craig

Thanks, 90-92 isn't fast for a RHP, but it's not prohibitively slow.

I think I read in his last start he was working 88-89 mostly? Am I misremembering, or is feasible?

Agree. If Martin puts up .750+, he's a prospect. If he can't do .700, he's certainly not. Absolutely agree on the industry evals. We'd be dopes not to factor those in seriously. (If the industry evals were saying that Paulino throws 85, or Mejia 88, I'd not be voting for them.) I think Martin and Dunston may be "if he hits" guys where industry evals need to be used with caution. A lot of young guys get some scouting interest based not he three non-hitting tools. But often hitting is "if he hits", and power is "possibly average/good", contingent on if he hits. Those type of guys remain interesting to me as long as it remains plausible that they'll hit.

Thanks, Dave. I wouldn't have Arias or Cabrera on top-40 at this point, either. Having a high upside perception is one thing, but at some point there comes a time to retract the perception. If Arias is struggling as a low-A reliever, perhaps it's less that he's underachieving his perceived high ceiling, than that his ceiling perception just isn't accurate at all. In terms of reappraising my evaluation of a guy's tools and ceiling, personally I tend to pull the plug faster on hitters than pitchers. I think pitchers are more likely to improve. They get bigger/faster; they adjust their mechanics; they add a cutter, or develop an effective slider; they get more consistent with their stride and the reproducibility of their arm angle; they get better at hiding the ball and using the same motion for their pitches; they tinker for years before finally finding a grip that works. (Samardz comes to mind….) So I think it's not that uncommon for a pitcher who's got a really good arm and fastball command to grow into his ceiling. But I'm much less a believer that many hitters do that. If the speed and movement of pro pitching is too much for a hitter to really be able to process well, I don't think they very often just grow out of that. Absolutely they can grow into power. But I kind of feel like if a guy struggles hitting in the low minors, it's rare that he'll grow into being a good hitter in the high minors or majors. Certainly every hitter has slumps. Especially in April cold. So Martin may be a very fine hitter who had an 11-game April slump last year, and an 8-game April slump this year. But often if a guy isn't hitting in low-minors, no matter how toolsy his defense and arm and speed and BP power may look, if he doesn't hit in the low minors there's a pretty good chance he just doesn't really have the hitting talent to become a good big-leaguer.

Rather than assuming Martin is misplaced, I think it's simpler to think that Dunston is misplaced. Maybe he'll show something in future. But Martin is a low-power outfielder hitting .179. His career high was .696 at Boise. Martin has shown nothing favorable in any of the K/BB/HR big three. I'm fine with going on perceived tools for guys who haven't shown anything yet. But I guess personally if I'm just going on perceived tools, I'd rather go for the big 96-mph Mejia who has yet to show he won't live up to the talent. Rather than a 4th year guy like Martin who's hitting .172 and OPS'ing at .398, and has never shown very much previously. His manager has been around Mesa all winter, so saw Martin in fall instrux and all of spring training, and is batting him 9th. It may be that he hasn't shown all that much more with the bat in instrux and spring training than he's shown in the small sample at Kane county.

Easy pick for me. Paulino, Mejia, and Penalver. Lots of choices have had a cluster of guys that to me seemed in a similar group. But these three I feel have a lot of separation, given my assumption that Masek is hurt and with no information suggesting he'll be fine. Paulino's been good, and he was scouted very favorably by BA. Projectible athletic lefties with control, movement, diversity, and movement and with good results thus far appeal. Mejia is big and very fast. Control we'll see, but big arm gives him a chance. Unlimited ceiling at this point, simply because we don't know much other than big and fast. Penalver's got a chance to be a nice-fielding utility guy. Perhaps even more.

This would be Tseng's 5-day turn. I wonder if he's going to piggy-back; if he's going to be used on a longer rotation regularly; or if his cut thumb isn't ready? I'm guessing it's the thumb. If he does rejoin the rotation soon, it will be interesting to see what they do. Piggy-back, shift Torres to relief, or promote Skulina might all be good options.

Do we know what Hannemann's latest disablement is? He's missed the last 3 games.

#39 Scott Frazier is sitting at ERA = 162.00. In his two appearances, he's faced I believe 8 batters, with one out, two hits, and 5 walks. I may drop him out of the top 40 on my personal list….

I didn't think his ERA could stay that high. Oops! He's now shot it up to 164! Awesome.

Still very wild, 4 walks, wild pitch, throwing error. But it seems the stuff is there. As I type this, Scott Frazier is coming in with his 81.00 ERA.

Paulino, way to go! Torres with lots of K's.

kyle, our guy Rivero blew his first save yesterday. Bummer. Given the Veras/Russell/Wright struggles in the pen, there will be guys called up sooner or later. Rivero, Cabrera, Parker, Mateo, Ramirez, that's 5 RHP all of whom have variably good big-league arms and could be interesting call ups in time. Plus Rosscup, of course, from the lefty side. And that's not counting Vizcaino.

He's a butcher. I saw hin in person one time in Peoria a couple years ago and it was ugly. He had Baez at SS next to him so the left side defense as a whole was decent, but he booted a couple routine balls that night and just generally looks pretty awkward out there. I'd think Geiger would be 1B/DH/LF type. His arm is strong, so throwing from left wouldn't be a problem. But if he were to hit enough, I suppose he could get some of the same sort of LF consideration that guys like Vitters get, or Manny Ramirez in Theo's Boston prime. geiger is kind of the same discussion group as Vogelbach has been in since signing. Not going to play because of his defense; how bad will his defense be? How much does he need to hit in order to justify the defense? Geiger does have a chance to be a pretty big HR-hitter, I think. So, we'll see how this year goes. He'll be 22 all season, so it's not like he's too old to be interesting, if in fact he's improving.

There was another piece a couple days ago, largely similiar. But with some comments from him and his manager. http://beaconnews.suntimes.com/sports/26718815-419/cougars-insider-extra-pounds-pay-off-for-pitcher-paul-blackburn.html

Agree. His HR-rate in past has been very controlled; if he can sustain that in PCL, his chances are solid. He was pitching pretty well in his first start, too, before he fell apart in his final inning. I think we have lots of guys with deceptively unfavorable stats early; pitchers pitch well for several innings, then have a really bad final inning that kills their stats. Often in early spring, minor league guys haven't been extended very deep, so may not be used to going as long as they do now in real games. Hendricks got killed in his final inning of start one, after pitching well. Tseng was pretty good for 4 innings, then got killed in the fifth. Skulina was very good for five innings, then gets killed in the 6th. Not sure I remember, but that may have been somewhat true in Blackburn's first start, too.

Alamo was a college catcher from last years draft right? Feels like he should be in Daytona, maybe he's younger than I was thinking. He was high school. He's 18 right now.

Fun to see Rivero and Rosscup racking up the K's. At the big-league level, Rondon has continued to look good. I think he's a keeper.

I like to see Hannemann stealing a lot. He's gotten 5 singles and a walk this season, and has stolen 4 bases. Would be nice to have a "speed" guy who really could steal successfully both a high percentage but also a high volume of times. A guy who's so good at it that he doesn't need a perfect jump or a dangerously big lead or a slow-delivery pitcher or a bad catcher or a perfect situation in order to have good odds. But who can just routinely run on anybody without being at much risk of getting picked off.

Surprisingly they do send him out for a 5th inning, and he gets hammered for four hits and 3 runs.

After allowing singles to three of first four guys, Tseng now has allowed only one more single through the 4th inning, with 4 K's/0 walks. Only one groundout (other than a bunt). I assume he's done after 4. Nice pro debut.

Great point. Guys don't look the same every game, so why shouldn't scouting evaluations fluctuate accordingly? Seems perfectly fair to me. There are a lot of guys who look good at times. If you see Alberto cabrera at his best, or Rosscup, or Marcus Mateo, or Edwin Jackson, or Brett Jackson or Vitters, you can project great things for them. On Law and Cub prospects, another guy he likes very well was Paniagua. We'll see how that one turns out.

Minor league camp isn't nearly as long as big-league, so routinely minor-league pitchers have pitch counts that ramp up over the first month. So, being 65 on start one is one thing; it might be 80 by his 3rd start, and for a lot of guys it gets further bumped to 95 or 100 a few starts after that.

Rivero took 42 pitches for his two innings.

Yeah, nice to see Jensen pitch well, although I admit I'm disappointed he's in relief and old roster-filllers like Rhee (Tenn) and Rosario are starting instead. Rosscup and Mateo each with good 2K innings, and Rivero with 4K in 2 innings.