Mephistopheles

Well he's going to be an oustanding college pitcher. His fringy average fastball from the left side won't be a big deal, it's actually an above average D1 fastball for a lefty and his curve is probably the best in college baseball right now. He's gotten it over 90 some lately, but if he can get his fastball to hover near 90, he'll be an excellent major league prospect similar to Ted Lilly or Rich Hill, but his command isn't a disaster. He has a curveball as good as Hill's. Alex Wilson's final line: Texas A&M IP H R ER BB SO AB BF NP ERA -------------------------------------------------------- Wilson, Alex........ 6.2 3 0 0 1 14 23 24 99 - Meyer, Alex......... 3.0 4 3 3 1 1 14 15 59 - No, Meyer's not at aTm, he's at Kentucky, I just pasted his line there. 2010 potential first-rounders Brandon Workman (Texas) and Matt Harvey (UNC) are expected to throw tomorrow.

Sanchez, Wilson and Gray should all be first rounders.

UT is 3-0. Won 6-1 yesterday, though Chance Ruffin looked like crap. Taylor Jungmann dominated today and Green did too. Notable performances: 2009 Prospects 5.2 IP, 3 H 0 ER, 11:2 K:BB - Stephen Strasburg, SDSU - W (1-0) vs Bethune-Cookman 5.0 IP, 8 H, 3 ER, 9:1 K:BB - Alex White, UNC - W (1-0) vs VMI 6.0 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 6:3 K:BB - Kyle Gibson, Mizzou - W (1-0) vs Nevada 5.2 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 6:2 K:BB - Mike Minor*, Vandy - ND (0-0) vs #9 Stanford 6.0 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 5:2 K:BB - Kendall Volz, Baylor - ND (0-0) vs Pacific 6.0 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 13:0 K:BB - Alex Wilson, Texas A&M - W (1-0) vs Wright State 5.2 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 7:4 K:BB - Blake Smith, Cal - ND (0-0) vs UC Riverside 6.0 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 11:6 K:BB - Brad Roxberger, USC - W (1-0) vs LBSU 7.0 IP, 9 H, 5 ER, 3:1 K:BB - Jeff Inman, Stanford - ND (0-0) vs Vandy 5.0 IP, 9 H, 3 ER, 5:1 K:BB - Nick Hernandez*, Tenn - ND (0-0) vs Oregon State 6.0 IP, 6 H, 5 ER, 2:5 K:BB - Shawn Tolleson, Baylor - ND (0-0) vs Pacific 6.0 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 2:3 K:BB - Sean Black, Seton Hall - W (1-0) vs Minnesota 5.0 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 1:6 K:BB - Kyle Smith, Kent State - W (1-0) vs UNC Greensboro 5.2 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 6:1 K:BB - Alex McRee*, UGA - W (1-0) vs Youngstown State 2010 Prospects 6.0 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 9:0 K:BB - Sammy Solis*, San Diego - W (1-0) vs Southern 5.0 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 6:2 K:BB - Sam Dyson, South Carolina - W (1-0) vs Dequesne 5.1 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 7:3 K:BB - Barret Loux, Texas A&M - ND (0-0) vs Wright State 7.0 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 13:1 K:BB - Deck McGuire, GT - W (1-0) vs Lipscomb 5.0 IP, 4 H, 5 ER, 5:2 K:BB - Kyle Blair, San Diego - W (1-0) vs Bethune-Cookman 5.0 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 7:2 K:BB - Anthony Ranaudo, LSU - W (1-0) vs Villanova 7.0 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 5:1 K:BB - Cole Green, Texas - W (1-0) vs Illinois-Chicago 5.0 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 5:1 K:BB - Rob Rabmussen*, UCLA - W (1-0) vs UC Davis 5.0 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 2:4 K:BB - Tanner Robles*, Oregon State, - ND (0-0) vs Tennessee 2011 Prospects 6.0 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 7:2 K:BB - Gerrit Cole, UCLA - W (1-0) vs UC Davis 3.0 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 3:1 K:BB - Sonny Gray, Vandy - ND (0-0) vs #9 Stanford 6.0 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 4:4 K:BB - Taylor Jungmann, Texas - W (1-0) vs Illinois-Chicago 6.0 IP, 6 H, 0 ER, 5:0 K:BB - Danny Hultzen, Virginia - W (1-0) vs Bucknell 2.2 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 6:1 K:BB - Daniel Marrs, Wake Forest - ND (0-0) vs Akron

alex wilsons going off.

might not be the most important stat ever but its not as if mike cameron wont end up with a career warp around 100 or more - which is something aramis ramirez won't do.

No it doesn't mean I can't defend my argument. It means that my defense is too advanced for you.

You really don't have a clue.

It's a fact that he helped them get Haren. It's a fact that it minimizes the risk in their season.

Piniella's too old school to move Lee into the two hole. Lee's GIDP nightmares are probably an anomaly anyways though.

Arizona didn't give up on Quentin. It's foolish to believe that. To get something good you have to give something up. The Diamondbacks shipped him out in a deal that netted them Dan Haren period. They locked up Byrnes to minimize risk. Period.

Do you know the probability of Quentin being a superstar prior to this season? The chances were well below 10 percent. He was far from a sure thing. I know what Byrnes is and what he's not. He was more or less expected to be a .280 EqA guy with above average defense and above average baserunning. That's a good outfielder, and production wise is comparable to say, Carlos Lee. He may not have sexy offensive numbers, but he compliments it well and it turns him into a good corner outfielder. Calling him "consistently mediocre to bad" is ignoring reality. I must stress that the risk in him wasn't too high. They had so much risk in other positions, they needed to minimize it somewhere. Again, this was an obvious decision. It amazes me to see people arguing against it.

Which is fine. The Diamondbacks were in a win now mentality. Who knew that Quentin would develop so quickly. Byrnes was an above average player 4 out of the 5 previous years. He was good in 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007. Was he a star? No. Was he the kind of player good teams need to have to compliment their stars in order to win? Absolutely. No one's saying Byrnes is great, but the DBacks had a chance to win their division then. They had a chance to win their division last year. They wanted to minimize their risk in the immediate future at the cost of the three or four years down the road. At the time, Byrnes was a good bet to be a productive outfielder, not great but solidly above average for the next two or three years. What they couldn't do was have an outfield full of unproven youngsters, like Quentin, Gonzalez, Upton and to a certain extent Young. There's WAY too much risk in that for a team that's trying to win right now. Byrnes had been a consistent producer, so they took the safer route and augmented it with high upside players in center and left. That's the right decision. Keeping Byrnes was the correct move if you're operating in a largely win now move. They then had four guys for two spots. Really Young and Gonzalez could play center, but Carlos Gonzalez at a poor rate. Upton, Quentin and Gonzalez could all play right. The best two to keep around were Upton and Young and there's no questioning that. It's foolish to think Quentin or Gonzalez should have been kept over Upton. They had an opportunity to had one of the top 20 or 30 pitchers in the game, and it cost them two spare parts. Sure, in hindsight Byrnes struggled and Quentin broke out, but at the time it was the right move. It's a pretty obvious one too.

How is it a no brainer to hold on to the worst of your 5 OFs? Because Byrnes wasn't a prospect with trade value. Young and Upton were the top two of the remaining four. They traded the bottom two.

Fourth or fifth. Carlos Gonzalez and Carlos Quentin was better than him and so was Brett Anderson. Gio Gonzalez might have.

They didn't "give up" on him. They traded him in a deal for Dan Haren, which was smart. They had a HUGE logjam in the outfield at the time. They had Eric Byrnes, Justin Upton and Chris Young. They had Carlos Gonzalez and Carlos Quentin waiting in the wings. They had an opportunity to trade for Dan Haren. Byrnes had no chance of being dealt, Justin Upton was untouchable and Quentin can't play center. It was a no-brainer.

Tomorrow!

He didn't turn 25 until last September.

I'm not saying his last two stints in Triple A weren't his fault. I'm saying that the environment around him was unconducive to his success in Triple A. And in general, it's an obvious move to look into.

No one is saying he is good as once was as a prospect. What I am saying is that we can have him for nothing, and right now even in his diminished form, he's better than our plan B. It's an obvious move.

The world's not static and the world's not a show-me first world. I should have worded it a bit differently, but it doesn't matter. He's PRODUCED at a league average centerfielder the last two seasons. That DOES NOT mean he WAS a league average player at the time nor that he was NOT a good outfielder. In reality, we don't know what he is. You don't. I don't. God doesn't. Allah doesn't. Even Outshine_One doesn't. In reality we have to take the best possible guess of what his true talent level is at any given time. We don't just look at his numbers in the seasons produced and say "He's a ____ player." That's foolish. Was Darrell May a good pitcher in 2003? No, he was a shitty pitcher who produced well for one season. Nothing more. Was Jake Peavy a bad pitcher in 2006? No, he was an elite pitcher who didn't produce well for one season. Nothing less. In order to gauge his true talent curve we have to take everything into consideration. Before his major league career, everything we have points to him being better than what he produced in 2007 and 2008. You don't have to increase his line by much for him to be a "good player". In fact, all you have to do is put the two years he produced in 2007 and 2008 and ignore his minor league success and put those two seasons on a normal age curve for someone like him and he is "good" right now. Nevermind that in reality his "struggles" last season were really contained to June and the rest of the season he was a "good" player. You sum up all of the data and the only conclusion that you can come to is that, at the very least, he's a "good" player now and his true talent level the last two years was also "good". In fact, I'm sure this means nothing to you, but there's no statistically significant difference between a "good" player and a league average player for two years. Obviously there very may well be one between a star and him, but being a good player isn't much above league average.

You just love to fixate on things you don't know too well. OPS is trash in the minors. It's stupid to look at. He came up through the Atlanta Braves system. The Braves system runs through some of the toughest parks to hit in in all the minors. He started out in Macon, a TOUGH park on home runs. He then went to Myrtle beach, a TOUGH park on home runs. Next he went to the Southern League, which kills most young power hitters, and went into Greenville, which might be the toughest place to hit there, and raked. He finally went to Richmond which is another place tough to hit. Buffalo isn't great either, but that's not the problem. He hasn't "sucked ass" in his last 709 minor league at bats. He still hit above league average. He spent the two seasons jumping between the majors and the minors. For him to struggle when he got inconsistent playing time for the first time in his career is something to expect. We saw much of the same last year. It's not that he has done well or that he's even good. It's the simple fact that he's talented, young, has a good track record and we have NO ONE as an insurance policy if brittle errormiss goes down. It costs us nothing and there's a chance he develops into something. If he gets released, which is possible since he cleared waivers, then there's no reason not to scoop him up since we can stash him in Iowa, let him get consistent playing time. There's no reason not to.

Wrong again. He is very good presently. While he's not an above average hitter, he's right around a league average hitter for a centerfielder. He's got good skills in the outfield and is probably pretty damn close to an average defensive centerfielder and he runs the bases pretty well. So overall he's produced as an average outfielder the last two seasons, despite his shortcomings as an OBP guy. He's done this as a 23 and 24 year old. He also had a very good three year romp in the minors where he has a career EqA north of .300 which bodes VERY highly for his development as a hitter at the major league level in the immediate future, since I know that power tends to develop most after he hits 25, meaning his power should only increase and should develop into a consistent 30+ HR centerfielder with average defensive skills. If OBP is his only deficiency he'll still be a well above average player. He's certainly a "good" player. To think otherwise is to be oblivious from reality. It's quite apparent.

This is completely wrong. To believe that Marte wasn't good in the minors is to be stupid. I mean a .297 EqA in Low A as an eighteen year old sucks! And then a .318 EqA in Hi A as a 19 year old. CRAP! And a .300 EqA as a 20 year old in Double A. Crap! And a .290 EqA as a 21 year old in his first go-round in the Triple A. Crap! Since then he's been jerked between the majors and minors and has struggled because of this. Regardless he's still got more tools and potential than Carlos Quentin and is one of the most talented 25 year olds in baseball. There's no doubting his struggles recently has dimmed his star, but there's also no doubting that if Aramis Ramirez goes down for any month stretch, which given Errormiss's health seems well within the realm of possibility, the Cubs will be in a fiasco because we have no one in the high minors worth crap who can hit enough to play third. Ditto for our bench. Miles can't. Sure Marte hasn't but he's got a chance to and at this point in his career can be had for nothing. There's not a lot at stake at making this move. But you can bet your ass that he was VERY good in the minors. Again, don't talk about things you don't follow. You obviously don't follow baseball in Japan nor the minors here.

Despite what we're all hoping from, it's hard to say he's gotten a raw deal in the past, given his behavior. Why? Because he threw some balls and some bats that one time? Since then he's been pretty clean. We can point to that thing with the ump last year all we want, but when you get down to it, the ump walked after HIM, not the other way around. The problem is he throws some bats/balls/coolers/whatever once or twice when he's young and those images get replayed year after year after year. Now all of a sudden he's got this reputation as a nutcase when his true persona seems to be nothing of the sort. Last year he tried to get into the Royals' press box and go after one of their broadcasters for saying things about him. So he's the new Kent Mercker?

Maestri will certainly be on Italy's team again.