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.
76. SS Elvis Andrus (Texas Rangers)
Year In Review: As I discussed when critiquing Andrew McCutchen earlier in the season, there comes a time when you have to stop talking about tools with a prospect and he has to start producing. Andrus has failed to do that. He has never slugged above .400 at any level of pro ball and does not walk very often. It’s time to start accepting that the most likely scenario is that Andrus is most likely to become a glove-first slap-hitting, speedy MIF and not an all-around stud.
Prospect Status: Down.
75. LHSP Cole Rohrbough (Atlanta Braves)
Year In Review: Rohrbough was out until May 20th with an elbow injury, and has had command issues since returning, walking 14 of 116 batters. The strikeouts are still there, however, and he’s had far too small of a sample size to lose any faith at all.
Prospect Status: Neutral.
74. OF Engel Beltre (Texas Rangers)
Year In Review: Beltre is as much of a toolbox as ever, but this ranking was far too high. His plate approach is, honestly, nauseatingly bad. He has 54 strikeouts compared to only 5 (5!) walks in 329 plate appearances, leading to a .683 OPS. Come back when you can, you know, hit.
Prospect Status: Way down.
73. OF Fernando Martinez (New York Mets)
Year In Review: Remember that tools discussion about Elvis Andrus a while ago? It applies here too. Martinez, albeit only 19, repeated AA this year and was expected to, you know, hit. He’s responded with 39 strikeouts and 7 walks in 169 plate appearances - both rates somehow significantly DOWN from last year in AA (51 K and 20 BB in 259 PA) - and still nothing resembling power.
Prospect Status: Down.
72. 1B Jordan Brown (Cleveland Indians)
Year In Review: Brown was sort of a Daric Barton-lite, depending on an excellent plate approach to make up for his lack of power production. Their seasons have been similarly disappointing. (I still love you Daric!). Already 24, he’s had trouble with AAA pitching, dropping from 63 walks in 558 AA plate appearances last year to 14 in 234 this year. Without power, that’s all he had, and a slap-hitting 1B just isn’t a prospect.
Prospect Status: Way down.
71. LHSP Manny Parra (Milwaukee Brewers)
Year In Review: Parra just hasn’t impressed. 62 strikeouts and 42 walks to 356 batters faced just won’t cut it for very long. At 25, he’s not some phenom who just has to adjust to the majors, he’s supposed to be impressive now. If he doesn’t improve at all the rest of the season, it’s hard to see him as being anything but a back-end rotation starter at best.
Prospect Status: Slightly down, graduated.
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Don’t be so tough on Parra. He should be fine, he is still getting used to the big leagues. Slow down! He throws a little like Mo with the Yanks, if you really look at him. Maybe he’s drinking Purple too, who knows!
Whoa, didn’t think ’slightly down’ was being very tough on him