2011 Sleeper Alert! List Review, Part Two

by John Sickels on Jul 18, 2025 12:00 PM EDT

2011 SLEEPER ALERT! LIST REVIEW, Part Two

Every year in the Baseball Prospect Book, I point out players who I think are particularly good sleepers who could break through unexpectedly. Sometimes then pan out (Dan Hudson for example), sometimes they don't, but I try very hard to get ahead of the curve on players like that, especially pitchers.

Let's review the Sleeper Alert! list from the 2011 book (which you can still order by the way!). Here are the second 15 alphabetically and we will review all 59 players as the week moves forward. I'm including a brief mention for each player of the reasons they were on the list, if it was stats, scouting reports, intuition, or some combination thereof.

John Gast, LHP, St. Louis Cardinals: 3.95 ERA with 59/28 K/BB in 82 innings for High-A Palm Beach, but stronger numbers after moving up to Double-A, 2.70 ERA with 22/6 K/BB in 20 innings for Springfield. 1.54 GO/AO combined. Age 22. Looks very good right now, rating was based on statistics, scouting, and intuition.

Ismael Guillon, LHP, Cincinnati Reds: 5.66 ERA in 21 innings for Billings in the Pioneer League, 16/18 K/BB, 23 hits, 1.93 GO/AO. Age 19. Numbers unimpressive so far due to command problems but sample is small. Rating was based on statistics and scouting.

Ben Heath, C, Houston Astros: Hitting .245/.306/.404 combined between Low-A Lexington and High-A Lancaster, 18/58 BB/K in 208 at-bats, has thrown out just 16 percent of runners. Disappointing in all respects. Age 22. Scouting reports about a troublesome swing turned out more accurate than good stats.

Cesar Hernandez, 2B, Philadelphia Phillies: Hitting .261/.299/.331 with 15 walks, 49 strikeouts, 12 steals in 291 PA for High-A Clearwater. Playing very well defensively. Age 21, still has time to improve. Rating was based on stats and scouting.

Kane Holbrooks, RHP, Minnesota Twins: 5.09 ERA, 44/25 K/BB in 88 innings, 116 hits for High-A Fort Myers. Very disappointing in most respects, K/IP and H/IP marks have slipped dramatically. Age 24. Rating was based on stats and scouting.

Mario Hollands, LHP, Philadelphia Phillies: 4.44 ERA, 63/27 K/BB in 79 innings for Low-A Lakewood, 90 hits. Blah performance so far. Much more effective when used in pen (2.70 ERA, 16/6 K/BB in 17 IP, 10 hits). Age 22. Rating was based on mix of stats, scouting, and intuition.

Deryk Hooker, RHP, St. Louis Cardinals: 6.14 ERA with 27/14 K/BB in 37 innings for Double-A Springfield. On disabled list since mid-May. Age 22. Rating was based on stats and scouting.

Drew Hutchison, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays: 2.99 ERA, 99/27 K/BB in 93 innings, 85 hits split between Low-A Lansing and High-A Dunedin. Excellent season so far, moving rapidly up prospect lists. Age 20. Rating was based on stats and scouting.

James Jones, OF, Seattle Mariners: Hitting .234/.327/.360 with 13 steals, 37 walks, 87 strikeouts in 278 at-bats for High-A High Desert. Pattern similar to last year, very slow start, but heating up now, .298/.362/.488 in last 22 games. Age 22. Rating was based on stats and scouting.

Su-Min Jung, RHP, Chicago Cubs: 5.36 ERA with 19/24 K/BB in 44 innings for Low-A Peoria, just demoted to short-season Boise. Age 21. Rating was based on stats and scouting, he succeeded in Low-A last year so command slippage is disappointing.

Steve Kent, LHP, Atlanta Braves: 7.77 ERA, 37/9 K/BB in 49 innings, 74 hits for Low-A Rome. At the same level in 2010, he had a 0.69 ERA with a 54/8 K/BB in 39 innings. 22 years old, was released in June. Sleeper rating was based mainly on stats, sudden collapse in performance at same level followed by release is weird.

Austin Kirk, LHP, Chicago Cubs: 2.95 ERA with 89/24 K/BB in 104 innings for Low-A Peoria, 80 hits. Threw no-hitter on July 4^th. Age 21, having a very nice breakthrough year. Rating was based on stats and scouting.

Tom Koehler, RHP, Florida Marlins: 5.44 ERA, 70/56 K/BB in 98 innings for Triple-A New Orleans, 96 hits. Walk rate has shot way up this year. 25 years old. Rating was based on stats and scouting.

Kyle Lotzkar, RHP, Cincinnati Reds: 5.71 ERA but with nice components, 36/11 K/BB, 29 hits in 35 innings for Low-A Dayton. Live-arm guy making progress in injury recovery. Age 21. Rating based mostly on scouting.

Big hit with this second group of 15 was Hutchison, Kirk and Gast are solid, but lots of disappointments too.

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Read More: Steve Kent (P - COL), James Jones (RF - SEA), Tom Koehler (P - FLA), John Gast (P - STL), Cesar Hernandez (2B - PHI), Drew Hutchison (P - TOR), Ben Heath (C - HOU), Philadelphia Phillies, Minnesota Twins, Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners, Houston Astros, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, Miami Marlins, Atlanta Braves, Chicago Cubs

Comments

Drew Hutchison

Law had Hutchison in his top 50 recently, he’s really rising.
John is he a top 50 prospect in your opinion?

by FenixL on Jul 18, 2025 12:23 PM EDT reply actions

Maybe.

Maybe. I don’t like doing mid-season Top 50s.

by John Sickels on Jul 18, 2025 1:15 PM EDT up reply actions

James "2nd Half" Jones

needs to figure it out. He cannot just be good for only half a season, especially not in the Cal league.

Leader of Drew Vettleson fanclub

by Marinerfanjake on Jul 18, 2025 12:23 PM EDT reply actions

Lotzkar

is a guy I’m keeping a keen eye on as well.

by RedHopeful on Jul 18, 2025 1:40 PM EDT reply actions

Austin Kirk

C+/B- guy at this point? His scouting reports make him sound like a future #4 at best.

by Outshined_One on Jul 18, 2025 9:59 PM EDT reply actions

yeah

by John Sickels on Jul 18, 2025 10:10 PM EDT up reply actions

B-

I think John already graded him C+ going into into this season. He deserves a bump.

Play ball!

by tmannino on Jul 18, 2025 11:48 PM EDT up reply actions

You realize you're responding to John, right?

by dnc on Jul 19, 2025 1:27 AM EDT up reply actions

How do you evaluate your picks and adjust?

John, this is a question about how the sausage is made. Understanding that the definition of a “hit” in regards to grading your sleeper picks can be whatever you want it to mean, do you have a % in mind when evaluating your list of sleepers that help you adjust your future lists? i.e. do you say: "ok, i hit on 25% of my picks; therefore, I’ll be more/less liberal with my picks?

by slacker george on Jul 19, 2025 7:09 AM EDT reply actions

well

Well to be honest I’m still working on exactly how i want these things to work. I seem to expand the Sleeper list every year, but I’m not certain that is the right approach at all and was thinking about having fewer players next year. I’m also trying to see if mixed picks, scouting-based picks, or stats-based picks do better.

by John Sickels on Jul 19, 2025 10:19 AM EDT up reply actions

Now that you mention it, it does seem like you have a lot of sleepers. BA does 1 per team in their book (30) so I’m not sure how the actual numbers match up.

Maybe you can just cap your sleeper list at an arbitrary number, make a list of the guys you think are sleeper worthy, rank them top to bottom, and make a cut?

I don’t personally think it is a problem to have a bunch of sleepers because that is what interests me the most (guys that people aren’t talking about much yet). I found the sleeper lists/articles very interesting.

by jfish26101 on Jul 19, 2025 12:49 PM EDT up reply actions

I actually like a lot of sleepers.....

So, hopefully, you wouldn’t cut it down to a one prospect per team as was suggested.

Maybe, if you are comfortable with it, you could have two tiers of sleepers — a “Prime Sleeper” category and a “Deep Sleeper” category.

You could have the 30-40% that you feel most strongly about as “Prime Sleepers”, and then the rest as “Deep Sleepers”.

It’s easy to be hard on yourself if you treat all sleepers on the same level, when they actually aren’t on the same level. This would allow you to be aggressive on the ones you want, and have a category for the ones that you like, but would need to have more things break for them to succeed.

Just a thought …… Love the reviews.

by Ryno1984 on Jul 19, 2025 3:10 PM EDT up reply actions

FYI, I wasn’t suggest 1 per team, simply giving a reference point to compare against.

by jfish26101 on Jul 19, 2025 3:24 PM EDT up reply actions

I’m sorry — I didn’t intend to bash your suggestion, although it did come out that way. I probably should have directed it more to “what BA does” than “what was suggested”. My apologies.

by Ryno1984 on Jul 19, 2025 4:18 PM EDT up reply actions

Thanks for your work

I’m in a deep Strat league, and based on your sleeper lists, I’ve obtained the following players. So whatever your doing, it works for me. Some wore acquired in trade, some through IFA, some in Rule V.

2008: Charlie Furbush, David Hernandez, Henry Rodriguez, Heath Rollins
2009: Joseph Cruz, Kennil Gomez
2010: Carlos Perez (TOR), David Phelps

Guys I obtained before they showed up in your sleeper lists: Josh Judy, Wilking Rodriguez

by slacker george on Jul 20, 2025 7:13 AM EDT up reply actions