craig

Yes, easy to get enthused about Blackburn from his early and late starts. And from the reports of some 95's. I don't remember that well; who else remembers the injury stuff? I thought it was more than oblique, and there was report of a forearm strain, or something very arm-specific. Am I wrong there? I hope so. If indeed his fastball reaches "plus plus" value, that would help a lot. I'd kind of had the thought that his fastball wasn't likely to be much faster than average, even if control and curveball might enable a guy with an average fastball to be well above average anyway. He'll definitely be one of the most interesting guys to watch this year.

I think Blackburn's ceiling is hard to gage right now. We heard reference to hitting 95 once, so that suggests high velocity ceiling, to go with the control and curveball and finesse. I admit I haven't gotten the sense that many scouts see his with power-fastball potential, though, even with physical maturation/projection. Plus he's going to have the injury concerns, I'm not entirely confident that a guy who had a sore arm this summer will just rest that back to 100%? Or is that crazy, and there is no arm-trouble carryover from one year to the next? But he's next on my list, at least the list I made up in October. I actually had all three of the 3B's behind a bunch of pitchers.

Absolutely, there are no sure things here. Either a guy has some injury worries (Olt, Viz), some talent limitations (Hendricks, Z?), little permanence record at meaningful levels (Candy, Z, Blackburn, Rivero, or at the far extreme Eloy…), or something. No perfect profiles here. But out of this pool I think there will eventually come some productive major leaguers, plural. I think it's fun to try to make our best guesses as to which guys it will be.

especially considering the arguments for Olt are "maybe he'll be right, and hit .220 for us! there's some value in that" while true, we know Hendricks is already right, and he'll probably have like a 4 ERA; there's value in that Heh heh, I like that. Olt is a huge Q. Candelario is a huge Q defensively, whether at 3B, 1B, or LF, and I'm not sure how great his power projects for LF/1B. Like them both, and hope they both work out great, but I'm going pitcher here. Vizcaino-Hendricks-Zastrysny! I don't see Vizcaino's Q's being any more questionable than Candelario's or Olt's. And Stryz is a ways out with little record, but he's almost certainly a lot closer than Candelario, so I don't see why the distance should be held against him. I'm also going lame and going with management: they had lots of discretionary draft money available, and a ton of time to prioritize pitchers with their 2nd pick…. and they loved Stryz. He's smart, he's got control, he changes speeds, he gets ground balls. I expect he's got a lot of untapped potential as well, not just a "finished" college guy. I think he'll utilize his cutter way more in the majors than he ever did in college.

Yeah, if Villa can indeed become a .750-.780 guy, then he's going to be a really good asset starter. Certainly his age and his May-on numbers would seem to suggest that he's got a shot. Absolutely a pretty solid prospect to be #9. Most guys with that age/power/stats distribution would seem to project very well. This will be a big year for him to see if his second-half offense will be sustainable, or if we'll see further age-based improvement. I always assume that the AA to AAA jump for a hitter should be an easy one, and going to PCL should result in HR/OPS jump. But the more experienced AAA pitchers tend to be better breaking ball guys, which can sometimes expose certain hitters. Is Villanueva a dead-pull fastball guy who might have some trouble? As good as his stats look, I'm not sure I get the sense that a lot of scouts believe strongly in him as a hitter or a HR guy. We shall see. His defense is super promising and he can make sick plays, I totally buy all that. But it's also reality that he made 24 errors, That's twice what most big-league regulars have in a full 6-month season. Pedro Alvarez is the only guy in the majors with more last year. Hopefully Villanueva will continue to make great plays but will get more consistent and error-free at the same time. We shall see. Nice prospect. A year ago, I wasn't too keen on either Villanueva or at all optimistic on Hendricks. Now both look surprisingly interesting, and that Dempster trade looks pretty nice.

Villanueva has gotten pretty strong support. Obviously the glove is an asset and nobody's worried. But with all his K's and his crummy OBP, are you guys pretty confident that he'll be an adequate hitter? Are you kind of looking to a .710-.760 OPS window guy in the majors, and seeing that as good value at spot 9/10? Or are you thinking that he'll improve enough so that he'll be able to withstand the big step up to the majors and be able to sustain or even improve on his .780's level minor-league OPS? Most guys drop a lot when facing the best pitching in the world, so I think it's pretty iffy whether he'll be able to sustain .700+ in the majors. But with his glove, and with the decline in offense league-wide, he could probably make a lot of millions if he can hit near .750. If he could do the .780's stuff that he's done in the minors, or even more, he'll be a really good asset player.

From Baez's Instagram 3 days ago http://i.imgur.com/dIlmLFU.png Translates roughly to: I was visiting my bro Kevin Encarnacion. He had an accident and burned 4% of his body. They have to operate. God willing he'll get past this soon. That sucks. Encarnacion is a pretty good prospect (fringe top 30/top 40 guy) and Frandy de la Rosa (second biggest Latin American bonus back in 2012) was in that accident too. And those may have been the least significant prospects involved. Mejia, the big tall pitcher who got $800K or whatever was also listed, and one of their top pitchers from their dominant DSL team. (I don't know whether that pitcher had scouting that matched his stats, but he might be a significant guy.)

Heh heh, I'm still adjusting to post-steroids context!

Yeah. They rushed him along so fast. 14 HR in AA isn't great, but 14 HR at age 21 in AA isn't far below normal for a guy who might project to 25 as a full-time big-leaguer. And 17 in 415 AB at 22 in AAA isn't amazing, but it isn't much off track from what a guy might do who ends up being a 25-HR big-leaguer at age 27 in 600 AB. I think the HR's have always been the question for Vitters. 25 HR might perhaps justify his defense, base running, personality, and walk rates. 15 HR, probably not. If the guy could stay healthy all season, I won't be surprised if he puts up some pretty impressive numbers at Iowa.

Makes sense to me. Different posters can vote as they like, and I won't have him for a while on my list. But for a guy who's going to become like Soler physically, I can see why some posters would rank a guy who might become great ahead of other guys. Guys whose physical limitations or performance record makes it obvious they will be limited players if they make it at all.

Vitters HR power potential is undersold, I think. I'm not a big fan and he's way further down on my list. But I think that he's physically strong enough to be a 25-HR guy, if he was playing regularly and was to have his hitting settle in.

I think good relievers are undervalued. If you get six years of good relief work from a guy, there won't be many prospects in the 2nd-ten of a list who outperform that. For Rivero, Vizcaino, and Black, if we really believe that they'll be GOOD relievers, I don't think they should get pushed back much on that account, at this point in the ranking. The real question is whether they should be good or not, I think. I had Rivero #11 on the list I made in October. I'll have him a little lower now; at that time I had all three 3B's Villaneuva/Candelario/Olt behind him, and Zastrysny as well. Bit Rivero clearly has the power arm to be very effective, pending his control, his consistency, and his splitter. If he does work out well, though, I don't think we'll look back and wonder who we missed him. It will be easy to understand. At this point, he'd had only 30 innings to go off of, followed by a forgettable AFL. Within those innings he'd been somewhat inconsistent, seemingly dominant at times but wild in others. As a small-sample reliever, we also haven't gotten a bucket of scouting glorification about him. And after a splashy first AFL inning, he was 5BB/6K/14H in the subsequent tend. If he turns out stellar, it will be easy to look back and say "we were really interested/hopeful, but how were we to know; we had nothing much to go on to justify ranking him higher."

Heh heh, good point! Well said. Actually, as funny and to-the-point as that is, I don't fully buy that. I think the eye thing has been used as an explain-everything excuse. I'm sure it was a real factor. But I think it's well possible that his eyes may be fine now, but he'll still be a fringy guy who wouldn't belong top 8 or 10 in this system even if healthy. It's been suggested that we'll know with him right away, and McLeod suggested that within his first BP we'll know. But I think it's also well possible that six weeks into the season he'll be at Iowa hitting .245 with 5 homers, some walks, a lot of K's, and a .750 OPS. The assumption is that either he'll be totally bad ala Brett Jackson, or else is eyes are clean that he'll be minor-league dominant or big-league solid. More likely he'll be somewhere well in between the extremes.

I took Vizcaino, Villanueva, and Hendricks, perhaps in that order. That's what I had when I made my list 3 months ago, so I decided not to change it. I'm optimistic but not at all confident on Olt. I've been pretty happy with the positive Candelario reports this winter from the people who talk to scouts, so I'm pretty hopeful on him, but I'm a doubter that he'll ever play 3B defensively at a level we'll want. Hope I'm wrong there. If Vizcaino gets healthy, I think he can be really good. So the comment that he isn't quite 100% yet, but will be ready by spring, doesn't really push him off of #9 for me. Villanueva doesn't get the scouting for power, and his K/BB/OBP are lousy, and a .770's OPS in a hitter's park isn't that great. But the defense and the actual HR's/doubles is enough to sneak into top 11 for me. I know I'll be way out of the norm with Hendricks. 1. I value pitching a lot, and teams need five (plus) starters. A position can't afford many holes in his game, but a 5th starter can be far from perfect. 2. According to Theo and Johnson, Hendricks can get significantly better than he's been. He was already very effective, but he's not necessarily beyond getting better yet. A number of other sources, while all noting that he's not TOR and that he's not as good as his stats, seem to project him as a capable #4-5 starter. 3. I know his stuff doesn't scout great, but a career K/BB of 5:1, with an 0.4 HR rate, those are some beautiful ratios. Maybe they aren't all mirage. 4. Reading some of Maddux's ideas, particularly the Boswell article, made me think optimistically about Hendricks.

Lots of good posts. Vogelbach seems like he may just be a true-blue hitter who happens to have serious power as well, and in a game where scoring is getting more difficult that could be a very valuable guy. Whether as DH for us (I hope), in trade, or as a Rizzo replacement, he may give us some good value. . But, as has been noted he really wasn't that great offensively last year. Didn't hit for great average, most of the hits he got were singles, and he didn't reach 20 HR's. Obviously the development of his defense, whether it's awful or acceptably anti-awful, will matter a lot. But I think it really comes down to the power. Does he really have awesome power? Or as a short guy with short levers, is he a strong guy but without natural lift and without exceptional game HR power? The same defense/BABIP/BB/K guy looks a whole lot different with 30HR norm than with 18HR norm.

Blackburn and Stryz are kind of popular as pitchers who could elevate a lot. Malave is a more interesting and surprising name. 80K/0 HR in 342 AB over 2 pro summers. Moved him from C to 3B, even though the system is desperate for catchers. He must have showed something in fall instrux.

I'd love to see that from Olt, absolutely. I wonder if we don't overrate Olt's defense a little bit, though. At the Down on the Farm session yesterday, McLeod said that Villanueva was "hands down" the best defensive 3B in the system. So if Olt is "hands down" not the best 3B in the system, I'm not sure he'll be consistently best in the league. Or maybe he will be. Maybe Olt and Villanueva are both better than anybody in the majors, and Olt will win gold gloves so long as Villanueva isn't in the league.

I single voted for Johnson, since the early voting looks close. Good pitcher, good results, good stuff, good control, seems to have a very good head, and I think he's very close. I assume he starts in AA, and if he has a very good year he'll be more or less ready by end of the year. Doesn't have "great ceiling" overpowering stuff, but I think has enough velocity and enough diversity of pitches to work with to become a good big-league starter. Easy vote for me. Next one will be easy too. At #9 is when we'll start to see much more variance.

I didn't have Dunston on my top 40. But I made that some time ago, with Mateo at 36. So maybe with Mateo Rule 5 picked, I could slip Dunston in at 40.

We're doing a whole lot of projection with all of these kinds of guys. Obviously this is an opinion board, so if you and wekim don't like Hannemann, you don't like him, that's fine. For me, I'm going to have Dunston well behind Hannemann. Probably because I'm not a big Dunston guy. He was 20 years old and slugged only .358 in a hitters league. 1 HR for a corner outfielder doesn't seem that promising. Sure, hannemann's future depends entirely on projection, since he hasn't played effective pro-ball yet. But Dunston's future also depends entirely on projection; no power, no future. I'm still hopeful, but a lot of guys who end up with good LF power were already beyond 1-HR at age 20. Who knows with Hanneman, and I'm hopeful there too. I guess I just trust Theo/McLeod enough to think they knew Hannemann's age, but still liked him enough to draft him knowing he'd require a major superslot. He'll probably fail, of course, as is true for all 3rd rounders and later, and for all prospects who are showing up outside of the top-25 on a team list. But I can't imagine the Cub scouts are so dumb that they'd waste a million superslot and a high 3rd-round pick on a guy whose potential is grossly sub-3rd-round.

I'm sure there will be a lot of variance in how different posters place them. I've got Jiminez at 22 for now. Probably says more about the uselessness of rankings than about how good he is or will become that we don't know where to place him. I'd be fine to leave guys like that off. But, it's fun, too. With Soler-like physique coming, he just has so much power potential. I value him ahead of guys who will show up in the 24-30 range.

I voted for 3, but am completely conventional with the AA-Johnson-Vogelbach sequence which seems pretty obvious for the 6-7-8. I was behind the curve on Alcantara in past. (I recall writing that he might be best off to start at Daytona this past spring in order to show that his hitting emergence in 2012 wasn't a fluke….) And his errors, K's, and bad splits versus LHP remain issues. But he looks to be an easy #6 here. Whether it's at 2B, 3B, utility, or perhaps as a platoon player versus RHP, he's got a chance to be a really nice all-around player. Lots of competition in the infield with Castro, Baez, and Bryant, so he'll need to have another productive year to stay in the mix as a potential every-day starter. He's not that good hitting RH, but on a roster where most of the good prospects are RH (Castro, Almora, Soler, Baez, Castillo, Olt…), his LH-hitting might be a very welcome factor. Will be nice to see if he can reduce his errors and emerge as a premium defensive 2B this season.

Rodgers is going off of what Olt said, and players are neither doctors nor always very honest with or objective about themselves. So, we'll see. But certainly the article seems to reflect that Rodgers thinks that Olt is saying he's fine. "now that vision problems that plagued him are in the past…" "The body feels good." ""It was a freak accident," Olt said. "It happens in baseball." "now he believes the struggles are behind him" "I did have some problems with that," he said. "I think it's definitely in the past." Seems that Olt thinks the eye issues are in the past. "Freak" and "definitely in the past" certainly communicates that from Olt, and "now that vision problems that plagued him are in the past" certainly communicates that Rodgers understood him to be saying it's all good and is not going to be an ongoing issue. We'll see. Personally I'm not sure that just "getting back to" 2012 is either sure or sufficient. Yes, he hit a bunch of HR's and was projected as a good prospect, and was highly regarded. But lots of highly regarded prospects don't work out if they don't improve; I think he needed to improve, and his prolific K-rate marked him as an uncertain prospect well before the eye issue. I think it's also possible that the eye business was a factor, but may have been too convenient an explain-everything excuse for his problems last year. He's a very interesting prospect for sure, and it would be awesome if he'd emerge as a quality major leaguer. But I'm cautious about his chances even if his eyes really are fine.

I voted Edwards, but it's a coin flip for me. (Soler was #1 on my list last winter, ahead of Baez.) The fun thing is to have one of these two prospects coming out #5 on our list. I'm not sure you need to be a big guy to be a good pitcher. So I think there's a chance that Edwards will end up doing fine physically as a starter. His value may depend less on his body configuration than on his pitching ability, which may be quite good. Excellent control goes a long way. I also think he's pretty close; when a very good pitcher with good control starts at AA, (not sure but Edwards might), he's not far from the majors. I also justify ranking him high in that I value good relievers a lot, such that his value doesn't vanish if the decision is that he is not durable enough for rotation. Soler seems to have the power potential and the hitting/discipline profile to perhaps become a great all-around offensive player. But that's still pretty much projection, at this point. So I'm going with the close-to-ready-great-performance Edwards a slight bit ahead of not-very-close-yet-with-no-great-performance-shown-yet Soler. An .810 OPS at age 21 in A-ball isn't really that great. It's not bad, so it doesn't undermine the projection, but it's not like he's actually shown the great offense or power that his ranking is based upon. My question with him, I think, is whether or not he'll have the knack, or learn it, for getting enough lift on the ball to hit HR's. He may just be something of a ground ball guy? Last year was small sample size, and we don't know how much was healthy. Would be fun to see him healthy, hustling, and hitting HR's consistently this season.

That's how I see it too. When he was a big kid who was projected to throw heavy fastball in the mid-90's, with decent control, he was a good projection prospect. But after the arm injury as a soft-tosser, I don't see the interest.