2019 Minor Leagues/Prospect Discussion Thread

Post #221 » by **Schad** » Thu May 1, 2014 4:33 am

DJ Davis really, really needs to sort out the ridiculous strikeout rate, or he won't make it past double-A. That's, ugh, poor-man's Anthony Gose territory.

dagger · Post #222 » by **dagger** » Thu May 1, 2014 4:59 am

Graham's Cracker wrote:Last night's Lansing game was postponed due to rain. They resumed the game this afternoon.

DJ Davis hit his 2nd HR of the year, he also struck out 2 more times (38% K rate on the year to go against his 4% walk rate).
Nay was 1-5, 2B, 2 K
Dantzler 2-4
Atkinson 5-5, 2B
Lugo 1-5, 2B, 2 RBI
Loveless 1-3, RBI, BB
Saez 3-3, 2B, RBI, BB

De Jong went 3.0 (last night), giving up 3 hits and a walk along with 1 earned run. Struck out 5.
Phil Kish pitched 4 innings of relief giving up 3 hits a walk an earned run and four strikeouts.

Nice game by Robson - finally - in today's regularly scheduled game. 6IP, 3G, 1R/1ER, 1BB, 4K. Griffin Murphy continues to handle closer duties well, too.

dagger · Post #223 » by **dagger** » Thu May 1, 2014 11:49 pm

Good start for Boyd. 4IP, 2R/2ER, 5H, 1BB, 4K

Both runs and three of the five hits came in first inning. Likely jitters

So a good start.

vaff87 · Post #224 » by **vaff87** » Fri May 2, 2014 12:14 am

Jeez, the poor Lansing hitters had to face Aroldis Chapman for an inning. Shocker that he struck DJ Davis out.

dagger · Post #225 » by **dagger** » Fri May 2, 2014 1:28 am

Some rare extra-base pop in the system today.

Buffalo, Kevin Pillar 2/4 with a bases loaded double that brought in 3
New Hampshire, in a double header, homers by Mike Crouse, Brad Glenn, Andy Burns.
Lansing, homers by Nay, Saez and Dantzler (grand slam)

Post #226 » by **Schad** » Fri May 2, 2014 1:29 am

Tiny Dantzler doesn't appear to be having much more difficulty with full A pitching than he was with short-season kiddies.

Graham's Cracker · Post #227 » by **Graham's Cracker** » Fri May 2, 2014 1:49 am

dagger wrote:Some rare extra-base pop in the system today.

Buffalo, Kevin Pillar 2/4 with a bases loaded double that brought in 3
New Hampshire, in a double header, homers by Mike Crouse, Brad Glenn, Andy Burns.
Lansing, homers by Nay, Saez and Dantzler (grand slam)

Crouse has shown a nice bit of pop (4 2B, 4 3B, and his first HR) and the ability to take a walk. Even when taking away his unsustainable BABIP his #s would look nice. Is he rising up the prospect list, or is it too early to get excited about him.

Lateral Quicks · Post #228 » by **Lateral Quicks** » Fri May 2, 2014 2:08 am

Pompey 2-3 with a walk tonight. If he continues this through May for another 100 at-bats I think it's time for a promotion.

Kaizen · Post #229 » by **Kaizen** » Fri May 2, 2014 2:28 am

http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/chat/_/ ... -keith-law

Andrew (Toronto)
Hello Keith! Do you see Dalton Pompey and Tom Robson as legit major league prospects? I hear a lot about them, but wonder if they might be overhyped on this side of the border because they're Canadian.

Klaw (1:06 PM)
I think it's a bit of both. Pompey's very interesting - an athletic kid who's put on about 20 pounds since signing and has always had an idea at the plate. Leadoff profile rather than a power/corner bat. Robson was more interesting when he was getting more groundballs.

Reba (Toronto)
I know it's a small sample size but from what we've seen in Matt Boyd, is he for real? What does he project to be?

Klaw (1:26 PM)
Senior sign last year, average stuff, good command. 23 in the FSL with four years of experience in a good conference, so those five starts there don't tell us much. Probably a 5th starter/middle guy, unless something changes with his offerings.

Wo1verine · Post #230 » by **Wo1verine** » Fri May 2, 2014 6:12 am

Kaizen wrote:http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/chat/_/id/50508/mlb-insider-keith-law

Andrew (Toronto)
Hello Keith! Do you see Dalton Pompey and Tom Robson as legit major league prospects? I hear a lot about them, but wonder if they might be overhyped on this side of the border because they're Canadian.

Klaw (1:06 PM)
I think it's a bit of both. Pompey's very interesting - an athletic kid who's put on about 20 pounds since signing and has always had an idea at the plate. Leadoff profile rather than a power/corner bat. Robson was more interesting when he was getting more groundballs.

Reba (Toronto)
I know it's a small sample size but from what we've seen in Matt Boyd, is he for real? What does he project to be?

Klaw (1:26 PM)
Senior sign last year, average stuff, good command. 23 in the FSL with four years of experience in a good conference, so those five starts there don't tell us much. Probably a 5th starter/middle guy, unless something changes with his offerings.

So really nothing to get excited about?

ahollz · Post #231 » by **ahollz** » Fri May 2, 2014 6:38 am

If Dalton Pompey developed into Desmond Jennings, would that be a decent outcome?

kwamebargnani · Post #232 » by **kwamebargnani** » Fri May 2, 2014 7:48 am

ahollz wrote:If Dalton Pompey developed into Desmond Jennings, would that be a decent outcome?

Are you kidding me?

Post #233 » by **Schad** » Fri May 2, 2014 12:30 pm

ahollz wrote:If Dalton Pompey developed into Desmond Jennings, would that be a decent outcome?

If Pompey developed into a fourth outfielder, that would be a decent outcome. If he develops into a borderline starter, something of a Reid Johnson type, that would be a very good outcome. If he develops into Desmond Jennings, who has 10 fWAR and hasn't even hit arbitration yet, throw a parade.

Lateral Quicks · Post #234 » by **Lateral Quicks** » Fri May 2, 2014 1:23 pm

Schadenfreude wrote:
ahollz wrote:If Dalton Pompey developed into Desmond Jennings, would that be a decent outcome?

If Pompey developed into a fourth outfielder, that would be a decent outcome. If he develops into a borderline starter, something of a Reid Johnson type, that would be a very good outcome. If he develops into Desmond Jennings, who has 10 fWAR and hasn't even hit arbitration yet, throw a parade.

To me, anything less that a Reid Johnson type career would be a disappointing outcome rather than a very good outcome. We're tallking about a guy who at 21 already has 1,000 plate appearances over which he got on base 36.4% of the time and stole 84 bases against only 13 caught. He also has a good BB:K ratio. He's got a 6'1 frame so as he continues to fill out I expect him to add some more power, though I don't expect he'll ever hit more than 10-15 a year. A guy with elite speed who gets on base and has double-triple power and great defense projects to be a heck of a player. Obviously a lot can happen between A+ and the bigs, but his career to date looks pretty great to me.

blaateeee · Post #235 » by **blaateeee** » Fri May 2, 2014 7:53 pm

It should also be mentioned, last year his numbers look a bit avg.

If it weren't for a lousy May, when he was dealing with injuries, his ops would likely be WELL above 800.

These are his last three months:

June: .296 .394 .432 .826
July .315 .394 .478 .872
August.268 .415 .427 .842

The ISO is decent there as well.

Post #236 » by **Schad** » Fri May 2, 2014 9:40 pm

Lateral Quicks wrote:To me, anything less that a Reid Johnson type career would be a disappointing outcome rather than a very good outcome. We're tallking about a guy who at 21 already has 1,000 plate appearances over which he got on base 36.4% of the time and stole 84 bases against only 13 caught. He also has a good BB:K ratio. He's got a 6'1 frame so as he continues to fill out I expect him to add some more power, though I don't expect he'll ever hit more than 10-15 a year. A guy with elite speed who gets on base and has double-triple power and great defense projects to be a heck of a player. Obviously a lot can happen between A+ and the bigs, but his career to date looks pretty great to me.

Way too early for him to be a presumptive future major league starter, which is effectively what we'd be declaring him if less than Reid Johnson is a disappointment. He's still a kid with a fairly high strikeout rate and middling triple slash entering this year, and he's still due for a 50-60 point correction in each category when he stops hitting .414 on balls in play.

Randle McMurphy · Post #237 » by **Randle McMurphy** » Fri May 2, 2014 9:52 pm

It's Reed Johnson. And Pompey is still a long way from even making the bigs, let alone managing to stay in it for 10 years as a platoon player like that.

Lateral Quicks · Post #238 » by **Lateral Quicks** » Fri May 2, 2014 10:26 pm

Reed Johnson has stolen 41 bases in his entire big league career (vs 28 caught stealing), and owns an abysmal K:BB rate of 680:187. Also, Pompey projects to be a legitimate defensive centre fielder, something Johnson hasn't been for much of his career. The power profile I can somewhat agree with, but Pompey has three inches on him and has yet to fully fill out.

Post #239 » by **Schad** » Fri May 2, 2014 10:34 pm

Lateral Quicks wrote:Reed Johnson has stolen 41 bases in his entire big league career (vs 28 caught stealing), and owns an abysmal K:BB rate of 680:187. Also, Pompey projects to be a legitimate defensive centre fielder, something Johnson hasn't been for much of his career. The power profile I can somewhat agree with, but Pompey has three inches on him and has yet to fully fill out.

But we're looking at Pompey's K:BB in A-ball here; players tend to see the gap widen as they ascend the levels. And with a ~20% strikeout rate and few home runs, even assigning him an above-average BABIP leaves him as a player likely to hit between .235-.250 with minimal power. So he can project as a lot of things, but he'd still need to improve a great many things to make it, and consequently there's a good chance that he'll never establish himself on a major league roster let alone play 100+ games eight times, as Johnson did.

Lateral Quicks · Post #240 » by **Lateral Quicks** » Fri May 2, 2014 10:46 pm

Schadenfreude wrote:
Lateral Quicks wrote:Reed Johnson has stolen 41 bases in his entire big league career (vs 28 caught stealing), and owns an abysmal K:BB rate of 680:187. Also, Pompey projects to be a legitimate defensive centre fielder, something Johnson hasn't been for much of his career. The power profile I can somewhat agree with, but Pompey has three inches on him and has yet to fully fill out.

But we're looking at Pompey's K:BB in A-ball here; players tend to see the gap widen as they ascend the levels. And with a ~20% strikeout rate and few home runs, even assigning him an above-average BABIP leaves him as a player likely to hit between .235-.250 with minimal power. So he can project as a lot of things, but he'd still need to improve a great many things to make it, and consequently there's a good chance that he'll never establish himself on a major league roster let alone play 100+ games eight times, as Johnson did.

Agreed. There is a long way from A+ to MLB. If he does make it though, he has two skills Johnson didn't have: elite speed and legitimate CF defense. The offensive bar for a regular CF with great speed is a lot less than a corner outfielder, platoon or not.