Minor League Ball Gameday, June 19

Good morning prospect watchers. Let's get down to business.

***I looked at the pre-season sleeper list last night and this morning and reviewed it in three parts.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

I am glad when guys like Tyler Lyons and Burch Smith who make the majors without a lot of pre-fanfare show up on those lists, along with breakthrough guys like Tyler Glasnow and Andy Burns. There are always significant errors, of course. Logan Ehlers and Jonathan Walsh look like big misses on my part.

***Yesterday's Minor League Ball Gameday thread.

***My game prediction for Zack Wheeler was way off. Watching that game on MLB, the stuff was obviously very impressive, as expected, and the Braves had some problems squaring him up. He'll have to lower the walks of course and do a better job managing his secondary pitches, but overall he looked very good to me. Ryan Potter has a more detailed analysis here.

***Midwest League All-Star Game last night, with Blue Jays outfield prospect Dalton Pompey and Tigers prospect Devon Travis the big heroes. Pompey is hitting .243/.316/.357 for Lansing, but stands out for his speed with 22 steals in 24 attempts. He was a 16th round pick in 2010 from high school in Ontario.

***The South Atlantic League All-Star Game saw two steals on consecutive pitches from Chicago White Sox prospect Micah Johnson. He's hitting .339/.422/.525 with 54 steals in 70 attempts. The second baseman was a ninth round pick in 2012 from Indiana University and looks like quite a bargain, at least on offense. He's rough around the bag at second base and might have to move to the outfield at some point.

***The Houston Astros promoted first base prospect Jonathan Singleton to Triple-A Oklahoma City this past weekend. Any rust on his bat due to his previous suspension appears to have been washed off: he's 4-for-12 with three doubles in his first three PCL games.

***Atlanta Braves prospect Josh Elander is having a good year for Low-A Rome, hitting .316/.379/.557 thus far with 26 walks and 55 strikeouts in 253 at-bats. He was a sixth round pick in 2012 from Texas Christian. I had him rated as a Grade C+ in the book this year. Scouts have generally respected his bat but his position was always in question. He was used as a catcher last year in the Appy League, but the results of that have him in left field this spring. He should continue to rip up Low-A pitching and I suspect he'll do fine in High-A, but we'll have to see what happens in AA. Left fielders without outstanding defense or speed have to really mash to get a shot.

***Today's slate of minor league contests.

***The Jurickson Profar Decision Tree.