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View Full Version : PROSPECT: Camilo Vazquez - LHP [HI-A] 2002 draft (RD 4) DOB: 10-3-83



BuckeyeRedleg
04-19-2006, 11:11 AM
2006 numbers high A-Sarasota (thru 6-14):

13 G
12 GS
69.2 IP
66 H
25 BB
69 K (9th in FSL)
1.31 WHIP (21st in FSL-among starters)
3.23 ERA (14th in FSL-among starters)

Stats prior to 2006, through 3 years of Rk and low A:

184 IP
1.61 WHIP
8.79 K/9
5.37 BB/9

He was drafted early out of HS back in 2002 (4th round) and hasn't done anything to distinguish himself to this point, except put up decent K numbers. He appears a bit wild as he walked 5.73/9 in Dayton in 2003 and after missing most of 2004, he walked 5.64/9 in Dayton last year.

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/V/camilo-vazquez.shtml


***I figured I'd start some threads, starting with some of our lesser known prospects. I'm really interested in first-hand accounts of these prospects (if they can even be considered prospects) and would love to read some RedsZone member scouting reports. Any info (scouting reports/updates) can be updated within the player's thread by pulling simple search of the player's name within this forum. Just an idea. I guess if nobody has any interest in a particular player or thread, it will fade away.

Thanks.

flyer85
04-19-2006, 11:28 AM
I believe he missed 2004 due to TJ surgery.

Red Leader
04-19-2006, 11:39 AM
I'm liking these threads, BuckeyeRedLeg.

Red Leader
04-19-2006, 11:40 AM
Vazquez living his Havana daydreams
By Tom Archdeacon
e-mail address: tom_archdeacon@coxohio.com
Dayton Daily News

The only way he was able to follow Major League Baseball was through the magazines his father — who worked on cargo ships that toured the world — spirited back into the country for him.

"My dad went everywhere — Japan, Taiwan, Europe, South America — and he'd always find magazines about American baseball for me," Camilo Vazquez said. "Sometimes, he'd been gone for months and I couldn't wait until he got back. I'd read those magazines over and over. That's how I followed Mark McGwire's big home run season, how I found out about guys I liked like Tom Glavine and Dave Justice."

Vazquez lived in Havana, Cuba, where Fidel Castro banished pro baseball over four decades ago. The Cuban president disbanded the fabled minor league team, the Havana Sugar Kings, and had all but shut off the island's pipeline that produced more than 100 major leaguers, from Dolph Luque and Minnie Minoso to Tony Perez and Tony Oliva.

Under Castro, Major League Baseball got no mention on state TV or in the nation's newspapers. Although the bearded dictator — like so many of his people — is a baseball fanatic, he wanted no one getting capitalistic ideas of pitch and catch.

"That seems like another world ago," Vazquez said. "Four years ago, I was in Cuba with no real future. Now here I am a Dayton Dragon, and I'm able to follow my dreams."

Even so, it's not been easy for the 19-year-old left-hander. In his first pro season, his first three Dragons outings have been ragged. Early this month, he debuted in Fort Wayne where the 30-degree temperature produced snow flurries and a wind-chill in the teens. "That's the coldest I've ever been in my life," he said, and it showed. Thursday night at Fifth Third Field, the heat was turned up when he came into the game in the first inning after Dragons starter Chris Gruler had imploded and allowed seven runs.

In three innings, Vazquez also struggled — giving up seven hits and six runs, four earned — as Kane County dumped Dayton, 14-9. And yet, every so often — he struck out five — Vazquez showed signs of the pitcher Dragons manager Donnie Scott has said, "is going to be outstanding. One day, he's got a real good chance to pitch in the big leagues. This kid will get through this. Believe me, he's got a future."

And that's just what Vazquez didn't have almost four years ago.

Only the top 20 players in Cuba make La Seleccion Nacional, the national team that has made its mark in world competition. Those players are given special treatment by Castro, who uses them as a publicity tool. As for most of the country's other ball players — there are 35,000 teams on the island of 11 million — if they live the life of the everyday Cuban, they'll make $12 a month, the national average.

For all but the privileged, life's necessities are in short supply — food is rationed, gas is rationed, there are daily power outages, buildings are crumbling — as is freedom of speech and due process.

"No matter how tough it is, baseball is in our blood and everywhere you look people are playing ball," Vazquez said. "They might not have a real baseball, maybe it's a doll's head or wadded-up tape."

In recent years, dozens of Cuban baseball players — from the Hernandez brothers, Livian and Orlando, to Tampa Bay shortstop Rey Ordonez and Cleveland pitcher Danys Baez — have defected to the major leagues. They have been joined by a wave of other Cubans, too. Some 40,000 people joined the balseros (raft) exodus nine years ago. In the past month, two Cubana airliners have been hijacked and flown to Key West by Cubans seeking asylum. Two weeks ago, three men hijacked a Havana ferry and got within 40 miles of Florida before they were turned back.

Upon their return, they were executed. Another 78 Cubans — human rights activists, journalists, members of trade unions — have been rounded up by Castro and imprisoned, many drawing 20-year sentences. Put this political climate against an economy in dire straits because of the American embargo, the downturn of tourism following Sept. 11 and a sugar crop that is no longer lucrative, and you understand Vazquez when he says, "My mother and father talked it over a few years ago and decided to leave so I had some kind of future."

Because of the rafters — many who perished at sea — in 1994, the U.S. pressed Cuba into a bilateral agreement: Castro would slow the dangerous sea attempts and the U.S. would increase the number of visas — up to 20,000 annually — for Cubans who wanted to immigrate legally.

Prior to that, only a trickle of visas was granted to hundreds of thousands who both had the money to file and dared to fill out the paperwork. That's why Liberty Park outside the U.S. Interests Section in Havana is called The Park of Lamentations. So many gathered for a visa, but all they found was the ill luck they lamented. It's the same now. The 20,000 quota has been drastically reduced by George W. Bush — only 505 visas were granted from last October to six weeks ago.

"We were lucky when we got ours four years ago," Vazquez said. "We signed up for a visa and after a long wait, we got one. I remember when the mailman brought the letter. It was the greatest gift we ever got."

Vazquez and his parents came to Miami with little more than what they could carry. Camilo knew no one and couldn't speak English.

He got into Hialeah High, got a tutor and joined the baseball team, where four other players also were Cuban-born. As a sophomore, he played outfield, but soon was switched to pitcher and by the end of his career, he rivalled Hialeah's most famous baseball alumnus — Bucky Dent — with his prep accomplishments.

During his junior year, he led his team to the Florida state title with a 10-3 record and a 1.47 earned-run average. Last season, he was the Dade County Player of the Year, striking out 123 in 73 innings and finishing the year 12-0 with a 1.23 ERA. The Cincinnati Reds made him a fourth-round draft pick last spring. The first thing he did was help out his parents, who gave up so much — his dad now installs fire sprinkler systems — to provide a chance for him and his 3-year-old sister. "We had rented a place, but now I was able to help my parents buy a home," he said. "They mean everything to me and that's why I call them every day now."

With the Dragons, he's under the tutelage of pitching coach Jaime Garcia — who also fled Cuba when he was young — and is joined on a team that has 10 other players born in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela or Brazil. "Our team shows what an international sport baseball is," Scott said. "We're a team. We're all in this together. We don't care where anyone comes from, just where they're going."

And yet, when you know — especially in the case of Camilo Vazquez — you appreciate the journey all the more.

Doc. Scott
04-19-2006, 12:10 PM
A real darkhorse- he was throwing 95 in spring training, and any time you have a lefty who can do that at this level, you pay attention. The problem is that now that Vazquez has missed so much time, he's under some pressure to make a move this season.

So far things look reasonably promising. Last year's control issues at Dayton could have been the command loss that most pitchers suffer directly following TJ surgery or it could have been continuing evidence of control issues. Camilo's track record is really not complete enough to draw a good conclusion. 2006 is pivotal in that sense as well.

BuckeyeRedleg
06-15-2006, 09:57 PM
2006 numbers high A-Sarasota (thru 6-14):

13 G
12 GS
69.2 IP
66 H
25 BB
69 K (9th in FSL)
1.31 WHIP (21st in FSL-among starters)
3.23 ERA (14th in FSL-among starters)