Maybe not guys his size, because they’re usually 2 years younger when they sign, but guys with his contact, power, and speed come out every single year. If he was this rare prospect you’re making him out to be, he would have certainly gotten a bigger bonus than 1.6 MM. Guys get that sort of money every single year now.

Of course relief pitchers are going to post insane whiff rates. They can go all out for an inning and never have to face the same twice in the same game. Yeah, its a small sample size, which is why I’m not claiming he has elite swing and miss stuff for a starter. Combined with his minor league K rates though, it certainly supports the idea that he has much better stuff than you are giving him credit for.

Also, those lineups don’t swing and miss nearly as much as you’re trying to act like. In fact, 5 of those 9 starts are against teams that were top 5 in the NL (excluding the Braves) in lowest swinging strike rates.

I wasn’t saying Minor sits 91-93 right now, but he did do it at times during the season. As you mentioned, when you saw him, he sat 89-93. Simply eliminating the low velocity pitches with more consistent mechanics would get him to that level. BTW, remember how I compared Minor to 2008 Johan Santana in terms of stuff? Santana averaged 91.2 that year, while Minor was at 90.9 this year. LHP with good velocity and a great change is a fairly rare commodity and it can certainly make for more than a middle of the rotation starter.

You tried arguing that a top 10 pitcher is barely more valuable than a top 100 hitter, conveniently leaving out that the same stats you’re using say a pitcher in the 26-50 range is worth more than a pitcher in the top 10. Do you think we’re suddenly going to start acting more excited over guys outside the top 25 instead of top 10 guys because people screwed up in the past? No, we’re going to try and figure out where they screwed up and change the thought process that led to the mistakes in the first place.

Pitchers don’t all carry the exact same chance of injury. That’s part of what I was getting at when I was talking about raw pitchers compared to high floor pitchers. Guys who haven’t proven they can handle 150+ innings a year are more likely to get injured than those that have. Guys that have made it past age 22 without a major injury are less like to get injured subsequently than someone who has only made it through their age 20 season. The other problem with older pitching prospect rankings is that they placed too much emphasis on ARL. Studies show that all age groups of pitchers tend to get worse, so we can’t make the implicit assumption that a young pitcher will automatically get better, which is part of the reason guys like Minor have been underrated in the past.

I’m more than willing to admit that I haven’t seen Salcedo play live, though the same can be said of just about everyone here with regards to just about every prospect we rank. I’ve watched Mike Newman’s video of him and it looks really, really ugly. Good players shouldn’t swing and miss nearly as much as he does, but its his first season so I’m not going to write him off because of it yet. Since I’ve seen little of him, I’m going to lean in large part on what guys with actual scouting experience say about him. Front what I can tell, they haven’t been overly impressed. Newman didn’t seem especially high on him and he seemingly missed the BA SAL top 20 despite having enough PT (maybe I missed something there though).

Do I have a scouting background? That depends on what you mean by that. Professionally, no I don’t, but I’ve spent plenty of time scouting for the youth baseball teams I coach. Do you have a scouting background?

And no, I’m not forming my opinion based on a 40 inning sample or some nebulous idea of “groupthink supported statistcs” (what the hell are those, anyway?). I’m actually get the feeling I’m higher on Minor than most, but not incredibly so. My opinion on him is based on much more than a 40 inning sample. Its based on the entirety of his work this year along with how I saw him pitch at the major league level. He clearly has very good stuff for a LHP. Guys that sit low 90’s with a swing and miss change aren’t plentiful. Like I mentioned, a solid breaking ball gets him to 2008 Santana level stuff, and his breaking ball flashes better than solid-average. He gets tons of swings and misses. Apparently hitters are a lot more impressed by his stuff than you are. Maybe you should focus more on what happens in the game and less on the “tools” that you see?

Also, nice job on that last sentence. Try and bring me down personally. Notice this entire time I’ve been mature enough not to say a thing about you personally. I even took the time to praise you for the work you do covering the Braves. Perhaps if you’re one of the “adults” doing the talking, you should be a little more mature about things, especially when you’re advertising your site in your sig.