Toonster, are you seriously going to throw your UVA guy under the bus like that? tsk, tsk…

Haha, I’m just playin’.

In all seriousness, I like the tools that Doolittle has. I got to see him a few times and I think that his numbers in Midland were an aberration. He came back to have a GREAT AFL season where he was one of the younger players if I recall. Doolittle had 200 bad ABs sandwiched by a total of 450 very good ABs. I think that he at least deserves the time to see he potential. Remember this was his very first full season as a pro and his first full season as a batter. He’s working on adding more weight to add more power—again the first time he has the chance to do this because of being a pitcher with UVA. As far as his tools, he has very good speed for a 1B (speed that plays very well for RF) as well as a good arm and that stellar glove that everyone talks about. I could easily see him rounding out into a .290 hitter with more than a few HRs in the majors. As we see him get more seasoned as a hitter, I think we’ll see the hitting continue to stabilize.

there aren’t three A’s and 10 B+’s here, if the community prospect list is to be believed.

They’re going to be consensus top 20 prospects. Unless the prospect class is unbelievably weak this year, it’s hard to believe there aren’t at least that many grades of A or A-.

Christian has better range, but has had error problems. I really like Christian. He’s athletic, he hit well in his first stop (I like the doubles), has good plate discipline, and has the tools to be a good shortstop.

There is alot of talent in the system, but we don’t have 6 guys that are B+ or better. Donaldson’s bat could only warrant a B- grade if can stick at catcher. It’s not likely to much better than average anywhere else.

And I’m not as concerned about him being too hittable. Yes, he gave up a .343 in Midland, but Midland gave up a .323 BABIP as a team. Even Anderson had a .324 BABIP, and then there’s Henry Rodriguez’s .400 BABIP.

Second, I see Cardenas more as a B- due to his minor league numbers hinting at a very limited offensive potential.

I think they only hint that way if you ignore his age. Compare him to someone like Jason Donald, who you seem to be a fan of. Donald was 21 in the NYP league and 22 in the SAL/FSL. Cardenas was just 20 last year, and he played in the FSL/CAL/TEX.

So while Donald’s .300/.386/.491 line in the FSL looks better than Cardenas’ .307/.371/.441, you have to take into account that Donald was 2 years older. Cardenas would have to spend the next 3 years in AA to put himself on the Donald development track.

Cardenas has been one of the youngest players in his league at every stop, which suggests his offensive potential is better than his raw numbers indicate.

I would rather have either over Lars, Snider, Moustakas, Hosmer. If they aren’t earning A-s this year this year is has to be really quite short on As. I think that concensus is that Cahill is a top ten prospect and there are already 7 other As up on the board and a lot more teams to do.

So A/A- so far to compate to Cahill & Anderson:

Price

Or, at least I need to see more than 70 good/great (too many walks) innings at Low-A.

For a while I liked Cahill better but as I have looked back at the season I started to sway towards Anderson. His numbers have been good, especially in his short stint in AA. Everybody knows about his good control, but reports are that his fastball has improved and BA rated his slider as the best in the A’s system. I could see Anderson starting the year in AAA while I thnk Cahill still has some work to do in AA. Both are great pitching propects but I would give Anderson the edge.

And as for the grade, I think I would go with an A- but that might be a little home team bias. It just seems that if Cahill and Anderson are B+ how good would a prospect have to be go get a straight A? Seems like a pretty tough scale to me.

He’s so young that he could be a bust, then revive his prospect standing, bust again, and then finally turn out as a mid-rotation starter.

Of course, if he was a No. 3 starter, that huge signing bonus would still be worth it.

Horton’s a polished college guy with merely average defense at best. That batting line is pretty bad and unless he makes some sort of huge breakthrough Horton is pretty much a non-entitiy in this system.

the thing about Inoa is his lack of stats but also his development curve – as such he has nothing.OK he is a 1 in a lifetime guy because of his velocity/body type but how Many actually do pan ? That is why John is being conservative & rightly so.Till he has pitched at A level or above then his rating cannot IMO be above B/B+

There is also the “secret” reason Linked to many Caribbean players which is ‘is he really’ 16 …. A LOT of these guys are really 1/2 years OLDER than they claim & that does affect directly/indirectly their value & potential (see Tejeda but also Santiago Casilla).

Another factor in the Inoa ranking is the inherrent risk of injury for all young pitchers. As a 16, now 17, year old pitcher he has a lot of throws to put his arm through before he even sniffs the majors, when trying to rank him you have to take into account the chances that he suffers a major injury.

Not every pitcher has arm injuries but it is a risk that must be accounted for, and the farther away a pitcher is from pitching in MLB the higher that risk is.

I call serious bullshit.

To me, the problem with moving Cahill and Anderson to A- is, you have to move a slew of other similar pitchers there as well. I half jokingly said above that Bowden was way better than Cahill or Anderson. I can make a strong case for Bowden and about eight other guys with differing strong and weak points vs the A’s guys. This looks like a year for quantity on the pitching front. I can easily see David Price as a straight A and the #2 guy being a B+.

ANother issue is, if you move Anderson and Cahill to A-, you almost have to move Gio Gonzalez to B+ and Price to A+. The gap between Price/Anderhill is understated at A vs A- and the gap between Anderhill/Gonzalez is overstated at A- vs B.

B+ for Hosmer. Scouting reports are really good, but I want to give him a full season of evaluation before deciding whether he’s a “very good” offensive talent or an “outstanding” one. At the positions he could play, it’s a big difference.

However, I think Moustakas is well worth an A-. Slow start to the year, but I’m willing to chalk it up to an adjustment to level of competition and the natural discomfort of a Cali kid in the Midwest league. His overall line ended up looking very nice and he’s got plenty of time to improve on that.