OMG teh velocity is down. He is teh suck.

Because I saw Bumgarner pitch a lot this year and I’m not too impressed with him. I’ll take Wheeler’s upside.

I’m hoping he is innocent too, but as I noted above, he only needs to get off to restore his prospect lustre (what is left after this horrible situation he got into).

Aside from his legal problems (and they are even larger than his ample body), he did OK in 2009. People forget that he’s only 18 years old competing against pitchers who are mostly 22-24 years old, and a good portion older. He was the only 18 year old to qualify and be in the Top 100 in OPS (he was 83rd, not that great, but remember, his age difference).

Yet, despite missing basically half the season, plus appears to be injured for a while too (his OPS was actually pretty good, around 800 for two months then fell off the cliff, suggesting that he was battling an injury of some sort, and he did finally miss the rest of the season with an injury), he still hit 9 HR, and he would have been in the top 10-5 in HR total (again) had he continued at his rate but for a full season. So, at 18, in a league of 22-24 years olds, he would have still ranked among the league leaders.

People harp on his strikeouts, but Ryan Howard started out like that in the majors, striking out a whole lot more than he walked, but it was his HR hitting (which, while Villalona will not match, is suppose to be in the 30-40 HR range, which is still pretty good) that made up for that. We are not looking for him to be great at getting on base, if he is average, that is acceptable, it is his HR hitting that we want him for, his power to drive in runners.

I think he’s been doing OK against much older competition and even if he took another 3-5 years to figure things out, he would still be only 21-23 years old. Howard was 25 before he started producing and 26 when he started his first full season in the majors, and I don’t think anybody is complaining about that.

Not that he’s on par with Howard, but Villalona is still very young and yet accomplishing much in the power realm already, which is usually one of the last things to develop for a hitter.

Scouts definitely love Peguero, but I think he’s got a full (healthy) year of good performance before he gets in the top-10, let alone the top-5.

subliminal homo-eroticism?

I like all three of those guys a lot but I think that at this point, the only one that would make my top 10 is maybe Runzler.

Yes, he’s older, but not a lot older, most players in the league were 18-20 YO, average pitcher’s age was 18.8 and average hitter’s age was 18.3. And among the leaders in the league, he was in the middle range of ages for the top 15.

Still, that normally would be a big negative so I understand your comment. Part of it is that he has played mostly 2B and CF, not as premium as SS or C, but still up there in the spectrum. Part of it is his amazing stolen base numbers. Of course, the level of competition is part of it, but still, 46 SB in 251 AB, wow. Part of it was his high OPS, above 900, ranking 13th overall.

The main thing are his walks and strikeouts. He’s always been able to keep his walks around where his strikeouts before, but before he struck out a lot more than a good hitter would. But this year he had 55 walks against 33 strikeouts in those 251 AB. That’s a strikeout rate of only 13%, which is pretty good, and, of course, anytime you get more walks than strikeouts, that is great, but a 1.67 ratio is out of this world.

Of course, this is the Dominican summer league, he won’t do that in the majors, but it stood out, along with his history of W/K being around 1.0, so I put him up that high.

I don’t think that he will fly up the system in 2 years, though, but a hitter that can control his AB like that is pretty rare. Now he has to do the same as he rises up the system against similarly aged players. And even if it took him another 5 years, he would be 25-26 when he made the majors. I mean, when you are getting past the Top 3-5 or so prospects, there are usually severe issues with their prospecthood that they are going to need to overcome just to make the majors, let along be a starter or a good player.

I put him above, say, Gillaspie, who I see above, because 1) I’ve never been as sold on him as others, 2) he hasn’t really produced as a pro, 3) he doesn’t really profile to be good anywhere on the field, too little power to be at 3B, not good defensively at 2B. I don’t see him being anything more than a bench guy at best.

I put him above Sanchez because, while Hector was young for his league, his discipline was not that great. I think you are right about his position and age relative to Willoughby, and he did pretty well being young relative to the league. Part of the reason I had him below Willoughby was because he was so far down from the top than Willoughby, but his plate discipline, while good, is not that great, he had 16 walks and 21 strikeouts in 117 AB, 18% strikeout rate. While that is not horrible by any means, he is not far from the 15% or lower that you want to see, still you would like to see better bat control.

But once you get past the 10th prospect, really, we are probably splitting hairs, there are so many issues with the prospects that will need to be resolved before they sniff the majors. I could probably jumble up the 4 guys I have there and not see why it fell that way. I probably should have just left it at that and just listed their names as ones to watch.

The reason I have Kieschnick lower is because he was 22 YO and did not dominate in Advanced A, where the average age is 23.0 for pitchers. .867 OPS is nice but not a sign of dominance in the Cal League. Plus, Kieschnick’s main negative coming out of college was his lack of discipline and he still shows that with 139 strikeouts in only Advanced A. I love his 24 HR but that shrinks with each level and the K’s rise, not good unless you had 40+ HR in this league. His MLE has him at 162 K’s and 16 HR.

I put Noonan above him because he was only 20 YO and he was figuring out how to take walks while avoiding strikeouts his last two months. I think he’s more likely to make the majors than Kieschnick right now.

My tendency is to keep relievers below the Top 10 unless he’s closer worthy and close. Stoffel is closer worthy but still far away and didn’t really pitch that many innings.

I put Izturis up higher because he is a position player who hit nicely, particularly OBP, in rookie ball at age 19 YO vs. pitchers average 20.8 YO, plus I had read that he played defense well. I think that rubric about position players value being much over relievers hold.

Joaquin is over the other two because he’s basically on the doorstep of the majors, if only he can figure out how not to walk guys, a step that Billy Sadler could never figure out while with us, so there is no guarantee there. Plus they are all the way down in rookie ball.

Sanchez I can’t remember why I had him that low, as it don’t make sense looking at his numbers, position, ranking in league, and league now. I’m thinking now I would put him in Izturis’ spot and move everyone down one. Thanks, good point.