Minor League Ball upcoming schedule

Here's a look at what is going on here at Minor League Ball.

***My main goal right now is editing and preparing the 2014 Baseball Prospect Book for publication. As noted yesterday, we will be emailing the .pdf to everyone who ordered the .pdf AND everyone who ordered the print copy, as soon as possible. I do not have an exact date, but it IS a matter of days now, not weeks or months. The guts of the book are done but it has to be made ready.

After that's finally done, I will turn my attention to the following projects:

***Minor League Ball's Top 150 prospects for 2014. This will integrate and expand the Top 50 Pitchers and Top 50 Hitters list in the book.

***A look at Sleeper Prospects. This will be a semi-regular feature here at Minor League Ball.

***Return of Minor League Prospect Notes. This will complement but not replace Nick Melotte's outstanding daily work with the Minor League Ball Gameday threads.

***Return of Prospect of the Day.

***Return of Prospect Retrospective.

***An update on my Shadow Twins farm system.

***2014 MLB Draft preparation and research. I have been completely ignoring the '14 draft due to the book and I need to get myself up to speed.

***Finally, to celebrate George Springer Day, here is the rough draft of my report for him in the book.

George Springer is an awful lot of fun to watch. Few players possess his combination of speed, power, and arm strength. His defensive tools work very well in center field and he has the instincts for the position as well. He’s an excellent baserunner. He has excellent power. He even works counts and can draw walks. He can also air-condition all of Houston with his swing when he goes on a strikeout tear, and there’s a chance that his batting average will never be more than tolerable due to contact issues. But even if his batting average is low, he should provide enough in all the other departments to rate as a productive regular at the very least and possibly a major star. You can’t knock his minor league numbers, with the high strikeout rate being the only note of caution. Although I suspect his batting average at the big league level is going to be erratic, his secondary average is going to be quite strong. He’ll provide both fantasy and real-life value in multiple ways. Grade A-.