mac9001

I keep expecting to open the box scores and see an inning pitched from Hansen somewhere. Dude's been throwing bullpen sessions for a month, no? Might as well have him throw some live innings.

All things considered you have to give Hostetler some props for 16/17 drafts. He gets a pass on Burger as no-one could have seen that coming, but I feel really good about a lot of the arms added from these last two drafts. My only complaint is if we're going to take advanced college players we need to challenge them faster. I don't think there's a lot of value in guys like Gonzalez hitting the crap out of the ball in low-A ball or Henzman throwing a billion ground balls a start. We have way to much dead weight in AA/AAA where we could just push bodies up that may have some future value.

After watching a bit of Singer today I'm on the anyone but Singer bandwagon. I'll be happy with any of the 3 big collage bats.

Just noticed between the three of them, 0 walks.

Name IP H R ER BB SO HRA Outs BF NP ERA SV HLD BS W L Jordan Stephens 6.0 6 2 2 0 4 2 18 21 89 2.59 0 0 1 1 Name IP H R ER BB SO HRA Outs BF NP ERA SV HLD BS W L Spencer Adams 6.0 2 0 0 0 5 0 18 20 69 5.70 0 0 2 6 Name IP H R ER BB SO HRA Outs BF NP ERA SV HLD BS W L Bernardo Flores 8.0 7 1 1 0 5 0 24 30 99 2.69 0 0 3 3 Some great pitching lines tonight.

After reading all the futuresox pieces I can't tell who i want anymore in round 1, so I'm just going to root for Beer in round 2. Just give me two solid collage bats with 1 & 2 and I'll be satisfied.

Anthony Villa through 100+ PAs is somehow putting up a near .500 BABIP. That's just crazy. That dude needs to pick my lotto numbers.

What's the deal with A.J Puckett? Haven't heard anything in a while on him.

My original post was on May 4th, when Rutherford had exactly 0 home runs. While it's nice to see him show some pop I'm still not a believer.

In my defense when I made that comment he had not hit a single HR this year. Maybe he saw me talking shit and decided to prove me wrong.

I've just never really seen him turn on a pitch and launch. I've watched a decent amount of his ABs and it's a lot of ground ball singles or low lying line drives. His physical appearance might play a part, he's a god damn twig.

Madrigal's contact rate is insane. It's hard to pass on a kid that never strikes out.

It would be nice to see Eloy take a few more walks. He might be a little too good at making hard contact.

In the last couple of weeks it looks like both Call and Fisher regained some prospect shine. Call now spots a .878 OPS with a very respectable 15.3% BB% / 19.1% K%. Fisher is at .755 OPS with a lot of room for improvement on a 8.7% BB% / 32.5% K%. If Fisher can cut the K-rate down into the low 20s he'd probably be sitting on a .850+ OPS.

Guerrero is not struggling. Just having terrible luck. Coming into today he was sporting a 10.81 K/9, 2.39 BB/9, 0.34 HR/9, .420 BABIP, 51.7% LOB%, 27.8% LD%, 2.26 FIP. This is probably as good of 6 starts as he's ever had in his career, but it seems like just about everything being hit in play is finding a hole and at the worst possible times (high line drive rate and LOB%)

Blake Battenfield had himself a day. 8 IP, 3 H, 0 BB, 10 SO. ERA down to 1.34, he came into the day with a .209 BABIP and a 89.9% LOB%, so he's been fairly lucky. But still good to see a guy put up numbers.

1A) Kopech 1B) Hansen 3) Cease 4) Dunning 5) Stephens 6) Guerrero 7) Henzman 08) Adams 9) Puckett 10) Clarkin Flores/Lambert/McClure not far behind I don't think the gap between Kopech and Hansen is that wide. I still have some doubts on Kopech's and Cease's command at the big league level. Clarkin is hanging on by a thread.

Let's not forget the rather long list of depth we have across the entire org in terms of starting pitching. There's a good chance someone outside the blue chip list sticks in the rotation. I was hoping Guerrero/Stephens would be pitching in Charlotte by now with a plan to get them some major league starts before guys like Kopech/Hansen/Dunning are ready for the show. I wouldn't rush any of the blue chip guys, but start throwing the second tier guys to the sharks to see if they can swim.

Not a lot of love for Stephens or Guerrero but both are off to great starts again. Stephens: 8.55 K/9, 2.41 BB/9, .358 BABIP, 2.99 FIP Guerrero: 10.94 K/9, 2.39 BB/9, .420 BABIP, 2.29 FIP I like what I'm seeing from Lambert, but it's hard to make a case he's the next in line after the big 4 when Stephens/Guerrero are doing quite well a level above. There's absolutely no reason there's guys should still be in AA while we throw absolute trash out to pitch in Charlotte.

I'm convinced Zavala has elite exit velocity. I've seen him just absolutely destroy baseballs.

Seems like every time I look at a box score Blake Hickman strikes out the side.

I'd fairly optimistic with all our OFers except for Rutherford. If we had statcast data I'd imagine his exit velocity would be pathetically low.

The likelihood of Fisher developing into a quality OF are pretty slim. If we're taking bets I'd put more money on Booker improving offensively then Fisher being a passable defender at the ML level. If Fisher was mashing the ball at AA right now I'm still not sure he profiles as being adequate enough in the field to take away development time from others in the system. The best case scenario on Fisher is still fairly underwhelming.

We definitely need to throw some guys into the deep end and hope they can swim in Charlotte. Our average age might be the same between our ML/AAA clubs. I'm personally not a fan of keeping guys in the low minors once they show acceptable competence. You're better off dealing with adversary in AA than crushing it in low A ball.

Just to be clear I'm not making the case that he's a better prospect than Eloy right now. Eloy's offensive floor is so high it's hard to argue ranking him anywhere other than #1. But his profile is likely closer to someone like JD Martinez than a true franchise player like Trout. Basabe has a super low floor with high bust potential, but he an excellent athlete. He has the athletic ability to be a really good defensive CF. He has high end speed that has already demonstrated the ability to steal bags. While it's only a month, it's still a solid month with a very respectable walk rate, moderate k-rate and decent pop. If this month is a reflection of his true hitting ability his long term peak potential is now probably a 6+ WAR player. It's perfectly understandable to be skeptical with such a low sample size of success. But there's a completely different (and fairly unique) range of peak potential when you have the intangibles Basabe possesses. It's the same reason why Moncada was the top prospect in baseball, he has 10 WAR peak potential. You need a unique set of intangibles to have type of potential. The reality on a guy like Eloy is his value on defensive/speed is likely to diminish at the major league level over his current projections, which limits his peak potential to something closer to a 5-6 WAR guy. While the odds are against Basabe, give me three more months of this production and it makes his case for elite prospect status a lot easier to make. Just to add one more clarification. I don't necessarily think he will be on some of these top 100 publications, just that he should be. If he continues to produce at this level.