BA International League Top 20 Prospects

by louief1 on Oct 11, 2006 12:57 PM EDT

Delmon Young, of, Durham (Devil Rays)
Lastings Milledge, of, Norfolk (Mets)
Jeremy Sowers, lhp, Buffalo (Indians)
Tom Gorzelanny, lhp, Indianapolis (Pirates)
Ryan Sweeney, of, Charlotte (White Sox)
Josh Fields, 3b, Charlotte (White Sox)
Hayden Penn, rhp, Ottawa (Orioles)
Andy Marte, 3b, Buffalo (Indians)
Humberto Sanchez, rhp, Toledo (Tigers)
Jamie Shields, rhp, Durham (Devil Rays)
Elijah Dukes, of, Durham (Devil Rays)
Scott Thorman, 1b/of, Richmond (Braves)
Brandon League, rhp, Syracuse (Blue Jays)
Jason Hammel, rhp, Durham (Devil Rays)
Dustin McGowan, rhp, Syracuse (Blue Jays)
Pat Neshek, rhp, Rochester (Twins)
Michael Bourn, of, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre (Phillies)
Dustin Pedroia, ss/2b, Pawtucket (Red Sox)
Charlie Haeger, rhp, Charlotte (White Sox)
Chris Denorfia, of, Louisville (Reds)

Thoughts? Is A.Marte ranked too low?

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Comments

Wow, The IL must have sucked this year

When it's top prospect was a player who only hit 8 HRs and was suspended for 50 games.

Also, how in the world is a knuckleballer(Haeger) get ranked in the Top 20? Did Charlie Zink ever rank that high?

by The Rocc on Oct 11, 2006 12:59 PM EDT reply actions

Haeger

Also, how in the world is a knuckleballer(Haeger) get ranked in the Top 20?

I don't quite get this argument. From the writeup, it sounds like he does a decent job getting guys out.

by Flynn Blake on Oct 11, 2006 1:15 PM EDT up reply actions

Maybe in AAA

But seeing Haeger pitch in the majors, you wouldn't get that impression.

by The Rocc on Oct 11, 2006 1:38 PM EDT up reply actions

yeah

whats up with rookie pitchers getting hit around in their ML debuts...

and why dont these league prospects lists focus on things that happened outside of their league

by nms on Oct 11, 2006 2:00 PM EDT up reply actions

Judge NOT on one game...

IP H R ER HR BB K ERA WHIP BAA
Pre All Star 4.1 5 6 5 0 6 2 10.38 2.54 .278
Post All-Star 14.0 7 4 2 0 7 17 1.29 1.00 .146

by cooper7d7 on Oct 11, 2006 2:15 PM EDT up reply actions

you wouldn't have got that impression from Rich Hill's first couple of outing either. Just cause the kid doesn't hit the ground running, it doesn't discount his skills or allow for an adjustment period.

by slurve on Oct 11, 2006 4:45 PM EDT up reply actions

Thoughts

TWO White Sox players ahead of Marte? I'll put the over/under on "number of paragraphs in indiansfan's response to the list" at 5.5.

Sweeney at No. 5 is a pleasant surprise and should be much appreciated by everybody who's backed him for years as a guy who's only needed physical maturity to catch up with his pure hitting ability.

Haeger might be a knuckleballer, but I don't think it would be shocking if he turned into the next Wakefield and if that's the case, then yeah, I think there's room for him at the back of the list.

I'd consider Gorzelanny over Sowers, although it's mostly a matter of better stuff there. Nice to see that he's getting well-deserved praise, though.

Not sure what to think about Pedroia at this point . . .I didn't really get a chance to see him, and I'd love to hear some Red Sox fans comment on what they saw of him here.

by mrkupe on Oct 11, 2006 1:15 PM EDT reply actions

marte:

I saw somewhere that the Indian's AAA coach said that his swing plane was off from where it was before and he was not getting consistent fat barrel contact because of it. Marte's patience and BA ability is never gonna be great, so if he's not doing a good job centering the ball he's gonna struggle. If the managers/scouts saw the different bat plane and thought its a legitmate problem, then its an understandable problem.

by jspearlj1 on Oct 11, 2006 1:38 PM EDT up reply actions

5.5?

Indiansfan can't say Hi and by for less than that. I'll take the over.

Pedroia, if he does stay in Boston, will be very valuable for the team. 40-45 doubles with that stadium is well within reach. Good to above average D. +OBP, maybe a few years of some homers in the 20s, most probably less. For fantasy counting stats (what many people look at), he's not going to be anything to write home about. His work ethic so far has been reported to be very good and scrappers are always beneficial for a team (see Knoblock, Eckstein..), most team's that win have at least one of those guys that spark plug you through slumps.

His injuries are a concern, but I'm betting next year he breaks through. Unlikely to peak as a Mel Ott or Joe Morgan, but a good player for several years isn't unlikely.

BA is big on major impact ceilings (rightfully so, 12 mediocre spark plugs usually don't win you championships), so that ranking fits in with his value relative to the others if all the others make their ceilings. Big ifs and I would take him ahead of many ranked ahead of him from a personal preference standpoint for most teams. However, most teams want (and need) Albert, Manny or A-Rod more desperately than they can find or sign a guy like Pedroia. If an organization has a lot of high upside guys, Pedroia probably fits in much better to glue them together. At this point, Boston probably isn't that team, but they can fix that with their ability to acquire.

Marte should probably still be ahead of Fields, Penn and Sweeney, but all those guys all have some warts to me. I think 5 thru 8 is basically a tie.

My over is surpassed. Tag indianfans, you're it!

by roaddog on Oct 11, 2006 1:42 PM EDT up reply actions

good thoughts on pedroia

i dont see too much power though, but I think he will get the 2b job next year. Seems similar to the guy he's replacing in Loretta, not a lot of flash, but solid. He actually cuts loose on a lot of swings, which i was a bit surprised.

by SoCalSoxFan on Oct 11, 2006 5:43 PM EDT up reply actions

I saw Pedroia

in his first game at Anaheim. Stung the ball a couple of times, but right at defenders. He swings pretty hard, which was surprising since he's small. Reminded me of Marcus Giles a little bit. Comps to Eck didn't seem to fit except that's he's short. Maybe more of a John Valentin when he played for the Bosox.

by The Colonel on Oct 11, 2006 1:37 PM EDT reply actions

League

Any chance the Jays try League out as a stater again?

by joltin joe dimaggio on Oct 11, 2006 2:47 PM EDT reply actions

League

Im not that familiar with League, but he seems pretty similar to Wang with that hard, power sinker.

by sanchez101 on Oct 11, 2006 3:09 PM EDT up reply actions

league

havent seen league a lot, but from what i have seen he throws a lot harder than wang

wang is usually in the 92-94 range, can get as high as 96...league seems to be consistently above 95 and if i remember correctly even hit 100

league also slings the ball while wang is much more over the top

by nyybaseball99 on Oct 11, 2006 4:15 PM EDT up reply actions

Similar, but not that similar

Yes, they both feature a hard sinker, but League throws about 5mph harder and strikes out more than twice as much as Wang does.

Despite his success in the pen, I feel like his profile may allow him to be a successful starter. Since his sinker is so dominant, he can follow the mould of sinkerballers like Halladay, Webb, Lowe and Wang and be an above average/elite starter with just one excellent pitch. He will have a future in whatever role he pitches, but his value could be maximized as a starter as he has the potential to be a inning eater. However, if League is to be a starter, he would need to develop a change or a slow curve since right now he is a sinker/slider guy. Right now, his secondary stuff is rather ordinary.

by slitheringslider on Oct 11, 2006 6:23 PM EDT up reply actions

Thoughts on the list!

Hello everyone,

roaddog - I think mrkupe said "paragraphs," not words. :-) In fact, you could count your post as having 6 paragraphs, so you already surpassed my over/under, LOL! :-)

mrkupe - Actually, I don't have much problem with Marte being #8; as I've mentioned before on this site and elsewhere, I have concerns about Marte's ability to hit for average and to consistently produce. While I haven't seen enough of Sweeney and Fields to gauge whether I would rank them higher than Marte, I know they are highly-touted prospects, with Sweeney's main weakness being lack of power and Fields' main weakness being a higher-than-ideal K rate.

My guess on Sowers being ranked higher than Gorzelanny is because BA likes Sowers' ability to command his pitches; while Gorzelanny has better pure stuff, his command of it isn't close to Sowers' at this point, breaking the 3 BB/9 IP rate at AAA this year for the first time since being just under it at Williamsport in the NY-Penn League in his first professional season, which is why his career Minor League BB/9 IP is 3.00. Sowers' highest walk rate at any level was the 2.68 BB/9 IP he had at AAA Buffalo in 2006 (he only had a 2.04 BB/9 IP at the ML level,) leading to his career Minor League BB/9 IP of 2.11. BA probably thinks that Sowers' better command will translate to better overall success than Gorzelanny's weaker command of better stuff because, guys with better stuff but weak command often don't do as well in the Majors as guys with average stuff but solid to good command (for instance, compare Jamie Moyer to Odalis Perez.)

I'm not saying that Gorzelanny will duplicate Perez's lack of consistency or Sowers will duplicate Moyer's success, but I think that is BA's line of thinking at this point in regards to their rankings. If you can't command your stuff effectively at the ML level, it doesn't really matter how good your stuff is because ML hitters will likely not swing at it if it's out of the strike zone more often than not. Sowers has shown to have better command of solid stuff than Gorzelanny has shown to have of his better stuff, so that's probably why Sowers was ranked one spot ahead of Gorzelanny. Being that Sowers is 10 months younger than Gorzelanny and went 9-1 w/1.38 ERA compared to Gorzelanny going 6-5 w/2.35 ERA at AAA probably didn't hurt Sowers' case of being ranked higher than Gorzelanny either.

jspearlj1 - Yes, I've heard similar reports about Marte's swing; the Indians had identified Marte as being too pull-oriented and tried to work with him on using the whole field, which he started to display to some extent at the ML level. That's what he needs to master to be able to hit for the .270 AVG, 30 HR, 100 RBIs scouts are predicting for him.

Take care and have a great day!

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Oct 11, 2006 7:52 PM EDT reply actions