I'm curious to find out what others think MJH is gonna do with the top 5 LHSP list, since his 6-10, which posted today, are
10. Phillips
9. Ballard
8. Geuris Grullon
7. Robbie Ross
6. Kiker

Do the Rangers even have 5 other LHSP in their system?

Obviously,
1. Holland
2. Perez
3.
4.
5.

Miguel De Los Santos is in the 3-5 range. I'm stuck on the last two. I suppose Juan Grullon could be up there.

FYI

Justin Smoak, 1B, Texas Rangers: He looked great too. Very mobile for his size, good swing with a slight but not extreme uppercut, excellent plate discipline. Teixeira-like outcome is quite possible.

Julio Borbon, OF, Texas Rangers: Showing much improved plate discipline and surprising power so far in Arizona. His athleticism and speed are obvious, and he has enough pop in his bat to avoid Gathrightdom. I'm not sure I totally buy into the improved plate discipline yet. I want to see how that holds up against more consistent pitching than he is seeing here.

Hardball Times has some batted ball statistic teasers to promote their 2009 Handbook.

A couple that are relevant to discussions here:

So, now that you know all that, what do you see? Well, there are two main types of fly ball hitters: those who are just about average or worse in all other categories (Howard is a prime example) and those who have above-average plate discipline (such as Lance Berkman, Grady Sizemore, Quentin and Carlos Pena). And you’ve got a few odd types, such as Ryan Ludwick’s line drive hitting and the ground ball prowess of Ryan Braun and Josh Hamilton.

Roy Halladay was phenomenal. He was a groundball pitcher who gave up eight fewer runs than average on ground balls! Kudos to that Toronto infield. Tim Lincecum struck out an amazing 29 percent of batters who faced him. Combined with a 10 percent walk rate, that means that only 60 percent of the batters who faced him batted a fair ball. No wonder he gave up less than average on every kind of batted ball.

Eighty-five percent of Justin Masterson’s ground balls were fielded for outs last year (the major league average was 74 percent). Don’t expect that to continue in 2009.

There has been alot of discussion about potential big trades involving the cathers and various highly regarded prospects. However, there are probably some opportunities for lesser trades that could continue the recent buffing-up of building the farm system.

An example would be a trade with the Rays to deal with their need for a RF. Here's a Hardball Times fluff piece on the Rays minor league depth. The portion that caught my eye is

At rookie-level Princeton, all left-hander Matt Moore did was strike out nearly 13 batters per 9 innings and post a 1.66 ERA. . . . The Rays have tons of flexibility now with their system. Everyone's looking for young pitching, and the Rays have plenty of it. The one hole it looks like they'll have, right field, could be filled by trading some of these prospects. Or, they could trade one of their back-end starters like Andy Sonnanstine or Edwin Jackson. Flexibility.

The Rangers have a few RF options. I'm sure the Rays would love to discuss Hamilton, but that would get nowhere as the Rangers would want Kazmir for that or Shields plus a couple highly regarded prospects. The Rangers also have Murphy, Byrd, Cruz, and Boggs. I'm not all that interested in Sonanstine or Jackson, but I'd be happy to flip Murphy, Cruz, or Boggs for a couple of their minor leaguers, including Matt Moore highlighted above.

So, the idea is to conglomerate the less than spectacular trade possibilities the Rangers could accomplish this offseason into this thread. Add any that come to mind, or discuss the one above.

BTW, someone like Jamey or MJH needs to write a glowing Rangers' prospect report for Hardball Times.

Yesterday afternoon (Saturday, October 4), MJH posted an interview with Rick Adair, the Ranger's minor league pitching coordinator. Lots of great, great stuff. This has been quite a streak of really good articles on pitching beginning last week with Newberg's reports from Instructs and JPs report yesterday plus his interviews with John Bagonzi. It's been overwhelming in a very enjoyable way.

Teasers ----

Adair on Main:

He's throwing an extremely high percentage of major league-quality pitches right now. Michael just has the ability to take in coaching, information and come up with ideas. His makeup is tremendous. Mentally he's easily the most polished guy out of high school I've ever been around.

I have to think the thought that went through MJHs mind at that point was "even more polished mentally than Danks?"

Adair on Wingding:

He's 17 and went through a lot over the past year or so. Think about where you or I were at that age, from the United States. We didn't have to deal with the sudden loss of family, turning professional, the expectations. It's not an easy transition for all of these kids. Wilmer's maturing and will continue to mature. He's got a lot of talent, but we've probably got four or five guys with more pure talent than Wilmer at this point.

Adair on Holland:

But everything we did with Derek worked and that's really a credit to him. He's got tremendous baseball intelligence. He understood from the very beginning what he was doing. You'd ask him a question and he'd give you a good answer. He understands pitching and his own body extremely well. He's very consistent not only in his approach to pitching and his preparation, but in his delivery. Every pitch, every game, in every situation, he looks the same. He worked extremely hard. He's extremely competitive..... Every now and then, somebody just comes along.... [long pause] Actually, I've never seen somebody improve so much, so fast in my time coaching.

What I take away from this interview is corroboration of what Parks and Newberg have seen this off season and reported about the level of pitching talent on the farm.

I feel very safe saying that Main is very likely to grow into one of the elite pitching prospects by the end of next season as Feliz and Holland did this year, though my prediction that he would slip ahead of Feliz by the end of this year doesn't seem likely even next year, due to Feliz's 'got it' year. Hopefully Main will get in 100-120 IP so that in 2010 he can taste the majors for a significant period. No sense wasting those "major league quality pitches" on the farm.

It seems almost equally safe to say that Feliz likely will be THE elite pitching prospect in the minors by the end of next year. Apparently, he needs to refine his arm angle on his curve ball to jump up to another level of dominance.

Holland seems poised to be in the mix for a call up next year. He seems to be on such a roll and polished enough in other areas (like holding runners) that it isn't inconceivable to think he could be on the fringe of the ML roster by the end of spring training.

The interview also addresses Kiker, Castillo, Reineir Bermuda, Joseph Ortiz, Beavan, NeRa, Perez, Boscan, Poveda, Hurley (the MLer not the recent draft pick), Brigham, KG, Hyatt, and Nolan Ryan. Not much missing. Miggy, Harrison, and Hunter are the only other intriguing stories this year that I can think of and that weren't mentioned.

I finally had a chance to see Main in action. I forced the fam to make the 1 hour 50 minute drive from Ames to Cedar Rapids to see the Lumberkings finish the season. As luck would have it, Main pitched one whole inning. Since I haven't heard that he left due to injury, I presume they kept him on schedule but limited him so he could start game two or three of the first playoff series.

When I go to these games, I just try to see which players are doing things differently than the other players on the field. Here's what stood out to me:

Smoak is a really big man. He has a very simple swing, at least from the left side. He doesn't run so well.

Main had the nicest pitching motion of the folks who pitched today (Main, Santana, Eppley, Castillo, Hamburger, Robert Fish, Chris Armstrong, Tim Kiely, Ismael Carmona, Leonardo Calderon). His fastball was the least hittable also.

Julio Santana had an unhittable slider, but a fastball that was very hittable.

Castillo looks like he's short-arming the ball.

No one else's bat speed compared to Cristian Santana's, not even Smoak. Santana is beginning to look a bit like Raul Mondesi.

 

Main warms in the pen before the game.

Santana watches knee-high heat from Main.

Julio Santana warms in the pen.

Cody Eppley warms in the pen.

Smoak swivels into his swing.

Moreland leans into his swing.

The Rangers are so unlikely to make the playoffs that I'm thinking through alternatives that would keep my attention until the baseball meetings in December. Of course, Rangers' minor league affiliates will be at the top of my postseason must-pay-attention list.

Other than that, I'm hoping for Rays, White Sox, Twins, Angels and Marlins, Cubs, Brewers, Dodgers. I've got the Dodgers in there just because I don't want all of California focused on the the Angels. In the World Series, I would love to see Twins-Brewers thumb their noses at the big market teams. I'll forget about ML baseball until the Winter Meetings if the postseason ends up with Red Sox, Yanks, White Sox, Angels and Philly, Cubs, Dodgers, Mets.

McCarthy in OKC late tonight. Hopefully this is his last start before joining the Rangers.

AZL Rangers cruise to a 7-2 win over the AZL A's behind nice outings from Ben Henry and Bobby Wilkins, who each threw 3 shutout innings.

Schlact in Frisco. Phillips in Bakersfield.

Anyone know why Boscan was taken out after just 0.2 IP tonight?

Nothing fancy here. Nothing fancy here. Nothing fancy here. It would be good if they had a word counter. Nothing fancy here.

US Squad
Teagarden
CD

World Squad
Elvis Andrus
Maximus

Nice to see the Rangers' representatives are hitters, since the real meat of the farm system is the young pitching. I had hoped Feliz would be on there, but I think these rosters are pretty stacked.

more stuff more stuff more stuff more stuff more stuff more stuff more stuff more stuff more stuff more stuff more stuff more stuff more stuff more stuff more stuff more stuff

A lot less to talk about today on the farm. However, my main man Main makes his first start this year for the Arizona team, where he would've been rated the top prospect last year by BA if he had pitched enough innings to qualify. Ditto for the Northwest League.

Arizona Rangers Box

Elsewhere, grandpa Kirkman goes for Spokane, Loe goes for the Redhawks, Frisco is off, and the Cal league has its All-Star game tonight.

It's hard to get past all of the pitching on the farm, but one young hitter that has caught my attention is Eric Fry, who is an OF for Spokane. Before the season last year, JD mentioned Fry as a sleeper in the system. He was unimpressive as a 19-yo in both the Arizona and Northwest leagues. He has taken the Northwest League by storm this year, posting a .318/.400/.636 line in 22 AB. That's an OPS of 1.036, which ranks 6th in the league.

Fry was drafted in the 33rd round in 2006, after his sophomore season at San Jacinto JC, where he played CF. He signed at the last minute, passing on a commitment to Oklahoma State. Like Ed Koncil this year, Fry is described as a vocal leader on his JC World Series teams that brings athleticism and power to the table.

Fry was drafted in the 25th round in 2005 by the Tigers. Below is his MLB.com description:

29th round -- Eric Fry, CF, Barbe HS, Lake Charles, La.: Despite his 5-foot-10 height, Fry is seen as an athletic outfielder who has a chance to hit in the pros. He was rated the 26th best draft-eligible prospect in Louisiana by Baseball America. He becomes the 10th player drafted from the school since 2001.

Also, I think a mid-season top-25 prospect list will be posted at MVN today, which should generate some discussion.