Rays Prognostications

Fixing Drippy Dawg

2005-05-16T16:48:00.000-04:00

Well, it didn't take long for the Rays to prove me right that naming Dewon Brazelton the opening day starter for the Rays was a mistake. Outside of his performances in college, it's getting harder and harder to see why exactly he was considered much of a prospect to begin with. He's been sent down to Durham (where he hasn't bothered to show up yet, landing him on the suspended list), and that's a start to getting him back on track, but there are a few suggestions that I think might help maximize his value in the future.

1. Stop "coaching" him: Drippy had a pretty funky delivery coming out of college, but that delivery has been tinkered with so many times by now that he nary looks like the same pitcher. Instead of having him try new things to improve his stuff, let him just be himself and find his own way. Once upon a time he was pretty decent, y'know, and his problems began when you started screwing around with his arm and his head. He seems to take criticism pretty personally, so maybe if he doesn't try to learn anything new from people who keep telling him what he already has isn't good enough, he can get his head back on straight and just focus on doing what used to come naturally.

2. Stop starting him: Drippy isn't built to be a starter in the long term. His statistics bear this out as well. He's just a much better pitcher in his first four innings, but after that he usually seems to hit a wall and his performance goes way downhill. He could be very useful as a long reliever, but after about 4 innings, he's sweated so much that it looks like they need to bring an IV out to him on the mound. That obviously can't be any good for him. If less work means that he's more effective, then so be it.

3. Stop toying with him: Stick him in AAA and leave him there for the rest of the season. Yes, this is his last option year, but it can't be great for his head to go to the majors, then to AAA, then back to the California league, then back to the majors, then back to Durham, then back to the majors, then being named opening day starter. Instead of shifting him around all the time, why not let him settle down for a long period of time. Let him know right now that he's not going back to the bigs this season, and that he'll have no pressure to perform in AAA. This sends the message that he can work on what he needs to work on internally. So far it seems to be working pretty well for the Beej, let's see if it can also work for the Braz.

Vince Naimoli, Moneyball owner

2005-04-22T08:17:00.000-04:00

Well, surprise surprise, of all teams, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays have been named the second most profitable team in all of baseball. A few years back, when Michael Lewis wrote his wildly popular baseball book "Moneyball," I think a lot of people missed the point, but Vince seems to be right on target with this one. People interpreted this as a book on being how to win games by using the underused statistics to evaluate players in a manner to see whether they might be undervalued. These people got it all wrong, but Vince gets it. The book is really about going against the grain and using business acumen within baseball where others have not in order to get ahead. Sure, the tagline to the book is "The Art of Winning an Unfair Game," but considering how the entire book is about cost-effectiveness, maybe that "game" is making money and the "art" is figuring out how to manipulate the system to your advantage. Well, by managing to cut cost-effectiveness out of the equation entirely, Naimoli has become the ultimate 'Moneyball' owner:

This year, the Devil Rays' payroll amounts to a whopping $28,981,000, good for last in the MLB. The official report from the Rays has this amount really at $37,975,000, but that's counting deferred payments from earlier seasons which were also counted in that year, so you can't relaly double-count that, right? That would kind of be cheating the system, right? However, even giving credit to minor league signings and the draft, I'm pretty sure that the Rays are dead last, no matter how they spin the nuimbers.
One other thing - no Florida state income tax. Taxes aren't included in payroll numbers, and the employer pays half of all income taxes. All of these other "small market" teams have to pay state income taxes, and a few even have to pay local income taxes. For Vince, between paying no local income tax, depreciation on the team itself, and all of the book losses, the team operates like a gigantic tax shelter for him, personally saving him a lot of money that we'll never even know about.
This year, the Rays receive about $30M in revenue sharing funds. On top of that, they receive an additional $5 million from the league's XM sattelite redio deal, not to mention another approximately $5M from the team's own sattelite radio deal and whatever percentage of concessions the Rays are entitled to. Also, after the luxury tax was announced yesterday, that should be good for about another million and a half.
The Rays have one of the better sweetheart deals in the league when it comes to the stadium. Yeah, the fruit dome looks and feels low rent, but that's partly because it quite literally is low rent, with the team paying the city of St. Petersburg very little, so long as people actually attend the games (which, well, they haven't been so much).

Yup, the Rays HAVE to be profitable because expenditures are generally lower than the amount the team is receiving without even accounting for any additional income from gate receipts, licensing deals, advertising revenue, etcetera. Now THAT'S Moneyball.

Stu Sternberg is no dummy. He's the former managing director of Goldman Sachs, so he made his fortune finding sound investments for himself and for others. We all keep hoping that Vince will finally step down and hand Sternberg the reigns, but the incentive is for him to wait as long as possible to do this. As the majority owner, he's guaranteed a good revenue stream for as long as Naimoli continues to be the ultimate cheapskate. Not only that, but since he owns the majority of the team, once Naimoli finally does step down, he'll get the benefit of the increase in value in the team by gained goodwill, which amount may very well go up the more sick of Naimoli the Tampa Bay fans get,

On a related note, Oustnaimoli.com is organizing a fan walkout at a future Rays game. I wish them the best of luck and would be there is colors if I lived in Tampa...

Remind me not to say that again...

2005-04-15T09:58:00.000-04:00

Back in 2001, Bill James revised and re-released his Historical Baseball Abstract, a piece of bathroom reading of historical proportions. I was flipping back through it the other day and noticed something funny - from year to year, he has little segments entitled "remind me again not to say that...", little gaffes that people have said from time to time when they spoke just a little too soon. The real irony here is that this abstract is full of these little nuggets itself. A quick few:

"One of a Kind: Jeff Montgomery (only four-pitch relief ace in major league history)"

Well, since then we've seen Eric Gagne and John Smoltz, a couple of pretty decent 4-pitch closers themselves. Of course, you can't ENTIRELY take away credit for Smoltz - he has 5 or 6 pitches...

"Last of his Kind: Brian Kingman (the last 20-game loser)"

With larger rotations, pitchers getting yanked more quickly, and guys getting sent to the minors more readily, it was perfectly reasonable to expect that there would never again be a 20-game loser, but then along came the 2003 Tigers, where a fairly unique set of circumstances (team in full rebuilding mode, not much in the minors, developing young pitchers in the majors rather than the minors) led to this feat happening once again, with Mike Maroth losing a nice 21 games. I guess he's not REALLY a 20-game loser, but I think he meant to imply that nobody would again lose 20 games or more...

Of course, there are many other gaffes, some of which he admitted in the afterwords of later versions (i.e. ranking Biggio as the number 5 2B of all time, and Jeff Bagwell as the number 4 1B of all time), but it's just amusing that someone who picked on some people for speaking too soon, ended up speaking too soon while trying to say too much...

Phelps - reversion to BP coverboy?

2005-04-06T11:01:00.000-04:00

I know it's really early to start discussing anything like this, but shortly after including how horrible Phelps is against righties in a previous post, he puts together two games where he goes 3-6 with a double against righties (including 2003 Cy Young winner Roy Halliday), but 0-2 with a K against a mediocre lefty (Gustavo Chacin). In any case, please note the pattern here in his yearly righty/lefty splits:

2004: .600/.976
2003: .800/.876
2002: .955/.793

Little weird, dontcha think? Maybe Phelps finally made some adjustments this offseason which allowed him to hit both righties and lefties. From the looks of it, after his rookie year, he made an adjustment to hit lefties better which hurt him against righties, and whatever further adjustments he made in 2004 skewed him even further. If you put what he did against lefties in 2004 together with what he did against righties in 2002, you've got one heck of a hitter. If he can revert to earlier form, when he could actually hit righties, then maybe this team's offense won't look as depressing against righties as I initially thought, especially once Huff heats up...

Moves for the sake of making moves...

2005-03-31T21:41:00.000-05:00

There were two moves today, and to be honest, there's much ado about nothing. As I discussed elsewhere, I think the Sosa for Green move basically boils down to saving a few hundred K, which is probably fine. No big improvement, but nothing to get pissed off about either. Whether or not people like it, Sosa was probably going to be released at the end of the weak either way, and when you're in that position, you ain't gonna get a whole lot for what you're offering (just ask the Rockies...)

The move I haven't discussed yet is the signing of Mike Restovich. I will go into this in more detail in the near future (I promise), but this was about as close to a useless of a move as you can make without actually doing harm to the team. A few points:

He can't hit righties. I think the Rays organization is missing the point here or something. We're not looking for a right handed power bat; we're looking for a bat who can hit off of righties. I realize 113 at-bats is a small sample, but when the gap is this wide it's pretty much conclusive: 1.008 OPS against lefties, .590 OPS against righties last season, .912 OPS against lefties and .733 against righties for his career. Thus, he doesn't fill that need; all we did was add yet another guy who can mash lefties and is helpless against righties, meaning we can platoon him with, ummmm, I guess Aubrey Huff....except that there's no need to platoon Aubrey Huff. Once Rocco comes back, the problem will be compounded because he can't back up in center, and he can't platoon with Phelps at DH.
He's tapped out of potential. Once upon a time, Restovich was considered to be a good prospect. This has primarily to do with hitting really well in the low minors, and one decent season in Edmonton, in a home park with an altitude about the same of that as Coors. Other than that, there's nothing in his minor league record to show that he might actually be a major league quality hitter. Sure, he could have an .800 OPS, which is an improvement over Singleton as a whole, but that's his absolute ceiling until he can learn to hit them righties.
Look at who he's blocking. Jonny Gomes is about to turn into the Rays' very own version of Michael Restovich. This could also take at-bats away from Phelps, who despite his ineptitude against righties, is STILL a better hitter against righties than Restovich. And imagine this: even if he's taking at-bats away from Alex S. Gonzalez, he's STILL a better hitter against righties than Restovich (not to mention much more defensively valuable).

Here's a quick chart of what our day-to-day lineup might look like this year, and why I think that every manager with half a brain will try their darndest to start as many righties as possible against the Rays:

OPS vs. righties:

Crawford - .787
Lugo - .730
Huff - .863
Lee - .841
Cantu - .744
Sanchez - .691
Hall -.631
Phelps/Perez -.600 /.607
Gonzalez - .635

Now let's see that same thing against lefties:

Crawford - .764
Lugo - .744
Huff - .831
Phelps/Perez - .976/1.014
Restovich - 1.008
Cantu - .945
Lee - .746
Green - .863
Hall - .771

As you can see, we might be able to kill lefties, when we face them, but we just blow against righties. By the way, whenever Rocco comes back, he doesn't help out either....even he runs a .709/.931 lefty righty split....

Sincerest apologies...

2005-03-22T11:02:00.000-05:00

....for my hiatus lately. Work has been kicking my butt lately, and unfortunately, that's all I get a paycheck for. Things should slow down a little in time for the regular season, so I'll go back to ranting and raving sometime around then. In the meantime, I just thought I'd say that I have the same feelings on the Alex Sanchez signing as the rest of the Rays' bloggers, and that I think a trade for Termel Sledge or Eric Valent wouldn't be a bad idea, as long as we don't give up too much in the process. We really do need that platoon lefty bat for the long run, and each of those guys has a ways to go before arbitration, so even if they don't pan out, they're cheap.

Implications of Roster Moves

2005-03-16T20:58:00.000-05:00

Earlier today, Joey Gathright, Jonny Gomes, Chad Orvella, Brian Sweeney, BJ Upton, Chris Seddon, Joselo Diaz and Delmon Young were all sent to the minors (and Mark Guthrie was released). Here's a few potential implications of these moves:

This clears up the muddled outfield situation a little bit and makes Chris Singleton the clear frontrunner for the 4th OF job to start the season. I refuse to believe that the team is even still considering Tom Goodwin for the spot, and I'll just chalk it up to professional courtesy that they don't want to release him while he's injured. Dee Brown is the only other competition for that spot remaining. He's notorious for being about 50 times better in Spring Training than he is the rest of the year (he led the majors in home runs in 2003 Spring Training), and while the team might hold out hope that this is the year when he finally blossoms (having a Mayim Bialik moment here, but what ever happened to Six?), I think that the mirage of being a good hitter will disappear once he isn't getting most of his at bats against AA scrubs finishing out the late innings of games. While Singleton never lived up to his expected potential, it seems like the year off may have helped him get his stuff together, and at the bare minimum, he's a positive clubhouse influence.

The infield situation now officially scares me. Yes, Upton needs to spend more time in AAA if he's going to play shortstop full time. However, with Alomar ailing, a little voice in the back of my head was hoping that he'd at least start the season with Upton playing third and Alex Gonzalez playing utility infielder. Instead, if Alomar doesn't get healthy before the start of the regular season, the only backup middle infield options are Shane Halter, who's only slightly less pathetic than Tom Goodwin, and Luis Ordaz, a player who could only manage a .666 OPS in hitter happy Durham last year and who has a whopping career .525 OPS in over 400 at bats. I can survive with Halter, who's only a little worse than Geoff B(l)um was last year, but needing to give a roster spot to any player who's worse than Geoff B(l)um was last year is pretty sad.

The pitching situation is still a bit murkier. With Chuck Lamar going public that he wants to pull a trade on a reliever, the team didn't send any pitchers down who had that realistic of a shot of making the team right now. However, I still think that we'll be seeing Brian Sweeney in the near future, and Chad Orvella and Chris Seddon are each a big part of the franchise's future. The release of Guthrie means that Seay doesn't have to worry about having an identical pitcher going against him for a roster spot, but that was probably the least of his problems, considering that with three viable lefty relievers, either he or Miller is probably the person they're trying hardest to trade. In a nutshell, there are still too many major league calibre pitchers in camp, but not enough good major league calibre pitchers, especially in the starter category. As a side note, naming Drippy the opening day starter pretty much dooms him to be gone by the end of the year. I normally don't believe in this type of freak stat (every Rays opening day starter has been gone or seriously injured by the next season), but I also had an inkling that Drippy would be traded before he was named opening day starter, simply because he'll never live up to potential here. Maybe someone will trade for him on the cheap and make him the premier long reliever he was born to be.

As for the players assigned, no huge surprises there, possibly the biggest being that Diaz wasn't assigned to high-A instead of AA, where he gave up wayyy too many walks. The speculation officially ends with Delmon heading to Montgomery, meaning the speculation begins as to whether Bankston, Pridie and crew will be starting there as well. It won't make a difference with this cast of characters, but I think the trend of skipping prospects over high-A might be ending soon with the low-A affiliate being in Michigan. Michigan ain't all that close to Florida either, and the weather starts getting worse towards the end of minor league season, so they might start actually sending guys they see as prospects to Visalia. Gathright and Gomes get sent back to AAA, which was probably needed for the time being. Both need to improve their defense, and Gathright needs to prove his bat for a little longer. I'd mention that Gomes also needs to cut down his Ks except that it's never going to happen, so why bother? I've read some people on the KC boards clamoring to pick up Gomes, maybe we could package him with a reliever for Matt Stairs, finally giving us a hitter who actually hits righties better than lefties? Orvella and Sweeney get reassigned to minor league camp, which I'm guessing means that they're in a holding pattern - if a trade or two does happen, they could still end up on the big club very quickly. Otherwise, I might expect to see both in Durham, and on the Rays before the end of the season.

To sum it up, the moves weren't anything surprising, even if a couple of them were disappointing. Hopefully, by next year, we won't have to make choices like "should we keep Shane Halter or Luis Ordaz as our 25th man?"

Roster fight profile: Chris Singleton

2005-03-13T05:15:00.000-05:00

Just the fact that Singleton is a centerfielder by trade gives him an edge for winning that 4th outfielder roster spot. Unfortunately, nobody seems to want to win it except Delmon Young, who's probably still a ways away from making the big club despite his amazing Spring Training performance. The rundown: Singleton strained his groin , Tom Goodwin strained his as well, figuring that anything food enough for Singleton was good enough for him, Brian Buchanon and Damon Hollins got cut, Marty Cordova retired, and Dee Brown and Jonny Gomes are both batting at sub-Mendoza levels in limited playing time. Other than that, Gathright seems to be playing like Gathright in his limited time, and Delmon "I've never played above low-A" Young is looking like a worldbeater, batting over .400 and slugging over .600. (Yet another aside - the fact that BBs aren't posted for spring training stats is infinitely annoying - if Gomes or Gathright have been walking like crazy, that would need to go into the equation as well...) Anyway, while there are still officially 4 guys who could back up at CF in camp, it looks like it's a battle between Singleton and Gathright, and I wouldn't be shocked if both stay with the organization and end up playing for the big club at some point this season.

Singleton is one of the players in camp who actually has a good major league sample to base projections off of. At 32 years old this season, it's doubtful that he'd do anything better than his best year in the majors, which was a .300/.328/.490 line, and even that was a huge outlier from the rest of his career, where he's more like a .260/.300/.400 kind of guy, or in other words, servicable but nothing too special. In each of his last three major league seasons, he had clearly gotten worse, to the point where Oakland declined his relatively inexpensive option after 2003. He signed onto the Pirates in 2004, but was given his unconditional release after failing a physical (a pesky vertigo problem which seems to have popped up with him from time to time), after which he apparently disappeared off the face of the planet. However, Singleton did play well in limited time over spring training, and considering how the entirety of MLB considers him to be damaged enough goods that nobody would even sign him to a minor league contract last season, he probably wouldn't be opposed to being assigned to Durham if Gathright makes the opening day roster as the 4th outfielder. Here's to hoping that Singleton has made a full recovery from his problems - I'm not sure I want our fourth outfielder to be in the same condition as someone who the Pirates decided wasn't good enough to back up Tike Redman...

Fun facts about Singleton:

The last full-time position player developed within the Giants system (although Dusty Mohr look about to break that one...), but was with the White Sox by the time he actually broke in...
In the minor leagues, he actually hit 16 more triples than home runs
Most successful MLB player to have played at University of Nevada (although Lyle Overbay should be passing him there in the mear future...)
Was a two-sport star at Nevada, also playing wide receiver (43 catches, 893 yards in his junior year)
He and his wife are both associate pastors with a ministry in Atlanta, and is an ordained minister
Hit for the cycle, July 6, 1999
6th in rookie of the year voting in 1999

Roster fight profile: Jonny Gomes

2005-03-08T18:54:00.000-05:00

If the major league season were in the fall, Gomes would already be an all-star for the Rays. Last years leaderboard maven in the Arizona Fall League (Top 5 in RBI, runs scored, slugging, home runs and OBP) and this year's winter league player of the year has fallen off of the prospect radars to some extent while not really doing anything to warrant this other thannot improving what are perceived as his weak spots. What are his weanesses? Well, he's considered by many to be a "three true outcomes" type of player - he walks, strikes out and hits home runs. Of course, that isn't entirely true. Besides 26 home runs, he also hit 27 doubles in AAA Durham last season, although that also means that he had fewer singles than extra base hits. Of course, there's some guy named Barry out west who's done the same thing, and you don't see too many people complaining about his performance. The real concern for most people is that he strikes out in about a third of his at-bats, so while he does walk quite a bit, his K/BB ratio is still worse than 2.5:1. Also, he's never hit for a high average while playing mostly in hitters' parks, leading some to believe he might be a Tony Batista type hitter in the majors. This is a little strange considering his fall league performances, since he usually starts the season with a good batting average, then tends to go into a slump around mid-august, dropping his BA to a level that's a wee bit on the low side. However, he did play center field in JC and in the low minors, and he does have a fair amount of speed and a decent arm for a guy his size, so if the coaching staff is willing to help him out with his outfield routes, he could serve as a Jeromy Burnitz-esque center fielder in a pinch.

As a home grown kid coming off a monster performance in Mexico (22 HR, 54 RBI, over a .300/.400/.700 line), I was kind of hoping that he could carpe rosterspotem, but with the injury to Rocco, the team needs a backup centerfielder and it looks like it is not to be (especially considering that Lou isn't getting him any at-bats in Spring Training so far). However, once Rocco comes back, if there is an injury to either of the corner outfielders or if Travis Lee or Alex Gonzalez goes down (moving Huff back to third), he could be one of the first guys to get a shot.

Now for more fun facts:

Had a small heart attack on Christmas Eve, 2002 (but recovered nicely). The doctors ordered him to do no more than light cardio workouts before next spring, but he still did well enough in the spring to earn a promotion to AA.
Back at home, used to use the family barn as a batting cage along with his brother, fellow Rays prospect Joey Gomes
BJ Upton has said that Gomes was the teammate of his that he'd pay to see play
Has been an all-star at Bakersfield and Durham and was MVP of the Appalachian League and the Carribbean Winter Leagues
Was once seen driving down the wrong side of the median on Jackie Robinson Blvd. in Durham
Doubled off of David "ate Goliath" Wells in his first MLB at-bat.
There probably isn't a player in the Rays organization who people's opinions of vary so greatly. He's been ranked as high as the top-50 in two different reputable prospect rankings, yet often isn't included in the organization's top-10 in other rankings.
Supposedly, his steals numbers dropped this past season not because he's lost any speed, but because Bill Evers (Durham's manager) didn't want to risk a Gomes leg injury on a stolen base that wasn't necessary by a cleanup hitter.
One of Gomes' minor league cards was trading at about $140 after his California League performance.

Roster fight profile: Brian Sweeney

2005-03-08T00:30:00.000-05:00

While we're in this early portion of spring training, I figured I'll run profiles of some of the guys who are fighting for roster spots with the Rays and who, if they don't make the squad the first time out, we can expect to see later in the season. Some of the guys will be pretty familiar, but I might be able to dig up a nugget or two you don't know about. My guess is that Sweeney falls into the second category. The 40-man roster is too jammed for Sweeney to have a good chance of making the opening day roster, but with an injury or two, he could be one of the first guys to get the callup if he performs anything like he did last year...

Brian Sweeney - SRHP

Sweeney was an undrafted free agent signed by the Mariners out of Mercy College in 1996. In the Seattle organization for 7 seasons, he took a little while to come into his own, but his control was always consistently good. Early in his career, however, high hits against rates killed him, keeping him on a yo-yo back and forth between AA and AAA for four years. However, he has picked things up over the past four years, with a K/BB rate of about 4/1 over that time period. I've already spoken about his recent exploits in a past post, so I'll just link you there.

A few fun facts:

His first (and only) career MLB win was against Randy Johnson in the game where he reached 4,000 Ks.
He looks like a good friendly face guy. Here's a little story about him heading off to an elementary schoo to speak about life in athletics.
He's a longtime veteran of the Venezuela Winter Leagues.
The only 4-year player out of Mercy College to make the big leagues (Garvin Alston, who played a few games for the Rockies, played there for one season).
Went from Seattle to San Diego as part of the Jeff Cirillo / Wiki Gonzalez trade.
One of the few current major leaguers to have played in the now defunct independent Heartland League.
Has been an all-star in both the California League and the PCL, and came in 3rd place for Pitcher of the Year in the PCL last season.
Played outfield in his days off from pitching while at Mercy.

Time for Oxy...

2005-03-04T14:32:00.000-05:00

...and no, that's not Oxycontin for you Rush Limbaugh lovers out there, nor is it an oxymoron, like Alex S. Gonzalez playing 3rd base, but rather it's time to start predicting some potential breakouts for this season. There are usually one or two a year for each team, so I'll try running down the most likely candidates:

Josh Phelps

The former BP coverboy got a big boost of confidence (no, not from Enzyte, though he does swing a big bat) last season while being used in a platoon role with the Indians for the last portion of the season. That was the first time in his big league career when his numbers even approached his minor league stats. Still, if he has a .900 OPS here and 30 home runs, some people might call it a breakout, but I might call it a comeback. People were really down on him in Toronto, despite the fact that he averaged higher than an .800 OPS there. He lost some confidence, and it showed in his stats, getting worse the longer he stayed in Toronto. Lou might not be the best coach in the world to get the most out of Phelps, but any change of scenery is probably a positive thing for him. Also, he's hitting magic year 27, a time when a lot of these guys have their breakout years. Even if he 'only' does what he did last year, he's a major upgrade over what we previously had at the DH, but with the change in scenery and a healthy wrist, a season somewhere in between his 2002 (309/362/562) and 2003 (268/358/470) seasons wouldn't surprise me in the least. Compared to 2004, it's a breakout, but it's really just getting healthy and regressing to the mean.

Toby Hall

OK, so this is probably the third year in the row where I've predicted that Toby might have a breakout year, which he's been backpedaling each time rather than progressing. Let me tell you why I'm right this time and was wrong the other times. First, as a general tenet, the easiest way to pick out breakout players is to see who is in their contract year and can pick up a big deal. One odd thing about the Rays next season is that they don't have a single player who's young and in a contract year, except for Lugo and Baez, both of whom the team has fairly reasonable options with. Hall, however, needs to treat this year like it is a contract year. He has to know that, approaching his second year of arbitration, this is the end of the line for him in Tampa or as a starter if he doesn't start to pick things up. He'll just be too expensive otherwise, considering his production. Second, and this ties into the first, for the first time since Mike DeFelice, the Rays have a legitimate backup catcher who can push the starter and that the team has the rights to in future years. Granted, Cash isn't exactly a worldbeater, but with his supposed defensive advantage over Hall and some power, the difference between the two wouldn't be great enough to warrant the $2+ million difference in price tag, especially if Hall doesn't put up or shut up. Third, at 29, Hall should be hitting his prime (although, then again, he should have been hitting his prime last year too). Finally, he just hit too well in the minors to be this crappy in the majors. Yes, Durham is a hitters' park, but that shouldn't account for why his K/BB rate has gotten worse every year. I guess it's unlikely, but here's to hoping...

Jorge Sosa

Sosa's stuff has steadily improved each year, and as a result, his strikeout rate skyrocketed this past year. His control, however has been lagging behind. Still, he's shown some flashes of brilliance, and entering the prime years of his career and feeling snubbed over not getting the pay raise he wanted probably gives him some good motivation. His K/BB ratio improved every month last year, so while his ERA didn't improve much, his pitching did. He's still learning how to pitch, but his time is running out as well - don't count this season out as the one where he finally puts things together. Don't forget, it was only a little over 5 years ago when Sosa was one of the top outfield prospects for the Rockies.

Jorge Cantu

As a 23 year old with a face like the Sea of Tranquility, Cantu's always a candidate for a breakout. Seriously though, while few were expecting his breakout season last year, he seems to have done everything this offseason that might improve his game even more. Each of the past two offseason's he's added 10 pounds to his formerly lanky frame. Last year, that resulted in a power surge; if this year's weight gain is more of the same, then he could start turning a lot of those doubles into home runs. He could end up being a flash in the pan, but I'm willing to gamble that he'll actually improve this year over last year, at least in terms of power production.

My 25-man: before the S/T games

2005-03-01T13:45:00.000-05:00

In response to a question up on the main Devil Rays board, here's what my 25-man roster would look like, as of today:

If I could choose anyone, without current roster constraints (but still worrying about salary, arbitration clocks, etc.) -

1B - Travis Lee
2B - Jorge Cantu
SS - Julio Lugo
3B - Aubrey Huff
RF - Danny Bautista
CF - Carl Crawford
LF - Jonny Gomes
C - Toby Hall
DH - Josh Phelps
Bench - Tim Laker (pre-injury; now, I'd say Cash), Alex Gonzalez, Earl Snyder, Joey Gathright
SP - Hideo Nomo, Mark Hendrickson, Rob Bell, Jorge Sosa, Brian Sweeney
RP - Danys Baez, Travis Harper, Lance Carter, Jesus Colome, Bobby Seay, Casey Fossum, Dewon Brazelton
DL - Rocco Baldelli, Denny Neagle, Angel Garcia

Explanations for some of the roster choices:

Scott Kazmir, BJ Upton, Chad Orvella, Seth McClung and Doug Waechter can all be sent to the minors, have more that they can learn there, and are all promising enough that I wouldn't want to toll their arbitration clock (and have one less year of them when they're actually good) just so they can learn on the job. The 3 or 4 extra wins from having these guys up at this point just isn't worth the 20 or 30 extra wins from that extra year during their primes 4 to 6 years from now.

Roberto Alomar - It was a tough call whether I'd rather have him or Gonzalez acting as backup middle infielder, but I think I'd rather have Gonzalez. He's a better defensive player, and if Alomar plays like he did for the White Sox last year, a better offensive player as well.

Eduardo Perez - After signing Josh Phelps, who's almost identical only 10 years younger and with potential, I see no reason to keep him on the roster.

Trever Miller - He's a tough guy to leave off, but for everything he's good at, there's someone who does it better. Casey Fossum is a better situational lefty if you're just looking to get one left-handed batter out. Bobby Seay is a better full inning pitcher, when you want to act as a bridge. Travis Harper is a better fireman, getting out of sticky situations with runners in scoring position. Thus, Miller was the guy to go.

Jonny Gomes - Moving Huff back to third and taking Gonzalez out of the starting lineup is just too big of an offensive difference not to happen. Any of Gomes, Buchanon or Hollins could fill in left field well, but I went with Gomes because he's home grown. He maybe needs more time in the minors as well, but I'm not as worried about tolling his arb clock because I doubt he'll ever cut down on the strikeouts and thus might not end up being a great long-term option. Still, after winning Winter Leagues player of the year, he kind of deserves a shot, and is a huge offensive upgrade over Gonzalez and probably is even an upgrade over Bautista (and possibly Cruz Jr.).

Earl Snyder - He did very well in AAA last year (82 extra base hits) and can play both 1st and 3rd adequately. Also, he appears to be one of the few players who hits righties better than lefties, so he could platoon with Phelps or one of the other guys if they struggle against righties. As I've said elsewhere, I think he could be a Geoff Jenkins type hitter.

Brian Sweeney - Never walks batters and was the AAA Pacific Coast League pitcher of the year last year. He looks like a steady innings eater who rarely makes mistakes, which is better than most of the other starters competing for spots.

Brazelton - He seems to wear out at the end of seasons and his velocity has been down lately. I think a conversion to long relief might help solve both of those problems and make him an immensely more valuable pitcher to have around.

Gathright - No, he's not ready yet, but who else is going to back up in center? Sub-.600 OPS players Goodwin, Brown or Singleton? Puh-lease! Also, I'm not as worried about his arb clock. With things looking like Crawford will be around for the long haul, Gathright probably isn't a major part of our future. If he does well in some exposure on the big club, he becomes valuable trade bait, especially since a lot of publications project him to be a very good leadoff hitter, which a lot of teams covet.

The fact that I can't even debate that Danny Bautista should be the starting right fielder means that this is still a pretty sad state of affairs. Hopefully Delmon can strut his stuff my next year.

Brick's Top 100 Prospects - The Top 50

2005-02-25T20:01:00.000-05:00

1. Felix Hernandez - (18/RHP/Sea) - I really can't say much here that hasn't been said a thousand times before. His pitches are all excellent, his performance has been excellent, his makeup is excellent, and there even isn't a question about his real age. It even looks like Seattle is coddling his arm to the point that he won't pull a Rafael Soriano. The only black mark against Felix is that he spent much of the season pitching for Inland Empire, a very serious pitchers' park in a hitters' league.

2. Delmon Young - (19/RF/TB) - The thing that amazes me the most about Delmon is how quickly he learns. Every facet of his game improved dramatically over the course of his first season. His stats don't look as good as some other prospects', but that's in part due to his slow start and in part due to the lovely sea breeze in Charleston which has a tendency to knock balls down. Some say he often seems lackadaisical or aloof; if that was really the case, he wouldn't be picking things up as quickly as he is.

3. Ian Stewart - (19/3B/Col) - I'm not sure how anyone can not love this kid. For the statheads, he put up an incredible line. For the scouts, he's a 3rd baseman with 5 above-average tools (most of which are way above average). Far me, he's also a quick learner with a good work ethic to boot. The only reason he's not ranked number 1 overall is because he played in Asheville, which quite the opposite of Charleston, tends to inflate power stats. In fact, it's one of the most batting favorable parks in the country, so don't be shocked to see a statistical dropoff once he advances a level. By the way, after Stewart, there's a pretty big dropoff down to number 4 that isn't reflected in these linear rankings. The top 3 are all bunched up pretty closely, then the next 3 are bunched up, then 7 through 15 are bunched up after that.

4. Prince Fielder - (20/1B/Mil) - Fatty Fatty Fat Fat (as Gene Wilder might call him) got some game. Personally, I don't think the weight is a legitimate issue. He's a substandard defender, and no amount of weight gained or lost is going to change that. He is, however, a decent baserunner and has gobs of power. He also performed very well in a league that he was very young for.

5. Joe Mauer - (21/C/Min) - I had to debate whether to even include Mauer on the list at all. In the end, rather than going with a system where I would include guys who might still be considered prospects but went over the rookie limits (i.e. David Wright, BJ Upton, etc), I'd go with one of minor leaguers only. After all of that, I just got lazy and decided to use the same standards that Baseball America uses. Oh pooh pooh. Anyway, Mauer did extremely well in his short time in the majors, then came down with knee problems, which is why he's down this far. Of course, if he didn't have those injuries, we wouldn't be calling him a prospect anyway. There's a chance he may move away from the plate, but even if he does, he should still be a player of well above-average productivity.

6. Adam Miller - (20/RHP/Cle) - Here's the million dollar question - why is Adam Miller, a pitcher who looks so much like a righty version of Scott Kazmir (in his repertoire), so much higher than Kazmir, despite being at a lower level and basically echoing Kazmir's performance last year? The answer is his control. Yes, Miller needs to work on his change, and both his fastball and slider are excellent, but like real estate, power pitching is all about location location location. A walk and a half fewer per 9 innings will put you up here, 4 walks per 9 puts you right around 17. One thing about Miller - he could very well be one of those guys who gets killed for a while when he first hits the bigs; I'm not going to let that get in the way of liking him a lot. Like a lot of fastball/slider combo guys, once he gets a feel for pitching in the majors and learns when not to ratchet the ball, he'll become dominant.

7. Jesse Crain - (21/RHP/Min) - Of course, Miller might end up becoming this guy instead, who also has Miller's stuff but could never learn that elusive third pitch. Still, he looks to be a dominant closer, having a great K/BB rate and two excellent pitches. He does, however, need to learn to not give up quite as many jacks - most of his runs against came off of dingers. His continued durability might be a question, but Minnesota's usually pretty good about protecting their arms.

8. Andy Marte - (21/3B/Atl) - OK, it's time for me to eat a little craw on this one. Elsewhere, I've said things such as "this guy doesn't belong anywhere near the top 5" or that he's "the most overrated prospect in baseball. Well, while I still think he's not Top-5 and that he's overrated, he's not as far off as I originally thought. Why did I think this to begin with? First off, he has had enough injury issues to give me pause about calling him the best position prospect in baseball. Second, his batting average and strikeouts worry me somewhat, especially the way the former has decreased and the latter has increased as he's moved up the ladder. I think the real kicker, however, is that I don't really have any new information that I didn't already know about Marte; I've just decided that, based on third-basemen of the past, his ceiling is of a perennial all-star and not just an occasional all-star. The Mike Schmidt and Ron Santo comparisons just ring a bit too true for me to drop his potential level from a 9 to an 8, so he's up here, in the top-10. Of course, Schmidt and Santo could actually play good defense, so we'll see if that aspect of his game keeps improving on those bad ankles of his.

9. Jeff Francis - (24/LHP/Col) - The only guy here who got a perfect 10 in chances of reaching his potential, simply because I think he's already reached it. His stuff screams back-of-the-rotation, but his deception is excellent, as is his control and stellar K/BB rate. The real question is whether he'll be able to handle the altitude, or whether his pitches won't sink enough to be effective there. His trial with Colorado Springs doesn't say much, simply because he made most of his starts there on the road. Still, he's good enough to warrant ranking this high. While his Ks will probably dip in the bigs, he should be able to stay in control, and when you're playing in a home field where Vinny Castilla can hit 35 bombs, it's pretty important not to let guys reach the basepaths unnecessarily.

10. Jeremy Reed - (23/CF/Sea) - An Ichiro! / Reed combo in the outfield could end up being pretty scary for second basemen who don't like liners at their head. Reed is a great slap hitter but shows occasional power and enough speed to get some extra bases. He also walks enough that his game isn't entirely batting-average dependent. Yes, his hitting numbers were down this year, but he was also playing in pitchers' parks. He'll continue to work harder to improve, so if his average falls off, I think he'll find other ways to compensate.

11. Dallas McPherson - (24/3B/Ana) - If Dallas can learn to hit breaking balls, he'll be a monster. As is, he's pretty close. As a first-pitch fastball masher, he'll continue to hit a good number of dingers in the majors, even if he does strike out 180 times.

12. Daric Barton - (19/C/Oak) - Daric would probably be higher if I thought he would stick at catcher. Oakland seems to be keeping him at catcher for now, at least part-time, but I think he'll end up like Robert Fick as a defensive player - can play 3 or 4 positions, including catcher, but is below average at each of them. As for the hitting, well, there isn't much to question there. He walks almost twice as much as he strikes out and he shows good power, along with a good batting average. He looks like he could be a hitter in the mold of Jason Kendall, pre-injury. At worst, he'll be like Ben Grieve.

13. Brian Dopirak - (21/1B/Chi) - I have Dopirak ranked higher than most; a lot of people see him mostly as a baseclogging subpar first baseman who strikes out too much and has a ton of power. And I agree with that 100%. What he has shown is a propensity to learn and improve; his walk rate is slowly but steadily increasing, making the strikeouts much less annoying, and his baserunning doesn't seem to be universally bad. More importantly, he doesn't just have power, he has scary power. He had nearly 80 extra base hits this year, and half of those were doubles, a few of which might turn into home runs once his lower half fills out a bit more.

14. Chris Burke - (25/2B/Hou) - Burke is solidly above-average at everything and is ready for the majors now. He has some gap power, has a good K/BB ratio, is an excellent gloveman and has some speed. I think comparisons to Craig Biggio are a bit overblown, but talk of being NL rookie of the year is not. On a side note, if Burke is the highest rated 2B out there, then it would seem that the position is underrepresented here; I don't think that's the case. Rather, there are a lot more guys on the list that will probably eventually end up at 2B, but teams like to start talented middle infielders at short whenever at all possible, and if things don't work out well there, then move them elsewhere. Still, at 2B, Burke seems like a natural.

15. Joel Guzman - (20/SS/LA) - Here's another one I didn't think would be as high as he is, but alas, he's made the top-15. Not-so-coincidentally, this is also the cutoff for the guys I consider to be elite prospects. Despite his poor plate discipline, he did very well in a pitchers' park in a pitchers' league. Guzman's ranking really hinges on potential though. He doesn't look like he'll be a high batting average guy, but people are banking on him growing into his wiry frame and increasing his substantial power even further. They're also banking on his ability to move to 3B as he gets bigger. I'm not banking on either one quite as much as other people - while I agree that he has immense potential, there are just way too many things that could go wrong (i.e. not growing into his frame well, losing so much speed that he's confined to first, not learning how to take a walk) for me to give him a really good chance of reaching that potential.

16. Ryan Howard - (25/1B/Phi) - Ryan Howard is kinda like what Guzman might be like if he gets the power but loses too much speed. Howard has the most game power of anyone in the minors. His walks are about average and his strikeouts are high. His defense is bad. Still, all he does is hit and hit and hit. Sounds like more than one AL MVP candidate lately to me. Philly's also experimenting with putting him in left field, but his lack of footspeed would probably hurt him there more than at first.

17. Scott Kazmir - (21/LHP/TB) - OK, what gives? This is a Tampa Bay blog...Kazmir had another good year and still looks dominant, why is he ranked this low here, lower than some other sets of rankings? The reason is stagnation. Not in his level, but in his game. He's been moving up, but he's been getting by on what nature gave him, i.e. a great fastball and slider. He's been slow to learn much else, and his control hasn't been improving. Critics have been saying for a while now that Kazmir will eventually need to be moved to relief. I don't think that's the case - he could remain a starter, but he might not be as effective as some people would like. If he does start to pick things up though, watch out...there isn't a player in the minors with a meaner streak and more fire in his belly.

18. Dan Meyer - (23/LHP/Oak) - A guy with excellent control who's evidently out to prove Voros McCracken's theories. Seriously, he had a bit of a dropoff when he hit AAA, but he continued to pitch very well. His repertoire is fairly well developed, but whether or not any of his pitches is an out pitch has yet to be seen.

19. Lastings Milledge - (19/CF/NYM) - I realize his performance didn't have that big of a gap with Delmon Young, but there are a few reasons he's this much lower. First, his home park was fairly neutral, whereas Young's favored pitching. Second, his failed tryout with Port St. Lucie worries me a bit, and while it's pure speculation, I feel like Delmon would have performed better in the adjustment. Finally, Youngs learning curve seems to be much quicker than Milledge's, making him more of a lock to reach his potential. He's a very good prospect, but he needs to learn to take a ball or two before he can be too successful at the higher levels, and he seemed unable or unwilling to learn to do so as quickly as Delmon picked up that skill.

20. Chad Billingsley - (20/RHP/LA) - Billinsley's pitches are amazingly well developed, considering where he is, and with a solid three-pitch repertoire and a tendency to keep the ball low, he'll be an above-average innings eater at worst. At best, his slider and curve will get even better and he'll increase his control a bit, in which case he's a perennial all-star. Of course, LA isn't exactly having the greatest of luck with its pitching prospects these days, so I guess I won't hold my breath.

21. Zach Duke - (21/LHP/Pit) - Duke led the minors in ERA, but it doesn't seem like a fluke since he has great control numbers, although his strikeouts dipped a bit when he got to AA. However, unlike some other control guys up here, he's been working on improving his offerings and he does have a potential out pitch. He may take a while longer to reach the top, but he should be successful once he gets there, simply because he seems to get it.

22. Yusmeiro Petit - (20/RHP/NYM) - I can't explain it either. Maybe he's El Duque reincarnated. Like Duke, got quite a boost due to his performance, and since I don't believe that a pitcher can't be successful with so-so stuff and good confusion, I'm not going to debit him for not having a pitch he can reach back for. Almost more incredible than his K/BB ratio is that he didn't allow a single home run in 11 starts above low-A.

23. Dustin Pedroia - (21/SS/Bos) - Yes, this seems high, even to me, for Pedroia. Still, he would have been about 8 spots higher than this if I went purely based on the numbers I came out with. Still, I think it's pretty valid to have him up this high. He's this year's Rickie Weeks - a college standout performer at a key defensive position who tore things up in his first half season. Of course, there are some big differences - Pedroia didn't bat .500 in college (although he might have if he had been playing at Southern), Pedroia is four inches shorter and thus lacks the 'projection' factor that Weeks has, and Pedroia's defense is unquestionably better than Weeks' was. I think the biggest concern most people have (and the reason why he slipped in the draft) is his height; while coming out of college, they both had similar skills and tools, Weeks seems like he's a more likely candidate to improve because he isn't such a little guy. However, I don't buy it. Pedroia is an extremely heady player with a motor like a Dodge Ram who should continue to improve his game, even if he has some physical limitations. Nothing out there says a short player can't be a very good player. Heck, I can name 5 hall-of-fame shortstops off the top of my head who were as short as or shorter than Pedroia. I'm not saying that he'll be one of them, just that the limitations here are vastly overstated, especially with such a good candidate to reach his full potential. The only thing left to see is if he can outperform Weeks in his first full season, which may be in AA.

24. Nick Swisher - (24/RF/Oak) - A hard player not to like. He has a couple of indicators (low-ish batting average and high strikeouts) that normally would signal death for a guy like this on prospect lists (notice that Jonny Gomes isn't in the top-100), but his inordinate number of walks, high motor and ability to play through pain makes people think he could be a top-flight player in MLB. The comparison before he was drafted was Lenny Dykstra, and that comparison still sticks pretty well, only with a lower batting average and more power.

25. Carlos Quentin - (22/RF/Ari) - After coming back from a major injury, there haven't been too many players who have been as solid as Quentin. It's really encouraging to see someone move up a level and not miss a beat. Moving to AA, his walks went down, but so did his strikeouts, but most of his other stats stayed fairly level. Just as a disclaimer, he (along with the other Arizona outfield prospects) played in some serious hitters' environments, so his stats may be a bit misleading. Still, he's put up and he's above-average to very good at just about everything.

26. Wes Bankston - (21/1B/TB) - I realize this is probably a bit on an overshoot. However, On John Sickels' site, I saw someone mention that they didn't think that Swisher and Bankston should be the same grade. My analysis says it's not that wide of a gap between the two. There are a bunch of reasons why I think Bankston is well underrated (see the post below on underrated Rays prospects for more details). First, the defensive separation, in terms of prospectdom, really isn't there. Bankston, by all accounts, was an above-average defensive right fielder who moved to first to make roon for #2 prospect Delmon Young. In any other orgainzation, he'd probably still be in right field, but the Rays are just too stacked at that position; however, he could be moved back there at will. Second, Bankston has much better plate discipline than Swisher did at the same level. They're both hard-nosed 100% energy players. They both played through hand injuries the entire season that weren't discovered until after the season was over. Swisher played in hitters' parks while Bankston played in a pitchers' park. The point of all of this is that Bankston is pretty darn similar to Nick Swisher, only at a lower level, with more room for growth and a higher batting average.

27. Matt Cain - (20/RHP/SF) - Here's a guy who I'm not quite sure what everyone else sees in him. If you know, feel free to enlighten me. What I see: a guy whose performance dropped drastically at the end of the season, in good part because he lost 4 mph of velocity from his fastball. Yes, he was still very good, either way you look at it, but I think this means he's either going to have serious fatigue or arm problems in the future, and he's already had arms problems in the past. Yeah, he has a great fastball when it's on, but so did Steve Dalkowski (not that his control is nearly that bad)...

28. Jason Kubel - (22/RF/Min) - I've been very hesitant to place guys who are currently injured this high up on the list. However, for a guy whose value is as a pure hitter and not much else, I'm not sure how much an ACL tear really effects his prospects. He's probably about 20 spots lower than he otherwise would have been (maybe more, I didn't calculate it for speculation), but he's still a heck of a prospect. He tore things up at both levels in which he played, rarely struck out, walked at about an average rate, and just showed an uncanny knack for getting bat on ball with some gap power.

29. Chris Nelson - (19/SS/Col) - The second draftee from this year to make the list. This doesn't mean I think he'll be the second best player out of this draft class; he most likely won't be. I didn't include guys who didn't sign (i.e. Weaver, Drew, Niemann, Humber) or guys who didn't play enough for me to get a good performance sample (Homer Bailey, Christian Garcia, etc.). In any case, he has a lot more potential than Pedroia, just he's down here and Pedroia's up there because Pedroia's a much better bet to reach his potential. This kid reminds me a lot of B.J. Upton - potentially great defense but a wild arm, good plate control for a high schooler, good power for a shortstop. He's also been compared to Gary Sheffield at the same level. He might have been a bit further down the list and got a bit of a debit for playing in Casper of the Pioneer League, which I have no park factors for but seems like a real breadbox league to me, not to mention that the elevation of most of the league is higher than Denver. Billy Butler got a similar debit for the same reason.

30(T). Jason Dubois - (26/LF/ChN) and Dan Johnson - (25/1B/Oak) - I'm not sure how much I can do to separate these two, so they're stuck together here. The big difference between the two is that Johnson walks a ton and gets his OBP from there, whereas Dubois is a better batter for average. They're both probably better as a DH than as a fielder, but they're both decent enough to get by. They're both ranked highly because of their performance in AAA and because they're about as good as they're going to get, which is above-average. Finally, they both might end up as platoon players, but if they do, they'll both be very effective platoon players since they both kill right-handed pitching.

32. Brandon Moss - (21/LF/Bos) - It surprised me how well some of Boston's prospects rated in my system; I figured Hanley Ramirez wouldn't do that well, but who knew they'd have these guys in the top-50? Anyway, Moss killed the ball in the Sally League, and has been steadily improving each year. A great hitter for average with a build that could add power, and a hard worker who doesn't strike out or walk much for a corner outfielder with hitting acumen.

33. Brandon McCarthy - (21/RHP/ChA) - Led the minors in Ks, but managed to not walk too many. Still, he gave up a few too many home runs for a guy with his kind of game. He's very polished but his stuff isn't top notch, although he did add some velocity last offseason and may do so again in the future due to his build.

34. Curtis Granderson - (24/CF/Det) - He's about ready, and he's a good line drive with some power and some defensive skills, so he's up here. However, I really don't have anything interesting or witty to say about him, just that he's solid good.

35. Shin-soo Choo - (22/LF/Sea) - Good athlete who's been improving year by year and is finally starting to translate his tools into production. The question is whether they will translate into enough production. He played his ball in a strong pitching environment, so his stats may come out a bit short of his true abilities. Either way, he's one of those guys who's slightly above-average at everything; what separates him from guys like Hermedia is that he's actually been improving and takes a strong ethic out on the field making him, in my mind, more likely to succeed.

36. Billy Butler - (18/3B/KC) - Great batting eye for a rookie leaguer and tons of power. Still, there's a feeling that he might have holes in his swing that haven't been exposed yet. He could end up being a much better defender, but his biggest problem at third is that he doesn't throw straight, but rather in an arc. In the meantime, his performance was just too strong not to merit mention in the top-50, and his power is unquestioned and should carry to higher levels.

37. Huston Street - (21/RHP/Oak) - He came out of college as one of the most polished pitchers and lived up to that reputation. While none of his pitches are outstanding, he has very good control; however, his control comes in part from holding himself back, meaning he can dial things up a notch or two when he gets into a squeeze. At worst, he looks to be a very good middle reliever, although he probably does have the capability (and definately has the mindset) to close.

38. Ryan Garko - (24/C-1B/Cle) - Gonnie Garko likes to play with rabbits....anyway, Garko appears to be underrated merely because there have been several similarish players in the past few years coming out of the minors who haven't succeeded much in the majors (the good hitting/poor defense catcher, i.e. Josh Phelps, Matt LeCroy, etc.). Garko has shown some tools those guys haven't, namely the ability to lay off a pitch that goes through one of the swinger's holes. He probably won't stick at catcher except as an emergency guy, but that ability should keep his batting average high. He does have decent power as well, although his lack of walks (he tends to swing at the first pitch he thinks is good for him to hit) may hinder him if he has more trouble recognizing pitches at higher levels.

39. Jeff Francoeur - (21/CF/Atl) - Here's another one where I'll trust the scouts. He was good playing in a pitchers' park in A+, but he wasn't particularly good in AA, and he almost never walks. I also have to question his ability to play through pain a bit. His injury, a broken cheekbone, probably shouldn't have affected his performance as much as it seemed to have.

40. Chad Orvella - (24/RHP/TB) - 13.71 to 1.15. That's his career strikeouts to walks ratio per 9 innings. Orvella managed to move up four levels over the course of the season, relying on his fastball/changeup/slider combo, all three of which are very good pitches with which he has pinpoint control. The main questions here are whether he can keep it up at higher levels. No matter what role he settles into, if he can keep his walks per 9 below 2, he'll be a valuable player, even if he isn't able to strike out half the guys he faces. I should also probably go into my "Dolf Luque a/k/a why it doesn't matter if a pitcher is short" spiel, but I'll spare you for the time being.

41. Joey Votto - (21/1B/Cin) - Here's a guy who should pan out well even if his batting average dips. For whatever reason, he reminds me a lot of Paul Konerko. He can draw walks, he strikes out a lot, and he hits for good power, although most of it is doubles power at this point.

42. Anthony Reyes - (23/RHP/StL) - I wish I knew the reason, but he was actually much better once he got promoted to AA, so he gets bumped up a few notches. The numbers say it's because he allowed fewer dingers at the higher level, which confuses me some because he moved into a more hitting friendly environment. He appears to have come back well from injuries and had a great K/BB rate. He also has a solid repertoire, although lacks a true out pitch. More than one source has mentioned that he has one of the best pickoff moves in the minors, especially for a righthander.

43. Rickie Weeks - (22/2B/Mil) - OK, another crow-eatin' time. Elsewhere, I said (from a fantasy perspective) that I'd probably take Hanley Ramirez over Rickie Weeks. This is about as low as anyone is ranking Weeks, but look at where I have Ramirez. What really helps Weeks here is that he has a good head on his shoulders and is willing to work his butt off to get where he needs to be. His Southern League performance hurt him considerably in the way I set up my rankings, and while hindsight is always 20-20, he probably could have ended up a good 10 - 15 spots higher on this list had he started at a lower level and dominated rather than starting at AA, being young for the league and doing just above average.

44. Thomas Diamond - (21/RHP/Tex) - Diamond in the polished? Maybe; he showed a lot to like in a small sample, but it's hard to tell whether he was able to just overpower hitters at the low levels or whether his stuff will carry through to higher levels. Still, his control was very good, even for a college pitcher, and he has a better ability to vary speeds than almost anyone who came out of this year's draft.

45. Jon Papelbon - (24/RHP/Bos) - While his performance may have been inflated a bit by pitching in a pitchers' league, Papelbon still had one of the better seasons in the minors. His 4/1 K/BB ratio was quality, as are his pitches. However, he has had some consistency issues.

46. Michael Aubrey - (22/1B/Cle) - Aubrey's back problems, at his young age, being a power hitter, really worry me. He does have decent power and maintained a very good K/BB ratio, but he'll need to stay healthy and continue to develop his power if he's to have a shot at developing into the player the Cleveland organization seems to think he will become.

47. Gavin Floyd - (22/RHP/Phi) - Considering his stuff, I feel like Floyd should be doing better than he's done so far. He might have the best curveball in the minors at the moment, but he still doesn't control it particularly well. He can be a little wild at times, but he hasn't really been wildly effective - his strikeout rate reflects that not a ton of guys are chasing after his pitches. If he's able to refine his control, he could be a worldbeater, considering that curve and two other above-average pitches.

48. Garrett Atkins - (24/3B/Col) - A good chunk of this ranking is merely his readiness to go now; another part is that he's been continuing to show improvement each year after having big drops when he reaches the next level. Still, he led the minors in doubles (albeit in a hitters environment) and was a great hitter for average and gap power in Colorado Springs. His defense needs work, but he has enough tools to move around if need be. Let's just put it this way - if he hadn't been in Colorado Springs, he still would have been in AAA hitting .310 with 30+ doubles playing 3rd base with more walks than strikeouts.

49. Mitch Einerston - (19/RF/Hou) - I'm really hesitant to put Einerston this high, but this is about as far away from my pure numerical rankings as I can probably allow myself to go. He has a ton of power, but as a rookie leaguer with no natural knack for plate discipline and, by most accounts, huge holes in his swing, I wouldn't be surprised if he drops quite a bit next year. Still, with some proper coaching in A- ball and if he's been working hard this offseason, he also has the potential to shoot up the list if he can contain himself just a little bit.

50. Kyle Waldrop - (RHP/19/Min) - Here's a guy who doesn't even know how to issue a walk. The good part of this is that he has several quality pitches that look to improve quite a bit once he can find consistency with them.

The bottom 50

2005-02-24T18:10:00.000-05:00

51. Kyle Davies - (21/RHP/Atl) - Right-handed version of Tiffany at a higher level. Some of his numbers may be a bit deceiving because Atlanta's low-level clubs are in strong pitching parks.

52. Chuck Tiffany - (20/LHP/LA) - Good repertoire with lots of movement. I've rated him ahead of Broxton mostly because his secondary offerings are further along than Broxton's are, and partly because he pitched in a much tougher park (and league) on pitchers than Broxton did. He's ahead of Pinto because he's not nearly as wild as Pinto, although he could still stand to cut down his walks a hair.

53. Ian Kinsler - (22/SS/Tex) - I've ranked him kind of high for a guy whose primary value is due to high batting average, but while he slowed down in the second half, he also improved his walk rate as his batting average dipped. He also has very good gap power for a middle infielder, although his future position is probably second or third rather than short.

54. George Kottaras - (21/C/SD) - Yay, a catcher who whill probably be a catcher in the majors! I gave him a bit of a credit for this one, as I think my system tends to underrate catchers (who usually develop later) a bit. Still, I'm sticking with the story that there just aren't that many good catching prospects in the minors right now, and that most of the best ones around probably have no business catching. Has decent power for a catcher and OK plate skills, but the real standout is that he walks more than he whiffs.

55. Ryan Church - (26/RF/Was) - Another guy who's up high because he has little left to prove and has probably already reached his ceiling as a slightly above average outfielder. For proof that Chuck Lamar actually isn't the dumbest GM in baseball, just look up to Washington where the GM signed a below average SS for $16 million, traded away his average shortstop who was making league minimum, received a good right fielder with major head problems and a $3.5 million salary and pushed this guy, who's almost as good and costs $3 million less (and is a hard worker rather than a headcase) to the bench. Church won't ever be as talented as Guillen, but he could be better than Guillen if he doesn't keep his head on straight.

56. Jose Capellan - (24/RHP/Mil) - Capellan stands out because he gave up almost no home runs. Heck, he gave up almost no runs. His peripherals are OK too, striking out more than the average and probably walking a few more than he should. The real problem is that all he has is a fastball and an inconsistent change. That almost surely means he'll be converting to relief sometime in the near future, especially if Milwaukee wants their trade of Dan Kolb (which was brilliant in my opinion....of course, now that I said that, Kolb is going to turn into Dan Quisenberry) to pay immediate dividends.

57. Javier Herrera - (19/CF/Oak) - Herrera has a lot of room for development but showed good game power and game speed at the lowest levels of the game. His selectivity at the plate could use some work, as could his routes, but there's a lot of potential to like, and unlike a lot of "five tool" players with potential, he's actually already translated a lot of these tools into gameday goodness.

58. Brandon League - (22/RHP/Tor) - Brandon League compares very well to Kyle Farnsworth. The question is, which Kyle Farnsworth? Farnsworth with a 2.74 ERA and 11 Ks/9 in 2001, or Farnsworth with a 4.53 ERA in 2004? I'm betting closer to the latter. That, and League doesn't even strike out nearly as many guys as Farnsworth. Everyone's fallen in love with his 100 mph fastball, and he did well enough in AA, but I think I'm probably overrating him a bit by sticking him here - I felt bad for Toronto I guess. If he had better control or a better second pitch, he might crack top-50.

59. Travis Chick - (20/RHP/SD) - Excellent K/BB ratio with an 11.5/2.5 K/BB ratio per 9 innings. However, his pitches, while good, have a tendency to flatten out a bit, and he won't be able to blow his fastball by people at higher levels. Also, he's publicly commented about how the Padres pitching coaches have helped further refine his control and how they're paying extra attention to him, which makes me think the club likes him more than they actually admit and leads me to believe they think that they can even further increase his velocity. The big concern is that he needs to give up fewer home runs, but the positive end of this is that he likes to pitch down the heart of the plate early in the count and make the batter beat him. If he keeps up this attitude, then he probably shoots up the list.

60. Eric Duncan - (20/3B/NYY) - I really hope this isn't the New York press influencing me, but Duncan is growing on me a bit. Few players were helped as much by the conditions they played in (in my numerical rankings) than Duncan, who got credits for being young for the league and hitting in a pitchers' park. Still, at this point he's a guy who is more "looks like a ballplayer" than "is a ballplayer". If he can improve his defense, it will probably help his stock tremendously, because if he doesn't, then a lot of people will be very disappointed when his lofty overprojections don't pan out. Too bad he doesn't have football to fall back on.

61. Ben Hendrickson - (24/RHP/Mil) - Tore up AAA and then got bombed in a cup of coffee. His real ability is probably somewhere in between, as his DIPS was only above average in AAA. Generally avoids mistakes by keeping the ball low, thus allowing few walks of homers. Should be a middle of the rotation innings eater who's all ready ready already.

62. Jon Broxton - (20/RHP/LA) - Like most of LA's pitchers in the FSL, his ranking was hurt some by his home park. Broxton profiles as, at worst, a groundball innings eater type. However, he has a really good sinker / slider combo and pitches on a downward plane - good enough that he's been striking out as many guys as he's been grounding out. He could give up a few less walks and he needs to refine his change (a circle change would compliment his stuff nicely, if the coaches out there will teach him one), but any talk about needing to keep his weight down is mostly hogwash. While he's heavy, he's also well proportioned, and nothing about his build says he'll have major problems down the road. Hell, David Wells is still pitching at 40...

63. Renyel Pinto - (22/LHP/ChN) - Has good stuff for a lefty, but needs to get under control. He's 'wildly effective' - ERA under 3 and 11.5 K/9, but also nearly 5 walks per 9 and 10 wild pitches. His performance in the AAA playoffs gives hope that he can continue to do well at higher levels, but the way the Cubs farm system goes through arms, don't be shocked if he doesn't make it that far before breaking down.

64. Clint Barmes - (26/SS/Col) - Ranked this highly more as a function of being this close to the majors rather than being this good. Above-average at about everything, but not at the level of some other guys like Chris Burke. On the flipside, ranked this low because he showed nothing at previous levels to make me believe that his performance wasn't primarily because he was playing in Colorado Springs in a league with weak pitching. It's probably dumb to rank him behind Garrett Atkins, who will get pushed off of 3rd fairly quickly, but if I was a team that wasn't Colorado, I'd rather take a chance on Atkins than Barmes.

65. Mark Teahen - (23/3B/KC) - Good balance between Ks and walks, good contact hitter, good defense, good thing he's replacing Joe Randa (because he's practically his identical twin).

66. Casey Kotchman - (22/1B/Ana) - This is a HUGE upgrade over where his numbers came out, and on a strict ranking, he doesn't even make my top-100. Does it still seem pretty low, compared to where everyone else in the Western world has him? Yes, but I think there are some good reasons this this. First off, he's played in heavy hitters parks working all the way up the system. Yes, that's a fault against all Anaheim prospects, but considering all of his 'power potential' and that he hasn't been able to blast balls in these springpans, it makes me question this aspect of his game. More improtantly, he's probably the most injury-prone prospect anywhere, so I can't ever see him playing a full season in the majors, and to be quite frank, a good player who plays a full season is a lot more valuable than a very good player who plays 60% of a season. Also, the injuries hurt his long term defensive value, and a lot of his value is his defense. If he keeps getting injured in his joints, his quickness will be the first thing to go, making him less of a standout at first.

67. Jake Stevens - (20/LHP/Atl) - Has three average pitches, but all three looks like they might develop into better pitches. Had very good control numbers overall and allowed few homers. As a lefty in Atlanta's organization, I don't have many doubts that he'll only continue to get better.

68. John Danks - (19/LHP/Tex) - The level of dropoff he had moving from A- to A+ is a big concern, but he showed enough in the first half to keep my interest, and a lot of that can be attributed to the fatigue of playing his first full season. His fastball and curve play off each other well, but like I'll mention again and again, a third pitch would really help.

69. Gaby Hernandez - (19/RHP/NYM) - 11/2 K/BB rate per 9 innings in a small sample low level debut. The two pitches he does have are pretty developed for a kid out of high school, but he'll need to work on other offerings, especially since I doubt that he'll add too much velocity in the future (based on his size - he's already freakishly large, how much bigger is he gonna get?).

70. JD Durbin - (23/RHP/Min) - The opposite of the guy two spots below him, a starter who really should be a reliever. Two superb pitches, and not a whole lot of anything else. Of course, Walter Johnson only had 1 pitch for about 15 years, but I digress. In any case, he's had some shoulder problems, and his rates are good but not as good as they could be considering his pitches, so I currently propose that he be converted to reliever so he can go all out on his pitches without risking his arm falling off. q.e.d.

71. Yhency Brazoban - (25/RHP/LA) - A converted fielder who is still learning to pitch and was bumped up a few notches by not slowing down a tick when he hit the majors. His strikeout numbers were better in the minors than the majors, but his control seemingly improved in the majors, which more than makes up for it. This year he gets to learn to stay in control while continuing to use his best stuff; if he can do so, he might be the heir apparent to Eric Gagne.

72. Cesar Jimenez - (20/LHP/Sea) - This might be high to place a middle reliever, but this is somewhat of a sleeper projection pick. He was previously a starter, and as a spot starter this season, it looks like he could go back to starting. His repertoire seems a little too developed to be left to relief at the moment. Had great control numbers while at a young age in a hitters league (albeit in the most extremely pitching friendly home park in that hitters league).

73. Josh Willingham - (26/C/Fla) - Um, he walks. A lot. And he's making big strides at catcher. Looks a bit better than Matt LeCroy and other guys along these lines that came before him. since LoDuca's now locked up in Florida, look for Willingham to become trade bait, especially since there are so few good catching prospects out there at the moment.

74. Hanley Ramirez - (21/SS/Bos) - I almost wanted to rank him higher because of his second-half performance. Then I remembered that he's Hanley Ramirez and stuck him way down here. Seriously, the only issue with him (and the only thing keeping him out of the top-25) is his maturity. Once he learns to grow up a bit and can stay healthy for an extended period, there isn't much that can stop him. Up to this point, he hasn't shown the ability to do either one, so he remains a guy with decent performances and unlimited potential who is hindered by his head. At least he hasn't beaten up any women yet (see Elijah Dukes...).

75. Mike Hinckley - (22/LHP/Was) - A guy I'm giving a lot of benefit of the doubt for based on scouting reports; I've seen some that say he has the best curve of any lefty in the minors today, whereas others say it's just above average. I'll take that to mean it's inconsistent but with great potential. Despite being Washington's top prospect in terms of public perception, there really isn't anything about his numbers that blow you away. He's a little above average at everything, gave up a few too many homers and is projected to increase his velocity, but really hasn't done that yet. Thus, without a curve that can get downright nasty, he falls off the list.

76. Josh Barfield - (22/2B/SD) - Another guy I'm rating this high based on scouting reports rather than what I can see from his numbers. While he has good power for a second baseman, he also strikes out way too much for a second baseman. Has a good makeup, but his huge dropoff in numbers doesn't bode well for a guy that was supposed to be polished.

77. Hernan Iribarren - (20/2B/Mil) - This guy got the biggest drop from where the numbers came out on him of anyone. Few reasons for this. First, his sample was really small, so it's hard to know if he was for real. If Reid Brignadc hit the way he did when he first signed but for a couple extra weeks, you've got Iribarren (as Jake Larsen lobbies to trade for him right now...). He had some good power numbers, but they all seemed to be speed based (come on, only one fewer triple than doubles and homers combined!?). The number that really juts out at you is .422. That was his batting average. Between two levels. He also had a decent number of walks and not many strikeouts, but both of those numbers deteriorated a bit in his cup of A-. He could be a freak of nature, but I'd like to sit and watch him a bit longer, especially since his ridiculous numbers are so batting average dependent.

78. Maicer Izturis - (25/SS-2B/Ana) - He walks a lot, but not enough to compensate for the fact that he has no power. His arm spelled the death of him in Washington - they already had Vidro, and while he would probably be an excellent second baseman, his arm wasn't strong enough to stick at short, so he headed out. If his batting average dips again, he could be in trouble, but if he keeps it up, he might be a very good second base option in Anaheim once Kennedy gets too expensive for his value.

79. Brad Snyder - (22/CF/Cle) - Might not stay at center, and if he doesn't, that may hurt his ranking considerably since he doesn't have much power for a corner outfielder. Still, he has good control over the plate, and is another 'above average at everything but great at nothing' kind of guys. I'm also giving him a bit of credit for probably still feeling injured after a few freak injuries that weren't his fault and probably won't effect future performance. Seems like a gritty player to me.

80. Conor Jackson - (22/LF/Ari) - For the past year now, Conor Jackson and Carlos Quentin's names have been linked and they've been associated as having the same talent level. A lot of this year's reports are saying the same thing. Well I have news - they're not. In fact, Jackson's talent level is a lot closer to Josh Kroeger or Jon Zeringue than it is to Carlos Quentin. No doubt, Jackson is still a good prospect with a good batting eye and some power, but when they got promoted together and Jackson floundered while Quentin didn't miss a beat, it really separated the two of them. Also, Quentin's defense is leaps and bounds ahead of Jackson, whose defense is subpar.

81. Ryan Langerhans - (25/RF/Atl) - Should be starting in Atlanta this year, not that he will be. A missed prospect who developed late, but his OBP was over 100 points higher than his BA and he had a .220 IsoP, along with playing good defense and being a hard worker and less of a headcase than Mondesi. ARRRRGRGHGHGRGHGH!!!!!

OK, I'm calm now. Vote Langerhans! (sounds funny)

82. Steve Shell - (21/RHP/Ana) - Control pitcher with no great pitches but several above-average pitches. Allowing only 2 walks per 9 is great, and 10.5 strikeouts per 9 is also great, but for a control guy, he'll need to learn to keep the ball lower as he gave up a few too many homers. Due to his style, I doubt he'll be able to keep up that kind of K rate, so lowering the home run totals (while maintaining his great walk rate) will be paramount for his advancement.

83. Manny Parra - (22/LHP/Mil) - Only this low because of his mystery shoulder injury surprise. His stuff is good all the way around for a lefty at his level, and his control numbers are good enough to show that he has command of those pitches. Most people seem scared off by the injury (and I am as well), but word out of spring training is that his arm is looking good, and if it is, then this ranking is probably a bit low.

84. Jon Connolly - (21/LHP/ChN) - Has consistently performed above the level of his stuff throughout his career. Despite below-average fastball velocity, he has pinpoint control (1.7 walks per 9) and is described as sneaky fast with a very deceptive change. That reminds me of a lot of guys who have been very successful in the majors, so while some guys shy away from him because of his velocity, I say it sounds more like a throwback and the kind of guy who can succeed as a back-of-the-rotation starter or a good swingman.

85. Jeremy Hermida - (21/LF/Fla) - Nick Markakis, a year further along in development. Good at everything, not great at anything, athletic in a way that doesn't translate well. Good K/BB ratio, however.

86. Ezequiel Astacio - (25/RHP/Hou) - OK, why do I have a middle aged man in AA up this high? Even with the age debit, Astacio came out pretty well. Essentially, he's one of the most developed pitchers at this talent level, and thus he's more likely to succeed in the majors than most of the guys at his talent level. Each of his pitches is above average and still improving, and he's been able to strike guys out at a good rate, all while never having a WHIP above 1.35 in 6 years in the minors. He should be an above-average innings eater who could start helping out the Astros later this year if there are any more injury problems.

87. Adam Harben - (21/RHP/Min) - Big righty who struck out a lot of guys but gave out a lot of free passes as well. He's good at keeping is fastball low and with good movement, but his other pitches are going to need to get better to justify my ranking. When all is said and done, he's on the list because I feel like even if he can't keep striking guys out, he'll at the very least be a good groundball innings eater.

88. Erick Aybar - (21/SS/Ana) - Erick's a bit hard to tab. He had good gap power, yet almost never walked and relied almost entirely on having a high batting average. While nobody questions that he could be a good defensive shortstop, his arm is kind of similar to that of BJ Upton at the moment and will need more work. If he can put it together, he could be very good; still, I don't trust plate discipline as something that one starts to learn at AA (where he'll probably be starting next year), so his actually being good will depend almost entirely on being able to make good contact, which it will get tougher and tougher for him to do.

89. Justin Huber - (22/C/KC) - Missing the entire season after he got traded worries me some, but he still remains one of the best hitting catching prospects. Whether he stays at catcher is up for debate, but this ranking is partly based on the idea that he won't be a catcher. He still walks enough and has enough power to get by, especially on Kansas City.

90. Scott Olsen - (21/LHP/Fla) - This ranking's based primarily on his strong finish to the season. He still needs to improve his slider before he'll show noticable improvement, and he'll probably need some kind of third pitch before I can think that he'll remain a starter. However, he still did have a ton of strikeouts with his fastball (which actually got faster over the course of the season) despite being about average in giving up walks and home runs.

91. Ubaldo Jimenez - (21/RHP/Col) - In a small sample, he really showed a big improvement in his control to go along with his front of the rotation stuff. His shoulderblade injury is a concern, but not as big of a concern as some of these guys running around with torn labrums and rotator cuffs. He was reportedly healthy before the end of the minor league season, but the team decided to rest him so he should be up to speed this year. If his injury is healed and he still has that control, he could be a sleeper as one of the top pitchers in the minors.

92. Tony Giarratano - (22/SS/Det) - Giarratano is one of the better defensive shortstops on this list, but his offense took the big step forward. Moving up midseason to the pitching-friendly FSL, he suddenly became aggressive, increasing his batting average by 100 points and his slugging percentage by 150 points. Of course, his walks decreased and strikeouts increased, but even with those changes, they were still at perfectly acceptable levels. Could have a Kinsler-type rise in rankings if he keeps it up for another season at a higher level.

93. Nick Markakis - (21/RF/Bal) - One of those 'above-average at everything but not great at anything' guys. His defense is probably his biggest plus, but I tend to think that RF defense is overrated anyway (and LF defense is underrated...are the 5 extra throws to home more important than the 30 extra balls that land in left because of right handed pull hitters?). For some reason, I feel like Markakis should have remained a pitcher and Van Benschoten should have stayed a hitter. People rave about his athleticism, but none of his athletic traits seem to be those that will translate into a good baseball player - maybe a strong safety or something, but I can't see his potential as being that high until some of the tools translate into skills.

94. Jason Bartlett - (25/SS/Min) - Should be able to win the starting SS in Minnesota this year, although he's somewhat subpar defensively. He's a good contact hitter and he walks almost as much as he strikes out, but he's almost entirely unremarkable beyond that. Power numbers seemed on the flukish side due to triples. Either way, since he'll have an OBP around .350 even if he can't make contact, he'll be a big offensive upgrade over Guzman.

95. Billy McCarthy - (25/LF/Atl) - Like Ryan Langerhans above him, McCarthy is probably a better option for Atlanta than, say, Raul Mondesi. He's a guy who wasn't highly thought of but steadily moved up the ladder until he had a breakout year last season, hitting well above agerage all the way around. His power and walks might be a hair below average for a corner outfielder, but if he can even approach his .352 batting average in AAA, then it shouldn't be too much of a problem. McCarthy is an easy guy to like - his motor is always at 110%, and he seems to have improved every year in the minors. Has had some injury problems in the past, but they weren't the kind that debilitate a player long-term and he came back from them very nicely.

96. Chris Snyder - (24/C/Ari) - Above-average power and plate control, especially for a catcher. My biggest beef is that everything dips along with his batting average, as he showed in his cuppa joe with the D-Backs. He looks like he'll be one of the better long-term catchers in the majors, but I just don't see him playing at an all-star level. Also, his numbers were pumped up a bit by his home ballpark in the minors.

97. Scott Baker - (23/RHP/Min) - Baker's lack of a really good pitch hurts him here. His control numbers have been amazing moving up, but I suspect that as he gets to the majors, he'll get killed sort of the way he did moving up to AAA this year.

98. Robinson Cano - (22/2B/NYY) - He had a big improvement over his career numbers for the first half of last season; however, I am somewhat worried about his regression to his usual level of play upon his promotion. If he does continue to develop, he'll be completely servicable as an average 2B or an above-average utilityman. However, even if he doesn't, he can probably squeeze in a couple of seasons in the bigs, which is why he's on the list over some higher ceiling guys like Melky Cabrera. His slugging percentage still was probably a bit flukey due to the abnormal number of triples.

99. Corey Hart - (23/RF/Mil) - Don't masquerade with the guy in the shades! Performed well in AAA while being a bit young for the league. His nagging shoulder problems are a concern, as are the facts that his slugging percentage was inflated bit a number of triples and that he has a low walk rate. However, he also rarely strikes out and has enough potential that he could make in impact in Milwaukee, even if he should be back in AAA for another year.

100. Ryan Shealy - (25/1B/Col) - Here's a guy I think a lot of people back away from because he reminds them of another former Rockies power prospect - Jack Cust. A few comparisons - all Shealy has done is absolutely mash at every level; he's a huge, imposing figure; he has no real defensive position; there are a few holes in his swing so he strikes out a lot; he's patient at the plate so he walks a lot. However, Shealy has always hit for average better than Cust did and he actually has more power than Cust did. While he'll never get much playing time in Colorado (barring an injury to Helton), he could end up being a David Ortiz-type monster at DH for some team in the AL. Or he could end up being Jack Cust.

On the cusp - (in no particular order): Melky Cabrera, Billy Petrick, Yorman Bazardo, Glen Perkins, Russ Adams, Corey Hart, JJ Hardy, Thomas Pauley, Joe Blanton, Brad Eldred, Kyle Sleeth, Jason Hammel, Joey Gathrihgt, Francisco Liriano, Gio Gonzalez, Anthony Swarzak, Felix Pie, Brian McCann, Brad Baker, Willy Taveras, Anibal Sanchez, Frankie Gutierrez, Aaron Hill, Fred Lewis, Jon Lester, Michael Bourn, Nelson Cruz, Ryan Harvey, Brandon Sing, Fernando Cabrera, Nick Pesco, Omar Quintanilla, Abe Alvarez, Adrian Gonzalez, Richie Gardner, Ryan Raburn, Mike Burns (HOU), Matt Albers, Paul McNaulty, Andy LaRoche, Elijah Dukes.

Not even close (a few select guys who are highly ranked elsewhere): Adam Loewen, Gonzalo Lopez, Quillermo Quiroz, James Loney, Josh Anderson, Hayden Penn, Merkin Valdez, Clint Nageotte, Jeff Mathis, Edwin Jackson, Dioner Navarro, Chris Lubanski.

A few tweaks

2005-02-18T11:08:00.000-05:00

Going through things in my mind, I've decided that there are a few other things I can look at that I'm not looking at yet. Hopefully, I'm not getting too complex for my own good.

- First, I'll have a credit or debit on performance based on Park Factors. Call it the Larry Walker rule - an all-star level hitter (8) in Coors can look like a perennial all-star (9), and a very good pitcher (7) can look only slightly avobe average (6); thus, based on BA's 2004 Park Factors, I'll give a credit or debit on performance of +1 or -1 if the park is more than 50 points off the norm (and possibly a +-2 in extreme cases, such as Albequerque, Inland Empire or Asheville). I know these park factors are off of last year and there's a lot better ways to analyze this, but I need to keep it simple enough that I can get this out before BA puts out their top-100.

- Second, I needed to figure out the proper weighting. I'm not going to base rankings purely on my formula as I need to get a little of my own opinion in there and because I haven't tested my formula to see if it actually works properly, but there needed to be some weighting simply to create gaps between the players and to ensure that interactions are treated properly. Thus:

A number will be calculated for age / level ratio, where a guy gets a zero if he's at a certain level at the average age, a positive number if he's young for the level and a negative number if he's old for the level. This one I'll have to do a bit more testing on to see what numbers are assigned to give the proper weighting, so I can't yet say what these numbers will be. UPDATE: I've assigned the following numbers for ages and levels. I wanted to do age to the nearest month, but that was just too time consuming, so it's done by year, as of April 1, 2005. Ages: 18/19 = +15; 20 = +12; 21 = +9; 22 = +6; 23/24 = +3; 25 and up = 0; Levels: R = -20; SS = -15; A- = -12; A+ = -9; AA = -6; AAA = -3; MLB = 0. Here, for the levels, I'm splitting it pro rata for guys who were in multiple levels (by AB / BF). I realize that I'll probably need to weight more heavily in favor of higher levels in the future, but keeping them even makes it easier to calculate when I have to calculate it by hand. During the season, I'll try working on some better formulas to come up with an approximation of the jumps, especially from A+ to AA.
Ceiling and Potential of reaching ceiling will be multiplied by each other to come up with a number. This does a couple of things. First, it gives an edge to guys who are about the same level in both over guys who are skewed. For example, if a guy has all-star potential (8) and only one flag against him (8), he'll get a 64, whereas a guy with all-world potential (10) and lots of flags (6) will get a 60, despite both numbers adding up to 16.
Production, on the other hand, should be linear. Instead, the production number will have the park factor credit or debit added to or subtracted from it, and then multiplied by a constant number. I'm wavering between whether this constant should be a 4 or a 5 (or somewhere in between), so I'll have to test this one out a bit as well to see where things come out. UPDATE: after fiddling a little bit, I've decided to use 4 as the multiplier. This favors projections a bit over performance, but is probably enough to pick out the guys who might be underranked because their tools aren't overwhelming.

I plan on making whatever spreadsheet I create available after I've calculated everything, in case you want to scrutinize. Unlike certain baseball publications, I believe in some level of peer review. Besides, that makes it more fun to argue about afterwards...

2-22-05 addition - Just a bit more on guys I've excluded - as a function of the system, I'm not including guys who didn't play in the minors last year or had such small samples that there's really no way to gauge performance. Thus, no Jeff Niemann, Greg Miller or Tadahito Iguchi. In addition, I'm excluding guys who will be out all of next season due to major injury because their 'chance of making it' number would be too low to get on the list. Thus, no John Van Benschoten or Clint Everts...

Coming up with a new system

2005-02-17T17:37:00.000-05:00

There are a few ways in which one typically sees prospects graded. First and oldest is the 20-80 scouting scale, in which the players various tools are ranked from 20 (enough of a handicap to prevent the player from ever playing in the majors) to 80 (one of the greatest of all time in this tool). Also, in a lot of prospect handbooks and the like, you might see a grade, either on a 1-100 scale (i.e. Diamond Mind) or on a grade scale (i.e. John Sickels), where the best prospects are A's and anything below a C+ or a 75 probably won't make any impact in the majors. While the former is useful for opinions and depth of information and the latter is useful for its simplicity, I'm going to try ranking prospects in a different manner. The way I'm breaking down prospects is generally the way in which I think about it, so it might not be useful to everyone, but I think it provides more information about my opinion than a simple letter grade and it lets you evaluate where you would rank the players yourself if you have a different value set than I do. Since I don't have a network of scouts spanning the country and get most of my information off of other people's published accounts and off of statistics, I'm somewhat limited in the way in which I can grade people. Thus, I'm breaking things down 5 ways:

Age. Several studies have cited age as the best correlation of anything to major league success. While this still doesn't have a huge correlation on its own, it is certainly useful in the evaluation; a 27 year-old who tears up AA probably won't be a great prospect simply because they'll have so few years where they can make a major league impact. Still, unlike some other rankers, I don't like to put too huge of a debit on age. Last year, for instance, if would have been completely reasonable to have Calvin Pickering ranked as a top-50 prospect despite his advanced age, yet nobody did so. However, when current production exceeds the potential production of other guys, the person with the current production should be higher even though they've already reached their ceiling.
Level. I'll list what levels they played at last season. Of the other parts of the breakdown, the usefulness of at least three of them depend on what level the prospect is playing at.
Current production. This is easily the most reliable thing I have to go by from my computer - numbers are numbers, and for the most part they're not subject to opinion. The numbers have biases, and I have my own biases, and occasionally they are based on opinion (i.e. sympathetic scoring, or when something that should be ruled a hit is ruled as an error, etc.), but for the most part they can be looked at and analyzed as you wish. I'll also try to provide a link to a page with the players' stats, if I'm not too lazy. I'll rank this from 0 - 10, 0 being out all of last season, 1 being poorest production, and 10 being studly production. Since this a ranking of prospects only, I'll set the median on all of my 1 - 10 rankings at 5, rather than at 7 or 8, or in other words a 2 means like that of a fringe major leaguer, 10 as a superstar, and so on and so forth. Anyone who doesn't fall into prospect range will just have a 1
Ceiling. This one's probably the hardest for me to calculate myself, so to some extent I'll just have to trust what other people have said about a player. However, even that will run through my personal filter a bit, taking quotes from management and team scouts a little less seriously than those from independent scouts and other players (less to gain by falsely inflating or deflating a player's value), and sometimes ignoring things that sound like general cliche hogwash with nothing to back it up (i.e. "the kid's got a beautiful swing" for someone who's batting .235). I'll rank this from 1 - 10 as well, 2 being fringe, 3 being replacement level, 5 being average, 7 as potential all-star, 9 as potential perennial all-star, 10 as potential hall-of-famer. Needless to say, there won't be a lot of 9s and 10s, but since everyone who is getting ranked is near the top, that's where the differentiation needs to take place.
Chance of reaching ceiling, relative to one's level. This one's also difficult to evaluate. One thing I've chosen to do is make this relative to level or else people at higher levels would always have higher scores. Instead, I'll be docking people from 9 all the way down to 1 based on various 'red flags' - behavioral problems, skills that clearly lag behind, injury history, overuse, streaky performance, etc. Things that all prospects have in common, like the higher percentage chance of high school pitchers getting injured, won't be counted against anyone. A 10 is an extra credit for guys who don't have any red flags and are said to have exceptional motivation and learning capacity, but a 10 isn't anywhere close to a 100%. Even a 10 is a 75% chance of actually reaching full potential, if that. There's just way too much that could happen in the intervening time period.

Hopefully this system works out. In the meantime, I've identified about 300 guys who could potentially make my list, and I'll probably spend much of the weekend calculating where all of them fall in these scales so I can set up the actual rankings.

Slow but steady

2005-02-16T16:30:00.000-05:00

I've decided to do a top-100 list, so my posting may be infrequent for a bit. I did have an interim post that I started to prepare, but the website ate it.

In the meantime, here's something completely asinine...

Like when the Rocc puts you in a headlock...

2005-02-15T12:50:00.000-05:00

...it's sleeper time!

While the Rays organization has quite a few well known prospects, there are plenty of guys who could be considered sleepers as well. My definition of a sleeped includes both guys who could have breakout seasons and guys who have already been performing at a high level but are underrated and might finally convince the skeptics that they're the real deal.

Wes Bankston - 1B / RF

OK, this is probably a dumb one to start with. He's already on just about every Rays top-10 list, so he can't be that much of a sleeper, right? The problem isn't that he's not known, but rather than he's rated well below a lot of guys throughout the minors with similar skill and tools sets who either have had lesser production or are older in relation to their league than Bankston is.

Let me run a few stat lines, and you tell me who looks like they're the best prospect:

OBP / ISOP / k to bb / age / level
a) .390/.224/1.42/20/A-
b) .358/.216/1.90/20/A- and A+
c) .371/.171/1.57/21/A-
d) .377/.180/1.73/21/A+

I could probably come up with quite a few others, but here's a few. A is Bankston, B is Eric Duncan, C is Nick Markakis and D is Jeremy Hermedia; B through D are all likely top-50 prospects and the top prospect in their organization. A pretty good case could be made that Bankston is better than any of them. Yes, Duncan played in a pitcher's league, but Charleston was an extreme pitcher's park as well. The other two are right fielders, but consensus is that Bankston would be an above-average right fielder defensively and moved simply because he was blocked at that position. It seems to me that Bankston has had an unfair bias held against him because he repeated low-A, but that really isn't a problem because he was well below league average age in 2003 and continued to be below the league average age in 2004. He should be skipping high A and heading straight to AA in 2005, most likely putting him at the same level as these other guys. Also note that I'm not even including batting average here, but his batting average is higher than all of those guys except for Markakis as well.

Brandon Mann - LHP

The first thing that jumps out to me about Mann is that his K/BB rate has improved each of the last three years, taking a significant jump last season while repeating in Hudson Valley. While this will be his fourth season in the organization, he is still relatively young and will turn 21 in late May. He's said to have good mechanics, a fastball that touches 90 and a sweeping 12-6 curveball. He's currently listed at 6-2, 160, but I wouldn't be surprised if he put on some weight this offseason, since that's about the age when a lot of guys start to fill out. Many have said he could add a few mph of velocity once he adds to his frame, and if that's the case, he should be very effective in conjunction with his new found control.

Ryan Royster - RF

This guy's been my pet prospect since he was the only guy who got drafted in an early round by the Rays who I had never heard of in my life. At the time, I figured the Rays had to have overdrafted him, especially since he wasn't even listed as one of the likely draftees to come out of his state. Then I did some reading up on him, and his background is interesting enough that I decided to track him a bit. This is also a clear case of me occasionally being tools biased since I just see some immense potential, but not too many of the numbers back me up at this point, and while Michael Lewis would probably smack me for saying this, he seriously LOOKS like a prototypical right fielder.

Some quick info on what I thought at the time of his drafting:

Oregon State signee; CF who led his school to the 4A state title...

Is a power hitter (12 HR this year, set the record at the Pepsi challenge a couple years back with 25 HR), but also batted .538 as a senior.

Not to be confused with Ryan Royster of UC Irvine...

Sizewise, he's 6-3, 215. According to local newspaper articles in Oregon, he's solid defensively as well. Considering his stats (and that he was all-state 3 years in a row), I would imagine that the reason BA didn't include a scouting report on him is because he's thought to be a lock to go to college. I've seen no indication of this, but at the very least his stats, size, and position would seem to merit true prospect status.

While on the surface, his rookie league stats don't look great, there's some goodness lurking under there. First, he was only 17 years old when drafted, so he has this season to catch up to everyone else. His ISOP was a respectable .165. His uphill battle will be learning to control the plate - if he can strike out less and walk more, his numbers should jump across the board and he should unlock some of the power potential he has in that bat of his. Developmentally, he could be somewhat smilar to the previous year's 5th round pick, Travis Schlichting. And no, as far as I know, Schlichting doesn't make acid with Ronald Reagan blotter paper in his basement.

Elliot Johnson - 2B

After the first two months of the minor league season, this undrafted free agent had a line of .298/.376 /.450 in Charleston. By the time he finished the season, that had dropped to .262/.339/.370. Throughout the season, he showed some pretty good plate discipline, although it's not questioned that he wore down towards the end of his first season in full-season ball. Also, he is said to be fairly developed defensively, and might be the fastest non-outfielder in the organization. At only 20 years old, he still has some time to catch up. His listed height and weight have each gone up over the past year, so maybe that will help add to his endurance. If so, then he could be one to climb the ladder very quickly and eventually make the big club as a utilityman.

Jairo Delarosa - SS

One of the Rays rare international signees, and another guy with a line very similar to Royster (he had 43/5 K/BB ratio, Royster had 47/5). However, he has a couple of legs up here. First, he plays shortstop rather than RF, which is condsidered to be a more premiere defensive position; second, his batting average was a bit higher despite almost identical peripherals; and third, he signed a large bonus out of the Dominican, so the team is going to try pushing him a bit.

Jose Delacruz - RHP

The Rays got some De La Soul, or something. While Jairo looks like he could be good, Jose has been dominant in his first two seasons. So far, he's been able to use his fastball (which touches 94) to overpower short season opposition, but he's a one-pitch pitcher. Still, his 42/11 K/BB rate in 41 innings looks good to me, as does his 1.10 ERA and his 0.95 WHIP and 0 homers allowed last year. Next year should be his first full season, so we'll see how things go then and whether he can continue to just blow pitches by people. Hopefully, he gets hammered a bit at the beginning of the season so he's forced to work on a secondary offering. Still, between his pitch and his imposing size (6'6", 205), he reminds me a lot like Rays Rule 5 draftee Angel Garcia, except that Garcia is older and has more control problems and for some inexplicable reason will be probably starting the year with the big club while Delacruz gets a taste of Southwest Michigan.

Jarrad Lavergne - LHP

The then 21-year old Lavergne had an auspicious start to last season, getting quickly demoted to Rookie league Princeton and retiring from baseball after it looked like he might spend his third consecutive season there. Less than a month later, he came back with a vengeance. With Hudson Valley, in his last six starts, he had a line of 34 ip, 22 hits, 4 walks, 3 eeaned runs and 27 Ks, and overall he finished with a 1.64 ERA, missing the league ERA title by 2 innings. While this didn't get as much hype as Hammel's torrid finish to the season, it probably is worth noting and it could be a sign that he's picked things up and could be in for a big improvement this year. Still, since he's a bit old for his league, he'll have to advance quickly to gain any star as a prospect.

Bulls vs. Rays

2005-02-13T20:22:00.000-05:00

Over the past couple weeks, I think I've seen at least three people say that they think the Durham Bulls could probably beat the Rays head to head at the beginning of this season. At this point, I disagree with this, but I'll test the hypothesis and see where we come out.

The first problem to overcome is that the rosters aren't yet set. However, to give that argument the benefit of the doubt, I'll set out a few ground rules:

1) People who are a lock for a spot with the Rays are on the Rays, and the most likely players to be on the Rays fill in the blank spots. Veterans get an edge over rookies, guys on the 40-man get an edge over guys not on the 40-man, guys without options get an edge over guys with options. Where there's some kind of tie, I'll say that the worst player of the group will make the team.
2) Durham gets their choice of all of the best leftover scraps.
3) I'll assume that nobody will ask for their release if they don't make the team. In addition, I'll assume that Matt Diaz clears waivers and makes it back to Durham, and that anyone else who is waived from the roster clears waivers.

After this, potential rosters look like this:
Rays:
C: Toby Hall, Kevin Cash
IF: Eduardo Perez, Travis Lee, Robbie Alomar, Julio Lugo, Alex Gonzalez, Josh Phelps, Shane Halter
OF: Aubrey Huff, Carl Crawford, Danny Bautista, Chris Singleton
SP: Lurch Hendrickson, Rob Bell, Hideo Nomo, Casey Fossum, Jorge Sosa
RP: Trever Miller, Danys Baez, Angel Garcia, Lance Carter, Travis Harper, Jesus Colome, Krispy Kreme Seay

Bulls:
C: Tim Laker, Pete Laforest
IF: BJ Upton, Jorge Cantu, Steve Cox, Brandon Larson, Earl Snyder, Brent Butler
OF: Jonny Gomes, Matt Diaz, Joey Gathright, Damon Hollins, Marty Cordova
SP: Scott Kazmir, Drippy Dawg Brazelton, Doug Waechter, Denny Neagle, Brian Sweeney
RP: Chad Orvella, Seth McClung, Jon Switzer, Jarod Matthews, Mark Guthrie, Joe Biemel, Franklin Nunez

Please keep in mind, since I'm trying to give the AAA guys the benefit of the doubt and disprove the hypothesis, I'll underestimate the major league guys where there's more than one situation I can use, and I'll overestimate the minor leaguers metrics. Unfortunately, some of the minor leaguers I'll just have to go on my gut with, since the easiest metric for me to use (RC) can't really be calculated well for guys on their way up (yes, I realize people do it, but they're usually not very right; instead, I'll try to find a guy already in the majors who is similar and use their score). All RCA stats taken from The Hardball Times (see sidebar). I know it's not super scientific....one of these days, I'll set up some spreadsheets to actually keep track of this stuff and figure out WARP+ or something, but I actually have a job. If someone wants to pay off my loans to do this stuff.... (hint hint). Initial numbers will be adjusted, and I'll explain my adjustments in parenthesis.

The Catchers

Toby Hall = 43
Kevin Cash = 8 (had 11 last year in 197 PA; cut that down a little for a backup role)
Tim Laker = 36 (had 9 last year in 128 PA, so this is extrapolated to 500 PA)
Pete Laforest = 10 (Humberto Cota used as comp, plus more PAs, presuming that he plays like he did in 2003 rather than 2004)

RC advantage = Rays. In addition, the Rays have an overall defensive advantage. Hall is better in almost every defensive aspect of his game than Laker, and while I'm not sold on Cash's defense, it's much better than Laforest's negative defensive value.

Advantage = Rays
Total: 51 - 46, Rays

First Base
Travis Lee = 68 (Using Grady Sizemore as a comp and extrapolated to 500 PA; I'm presuming that he'll be somewhat similar to 2002, his weakest non-injured season, and Sizemore has the closest line I could find to his 265/331/394 that year)
Eddie Perez = 20 (6 in 42 PA, extrapolated to 150 AB)
Earl Snyder = 80 (Geoff Jenkins used as comp, giving a pretty big benefit of the doubt. In a previous post, I said I thought he could potentially have a stat line similar to Jenkins, so that's what I'll use. As was pointed out to me in comments, this is probably way too high and Tony Batista is probably the better comp.)
Steve Cox = 20 (Wes Helms used as comp, presuming he's as good now as he was in his first tenure with the Rays, which he's not, and adjusting for a backup role with some DHing thrown in)

RC advantage = Bulls. A lot of this hinges on whether Snyder can be even close to as good as I think he can. Lee should be much better defensively than Snyder, but it remains to be seen how he's recovered from his injuries. If Lee is closer to his 2003 or 2001 self than his 2002 self and Snyder is closer to Batista than Jenkins, then the Rays have the advantage. However, since I'm giving the benefit of the doubt...

Advantage = Bulls
Total: 139 - 146, Bulls

Second Base
Robbie Alomar = 45 (23 last year, adjusted for a full season and park factors)
Jorge Cantu = 75 (23 in 185 PAs, extrapolated for 550 PAs, plus about 7 RS of improvement)

RC advantage = Bulls. No real way to spin this one. Even if Cantu regresses somewhat, he's better than Alomar. Alomar is also relatively useless defensively these days, so there's no real advantage there. Also, it's pretty likely that Cantu actually starts in the bigs and that Cortez will be Durham's 2B, which would give the Rays the advantage.

Advantage = Bulls
Total: 184 - 221, Bulls

Shortstop
Julio Lugo = 88
BJ Upton = 85 (22 in 177 PAs, extrapolated for 650 PAs, plus a bit of improvement)

RC advantage: Rays; While Upton is a huge part of our future, he's still learning on the job. Considering how much he's improved each of the past two years, I'm probably underestimating his improvement. However, once defense is taken into account, Lugo has to have the advantage. While I'm 100% sure that there are balls Upton can get to that Lugo can't, that's probably offset by the number of extra errors that the wildly erratic Upton would commit. Hopefully, by midseason, he can legitimately pass Lugo, making him trade bait.

Advantage: Rays
Total: 272 - 306, Bulls

Third Base
Alex Gonzalez = 35 (25 last year, adjusted for a full season and a continued downfall)
Brandon Larson = 50 (12 last year in 135 PA, adjusted for a full season and a bit of improvement)

RC advantage: Bulls. Gonzalez doesn't belong at 3B. In any league. While he'll be a much better defender than Larson, he's still a much worse hitter than Larson. Even with a paltry stat line to base this off of, Larson was still an upgrade over Gonzalez. If Larson plays more like his minor league numbers and less like his major league numbers, the advantage becomes outright huge.

Advantage = Bulls
Total: 307 - 356, Bulls

UT
Shane Halter = 12
Brent Butler = 1 (Comp used - Jose Leon)

RA Advantage: Rays. The advantage should be much greater if Halter is the Bulls utilityman and Cantu is utilityman for the Rays. Butler's last season in Coors Launchpad was similar to Jose Leon's dreadful last year, hence only 1 run created. Butler clearly shouldn't be in the majors.

Advantage = Rays
Total: 319 - 357, Bulls

Outfield
Aubrey Huff = 98
Carl Crawford = 99 (presuming no improvement)
Danny Bautista = 63 (70 last year, playing in a pitcher's park)
Chris Singleton = 25 (Comp used: Abraham Nunez, presuming his play is like 2003, rather than 2002 or 2001)
Jonny Gomes = 65 (Comp used: Eric Munson; Munson has similar power and batting eye numbers to Gomes, although Gomes' batting average would probably be a bit higher, hence some upward adjustment beyond extrapolation. The better comp is probably Jay Gibbons, who had 38 last year.)
Joey Gathright = 80 (Comps used: Jason Kendall / Juan Pierre, with some downward adjustment for level of play; giving EXTREME benefit of the doubt here; probably closer to Alex Sanchez, who had 37 RC last year. Pierre and Kendall had lines in the majors very similar to Gathright in the minors, however)
Matt Diaz = 69 (Comp used: Craig Monroe; probably a little benefit of the doubt given here as well, but this is legitimately about where I think he would be if he got a full season shot at things)
Damon Hollins = 30 (Comp used: Omar Infante, adjusted for about 230 PAs)

RC Advantage: Rays. Here, the Rays have a huge advantage, even if you give these large allowances to Gathright and Diaz. Advantage would be much bigger with more realistic comps. The Rays have a huge defensive leg up as well, and this still isn't counting midseason, when Singleton would be replaced by Rocco.

Advantage = Rays
Total: 604 - 601, Rays

DH
Josh Phelps = 65 (50 last year, adjusted for a full time job)
Marty Cordova = 40 (Comp used: Bobby Higgenson, adjusted for about 300 PAs [since I have Snyder, Cox and hollins each adjusted to play some DH as well)

RC Advantage: Rays. If Cordova is healthy and Phelps doesn't improve, I think this is pretty realistic. Still, Phelps has quite a leg up on Cordova. More likely, Cordova will ask for his release if he doesn't make the big club.

Advantage = Rays
Total: 669 - 641, Rays

Starters
Lurch = -11
Bell = -2
Nomo = -36 (Let's say he wins a job out of spring training, then suddenly reverts to last year's model...)
Fossum = -33 (Same as Nomo)
Sosa = -12
Kazmir = 0 (-3 in 33 IP last season, extrapolated for 1540 innings with significant improvement)
Brazelton = 0 (-4 in 140 IP last season, with some improvement based on better K/BB ratios at the end of last season)
Waechter = -15 (-15 in 70 IP last year, extrapolated to 150 IP and generous improvement given due to adding a sinker)
Neagle = -15 (This is another place where things get sketchy - I'll assume that the last few seasons for Neagle were a mirage, and that his tenure with the Yankees is approximately what he's capable of doing these days. From his defense independent stats back around then, I come up with Cliff Lee as his comp, hence the number. Still, it's certainly a stretch to say that Neagle finds himself from a five years ago while Nomo can't find himself from 2 years ago...)
Sweeney = 6 (Comp used - Mike Maroth; here's the guy I had the most difficult time finding a comp for, so feel free to argue, but his defense independent stats seem similar here, although I'm definately giving him some benefit of the doubt).

RAA advantage: Bulls, by a longshot. Granted, this is pretty unrealistic. Changes are that Nomo will be much better than last year, Neagle's better comp will be 2003 than 2000, that Fossum will be in the pen, that Sosa will continue to improve a bit and that two of the Kazmir / Brazleton / Waechter group will be in the majors (and that they won't improve as much as I'm giving them credit for).

Advantage = Bulls
Total: 575 - 617, Bulls

Closers
Baez = 7
Orvella = -1 (Comp used: Doug Brocail)

RAA Advantage: Rays. Orvella's very hard to peg because of his meteoric rise, so I'm cutting the difference here. I think his walks would be higher in the bigs and his Ks would be lower, and he gives up a decent number of homeruns, so Brocail will do for me for now. Once I see more of Orvella, I can probably give a better comp.

Advantage = Rays
Total: 582 - 616, Bulls

Middle Relief
Miller = 6
Garcia = -5 (Comp used: Franklin Nunez, extrapolated to 25 innings; I doubt he'll barely ever play, and while he'll strike out quite a few, he'll also walk a ton. Still, can't hurt the team too much if he doesn't play)
Carter = 13
Colome = 10 (7 in 40 IP last year, extrapolated for 65 IP)
Harper = 7
Seay = 14 (7 in 22 IP last year, extrapolated for 50 IP and downgraded a bit based on having a better season than he probably should have)
McClung = 0 (Comp used: Julio Mateo)
Switzer = -2 (Comp used: Paul Quantrill, and considering that his highest level is AA and that he's coming off major surgery, that's some pretty big benefit of the doubt)
Matthews = 7 (Comp used - Travis Harper, why not - few walks, mid-level Ks, giving him the benefit of the doubt. Probably the better comp is Robert Novoa.)
Guthrie = 14 (Comp used: Bobby Seay; they don't just look alike...also getting some benefit here, considering he hasn't pitched for a year and that his last full season was flukey good)
Beimel = -7
Nunez = -10 (-2 in 11 IP, extrapolated to 50 IP)

RAA advantage: Rays. There's really no reason to think that this year's relief staff will be any worse than last year's, so I'm just basically using the same stats. Still, this is pretty seriously weighted for the Bulls, considering that most of these guys are either rising from AA, coming off of a missed season, or coming off a bad season.

Advantage = Rays
Total: 627 - 618, Rays

This result is a lot closer than I expected going into this exercise, so maybe there's some more merit to the claim that the Bulls are better than the Rays than I originally thought. However, this analysis includes a ton of assumptions that favor the Bulls. So, I guess my response is that the Bulls are about even with the Rays if Nomo and Fossum are as bad as they were last year; Diaz clears waivers; Gathright and Gomes are as good as their top supporters say they are; Cantu, Upton, Kazmir, Brazelton and Waechter all start in the minors; Earl Snyder is as good as I think he might be; Neagle doesn't make the team but reverts to his form several years ago; and none of the current Rays improve over their performances last season. Still, there are way too many spots where the Bulls seem to be better than the Rays for me to be entirely comfortable with this. The Bulls are supposed to be a farm team, so why are so many of the players on the Bulls better major leaguers right now than the players we have on the Rays?

In any case, I hope I've proved my point, even if my methodology sucked...

Part 3 of the NRIs - the Bellyitchers

2005-02-12T23:28:00.000-05:00

First off, is there some kind of rule against posting three parts of a three part series within 5 hours of each other? I'm new to this....don't really have the blogger's etiquette down yet.

Pitching is one of the other spots where one or two of the NRIs could end up winning a job. It will be tough for any relievers to get a spot since that's easily the deepest spot on the squad, but if a starter can stand out, there are plenty of guys with options left who could really use some more time in the minors.

Hideo Nomo

The most likely candidate to make the squad - he of the 84 mph fastball and the forkball. He reminds me a little of the pitcher from Major League 3: "You going to throw your slow stuff?" "I have something that isn't slow stuff?" Anyhow, despite losing a ton of velocity over the last few seasons (he couldn't hit 90 on the gun as a Brewer, and he couldn't break a pane of glass with the Red Sox), he managed to stay successful until his abyssimal season last year. However, the Rays have held out hope and have a pretty good situation - if he makes the squad, he could earn up to a million and a half; if he doesn't, they don't owe him a dime. This will all depend on whether his injuries have healed. Yes, he had shoulder problems last year, but as dumb as this sounds, I think the split fingernail on the index finger of his throwing hand was the real reason behind his ineffectiveness. He relies almost entirely on his forkball to confuse batters, but the only way to throw a good forkball is to put a ton of pressure on the ball while holding almost the entire ball between your index and middle fingers. Try doing this and see how much more pressure this puts on your fingernails than most other grips. Without that quasi-knuckler, he has to rely on his curveball, which is inconsistent at best and probably entirely ineffective with shoulder problems. He had 200 Ks in Boston throwing nothing but junk, and he's never had great control (as a result of that forkball, which wobbles like a knuckler at its best), so if he's healthy, I don't see why he can't be in the top half of the Rays' fairly weak rotation. That, and he could be somewhat of a boom for publicity in Japan, but let's leave that one for the money folks.

Denny Neagle

Unlike Nomo, he lost his effectiveness quite a while ago, and there were signs of decay before he called Coors Launchpad home. On the bright side, he'll enjoy the toothless hags on Nebraska Avenue; on the downside, I don't see him making it out of spring training. If Hernandez can get him to magically find his stuff again, he'll be a great pickup. While that's not likely, it's at least a low-risk move to see if he can find that magic again.

Joe Beimel

Below average relief pitcher who somehow has hung around in the majors for 4 seasons without having a WHIP below 1.5. Walks way too many guys and doesn't strike out enough to probably stick in the majors again unless he can show something somewhere else. I guess that can happen if you're born left-handed

Geraldo Garcia

Strictly average home grown guy. The Rays own his rights for another season or two without having to put him on the roster, and he's already in Durham, so he may be useful in the future. His ERA is a little better than his pitching.

Mark Guthrie

Longtime loogy vet coming out of retirement. Looks like a balloon of Krispy Kreme that's been deflated a bit, and while he is a very effective loogy, he made his career by missing bats. Back in 2003, he didn't do that, but still had an unusually low ERA for a guy with a 1.45 WHIP. Walks a fair number of guys, and without averaging 9 Ks per 9 innings, he probably shouldn't be too effective anymore. Personally, I'd rather have Seay stick around - we've already invested a ton in him and he's been amazing for the past couple years outside of a few bad spots in the majors where he gave up almost every runner he inherited. Once he learns to handle that, he should be pretty good for a long time. With Seay around and Miller already locked up, he faces an uphill battle to make the roster, and he probably could have chosen a better place to try making a comeback.

Jimmy Haynes

Ooh, a 15-game winner. Outside of that 15 win season, he has a career 38% winning percentage. How was he different that season when he was a winner? Run support, mostly, and he cut down his walks by 1 per 9 innings. A not very good pitcher who had a fluke season. The rest of his career is more indicative of his true level, which is a guy who should be starting in AAA.

Brian Sweeney

Frankly, I'm surprised to see him here. His brief major league career consists of mostly very good relief outings. Doesn't strike out a ton of guys, but rarely kills himself, with a career minor league walk rate around 2.3. Pitched excellent in a hitters league last year, and probably deserves a good look. If he can approach his minor league stats last year in the majors, he'll be one of the top starters. Of course, he too faces an uphill battle coming here because his pure stuff isn't that great and he doesn't already have a roster spot. Still, if he sticks around in Durham and performs well, he should get a shot to be this year's Jeremi Gonzalez (2003 variety, not last year's model).

The rest of the position NRIs...

2005-02-12T23:20:00.000-05:00

Paul Hoover

Servicable backup catcher....in Durham. Purely a glove to catch the pitchers in spring training.

Tim Laker

Here's my chance to vent - we trade Chad Gaudin, a guy who has competed well at an age well below his level for his entire career, for Kevin Cash, a 27 year old who showed a hair of power in the minors and is known for his defense (aka throwing arm...his defense actually isn't that good, but I need to save something to complain about for the regular season). A few days later, we sign Tim Laker to a minor league contract. Unless Kevin Cash is the catcher of the future (please God, say it ain't so!) I can't understand for the life of me why we would want Cash over Laker who is (a) just as cheap, (b) a better hitter, (c) a better defender, (d) handles a staff better and (e) is more experienced at the one position where experience actually matters quite a bit. Of course he's not a starter, but I'd much rather have Laker as my backup than Cash.

Pierre-Luc Laforest for the trees

There seems to be two Pete Laforests:

1) Pete in international competition
2) Pete everywhere else.

I keep hoping he'll be able to put everything together. He's been one of the better catchers in the world in international play over the last few years, but then he spends last season with some awfully paltry numbers. Still, in the best case scenario, he could end up like a Todd Hundley type player (not including that freak season when he hit almost 50 home runs). Still, he's just as old as Cash and relatively useless defensively (although it seems that he handles a staff well, based on Durham pitchers' numbers), so he really needs to pick things up with the bat if he hopes to ever play a full season in the majors.

Dan Massiatte

Crash Davis without the mouth, wisdom, humor, or Kevin Costner's looks. Servicable backup catcher...in Montgomery.

Luis Ordaz

Spent all of last year as the utilityman in Durham; I see no reason why we shouldn't be expecting the same this year. .525 career major league OPS, and only had a satanic .666 OPS is durham last season, so I doubt he would do much better than his career numbers with an extended stay in the majors.

Shane Halter

Talked about him last time, have the brochure. There's a reason we didn't resign Damian Rolls, so I'm really not sure why he's here...

Earl Snyder

Here's a guy who's fairly intriguing - one of those waiver wire pickups who I feel like that, if he's given a shot, could be this year's Cal Pickering. Yes, he's already 28 years old and he has a career .565 MLB OPS (in 59 at-bats). However, the age may be a good thing - he's about to hit his peak as a player, and it's not as if the Rays are probably looking to keep him around for more than a season anyway. His batting average isn't that high, and he doesn't walk a whole lot, but he did have 79 extra base hits in Pawtucket last year, while calling an extreme pitcher's park home. In a neutral field, in the majors, playing a full season, he could probably be a .260/.320/.500 hitter right now, which would automatically make him one of the best couple hitters on the team. Makes me really glad that we're paying all of that money to have a weak-hitting shortstop playing third. As a bonus, can also swing to first; as a negative, he's another right-handed hitter.

Brandon Larson

A more experienced version of Snyder without as much pop and better defensively. Has a shot at making the team, but the more I look at the comps between him and Snyder, the more I'm pulling for Snyder. Not a great sign - his numbers declined pretty considerably last year. Considering how well he mashed for a few years in AAA before then and that he could never stick in Cincy despite two seasons of 1.000+ OPS in Louisville, I'm not sure that he would be able to hack it here.

Next up - the "pitchers"

Not related to Zach Braff in any way whatsoever...

2005-02-12T21:05:00.000-05:00

BRING OUT THE SCRUBS!!!!

In every year of their existence, the Rays have been, well, not so great. To say the least. There are a few other consistencies lately - a cheap owner, a manager who prefers veteran "talent" to guys who have raked in the minors, and a lot of guys who look like they should be in AAAA, if such a league existed. All of this adds up to usually getting some pretty decent non-roster invitees. I guess the thinking must be, "Of COURSE I can win a spot on the Rays, even though most other teams won't touch me with a 10-foot pole".

[Side note: Scott "Pullmyfinger" Radinsky used to be the lead singer of the band Ten Foot Pole - does that give him the all-time record for saves for a guy signed to Fat Wreck Chords?]

In any case, here's a bit of a round up of the Devil Rays non-roster invitees, because you know what they say, if you can't make it here, you can't make it anywhere....

The Outfield:

Here's one spot where there's some likelihood that a NRI will make the final cut due to the trade of Jose Cruise Jr. Obviously, Jonny Gomes and Joey Gathright aren't good enough to play in the majors (can you smell my sarcasm?), and certainly Matt Diaz should be dropped from the 40-man roster because he's much worse than the AA pitcher with a mid-relief ceiling coming off of major surgery. In any case, the envelope please...

Dee Brown

Once a former top Royals prospect, he hasn't exactly panned out in the bigs. Actually, he's been a pure flop. The one advantage he has is that he could potentially back up in centerfield to cover for Crawford, and while the team doesn't need a backup centerfielder yet, they'll need one at some point before June and who knows if they'll be willing to call up Gathright. His sterling .615 OPS in the majors is about as bad as it gets, unless you're...

Tom Goodwin

Once again, he can play center. And he's a wily veteran. Who had a .531 OPS. Who was never even close to league average as a hitter, even in his prime. When they were making this signing, they must have thought that his slugging percentage was his batting average or something. Because he's old and he's always sucked, he's probably a lock to make the team.

Marty Cordova

OK, it might be a stretch calling him an outfielder, but he's listed as one. He did have one good season back in 2001, but he's only played 35 innings in the outfield since 2003, and he didn't play at all last year. If he's healthy, he might be totally horrible. If not, at least he'll provide 'veteran presence' during spring training. Considering that we've already got 2 guys on the team who are essentially DHs who mash lefties and can't hit righties, he's definately on the squad. He'll probably jack 50 homers off that gimpy knee of his.

Shane Halter

He's a pure utility man and much more of an infielder, but he has played some outfield and that's the more glaring need, especially since he can back up in center. Here's another guy in his mid-30's with a sub-.600 OPS, but he's versatile. He'll certainly be able to plug in the gaping hole of inefficiency that Geoff Bum and Bobby Fick left behind, so I've already penciled him into my lineup. Probably a leadoff guy.

Damon Hollins

Journeyman minor leaguer, so he doesn't fit into the veteran mold. Can't back up in center. Can hit a little better than most of the guys listed ahead of him. Has a very low walks to strikeouts ratio, but has shown some power. While he's probably legitimately better than any of the guys I've listed up to this point, he smells like the guy to keep right field occupied in Durham until Delmon Young makes his way up there.

Chris Singleton

Hey, a CF option with an OPS above .600! He wasn't particularly good last season (or any other season, for that matter), and he's probably on the backswing of his career, but he's one of the two legitimate NRI outfield options, in my humble (and all-important and omniscient, when you're looking at this now) opinion.

Brian Buchanan

Not a great shot of actually making the squad because he's somewhat of a journeyman, spends too much time in the minors and can't play center, but probably the best player out of this bunch, at this point in time. Didn't play a whole lot last year, but he walks a lot and has some decent power and a very good arm. In fact, I'd say he's pretty much a Jose Cruise Control clone, plus a few years.

I'll look over some of the other positions in the future...

The Inevitable....

2005-02-12T20:01:00.000-05:00

Howdy y'all, and welcome to my Devil Rays and baseball in general blog. Lord knows I talk enough on all of the various Devil Rays message boards, so I guess starting one of these things would happen eventually. I'll try this out for a while, and hopefully I have some thoughtfulness to add here that I wouldn't just be posting on those various boards...