mr. maniac's Top 30 Prospects of the Tampa Bay Rays

I am more of an upside whore though so he would be high up for me.

The Rays Venezuelan park appears to be hitter crazy, with the Rays team leading the league in HRs and Oscar hitting a ton of homers at home.

All we have on Oscar is a pretty stat line. But is there much difference between that league and HS competition?

They both recieve the same grade for me. 3-6 are all interchangeable to me.

I’m not the biggest fan of Martin. While his defense seems to be a positive heading forward, I am not a firm believer in his bat. While the Rays may think he is better, I am going to have to disagree. The Rays may be smarter than me, but prospecting is not an exact science.

Josh Sale’s year just appears fishy to me. I would not be surprised to see him comje out and have an excellent year next year. Truth be told, it he puts up another similar year, I might drop him off the list. His ranking is basically assuming that 2011 was an extreme outlier.

I prefer Sale to O’Conner despite O’Conner’s potential on defense. While Sale had solid discipline, O’Conner struck out at an incredible rate. His power is good, but the K rate makes me really really scared.

I would say his fastball is above average to plus, his changeup is plus-plus, and his curve is above average to plus.

However, I can’t ignore the fact that he has a huge control issue. If he could bring it down to 3/4 per 9 innings, that would be great. But at this point, his command/control is a serious issue. It is a testimony of his stuff that he has managed to keep his ERA low.

With that in mind, Guyer has a very nice stat line, but I have yet to be convinced he will hit at the MLB level. And if he doesn’t, you are looking at the fourth OF. Torres, likewise, has major concerns regarding control. It is entirely possible that he struggles at the MLB level, given that not every effectively wild pitcher translates well into the big leagues.

Obviously, you could bring the arguement that Romero has control problems and such. However, he showed progression throughout the year, and I think it is reasonable to expect him to gain some command.

I think Josh Sale’s year was a strange outlier. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him hit great next year.

but if he can maintain some offensive prowess and stay behind the plate the Rays could have themselves a gem.

He also lacks much stuff, having the upside of a 4/5 starter. His fastball has movement, but his offspeed pitches never developed as people hoped when he was ranked alongside Moore years ago.

This past year, his BB/9 took a scary rise. As someone who doesn’t strike out many batter, Barnese needs to limit the walks, which he failed to do.

Top 50, but not top 30.

I would have CJR in my top 30 but at the very back end of it with Barnese some where in the 35-40 range.

I did write up some notes on one of his games late in the year: http://bullpenbanter.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=477:milbtv-notes-82311-bowling-green-at-great-lakes&catid=18:articles&Itemid=11

He made some strides last year, and I heard good things from a guy who follows the team. Some guys never make enough adjustments to become future #1s (Colome looks like he might be an example), but a small amount do. I have a feeling Romero and Guerrieri can do that, so I ranked them very high while still holding off a little because of risk.

In a few years, it could be spot on or it could be a dreadful ranking.