craig

Steele's slow start has certainly cost him. I think if we'd had this vote the day before the season began, Steels would have probably been elected by now. I'm hoping he's going to get rolling soon and end up putting together a very successful season that looks much more promising at the end than it did after his first two starts.

I'll go Clifton and Stinnett this round.

Hanneman's been a high-K guy in past. High K's and low HR's are not a good combo. But while his BA is still low thus far, his small-sample splits are actually good: 10K/5BB/3HR/67 AB. Guys with only 2:1 K/BB ratios and 3:1 K/HR ratios, over the long haul, usually are good offensive guys. **If** he can sustain ratios like that for the season (massively unlikely), he'll end up with a good-hitting season. His small-sample average is bad because his BABIP is bad, .241. Unusually bad for a guy with his speed, although not unusually bad for a <1-month sample. Perhaps also not that unusually bad for an extreme ground ball-hitter. Hopefully he'll drive the ball more often going forward. Hopefully going forward this year, all of the small-sample things that look positive (HR rate up, K-rate down), while all of the small-sample things that look bad will wash out over larger sample set (low BABIP, high ground-ball rate and presumably low line-drive rate.)

Stinnet 7K/0BB and 8GO/2AO in 6.2 innings. Very nice. Pretty good strike percentage, 56/80. Blackburn again winning the BABIP game. Shutout through 4 with only a single K. No walks helps. Alzolay also with another good BABIP game, no earned runs, 2 singles and 1 unearned run through 6, with only 4 K's.

Tim, I'm pretty hopeful, too. When the year is done, I'm hopeful that we'll look at both Stinnett and Clifton and be pretty pleased with their seasons. Tonight could be a pretty good pitching night. Blackburn's been good three straight, so perhaps he's due for a dud. But, so far so good; so I'm curious whether he can sequence another good one on.

how do his strikeouts break out LH: 5K/13AB RH: 13K/47AB

Current Ian Happ splits: Right-handed: 1-13, .374 OPS Left-handed: 18-47, 1.096 OPS Early and very small samples. But interesting, and something to watch for as sample grows.

Yeah, Gutierrez is one of the few guys who seems willing to sign in his period. I hope they get him. Seeing how so many guys are willing to wait till the next period and how Moncada is probably the best prospect still in the minors, it bums me out he wasn't willing to wait for the Cubs. 96 with a hammer curve and projectable, that's a dream combo. Gutierrez has himself situated in a nice place, where he can get bids from this year's teams and next year's. So he's got a pretty full opportunity. Cubs have already spend $30, and sounds like he'd likely cost a bunch more x 2. But that would be really cool. Seems silly to even relate the international market for a teenager to what's happening with the big-league club. But, I almost feel like the great start for the big-league Cubs makes it very likely that there will be October revenue coming in. More projected revenue, more ability to fund a prospect you like. Hopefully they go after this guy and it works great.

That would seem to make Mexico an obvious niche place to target. Same for everybody, of course....

Nice to see Pierce Johnson both back pitching, and pitching seemingly very well. 11K/1run/8IP thus far, that's encouraging. 6K/1BB nights are always good. Haven't been getting a lot of "wow" pitching nights, but have been some variably decent ones from a variety of guys. Hopefully we'll see some good work with increasing or sustainable consistency from Clifton and Steele and Sands and Kellogg and Alzolay etc.. Disappointed to have my guy McNeil have a lousy game last night. Too bad. Consistency is always a hard thing, of course, and in April we only have a couple of pitching samples to comprise the composite.

Will be interesting to see over time. Az Phil reports on the XST games periodically; not sure I'm remembering, but it seems like in about the last four games where Wilson has played that Phil has reported, Wilson has gone hitless in all of them.

I'm going for the power arms. McNeil and Clifton.

Yeah, 1-run in three upper-minors games is pretty nice. Obviously he's been kinda BABIP lucky. But, he's long been a ground ball guy, and that's remained true. 88-92 isn't fast, but 88-92 controlled sinkers would seem perfectly playable. Will be fun to see how well he can sustain success this year.

Hudson Clifton. He's young, 20, and he combines good/plus fastball with strikeout stuff. Consistency and control are the issues. His first two starts haven't been encouraging. But at this stage in the ranking, and given how small the sample is thus far this season, I think it's reasonable to consider him, based on his relatively high ceiling.

Arguello said he'd been told Pierce Johnson threw his between-starts throwing session. If he was able to do that, good sign; if he came through that clean, maybe he won't miss any starts. Hopefully he'll be the guy tonight. Pleased to see Tseng listing to start, after his injury. Hope he's fine, and he really does make the start. Well, hopefully he'll pitch effectively, too. twomey started instead of Alzolay, given up four runs through the first two innings.

A guy on Arguello's site attended the Tennessee game yesterday, in which Markey, Black and Conway pitched. he said the Birmingham gun was probably slow, but that of those three Conway was the only one of the three who hit 90 on the stadium gun. Said Markey maxed at 88 on the gun. Not sure what to make of that. Black has consistently gotten scouting for being a hard thrower. If that is premise, and Conway is faster, and Markey is about as fast, and Markey was hitting 88 when even Black wasn't hitting 90, then I suppose we could reason that if Markey and Conway are as fast or faster than Black, that they've got plenty of velocity. Or, perhaps it means that Black for yesterday was not throwing as hard as usual. Perhaps he's cut way back in hopes of controlling the ball, who knows. I just though it was interesting, because I assumed Black would be a couple of mph faster than the other guys.

John Arguello said that x-rays (I think it was x-rays) on Johnson came out negative.

Interesting pitching day. None of Clifton, Kellogg, or Skulina are especially strong prospects, all three guys are kind of on the bubble. But any of those three could emerge as variably meaningful prospects if they could put something good together for a while. Clifton has always been wild, but his stuff still seems like potentially as good as anybody we've got other than Cease; if he could put it together and locate, he could easily climb into our top 10. Skulina's health and velocity and control have always been kind of inconsistent; but I'm still curious about how good and perhaps how fast he might be if he could stay healthy the rest of the year. Tom's guy Kellogg, finesse lefties can survive, and he's still not so old that perhaps some adjustment here or there and maybe he could still end up emerging with reasonable, functionally useful fastball velocity. Hopefully all three can do well tonight.

What have you done lately, baby! Dewees and Hudson. Dewees is a center fielder' can really run; has only 2 K's in 28 AB; gets two hits a day; is slugging .821; has a solid walk rate and more walks than K's; has 6 XBS in 7 games; and is doing all of that in cold Midwest April when hitting is usually really hard. Being just a flat-out good hitter is the hardest and rarest of all baseball tools, and it appears he may have that rare tool. Doing that while being a good runner with good command of the strike zone, and being able to play center, even if probably at an unexceptional level, seems pretty valuable. I know, it's small sample. But true-blue hitters are hard to find. The smart and scouting-thorough Cubs used a high 2nd pick and substantially superslotted him ($1.7M at $1.29 slot, basically paying late-first-round money). He is basically doing and being exactly, plus more, than what the Cubs hoped/envisioned for him when they spent that much to get him. Everybody figured the Cubs would pick pitching in 2nd round and after. That they both took Dewees and superslotted (at the expense of saving for pitching $$ later) suggests they really scouted Dewees as a strong-and-obvious best-player-available, too-good-to-pass. If they scouted him that well before, and he's playing this well now, seems kind of easy to slip him into our top 16. Hudson is already as fast as Steele and faster than any other lefties (Sands, Kellogg, Twomey.) At 18 he's got way more velocity-improvement projection than the 21- and 22-year old lefties like Sands or Kellogg. He's already got a better curve than any of them. Seems fairly easy for me to put the high-ceiling kid with already superior stuff, and the chance to end up much, much, much superior, ahead of the others.

Arguello said that Blackburn has been 88-92 all camp. A well-controlled low-90's ground ball sinker doesn't sound very jazzy, and doesn't score many K's. Will be interesting how his velocity holds up or evolves as the season plays out, and to see whether his control can be consistent enough to sustain the kinds of success he's had in his first two starts. (1 run combined.) With him, the concern has often been about the velocity or lack thereof. But, I think the curve is really a big factor, too. If you can throw low strikes all day with your fastball, even if it isn't fast, you can either get quick outs or get to a lot of 2-strike counts. If you can put guys away with a consistent good curveball, some K's could be there, most K's are on breaking stuff not fastballs anyway. Would be fun to see him stay healthy, to have velocity that really is often comfortably and controllably in the 90-92 range with sink, and to see the curve sharp enough and consistent enough so that he K's people reasonably often. Obviously he's faster than hendricks, but for Hendricks having that killer change is really what makes his game work. If Blackburn's curve could become a killer pitch like that, Blackburn could be effective somewhat like Hendricks is.

I went Hudson and Steele. Clifton, Dewees, and Zagunis are other in my group around this area. I can certainly see the validity of choosing Zagunis. Guys who can hit and get on base, run well and play decent defense, have a good chance to spend time in the majors.

This is the wrong day, but saw Arguello notes. He said in the Carson Sands start he was getting it up to 89-90. That seems consistent with the camp reports from Arguello and Az Phil, mostly in the 87-90 range. We'll see how that goes. Obviously a lot of guys are kind of psyched for their opening day, so with adrenalin and stuff they can throw harder than they'll sustain later. Others, in cold April you don't want to overdo it, and perhaps once the weather warms up and they are good and stretched out better they will throw a little harder. But for now, he doesn't seem to throw as hard as he did in his HS days.

Dewees has 2 K's in 25 AB. .680 slugging thus far. Very nice. Not likely to play July in South Bend. Rashad Crawford is also off to a hot start, .381, with power and walks. His career has been on a favorable developmental trajectory, and I recall Arguello commenting on how he seemed notably bigger/stronger this spring, poised for a breakout with more power than before. (Hit only 4 HR last year.) I tend to get him mixed up with the other CFer, Trey Martin; is Crawford also supposed to be a smooth long-strider good-defense CFer? Or was that just Martin and Crawford not notable defensively? He's a massive K-guy, though, and has started off K'ing at his habitual high rate. So, doubt he's going to turn into anything.

You are smarter than me, Duke! :D But I will admit that **I** thought there might be some power, and the yes-or-no on that question would significantly impact his possible career. *At time of draft, there was talk of mid-teens HR's. *A couple of years ago when he opened AFL and bashed a long HR in one of first games, there was talk of projected power. *When he hit 7 HR's in 89 games in Daytona starting the season as a 19-year old, I thought that with some maturation and man-power, that aiming for teens-HR's was a possibility. *Over his career, as a very young player, he's averaged .129 ISO. *During his hot streak late last season, he was higher than that, maybe .200 ISO or something? *I think there was the argument that his ISO was modest because he was swinging at pitchers pitches because he's such a contact guy; and that if he becomes more selective he'd swing at pitches he could drive. Implicit is the concept that perhaps he would drive more balls and boost his ISO as a result. *Theo was talking up how much stronger-looking he looked in camp this year. Implicit was the suggestion that he might hit with a little higher ISO as a result. So, I think the concept has been that for at least some people, myself included (naive as that may be), that he's hit for some decent power. 13 HR and .150 ISO? If he was a 13-HR guy with .280/.330/.430 slash, and outstanding CF defense, that would be a very, very valuable player. If he's .250 batting average with .330 slugging, that's a very different story altogether. We'll see. As Tom rightly notes, if he's got no ISO, big league pitchers will have no fear and will not walk him much. We'll see how things go as this year plays out. I'd like to see him reach 10 HR's and ISO over .150 in the PCL.

Caratini, he's running away with this one already. Heh heh, we can shut down #14 and open #15 already! I gave my 2nd vote to Hudson. I'm kind of a guy who values control. cease, Clifton, Stinnett, these pitchers with control problems I wonder how consistent they'll ever be able to get. Hudson's early sample profile seems to be a guy who can throw strikes; that combined with a filthy curve and perhaps a high-level fastball give interesting possibilities; but with control perhaps a not-so-low floor as well.