craig

Alcantara's BABIP is up around .370 or so, I think. He's needed that, with only two walks that's barely enough to nudge his OBP up around .300.

I'd love to get his GB/FB stats. We know he has some power, from batting practice and from some of the balls that he does hit over the wall. But no ground balls go over the wall. Last year a high percentage of his hits were singles. (Higher than Barney last year, for context). This year he's been almost exclusively a singles hitter, 14 of his 17 hits thus far are singles. So whether or not he'll lift the ball often enough to hit HR's, I don't think that's can't-miss. I think his power is often being used on sharply hit ground balls.

Pitcher who can't throw the ball versus a hitter who can't hit the ball. Classic. Easy choice for Masek. No known surgery that can repair can't-see-and-recognize-fast-enough-to-hit problem, but sometimes surgery can re-enable the ability to throw.

at this point, I'm pretty comfortable that Rhee and Loosen are just roster fillers. You've got to have at least five starters, and somebody has to fill in that 5th spot. A lot of progress has happened with the pitching, but not enough to be 5-prospects deep at Tennessee. Iowa has that too, and Daytona's rotation is almost all roster-fill.

Yeah, those two are on a different planet from Johnson-Edwards-Pineyro-Black. How Rhee is still getting starts after all these years of bad pitching is kind of amazing.

Alcantara's two-day binge has helped his numbers. His OBP is now up to .284. He is a high-K guy, like a slugger. Hopefully he'll hit enough HR's to partially justify the high K's, and to keep his batting average adequate or better. Interesting, he's reverted to his no-walk ways thus far. For 4 years he was a low-walk guy; then last year he made an adjustment and walked a lot; now he's 2 walks/70 AB. 19K/2BB is a great ratio for pitchers, but not for hitters! I think he's got a lot of learning left to do. So I'm in no hurry to rush him up.

Arrieta? Yes.

Clifton. Nobody else on this list shows much/any hint of being more than a below-average major leaguer. He's got a good arm, and hasn't proven he might not put it to good use eventually, so by process of elimination he's my guy. I might also be interested in some other DSL pitchers, probably. On Masek, we know he was viewed as an injury-risk entering the draft thus the fall; that the Cubs used him very cautiously last summer, even relative to the other college guys; and that we haven't heard a peep from him this spring. Do we know yet whether he's had surgery yet or not? If so whether it was elbow or shoulder surgery? I can't really remember any Cub prospect pitcher who had bad arm problems that made him sit out for months, and who came back really effectively and better than ever. I know Wells has never had the surgery and he's been able to keep pitching, but he's been not much good since. I guess I'm thinking that a surgerized Masek probably isn't a top-50 prospect. And a Masek who's so hurt that he hasn't been able to pitch probably isn't going to just rest/rehab a bad arm into an above-average big-league arm with the control to become an above-average big-league pitcher.

Hendricks: 19K/4BB/0HR in 18.2 innings, with GO/AO > 3. Not sure where all the K's are coming from. But those are VERY nice numbers thus far. Not the kind you'd expect to give a 4.82 ERA. I'm pretty encouraged. I thought his K's might fall off in AAA, and the flyballs and HR's escalate. So far, so good. Alcantara finally with a notably good game. I'd like to see him stay hot for a bit. He's got his average up, now, and his OBP over .300. No HR yet, though. He'll probably need either some HR's or some walks, or both.

Friend at the Kane/Bowling Green games said Arias was 88-89, touched 91 once.

Paulino Mejia

Friend was at Kane games in Bowling Green, got to first game in the 4th, and watched part of second. So he saw Tseng, Blackburn, and Godfrey, as well as Bowing Green lefty Snell who'd been a sandwich 1st rounder a couple years ago and is a milb top-10 guy for Tampa. Said Tseng and Blackburn both worked at 88-89, Godfrey and Snell were up to 91-93. Said T+B actually looked much alike, build and pitching, although he said Blackburn was a super quick worker. Said it was super cold, and wondered if it might be a slow gun. Blackburn always says he doesn't throw hard. And I'd hope they'd not try to throw too hard on an icy night where your arm can get hurt. I think it's Johnson's program to work at a controlled velocity where movement and strike-throwing is maximized, and where you can throw a handful of mph faster as a change up once in a while. So I'm not sure 88-89 on an icy night is inconsistent with having touched 95 a couple of times on a warm and psyched-up night in Boise.

1. DeJesus. 2. Schierholz had value last year. He may still have some this summer, but it won't be what it was. 3. Russell had some value last June too. 4. Barney had some value two July's ago. I think there are definitely some guys they held, whose value subsequently dropped. But, can't sell high on everybody, I don't imagine. And I don't think they wanted to sell everybody.

Opinion Question: 21+wild (Beede) vs 18+control (Holmes). Which is more likely, that 21+wild finds control, or that 18+control's arm survives till 21? (Once 18+control hits 21, then presumably both guys have the same injury risk after age 21.)

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.