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Rookies to Look For: Hector Rondon
Cleveland Indians prospect Hector Rondon wasn’t all that impressive when he came into the Indians’ minor league system. In fact, he was pretty mediocre in his first two seasons in the minors. But Indians staff saw projectability in him and put him on a training regimin. The Venezuelan was once 6′-3″ 165 pounds, but Rondon has started to fill out (195 lbs last spring) and it shows in his velocity. He used to be in the upper-80′s, touching 90, but now Hector’s fastball is sitting in the low-90′s, hitting 96 at times. Here are Rondon’s minor league statistics (FanGraphs):
| Season | Team | W | L | ERA | IP | H | BB | SO |
| 2006 | Indians (R) | 3 | 4 | 5.13 | 52.2 | 62 | 3 | 32 |
| 2007 | Indians (A) | 7 | 10 | 4.37 | 136 | 143 | 27 | 113 |
| 2008 | Indians (A+) | 11 | 6 | 3.6 | 145 | 130 | 42 | 145 |
| 2009 | Indians (AA) | 7 | 5 | 2.75 | 72 | 60 | 16 | 73 |
| 2009 | Indians (AAA) | 4 | 5 | 4 | 74.1 | 83 | 13 | 64 |
The increase in his fastball velocity has coincided with improved strikeout rates from 2008 on. Reports are that his slurve is improving and his change-up is a plus pitch.
Although there are few that believe that he could be either a #2 or a #3 starter, I am not completely sold yet. He’ll need the slider to get better in order to reach that level. It’ll be interesting how he fares in his second stint at Triple-A next season. He looks more like a #3 to #4 starter right now though.
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