Of course I won’t post after he gets bombed.

Did Hanson steal your lunch money or something? You seem to have some personal issues with him

His raw stuff isn’t on the same level’s as Hanson’s. Hanson has better velocity and he has two excellent breaking balls whereas Mazzaro has an average slider and an iffy curve.

Mazzaro has a great sinker though and great command that lets his pitches play up, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that this means his secondary pitches are plus. They’re not, and if somebody knows he’s throwing slider, it’s going to be a lot easier to hit his than Hanson’s.

Personally I love his intelligence and poise, and he’s young enough to tighten up his repertoire. He’s at least a 3 for me and maybe better than that. But Hanson’s got the raw stuff to be a true frontline starter with good command. Could Mazzaro be better in the long run? He sure could . . .after all, he was a top 100 prospect, I would hope he could.

and I fought for him to go higher in the community list, but this is ridiculous. First, it’s annoying. 2nd, it was certainly justifiable for some people to want to wait to see if he could sustain that level of performance.

As for comparing stuff, well, let’s start with this. Having “stuff” doesn’t equate to performance/production. It simply is a way to discuss potential. It isn’t the only way, but to suggest that somehow K’s have less relevancy in the post-steroid era is ridiculous. The easiest way for a pitcher to control a game is still to strikeout a guy. You always take risk with balls inplay. I argued for Mazzaro, but to say his “stuff” is similar to Hanson’s? Don’t buy it. Not one sec. I’m not even particularly huge on Hanson (I mean, he’s good, but I think he’s been way overhyped - not overrated, but overhyped) but his entire arsenal, well, in terms of "stuff, I’d take it over Mazzaro’s. Only time will tell on who’s a more productive player.

….to dominate the Orioles isn’t particularly impressive.

It has been two weeks since any Oriole not named Luke Scott has hit a ball hard. Beating a lineup of hitters in the depths of a teamwide slump isn’t evidence of greatness.

P.S. Why the bitterness that the community merely named Mazzaro one of the 100 best prospects in baseball? Seems everyone thought he must be pretty good….

I find the uniform agreement wonderfully interesting.

Where a community chooses to uniformly agree, says a lot about it, don’t you think?

That is OK, soon this thread will be a distant memory and the author appropriately labeled a troll and a mis-communicator.

Groupthink
Learn it, Love it, Live it

not the point, but expected

As John said in one of his articles, it is not unreasonable at all to question a player that has only had 2/3 a season of success. Also, his stuff has obviously improved since updated scouting reports have come in about him, but back then 99 % of the community has not had the chance to see him in person. You cannot really fault anybody in that area for not knowing his stuff improved, which could explain the better results in 2008.

For this year, I find his K/BB ration extremely worrying(SSS of course but K/BB stabilises pretty fast). As another poster said, if you are letting that many balls be put in play, some are going to have bad results unless there is some special context. #3 potential by the way is pretty damn good(#1-5 starter projections being set levels of preformance in comparison to other starters in the league, not a #3 on an individual team).

Finally, there were some people in that first thread claiming he was the best pitching prospect on the As. I strongly disagree with that then and now. I would certainly take Cahill and possibly Anderson before him. Also, do no take the community list seriously, there was a lot of homerism with that(cough….. Rangers). It was a good source of prospect discussion and just that.

Mystify… Mistify me.

(Saying this in the most chilled out way possible…)