Prospect Retrospective: Tyler Greene, INF, St. Louis Cardinals

He's not a rookie or a prospect, but I want to take a look at St. Louis Cardinals infielder Tyler Greene, who raised some eyebrows by hitting a home run on a 101 MPH fastball off of Andrew Cashner Monday.

What was Greene like as a prospect?

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**The San Diego Padres promoted first baseman/outfielder Cody Decker from Double-A San Antonio to Triple-A Tucson today. He was hitting .286/.385/.662 for the Missions, with 14 homers, 21 walks, and 37 strikeouts in 133 at-bats.

A 25-year-old right-handed hitter, he was drafted in the 22^nd round in 2009 out of UCLA. He's always shown excellent power (28 homers, 35 doubles in Low-A in 2010, 15 homers in just 59 games last year) but scouts have never warmed to him. Defensive limitations, a "bad body" (he's 5-11, 220 pounds), and a propensity for strikeouts conspired to keep him off most prospect lists, plus he was drafted as a senior, and right-handed-hitting corner players can be tough to fit on a major league roster unless their bats are truly outstanding. Nevertheless, Decker has always hit well when healthy, and has certainly earned his way into a full Triple-A trial. He could make a lot of noise in the Pacific Coast League.

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The 10 round mock got a lot of comments and some asked for another version. Here it is. This time I went a little deeper and added some info thanks to Baseball America. Prior to the draft, I will do a mock of what I am hearing and not just randomized placements. This is more for general information than an actual projection.

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Here is a discussion question to get you started today: in the time you have been a baseball fan, who has been your biggest prospect disappointment? Why, in your view, did the guy fail?

Injuries are obviously a frequent factor here, especially for the pitchers, so try and come up with some names of players who didn't have significant injuries but disappointed you anyway.

I'll weigh in with my own ideas in the comment thread.

Prospect of the Day: Cody Buckel, RHP, Texas Rangers

Although many scouts harbor a traditional bias against short right-handed pitchers, some teams don't hesitate to invest in this demographic. Case in point: the Texas Rangers. One of their best prospects is Cody Buckel, a 6-0 right-handed pitcher who is currently dominating the High-A Carolina League.

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I want to point out this interesting piece of historical draft research from Nate Gilmore over at Puckett's Pond. Gilmore looks at high school hitters, high school pitchers, college hitters, and college pitchers, drafted in the first round from 1995 through 2008. He looks at both how often first-round picks in each category reach the majors and how successful they are once they get there.

Of particular interest, he concludes that college hitters are generally the safest investment, both in terms of their chance to reach the majors and their chance to thrive and become regulars or All-Stars once there. High school hitters are much riskier and don't become strong contributors as often as the college players.

Of the moundsmen, high school pitchers are far riskier than their college counterparts, with a large chance (about 45%) that they will fail completely and not reach the majors at all. However, the high school pitchers who do survive Darwinian selection in the minors and reach the majors, become stars more often than college pitchers. Drafting high school pitching is very much a high risk/high reward endeavor.

Gilmore also looks at how long it took players from each category to reach the majors. Take a look at his study, it is very interesting.

Kerry Wood's retirement got me thinking about Texas high school pitchers, so I put together a little list.

Here is a summary of all Texas high school pitchers drafted (and signed) in the first round from 1981 through 2010. Take a look and draw your own conclusions.

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