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Around SBN: Home State Advantage in March Madness

Tell us what you think! Bullpen Banter


Over the past several weeks, I haven't been posting as frequently as I would have liked. However, I'm happy to announce that myself (JDSussman formerly Metty5), Alskor, Gatling, and MrKupe have been putting together a baseball website called Bullpen Banter. Together, the four of us have posted well over ten thousand times on this site and have had great experiences here. 

About Us from our site:

The Bullpen Banter Team is dedicated to providing outstanding baseball analysis from various points of view. Our website hosts both a chat room and a forum so our readers can constantly interact with a knowledgeable and vibrant baseball community. Each writer represents a different area in the country which provides a unique ability to gauge the thoughts of both the mainstream media and the fans in the region. Additionally, we are always open to new ideas and voices, so feel free to submit a guest piece.

Star-divide

Currently, we have our top 25 prospects written up. Here is a sample for Mike Stanton:

 

Notre Dame High School has produced its fair share of notable baseball players. The most famous include Cy Young winner Jack McDowell, 1968 first overall draft pick Tom Foli, and the general manager of the '92,'93, & '08 World Series champions, Pat Gillick. Giancarlo Cruz- "Michael" Stanton has the potential to be among those names with his combination of athleticism and elite power. Stanton is young but relatively polished for a former football star who didn't concentrate fully on baseball until being drafted by the fins 79th overall in 2007. Stanton has deposited 68 baseballs over the fence in first three seasons and is arguably the fourth or fifth best player today from his draft class.

Steve Kuperman: Grade A easy for me, No. 4 on my list currently. If he had played in the FSL the entire year nobody would be asking questions, as he managed to absolutely crush the ball in one of the worst hitters' parks in the minors while cutting his strikeouts substantially. The guy gets tons of praise for work ethic.

JD Sussman: I disagree with your point on Stanton's contact issues. While he has been great thus far, I foresee his contact issues and poor pitch recognition limiting him offensively. What keeps him ranked so highly is that he should have solid defensive value in both his arm and his range. For me, he has the highest bust rate of any player int he top 10. If those issues really hurt him, in a years time he could be pretty far down the list, despite his accomplishments at a young age. I have him slightly lower at 9.

Michael Herrick: I can understand you knocking Stanton down a few spots due to the contact/strikeout issues, JD.  I know the High A stint is a SSS, but his K rate wasn't horrible there.  I think as long as he's not rushed too far, too fast the plate discipline can improve some, at least into a somewhat manageable <30% type of range.  I guess I tend to see him as more of a .260 hitter in the bigs as opposed to something in the .230 range.  That power is just such a valuable tool though, I really can't see him lower than 5.

Al Skorupa: Strikeouts a concern? Yes. Special bat despite that? Absolutely.

His 80 power is something that we can be fairly certain will come with him to the majors. He does enough other things well to still project as an offensive force despite some questions about his contact ability, patience and strikeouts.

Stanton is plenty athletic and a good fielder. He could very easily end up the best major leaguer out of the top 5 prospects, but I'm not ready to bet on that just yet.

 

We will also be previewing the AL and NL East this week starting with the Nationals and Blue Jays.

 

Register and let us know what you think! You can also follow us on twitter.

Thanks!

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I like the formatting of the site, as well as the discussion on the picks. I’m not trying to be a dick, but are you going to give BA some kind of credit for writing the blurbs? I’ve only read one so far, but as soon as I read about Ryan Westmoreland on your site:

(Ryan Westmoreland wasn’t heavily scouted his senior year of high school, with the Red Sox being one of only 4 teams that actually talked with him. He had a commitment to Vanderbilt that was considered very hard to get him to break, as evidenced by his $2 million bonus demands. The Sox rolled the dice on the kid from their backyard, taking him in the 5th round in 2008. They didn’t rush to sign him, instead waiting until he crushed the ball on the summer ball circuit and then signing him right at the August 15th deadline. Westmoreland underwent shoulder surgery in November 2008 to clean a pre-existing issue which led the Sox to have him DH during his pro debut at Lowell in the New York-Penn League. Late in August 2009 he suffered a broken collarbone after crashing into the outfield wall but should be 100% healed and healthy for the start of the 2010 season. Westmoreland is a true 5 tool talent and should get to show them all this year, starting out in Low A Greenville.)

That felt like I had read it before somewhere…

BA Wrote:
“Westmoreland drew relatively little interest as a high school senior in 2008. He showed interesting athleticism at the Area Code Games the summer before, but didn’t stand out. His commitment to Vanderbilt, $2 million asking price and the weather-related difficulties of scouting a Rhode Island prep player meant that few teams focused on him in the spring. One of just four clubs to talk to him directly, Boston selected him in the fifth round. Westmoreland joined the Bayside Yankees, one of the nation’s top amateur teams, for the summer, giving the Red Sox more time to evaluate him. After watching him hit .557/.658/.918 for Bayside, they considered him the equivalent of a top-five-overall pick and gladly paid him $2 million at the Aug. 15 signing deadline. A pre-existing injury to his throwing shoulder turned out to be a torn labrum and required surgery in November, so Boston had him mostly DH during his pro debut at short-season Lowell in 2009. Westmoreland rated as the New York-Penn League’s top prospect after exuding five-tool potential. The only negative came on Aug. 28, when he broke his collarbone crashing into the outfield wall while making a catch. Westmoreland didn’t do any further damage to his shoulder and should be healthy for spring training.”

When I do my recaps, I borrow from different sites as well, but try to use my own words and writing, while citing sources used. Again, I’m not trying to be difficult, as I really like the site; it’s just that the first guy I clicked on and read sounded really familiar, and indeed was to BA.

by killa on Mar 1, 2026 2:59 PM EST reply actions   0 recs

I'll take the rap for that one

I did glean a lot of my info from the BA writeup as most of it wasn’t things I’d heard either here or from the BP writeups on the Red Sox the last two years(this is the first year I’ve subscribed to BA, had a BP membership for a few years). I know it’s considered ok to link to material from BA and BP here in comments and such, or in FanPosts even, but I wasn’t sure how it would looked at if I did that in my writeup for the site. I admittedly screwed up there and will correct that and give BA credit for the info, he wasn’t a guy I was very familiar with and I found alot of their info to be very interesting and thought others might as well.

Thanks for pointing that out though, and I’m glad to hear you enjoy the site that JD put so much work into formatting and setting up.

http://bullpenbanter.com

by gatling on Mar 1, 2026 3:25 PM EST up reply actions   0 recs

Ok, I credited BA and made a few adjustments.

If you get a chance and can check it out again, I’d like to hear back on this. Thanks again for pointing out the mistake though, I did try to convert the pertinent and interesting info into my own words but I obviously didn’t do a very good job there.

http://bullpenbanter.com

by gatling on Mar 1, 2026 3:46 PM EST up reply actions   0 recs

Saw the update

I think that’s fine. I just wanted to make you aware, and you responded very well. On my lists/articles, I cite in the intro or make a source list at the end, so I don’t have to work it in to each player blurb, but there are plenty of ways to do it. Again, like the site. I haven’t had much time to read a lot of the articles yet, but am excited to once I get some down time. I definitely respect the authors’ work on this site, and you all seem well-informed with good viewpoints. Good job guys!

by killa on Mar 2, 2026 7:18 AM EST up reply actions   0 recs

Thanks for the reply

I appreciate the way you pointed out my screw up, as it was unintentional and needed to be addressed quickly. Thanks for the kind words as well, we’ve put some real time into getting things together and the response so far has been great.

http://bullpenbanter.com

by gatling on Mar 2, 2026 12:16 PM EST up reply actions   0 recs

Vistors

We’ve had 100 minor league ball users come to the site! Thanks guys. Tomorrow we’ll have the fourth place teams posted. Feel free to register and leave us your thoughts.

www.bullpenbanter.com
Follow me at http://twitter.com/JDSussman
Follow the site at http://twitter.com/bullpenbanter
Remember: baseball guys... baseball...

by JDSussman on Mar 1, 2026 6:43 PM EST reply actions   0 recs

Stanton

Im surprised there isnt more concern on his contact issues. Its not just the strikeouts but the very low singles rate. Hitters in the minors can feast on mistakes and get a lot of hard hit balls on that. But very low singles rates seems to be an outlier to me. Top that up with high k rates and IF flies and you have a serious red flag. A very good prospect but not in the top 10.

by pedrophile on Mar 1, 2026 8:19 PM EST reply actions   0 recs

If You Ever

Need a guest appearance, I’ll be glad to pop in ;)
Great site btw.

Hey guys, I run a music blog. alternative, powerpop, punk, electronica, screamo, etc etc, check it out. http://muzikdizcovery.blogspot.com/ artist interviews and many other stuff. free cookies! (not really, but still) :D

by cwhitman412 on Mar 1, 2026 10:01 PM EST reply actions   0 recs

We would welcome it!

We strongly believe in giving anyone a platform to display their work. Shoot us an e-mail and we’d be happy to host some work.

Submit@bullpenbanter.com

www.bullpenbanter.com
Follow me at http://twitter.com/JDSussman
Follow the site at http://twitter.com/bullpenbanter
Remember: baseball guys... baseball...

by JDSussman on Mar 1, 2026 11:24 PM EST up reply actions   0 recs


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