Clem Fandango

I've kinda wanted the Cubs to snipe Brian Matusz from the O's so they can work Bosio's magic on him like they did Jake Arrieta.

I'm failing to see why Rose being apart of baseball again would make me upset in any way, shape, or form. Are you worried he'll be the next Joe Morgan or something? I literally do not care about Pete Rose one iota, whether he's in baseball or isn't.

Olt is not the power prospect he once was in the Rangers system. He'll max out at 30 home runs if he's able to reach it, but at his best he'll likely be a 20-25 homer guy, which means Kris Bryant will have to be steroid good for the 3B/LF combo to reach 80 home runs. All that said, Brett did drop this hypothetical in his post about Olt... He used "elite" because Keith Law graded Olt's glove somewhere between 70-80 on the 20-80 scale in his most recent chat, apparently, so if his glove truly is elite (was always good, but not sure about elite) then he's saying even a poor offense version of Olt should still be worth a lot because of his defense.

Haven't heard it, but I'm going to assume that it has as much to do about Uma Thurman as "Clint Eastwood" has to do about Clint Eastwood http://i.imgur.com/pKnRM.gif

Haven't heard it, but I'm going to assume that it has as much to do about Uma Thurman as "Clint Eastwood" has to do about Clint Eastwood

The Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness

http://i.imgur.com/UL5Nvdc.gif

Made that a bit easier to read. Also... Hopefully gonna be able to change that to include Soler 10 years from now

That's fair, craig, and I tend to agree with your points. Well he'll be 22 this season. If he doesn't hit for more power then I suppose it's a cause for more concern, IMO. And I agree with the skewed expectations bit. To me Caratini is strictly a defensive catcher who offers little offensive upside. I'll admit I'm unclear on how Zagunis profiles as a receiver, but while Zagunis only smacked 2 homers in his first taste of the minors, he did hit 16 doubles and 3 triples while stealing 16 of 18 and drawing 42 walks in a 57 game stretch which, to me, is pretty impressive and why I selected him in the round he went in (actually picked him earlier). A speed/patience combo behind the plate is pretty rare to see these days, if ever. Just for fun, I did some research to see the number of catchers who have stolen 20 bases or more since baseball began. 16. Only 16 catchers have ever stolen 20 or more. 13 if you're just counting individuals and not seasons and you exclude the times Schalk, Kendall, and Biggio did it more than once. Rk Player SB OPS+ G Year Age Tm PA HR 1 John Wathan 36 86 121 1982 32 KCR 502 3 2 Ray Schalk 30 84 129 1916 23 CHW 472 0 3 Jack OConnor 29 139 121 1890 24 COL 496 2 4 Jason Kendall 26 131 149 1998 24 PIT 627 12 5 Ivan Rodriguez 25 125 144 1999 27 TEX 630 35 6 Craig Biggio 25 93 150 1990 24 HOU 621 4 7 John Stearns 25 121 143 1978 26 NYM 563 15 8 Johnny Kling 25 112 115 1902 26 CHC 477 0 9 Ray Schalk 24 100 136 1914 21 CHW 459 0 10 Johnny Kling 23 118 132 1903 27 CHC 524 3 11 Jason Kendall 22 124 152 2000 26 PIT 678 14 12 Russell Martin 21 116 151 2007 24 LAD 620 19 13 Craig Biggio 21 114 134 1989 23 HOU 509 13 14 B.J. Surhoff 21 71 139 1988 23 MIL 541 5 15 Benito Santiago 21 111 146 1987 22 SDP 572 18 16 Red Dooin 20 86 133 1908 29 PHI 468 0 If Zagunis can be a decent receiver, he could be a pretty interesting commodity. To me Caratini has backup catcher written all over him, and that's fine. Teams need that kind of catcher, but I just don't see any offensive upside with him. He'll be what David Ross is now, IMO.

Fair enough, and valid. Although the not taking a step forward, could be interpreted differently. Couldn't putting up the same numbers at the next highest level be interpreted as stepping forward? Many guys get worse when they experience the next level and need to make adjustments to catch up. If Vogelbach made adjustments, he did enough to wind up with very similar numbers to his previous year, remaining consistent. That could be viewed just as much as a positive as it can be a negative, can it not? What if he ends this year with a .272/.363/.439/.802 slash line at AA with 17 homers, 70 RBI, and a 68:89 BB:K ratio at the age of 22? More of the same, but at another advanced level in his first go around. Would that be a step forward or a step backward?

FWIW the difference between Vogelbach last year and Vogelbach this year was basically 8 hits. Catg: G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS 2013: 131 566 483 68 137 23 0 19 76 5 4 73 89 .284 .375 .449 .824 2014: 132 560 482 71 129 28 1 16 76 4 4 66 91 .268 .357 .429 .787 Despite having more XBH, but 8 fewer hits (3 fewer HR), his slugging was 20 points lower and his OPS was 37 points lower. Vogelbach was actually very consistent with his performance from year to year. And he was technically younger for his performance levels this year than he was last year (-1.5 in 2013 vs. -1.7 this year according to BR). The only thing that apparently drastically changed for Vogelbach between 2013 and 2014 was that he lost 30 pounds in the offseason to increase his versatility. I don't remember hearing a lot about Vogelbach's defense this season, but I'm sure it didn't get much better if it did so he was basically the same guy. Maybe that wasn't good enough for most people. He was promoted a little aggressively to High A in 2013 (he was nearly 3 years younger than the average age in 2013 there), and spent his entire season there in 2014. I really don't think Vogelbach is any worse or better than people think he may or may not be. I think the oversaturation of amazing hitting prospects we've had over the past year and a half affects that. We added Russell, McKinney, and Schwarber while seeing impressive debuts from Torres and Zagunis, along with the domination of Bryant and Soler, and the graduations of Baez and Alcantara. As a result Vogelbach's hitting skills look like rat ass comparatively speaking and I think people are not evaluating him objectively. Those 8 fewer hits give his slash line a stark contrast, but in reality he wasn't that much different from last season when he was our 8th best prospect. And some of the guys we've put ahead of him are there solely on scouting reports and promise, while Vogelbach basically did exactly what he did last year and at a level that he was nearly 2 years younger for. I've seen a lot of general opinion that he took a step back, but did he really? Or did he just take a step back because so many other prospects took a step forward? He's 22 and he's likely to start the year in AA, where he'll be about 2 years young for the league. That's a pretty damn good bat to make it that far at that age for someone with no defensive value, but somehow he's not a good enough hitter to a lot of people here? Interesting. If people want to deduct him points for pretty much being a future DH, that's understandable, but to say he's not hitting enough is just subjective analysis, IMO.

It could be assumed that the majority of those who voted for Stinnett then voted for Zagunis, while many people who were voting for both Vogelbach and Stinnett then changed their votes to Vogelbach and Zagunis. Given how many votes Vogelbach had at #12, it's surprising he hasn't been selected yet. Especially when Sands only got 6 votes 3 rounds ago and now he's beating out Vogelbach who had more votes than he did in each of the past 3 rounds.

Poor Vogelbach. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. #12 Prospect votes: Stinnet - 40 Jimenez - 18 Vogelbach - 15 Rivero - 15 Sands - 6 Zagunis - 5 Caratini - 4 #13 Prospect votes: Zagunis - 25 Jimenez - 16 Vogelbach - 16 Rivero - 14 Sands - 12 Caratini - 6 #14 Prospect votes: Jimenez - 30 Vogelbach - 18 Sands - 15 Rivero - 11 Caratini - 8 #15 Prospect votes (currently) Sands - 17 Vogelbach - 16 Caratini - 12 Rivero - 12

Missing something... what happened with Baez? Did he get reassigned to AAA or something?

http://i.imgur.com/Gn04H.gif

Strasburg, IIRC.

What did it mean again?

Having been yelled at by Mets' fans for not seeing the value of building a team around pitching, I find it completely comical. I wonder how that Mets board is reacting to this. I was tempted to search here to find the link I'll do it! http://www.northsidebaseball.com//forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=63057

Zagunis and Vogelbach. Zagunis is my pick for prospect most likely to jump to Top 100 status.

Having been yelled at by Mets' fans for not seeing the value of building a team around pitching, I find it completely comical. I wonder how that Mets board is reacting to this.

Group A: Giancarlo Stanton Group B: Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Donaldson Group C: Paul Goldschmidt, Jay Bruce, George Springer Group D: Mark Trumbo, Bryce Harper, Hanley Ramirez, Jedd Gyorko, Carlos Gonzalez Wild Card: PM'd

I can't wait for rival fans to hate him with every fiber of their being. This should be his walkup music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik4trQ8UttE

I could've sworn Venditte was a prospect who was drafted only a couple years back. He's 30 years old. He's been in the Yankees org since 2008, and his numbers in the minors aren't that bad. 384.2 mostly relief innings with a 2.46 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, and a 10.1 K/9. Seriously his numbers have been pretty good at each stop but it looks like the Yankees used him as a side show attraction instead of treating him like an actual pitcher with big league potential.

I remember seeing a photo of Szczur like a year or two ago in the minor league forum of him in his pre-game gear or something and he looks, physically, like the type of guy who should hit somewhere between 10-20 homers a season. He looks stronger than his numbers indicate, perhaps they've been reworking his swing?