Top 100 Prospects Review (80-71)
80. LHSP Nick Hagadone (Boston Red Sox)
Year In Review: While not a premier prospect, Hagadone’s season may be a cautionary tale as to why you should never get too excited about prospects who are still so far away from the majors. Hagadone had a bad first start, an excellent second start, and left his third start with elbow tightness. He has now had Tommy John surgery. While TJ is obviously far, far from the career-killer it was a while back, different arms do react differently, especially velocity-wise. There’s nothing to prevent, say, Neftali Feliz or Madison Bumgarner from tearing their UCL, getting TJS and losing 5 MPH off of their fastballs.
Prospect Status: Down.
79. LHSP Brett Cecil (Toronto Blue Jays)
Year In Review: A reliever late in his college career, Cecil has started off pro ball by getting stretched out as a starter. After dominating short-season A-ball last year, Cecil skipped Low-A and started off this season in the Florida State League. His 4 starts there totalled just 10.1 IP, but they were impressive enough to promote him to AA. Now he has grown accustomed to the starter’s role, throwing at least 5 innings in 3 of his last 4 starts. Meanwhile, he’s been soundly dominating. Cecil has struck out 25.4% of batters, walked 8.2% and has more than twice as many ground ball outs as strikeouts. Cecil will be in the mix for a rotation spot opening day 2009, and don’t be shocked if he’s pitching in the majors this year.
Prospect Status: Up.
78. RHSP Mat Latos (San Diego Padres)
Year In Review: Not very impressive. Latos has already has three separate injury stints this year, and hasn’t been great when healthy, especially at keeping the ball in the park.
Prospect Status: Down.
77. RHSP Jordan Zimmerman (Washington Nationals)
Year In Review: Zimmerman dominated High-A-ball, striking out 31% of batters he faced, but has hit a roadblock at AA, having trouble with all three of the True Outcomes (38 K, 22 BB, 6 HR in 47.2 IP). Zimmerman’s dominating stops at Short-season and High-A were dominating enough to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he has to turn it around.
Prospect Status: Neutral.
Top 100 Prospects Review (90-81)
90. RHSP Aaron Poreda (Chicago White Sox)
Year In Review: One of my prospect pet peeves is when a supposed power pitcher is unable to strike batters out. (Deolis Guerro anybody?). At High-A, Poreda struck out only 15% of batters he faced, and for some reason that earned him a promotion to AA. A good start at AA may be a good sign, but I wouldn’t be so sure. Right now he’s just a fastball pitcher with no secondary stuff.
Prospect Status: Slightly down.
89. LHSP Jaime Garcia (St. Louis Cardinals)
Year In Review: Garcia dominated as a 21 year old in AA, striking out 28.3% of batters, but struggling a little with his control, walking 11% of batters. AAA has been a complete opposite, striking out only 18.3% of batters but walking only 8.3%. All the while, he’s continued to induce ground balls at an excellent rate. Injuries and some consistency issues aside, Garcia will likely continue to use his plus sinker, plus curve and excellent makeup to turn into a very good mid-rotation starter.
Prospect Status: Way up.
88. INF Todd Frazier (Cincinnati Reds)
Year In Review: Frazier can MASH. He strikes out a little much, 22% for the year, but he balances that with an 11% walk rate. Most importantly, he has a ton of power. He hit 21 XBH in 47 games last year, and that’s continued with 30 in 65 games this year, including 12 home runs. The biggest question is Frazier’s position. Frazier as a 3B is likely a top 50 prospect; Frazier as a 1B/LF is more in the 60-75 range. Either way…
Prospect Status: Somewhere in the up/way up range.
87. RHSP Sean Gallagher (Chicago Cubs)
Year In Review: Gallagher really broke out as a 22-year-old in AAA this year, striking out over 1/4 of the batters he faced and walking only 7.7%. In the majors, a few more strikeouts would be nice, but as a 22-year-old putting up this kind of production in the majors I’m not going to be too picky.
Prospect Status: Up, graduated.
Top 100 Prospects Review (100-91)
Here’s how it works. I’ll do 10 at once, tell you what kind of year they’ve had, my opinion of how their value has changed, and if they’re eligible or not. As a rough estimate, a ’slight’ change would be a roughly 10-20 spot movement, normal would be 20-30, ‘way’ up or down is roughly 30+. Neutral is probably in the -10 to +10 range. Let’s go!
100. SS Jason Donald (Philadelphia Phillies)
Year in review: Same as it’s always been. Average contact (20.1 K%), average power, excellent walk rate. His defense continues to be in question. He has the arm, but his footwork and technique is off. If he is forced to move to third, that would, obviously, really hurt his value.
Prospect Status: Neutral.
99. 2B Tony Thomas (Chicago Cubs)
Year In Review: The low-A offensive explosion of a year ago appears to have remained in last year. After being fast-tracked to High-A, Thomas has hit .281/.332/.431, and he may have been lucky to hit that well. He is striking out in 22% of his plate appearances, his patience and power are non-existent, with an awesome .427 OPS against lefties.
Prospect Status: Way down.
98. 3B Matt Sweeney (Los Angeles Angels)
Year In Review: Okay, I’m going to have to plead ignorance. This guy has completely fell off the face of the earth. He must have had an injury of some sort, but I can find absolutely no report of it anywhere.
Prospect Status: Down… I think? Seriously, I’m sure somebody out there knows better than me what happened. Help!
97. RHSP James McDonald (Los Angeles Dodgers)
Year In Review: Still at AA, the only things that have changed for McDonald are a lower K rate and a higher HR rate. His prospect status was based on production, since his stuff is nothing special. He hasn’t taken a big step forward, but it’s not like he’s disappeared either; a 24.2 K% and 7.6 BB% are nothing to scoff at.
Prospect Status: Neutral
Read more
Top Ten Drafts
To wrap things up, here are who I think had the best drafts:
1. Colorado Rockies
2. Tampa Bay Rays
3. Kansas City Royals
4. Minnesota Twins
5. Arizona Diamondbacks
6. Texas Rangers
7. Oakland Athletics
8. Cincinnati Reds
9. Houston Astros
10. Milwaukee Brewers
NL West Draft Review
I’m kinda excited that I’m done with these. Why? Because of what comes next: The top 100 prospects review, where I update you on how all my little pets have done. After that? An updated top 100. Are you as excited as I am?! No? Great!!
Arizona Diamondbacks
Best Pick: Ryne White, the very productive Purdue 1B with hitting tools to match or Kevin Eichhorn, the high school pitcher with two good offerings and plus command.
Worst Pick: Wade Miley. He’s the typical hard-throwing FB/SL type who can strike out a lot of batters, but walk too many and has inconsistent velocity. He has also thrown a lot of innings in his college career.
Highest Risk/Reward: Miley.
Overall: Excellent draft. Schlereth was the last guy in my top 25 and is a perfect fit… White and Eichhorn are two of my favourite post-first round players.
Colorado Rockies
Best Pick: Christian Friedrich at #25, my highest-ranked pitcher.
Worst Pick: Ethan Hollingsworth. If you look at his line without knowing, you might have trouble deciphering if he’s a hitter or a pitcher. (Go ahead).
Highest Risk/Reward: Charlie Blackmon at #72. As good as the Friedrich pick was, this could be just as good. If I could’ve one as in depth as I wanted to in pre-draft coverage, this guy would’ve been in my top 25. A lot of tools (raw power, speed, arm) and production, but has had injury issues as well. Used to be a pitcher and is inexperienced as a hitter.
Overall: The first three picks are absolute slam dunks. Mostly good past then as well; maybe the best draft of any team. Read more
NL Central Draft Review
Chicago Cubs
Best Pick: Chris Carpenter, who’s just now started to fully recover from Tommy John surgery. With a mid-90s FB and a mid-80s curveball which allowed him to strike out 88 in 73.2 IP, Carpenter could just be some improvement in his command to be as good as any pitcher in the draft.
Worst Pick: Ryan Flaherty, a college shortstop who will move to third in pro ball. Nothing terrible, but he doesn’t have any impressive offensive tools to suggest that he’ll be very successful.
Highest Risk/Reward: Carpenter.
Overall: Very good draft. Three out of the first four picks look like hits, and they added a couple of good MIFs in Cerda and Harrison who have a good shot to be productive major leaguers.
Cincinnati Reds
Best Pick: Alonso at #7, who is an absolute monster I had ranked at #2 on my value board.
Worst Pick: Zach Stewart, a short college closer who has trouble keeping the ball in the strike zone and in the park.
Highest Risk/Reward: Tyler Cline, a high school senior who has excellent movement on his low-90s FB and curve, but has had trouble controlling them so far.
Overall: Another very good draft, minus Stewart. Alonso alone would have been excellent alone, but the Reds picked up a couple of good pitchers and Alex Buchholz, all of whom look interesting.
Houston Astros
Best Pick: Jordan Lyles, a three-sport high school start (Baseball, basketball and football) who has excellent command of three pitches and the body to be able to add velocity to an 89-91 MPH fastball.
Worst Pick: TJ Steele, who struck out in 1/4 of his plate appearances; a huge red flag in the minors, loud clanging alarm bells in college.
Highest Risk/Reward: Jay Austin, a high school OF with plus speed, plus arm strength and plus bat speed.
Overall: They passed on Smoak at #10, which is inexcusable, but at least they didn’t do it for a dud. They’ve added a lot of ceiling in Lyles and Austin as well. Read more
NL East Draft Review
Atlanta Braves
Best Pick: Brett DeVall, who has three potentially plus pitches with the ability to command all of them.
Worst Pick: Ezekiel Spruill, who throws a hard fastball… inconsistently… with a weird delivery… and not much besides that.
Highest Risk/Reward: Spruill.
Overall: Their first three picks were high school pitchers. Even though I really like DeVall, how can I praise that?
Florida Marlins
Best Pick: Pete Andrelczyk, a productive 5th round college reliever who got consistently better as the season progressed.
Worst Pick: Brad Hand, who only throws two pitchers and doesn’t command either of them particularly well.
Highest Risk/Reward: Kyle Skipworth, who projects to have the best bat of any catcher in the draft with plus power and a plus arm.
Overall: Florida went for a lot of high school players, but they’re projectable and nobody except Hand has any glaring flaws. This draft will probably help out the Marlins in a few years. Read more
AL West Draft Review
I love the Angels for taking a bunch of high school and small school players I’ve never heard of. Really making my job easy, guys.
Los Angeles Angels
Best Pick: Ryan Chaffee, because he’s cool. Apparently he throws from 3 different arm slots. So there’s a lot of breaking balls right there, a decent fastball, and an excellent change.
Worst Pick: Khiry Cooper, who’s about 50-50 to sign and is very raw if he does.
Highest Risk/Reward: Zach Cone, very toolsy, speedy, has some big-bat potential at CF or RF.
Overall: It’s hard to screw up too badly when you don’t pick until #74, and they got some decent players, especially Chatwood and Chaffee.
Now, raise your hands if you think I’m going to say the A’s had a bad draft.
Oakland Athletics
Best Pick: Preston Paramore, a 3rd-round catcher with plus-defense and an excellent plate approach.
Worst Pick: Jason Christian, weak defensively and strikes out too much for a bat-first guy.
Highest Risk/Reward: Tyson Ross, a big pitcher with a mid-90s FB and two decent secondary pitches, but he has command issues.
Overall: Jemile Weeks was #11 on my board, and he’s followed by some good-looking college talent.
Read more
AL Central Draft Review
Chicago White Sox
Best Pick: Gordon Beckham. Just an excellent power bat that could potentially play at short or second.
Worst Pick: Kenny Williams Jr. Nepotism is bad.
Highest Risk/Reward: Not much to see here. All safe college picks.
Overall: Going the college route with all first day picks, and besides Gordon Beckham, not getting anything all that great. Brent Morel’s ok I guess.
I love you, Jay Bruce
Hat-tip to the hat-tippers at FJM:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/jon_heyman/06/06/heyman.bruce/?eref=sircrc
Asked to explain his Red-hot start, Bruce said simply “Sample size.”
Do you think he’s married?
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