Luke French and Mauricio Robles

Makes it hard to give him the benefit of the doubt… Personally I think he’s a troll but I’d be happy to be wrong. We are talking about a guy who posted on the Seattle M’s site that the team would never go anywhere because they traded their best pitcher in Jarrod Washburn away….

I am by no means an expert. I make posts which tend to suck on occassion to those more knowledgeable than I. But, at the same time, to make a Chris Young (no way shape or form a prospect, not even within the last 3 years), and then rate Robles an A and French a B+ … If Robles was an A, then that makes Heyward, Stanton, Smoak A++++++++++++++ ? I will say its harsh to just rip this guy left and right, but at the same time at least give way to a solid argument on reasonable information, not just throw crap out there.

I always liked French and thought he was underrated (in the sense that he rarely cracked any publication’s top 30 prospects list in a weak Tiger system the past three seasons). Supposedly, this year he added a couple ticks to the fastball (which might be good enough to put it at mediocre). Given that, and his age per level, it’s possibly that his improvement this year is legit. He’s a smart pitcher that seems to control the strike zone well. I saw him a couple times and almost everything was down in the zone. This is necessary given his mediocre stuff. I think he could be a number 3 at some point, with fifth starter/lefty reliever more likely.

It’s too early to say about Robles. The K-rate has always been there (and the age/level is great), but the size/lack of a third pitch are concerns. We’ll see. It was a useful deal for both clubs.