College World Series, primarily hitting fifth in the South Carolina batting order. South Carolina amazingly won 12 straight College World Series games over a three-year period but lost to Arizona in the 2012 championship to be denied in their hopes of winning their third straight title.

Matthews, 22, was drafted in the 29th round by the Reds. With the outfield already full at Billings, he was assigned one level lower on the organizational ladder, to the Arizona League Reds. In 32 games, he hit .325 with a pair of home runs, playing for new Dragons manager Jose Nieves.

Matt Lentz is an interesting candidate for a Dragons outfield position with a background entirely different from the first five players in this preview. Lentz attended the University of Kentucky but did not play baseball at all. He was a safety on the UK football team before his career ended due to a string of concussions. At 6'3", 221 lbs., Lentz has the size, speed, and athleticism. His last year of amateur baseball was his junior year of high school, when he played well enough to draw interest from the Clemson baseball program. Instead, he went to Kentucky to play football and eventually became a part-time starter in 2009.

The concern from multiple concussions ended his career but he remained in school and earned his degree. Then, in the summer of 2011, Lentz picked up a glove and bat for the first time in five years and was encouraged to attend a Reds try-out camp that included about 150 players. He was called back for a second look, then a third. He was eventually signed and sent to the Reds Arizona League affiliate. He hit just .154 in 11 games in his first season on a baseball diamond in five years. He played at Billings in 2012 and improved to .240 in 29 games. Lentz's baseball skills are improving rapidly and he has impressed everyone who has seen him play. He could enter the Dragons roster picture.

Jon Matthews is another candidate for one of the five Dayton outfield spots and could move into the picture if there is an injury or if one of the other candidates winds up on the Bakersfield roster. He was an eighth round draft pick in 2011 out of St. Petersburg Junior College where he was a teammate of 2012 Dragons first baseman Sean Buckley. Matthews is known to possess excellent speed and athletically ability but he has struggled to hit so far as a professional, batting a combined .211 with one home run in 82 games over two seasons. He has stolen 36 bases, an extremely high number for a relatively low amount of games.

Notable: The two biggest names from the Dragons inaugural season of 2000, Adam Dunn and Austin Kearns, are still familiar to fans in Dayton, though their days in the Reds organization ended years ago. Dunn hit .281-16-79 for the 2000 Dragons. He was the 2012 American League Comeback Player of the Year for the White Sox, belting 41 home runs. It was the sixth time in his Major League career that he has hit at least 40. Kearns had what still stands up as the greatest year in Dragons history in 2000, batting .306-27-104. He played for the Miami Marlins in 2012 and is back with them again this season. Since being traded by the Reds in 2006, he has played for the Nationals, Indians, Yankees, Indians again, and the Marlins.

Where are Recent Dragons Outfielders? From the 2010 Dragons, outfielder Ryan LaMarre played for Double-A Pensacola in 2012, batting .263-5-32. Andrew Means split the season between Pensacola and Advanced-A Bakersfield, batting a combined .249-4-18. Several other outfielders from that 2010 Dragons club were out of baseball this past season including Alex Oliveras, Cameron Satterwhite, Byron Wiley, and Justin Reed. Josh Garton played independent ball with Quebec in the Can-Am League. From the 2011 Dragons, Juan Duran played at Bakersfield and hit .237-12-57. Yorman Rodriguez started at Bakersfield and finished with the Dragons. He will be back at Bakersfield in 2013. Theo Bowe and Kurtis Muller also split the 2012 season between Dayton and Bakersfield while Jefry Sierra returned to the Dragons for the entire 2012 season. All are in spring training with the Reds, battling for roster positioning. Steve Selsky spent the first half of 2012 with the Dragons and then moved up to Bakersfield where he caught fire, batting .348-15-48 in a half season. He might make the Double-A roster at the start of the 2013 season. If not, he will return to Bakersfield. The other 2012 Dragons outfielders, Kyle Waldrop and Juan Silva, should be at Bakersfield in 2013.

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