craig

Heh heh, in the 6th Scott lost his control and allowed 2 walks and 4 hits. Consistency is hard.

He's generally matching his profile at Boise: he has yet to allow a HR as a pro pitcher. If you don't walk many and don't give up any HR's, you can afford to live without many K's. But his control is the big question. This is start #5, and four have been variably good (2.0 ERA, 15K/4BB/17H/23 innings). But the one "bad" start was 5 walks and he got killed. Overall his control has been pretty good, perhaps more consistent than at Boise; but the composite numbers reflect the bad-control day, too. I know we got a high-80's velocity in his first start. I'll be curious to see what it is when it's warm and he's loose, but also when he's been making enough starts so that he might not be so strong and fresh as pitchers tend to be in April. Speaking of low-K groundball guys, Dallas Beeler has also been a groundball guy for a while; but in previous years he still allowed a lot of HR's. With low K's and plenty of HR's, even without many walks he wasn't very effective. When he allowed three HR's in his first start this year, I figured same old story for him. But since then, he hasn't allowed a HR, has a huge GB ratio, and doesn't walk people. He's sitting with a 2.61 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP. Obviously FIP is higher, and he must be getting kinda lucky. But I'm guessing his control and/or slider have gotten better and he's more consistent. Nice to see things going well for him. Will be interesting to see how that holds up over the next months. At 23 he's not a fossil yet.

You expect Soler to spend the whole year in high A? That would be incredibly disappointing to me. I think his approach is advanced enough already that he can move quickly. I don't expect Soler to spend the whole year in high A, no. (Although the way he's been struggling lately, maybe he will.) What I meant was that no good position prospects are playing really well or dominating their leagues and commanding/earning promotions right now. So none are really candidates to be "first to get promoted", or to get promoted anytime soon. I think there are a couple of common "promotion" windows. The first is in May. A guy spends 6 weeks or so at a level, dominates it or performs well enough for long enough to merit the step. It often seems that sometime in or near the end of May is when some guys get bumped. Long enough for it to be more than just a small-sample hot streak. The second is at the half-way point. Often after a level's all-star game, or when they start the "standings" for the second half. A third is a little later, but early enough so that the guy will get a real taste of the next level. Get a full month or so at the next level. Get in 80+ AB's at the next level. A fourth is very late. Just to give a little taste, or perhaps to extend a season by promoting to a team that will play longer in the playoffs or something. My expectation is that Soler or Baez might get the August-in-AA sample (case 3), but will need to start playing a lot better to earn a half-way promotion. And have no chance of earning May promotion. Daytona has 12 guys who have played in more than 5 games. Soler and Baez are both in the bottom half for average; neither are in the top 3rd for OPS; Soler is in the bottom half for OBP; and of course Baez is the worst of the 12 for OBP. Defensively Baez has 12 errors; the rest of the team has 16. (We often blame errors on bad fields/lights/scorekeepers; but those factors don't seem to be killing the other defenders.....) Seems to me that both Baez and Soler are plenty challenged in A-ball right now. Neither one will be moving up anytime soon.

Johnson stands out. *Well, of course Garza, too! I don't really see any significant position players earning a promotion. *John Andreoli is certainly deserving, although obviously he's a somewhat limited prospect. *Szczur has a .734 OPS. Says something about the poverty of productive position prospects when a .734-OPS is one of out top promotion candidates. *Dunston might replace Trey Martin and his .543 OPS. But Martin might just be on borrowed time till Almora. Pitchers: *Johnson has been good and seems obvious. No other starters at Kane. *Daytona, Kirk might go, just based on experience, but that's not significant. *I think Cates is kinda fragile; after his problems last year, I think they're going to prefer if he can extend some success, rather than promoting him as soon as he hits a hot streak. *Tennessee, Beeler, Jokisch, Cabrera, and even Hendricks are all possibilities. Hendricks least, obviously, because he's just gotten to AA, plus his arm is limited, so he'll need to succeed longer. But for Beeler and Jokisch, this is their third year in AA, and it's hardly like Iowa is "blocked" (Loux-Struck-Moscoso-Rusin-Raley-Carpenter are all limited.) Since allowing 3 HR on opening day, Beeler has kept the ball in the park, and he doesn't walk guys. He and Jokisch could each go up at any time.

Man, we've been sure getting a lot of good pitching lately. Johnson, Wells, Cates, Hendricks, Feldman.... Some pretty positive developments.

Yeah, that was kind of depressing. I'd hoped he was signed because he looked maybe special as a hitter. If he's just another defense-first guy, we-hope-he'll-hit-enough-someday, that's kind of a bummer. That's probably unfair, that's just how I felt when I read that. O well, comps are just comps, hopefully he'll not be nearly so limited offensively as Hernandez. Probably this was actually intended as a compliment by Phil.

I don't like Meadows much, because he doesn't seem to be a great hitter, either in terms of pure contact amazing-ness or in terms of power. I'm not sure how good Bryant or Frazier project as hitters. But **if** Madison is really sold on them as OBP/slugging machines, I'd not let possible future in corner knock them off my list. If they think one of them can hit like Braun, or Aram, or Matt Holiday, or Jim Edmonds, or Barry Bonds, or Lance Berkman, and they can play a **good** corner (even if it's "only" left rather than right), I'll take that. Unfortunately I doubt either are very safe to be able to hit and mash and get on base like that.

I voted for both Zych and Morris in my top-50. Morris was my surprise pick, since his numbers last year were awesome. Zych has been awful this year, no K-ball at all. Morris has also been a disappointment. Today, he came out to replace hatley in the 7th. Then he got replaced by Zych before anything happened, at least according to the Milb.com recap. I expect that means he's reinjured. Too bad for him. I kinda suspect something is probably wrong with Zych as well, but we'll see. Maybe it's just mechanics in his case. Hatley has been wild, so he doesn't seem to be stepping up as needed.

I'm hoping Conway makes it up to Kane County before the Boise season starts. Otherwise, yeah, that's their likely rotation.... Yes, that should be a very interesting rotation. Thanks for the Mesa info brickhouse and the link, cal. Very encouraging to see Maples throw strikes and have a clean game. Conway continues to sound reasonably effective, and certainly no health concerns. I agree with you, cal, it's two months or close before Boise starts, it would be nice if Conway stays healthy and effective enough to justify a callup to Kane County. Rosario too, although he's sounded pretty ineffective in Mesa. I haven't seen much of Prieto in Phil's game accounts. I wonder if he's relief track, or if he might not make for a 5th Boise guy. I see no urgency on Maples getting to Kane. He's a talented guy, but whatever his age might be, he's not that experienced. I'd love it if he's ready to go to Kane and pitch well there. But given that he turned 19 in high school, and has basically lost the last two summers, developmentally he could just as well be 18 or 19. I don't see any problem with having him pitch at Boise this summer. He'll be no older than some college pick who gets signed and goes to Boise, and younger than most. I think it's about getting his pitching right and his delivery consistent. If he can go to Boise and do well there, I won't be disappointed with that.

When I saw him this spring, I was sitting behind the radar guns. His fastball was 92-93 but he was missing with it. Apparently, he's hitting his spots now. As a lefty, if he can command a 93 mph fastball, he's got a chance if he can stay healthy... Thanks to both of you. Most K's are on breaking balls, so he must have something pretty sharp But yeah, a lefty at 93 who's got a put away pitch to go with it, that's a guy who can pitch in the majors for a lot of years. Hope he stays healthy. I think even back when we got him, there hadn't been that much info on his stuff, although he hadn't come over with a big-time velocity rep. Does anybody remember what his injury actually was? He was the best pitcher at Daytona for 9 starts 2 years ago, but then he was gone, and pitched only 32 innings last year. Was he a TJ surgery, or something else? His time gone seems possible for TJ, although almost a little short. Here's hoping he works out. Heh, some of the other relievers that I liked for the top-50 list haven't started well (Zych, Morris).

Rosscup is now 16K/9 IP. In two of his outings, one of them a 2 inning job, he had none. So actually his 16K are in the other 6 innings. 6 innings, 16 out of the 18 outs by K? Pretty funny. Seems like when he's on he's on. I wonder what he gets the outs with?

Agree, it will be really interesting to see how it plays out. I don't think you can do the K/W without also including the HR's. His OBP/BA/OPS is lifted by the HR's, and I doubt he'll sustain his HR rate. (I don't expect him to hit 28 or more HR's this season...) 19K/73AB is a high K-rate (about like Jackson his first year in AA.) But 4HR per 19K offsets the K's and maintains good batting average and OBP. Despite all those K's, he's needed only a .340 BABIP to sustain his healthy .288 average, thanks to the HR's. But, if those HR's tail off while he maintains that kind of K-rate, his average will go down and his OBP will be back to normal. If he maintains his current K/BABIP rates and I multiply volume by 7 (18 games to 126 games), while only bumping his HR's to 10 instead of 28, he'd end with a .252 average, and lowish OBP. I doubt his HR-rate is sustainable, although I hope I'm wrong. My point, I guess, is that the increase in BB's has been neutralized by the increase in K's. My guess is he'll made adjustments to reduce the high K-rate, and sacrifice some of his new-found BB-rate. Either way, it will be really interesting to see how things settle out in the months ahead. An interesting note is that he's still predominantly a singles hitter. I like to see 30% of a prospects hits go for XB, or more. Last year, 73% of Alcantara's hits were singles. 76% singles this far. For context, Barney was a 73% singles guy last year. Heh, of course if he's 10SB/0CS, and I prorate that to 70SB/0CS, a lot of his walks/singles will be doubles! I think it would be REALLY cool if his current base-stealing binge was legit.

Alcantara with his daily error. 8 errors so far.

Vogelbach adds his 16th single. Marco Hernandez has 3K/1BB/2XBH in 50 AB. OPS is around .600, OBP below .300 again.

I love him so. SSS be damned. Heh heh. So, how likely is it that DH goes NL in the near future?

Kane up 5-0 after three. Vogelbach with two singles, average up to .321, although with no power. (15 singles, 2 XBH)

Loosen got a lot of K's last year, too, so he must have something that can make guys miss on a good day. At least minor league guys. I agree with toonster, I think Jokisch has a little more zip than Raley and certainly than Rusin. His results have been better than Raley, although if you just look at K/BB/HR rates, they look a lot the same. But Raley has always given up more hits: his minor-league H/9 is 11.1, Jokisch's is 8.3. I think it's unlikely to expect Jokisch to be particuarly good. But as long as he keeps getting guys out, I'm going to keep hoping that he'll end up being good.

Kane Cty is actually playing. No score in second, Johnson 3K/2H/1BB through two, one of the hits a Texas leaguer Martin probably should have caught. Contreras has quickly gotten a passed ball.

Alcantara has rebounded offensively, he's up to .288, plus with all the walks and steals. I'd wondered if he'd be overmatched in AA, and questioned if he should even be promoted, and when he'd gone down to .220 or whatever I'd been worried. But he's been hot lately. However, he made his 7th error already. Last year I thought hie error rate was scary, but nobody else seemed to mind. Now he's 7 errors in 14 (or 15?) games. Sooner or later he's got to cut back on the errors. A lot.

Gray goes 6, coach said something about protecting him or something, pulled him at 82 pitches. 10K/0BB/2 singles. Hit 100 several times, topped at 103.

3 more K's in the 3rd.

Loosen's K'd 3 in the first two innings. Nice to have him back.

Contreras is off to a nice start offensively, walks and power both looking nice, although of course Kane plays so rarely that it's way premature. But he's only caught a handful of games, already has 3 passed balls, and without actually paying good attention it seems like base-stealers are like 14-for-15 when he's been catching. I'd love to get some feedback from people who have been or will go to Kane games about how he looks defensively.

A good Bruno comp, as a hitter, might be Darwin Barney. Both are low-power guys who don't walk a lot. *Bruno K's more in low minors than Barney does in majors. *Barney hit 7 HR's/548 AB last year. Bruno has 3 HR's/301 AB at Boise/Daytona AB's. If anything those numbers actually favor Barney! So I don't see Bruno having a meaningfully superior amount of effective game HR power. And he's 5'9" and turning 23 this calendar year, so I don't anticipate much "filling out into more power" happening. Probably his present strength is pretty much what he'll have. *XB power; Bruno has 31 XBH per 111 hits (28%); Barney last year had 37 XBH per 139 hits (27%). So they look roughly similar there. *Both have tracked as low-walk guys. Bruno walked very rarely in college, although toonster has noted that his role may have contributed. Thus far his walk-rate has been decent (23 walks/301 AB), somewhat better than Barney (33 BB/548 AB) *Bruno has been a tremendous BABIP guy so far, .433, between Boise and Daytona. Barney was .273. Obviously both are probably anomalous. Obviously Barney doesn't seem like as upbeat a comp as Pedroia, but I don't mean that to be a downer on Bruno. An upgraded Barney could be a valuable player. If Barney added ten walks, an extra 2 HR's, and extra 5 doubles, and raised his BABIP from .273 to .330, none of those would greatly change the general profile of low-power-contact hitter, but a little better here and a little better there and you've got a pretty good hitter.

heh heh, to use a wish comp from old days, Pete Rose might be. Wasn't a power hitter, wasn't fast, wasn't real good defensively anywhere but was decent everywhere, thus he started at multiple positions over his career. But he was good at getting hits. At least, that's the caricature for Rose. That's probably ridiculously unfair to Rose, though. He did have power, with 15 or more HR's 3 times (in an era where HR's were down), and seven straight years with 10 or more HR's. 160 career HR's. He also stole 198 bases, as many as 20 in a season, ten seasons with at least ten steals. So maybe he was really a 4-5 tools guy rather than the one tool hit-but-nothing else guy of his legend. OK, this was a worthless post. But, I guess for Bruno it all depends on how much hitting he can do. If he can hit .300 and play acceptable defense, he's valuable and will have a long career, even if both Iso's are low.