Carlos Gutierrez (Luray 07) was the other former Valley Leaguer who was drafted in the first round of the 2008 draft (Yonder Alonso was the other). Drafted 27th overall by the Minnesota Twins, Carlos split time between Fort Myers in the Florida State League, and New Britain of the Eastern League.
He fared quite a bit better in the FSL than Double-A, and Baseball America named him the 11th best prospect in the league. Here is JJ Cooper's writeup:
There wasn't much to relish about facing the Twins' 2008 first-round pick. When Gutierrez was on, hitting his sinking fastball felt like making contact with a shot put.
At his best, Gutierrez sits at 92-94 mph and piles up groundout after groundout. While at Fort Myers, he had a 4.5 groundout/airout ratio and allowed only one homer and eight extra-base hits in 55 innings. Hitters made contact against him, but very few barreled the ball.
On other days, Gutierrez's sinker parks at 89-91 mph. His slider and changeup still need work, so some scouts believe he'll end up working out of the bullpen. That was his role at Miami, where he was a closer on a College World Series team.
Carlos went 2-3, 1.32 in the FSL, but fell to 1-3, 6.19 in Double-A. He showed up in John Manuel's Eastern League chat, even though he wasn't named to the top 20 prospect list for the league. Here's the exchange:
Jeff (Pittsburgh): Carlos Gutierrez got a fairly high ranking on the FSL top 20. He didn't fare nearly as well after the promotion to AA. Has his struggles ended the starting pitcher experiment?
John Manuel: I'll find out more on the Twins' plans for him in doing their Top 30, but I believe relief suits him better personally. No real harm in trying to start him, and they found out that at higher levels, he needs better fastball command and (or) a better secondary pitch to succeed. That said, he was fatigued in the second half; he basically doubled his workload from college, 50 IP at Miami, then he threw another 25 for the Twins, so going up to 106 this year was a pretty significant jump.
It's true; if a pitcher throws many more innings than the year before, or ever, fatigue can follow, which can make the numbers look worse. ATVL will be watching to see where Gutierrez is assigned; hopefully, he can turn those Double-A numbers around!