Carlos Monasterios, who was the BlueClaws Opening Day starter in 2007, has a chance to earn a spot in the Dodgers starting rotation. He has thrown eight shutout innings this spring after being selected in the Rule 5 Draft at the Winter Meetings.

It was the Mets who actually drafted Monasterios, who came over to the Phillies from the Yankees in the Bobby Abreu deal. LA immediately traded for the right-hander from the Mets and technically is Monasterios’ fourth organization before he’s ever reached Triple-A.

Said Dodgers manager Joe Torre:

He has a nice presence. He’s very aggressive. I like what I see. He hasn’t done anything wrong. We have four starters that, to me, our fifth spot, just go out and pitch, you know what I mean? We’re not asking him to carry any load, but just give us a chance to win.

If Monasterios is not on the 25-man roster for the whole year, he must be offered back to the Phillies. However, as Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com notes:

While Monasterios has to be on the active roster all season or offered back to Philadelphia, the Dodgers could keep him on the roster as long as he is pitching well and then offer him back if he hits a rough spot.

Having just turned 24, Monasterios is in a competition with veterans Russ Ortiz (35), Ramon Ortiz (36) and Eric Stultz (30).

From afar, it seems possible Monasterios starts the year in the bullpen. He’ll start to get more innings against some of the better hitters (and earlier in the games) over the last few weeks of camp.

Monasterios (stats here) went 11-11, 4.62 with Lakewood in 2007, but gave up seven runs in 2/3 of an inning on Opening Night that year (it was snowing and the first time the Venezuelan-native had pitched in temperatures within 25 degrees of freezing). He spent 2008 and most of 2009 with Clearwater before throwing 7.1 innings with Reading at the end of the year.

Remember too, he signed with the Yankees at age 18 and six months, which is older than normal. But he did not start playing baseball until age 17. So logically, there is some room for him to grow and continue to improve. He’s relatively inexperienced.

Carlos was one of the nicest guys we’ve had here in the last few seasons. We certainly wish him the best.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 10:27 am and is filed under General Baseball, Past BlueClaws. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.