Thanks to the awesome work of Ryan Ghan, aka RGHAN analyzing the Angels minor leagues, we have an awesome repository of reports on Luis Jimenez, aka Lucho, who made his Angels debut Friday, got his first hit on Saturday and scored the tying run in an Albert Pujols walk off double later that night.
But it has been a long road for Lucho. He was signed as an international free agent at age 17 in the Dominican Republic. In 2007, he played on the Angels Dominican Summer League team with future major leaguers Alexi Amarista and Jean Segura. When he was promoted to AA Arkansas to begin the 2011 season, the headlines all covered the advancement there of his teammate Mike Trout.
Luis Jimenez was born January 18, 1988 - making him eleven days older than Hank Conger. By Troutian standards that is old, but developmentally he is right on target for a major league debut.
In April of 2010, RGHAN wrote about three minor league Angels prospects... READ THIS LINK and get goosebumps knowing now that these three players (Lucho, Trout and Garrett Richards) all played in the same game last night! Talk about nailing who is on their way up!
In July of that season, Lucho went 1 for 3 playing for The World team in the All Star Futures game (Mentioned At This Link). Again, he was overshadowed by Trout playing in that game for Team America. Hank Conger was also in that game for the US of A team. So he was good enough at age 22 to be on the same field with prospects who have most certainly panned out.
After the 2010 season RGHAN rated his campaign the sixth best Angels Prospect performance of the year AT THIS LINK mentioning Lucho's standout glove.
Going into the 2011 season RGHAN ranked him as the team's 18th best prospect (LINK).
RGHAN considered his 2011 season the Ninth best Angels Prospect performance (LINK).
One of Jerry Dipoto's first actions was to put Jimenez on the 40-Man roster in November, 2011 as I REPORTED AT THIS LINK.
Developmentally, he was improving and RGHAN ranked him the #8 Angels prospect going into last season (LINK).
Headed then into this season, RGHAN ranked his performance at #7 over the 2012 season (LINK).
And here is, on the road with the Angels!