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Prospect Grand Prix 2011

Posted in Around the Web, Minors, MLB, Opening Day, Prospects, Rookie Of Year, Rookies on March 2, 2025 | Leave a Comment »

Unless your name is John Orelud, each baseball player has to go down to the minor leagues, and work his way up the food chain. It is not an easy journey for a player trying to force his way onto a major league roster. Every step along the way, the minor league players performance is analyzed and scrutinized. The players results are compared to the their peers in the current season, and historically to any player who has come through a similar path.

The game of projecting a player’s career based on minor league numbers is not an easy one. For every success case such as an Evan Longoria, there is another player on the other side of the spectrum that fools the critics. Anyone remember when third baseman Andy Marte was rated as a better prospect than David Wright? There are tons of examples out their of players who lived up to the hype, and those who were utter failures:

Jesse Foppert, Joel Guzman, Andy Marte, Sean Burroughs, Greg Miller

Todd Van Poppel, Brien Taylor, Darren Driefort

However, each year we pay attention to these players known as a prospects, phenom, young talent, the future, what ever name you want to give these guys. Some of these players make it, some do not. Another factor in all of this is opportunity. There are some players who did not shows up on the big time prospect lists and go on to have wonderful careers as late bloomers. Matt Holiday is one guy in this mold. Jason Bay is another. How can we forget Big Papi started his career out as with Twins? Johan Santana certainly didn’t start with the Twins organization either.

Now, one last thing that you can’t put a number to (at least yet) is a player make up. The player who has a good head on his shoulders and can get over the failures from previous day, and move on and get past the bad day is better equipped to be successful. The game of baseball is one of always making adjustments and dealing with failure.

With this mind, when you think prospects, think about the combination of talent, opportunity, and makeup. These three together give you an indication of what kind a player you have.

CBS Sports Top 100

BP Future Shock 2011

Baseball Digest Prospect Sandwich

Call To Pen

Braves Top

MLB Prospects

Prospect Watch Starters

Top Prospect Alert (by team)

Baseball America

Rays Prospect Guide

Jim Bowden Top 50

Project Prospect

Keith Law’s rankings

MLB Prospects

Prospect Junkies

Scoutingbook.com Prospect Matrix

Prospect Portal

Top NL Only Prospects

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Counting down the 100 Names You Need to Know

Posted in American League, Around the Web, Minors, National League, Projections, Prospects, Rookie Of Year, Rotisserie, ROY on February 17, 2026 | Leave a Comment »

Each year, USA Today comes out with their 100 names you need to know for the upcoming season. This is a good resource of getting to know some of the minor league players that are usually at that point of their career where they are ready make a big impact at the major league level.

Here are a few of the players making the 2011 top ten of the “100 Names You Need to Know:

#1 Aroldis Chapman

Bullpen is the answer to the first big question about the Cuban flamethrower for this season. That’s where he’ll pitch, though the Reds aren’t ruling out a future role in their rotation. The next question revolves around when and if he could take over for closer Francisco Cordero, who is entering the final guaranteed year of his contract ($12 million option for 2012) and allowed baserunners last season at the highest rate of his career.

#2 Craig Kimbrel

Kimbrel, 22, got a taste of key late-inning situations late last season and in the playoffs. His 14.4 strikeouts-per-nine-innings rate through three minor league seasons was impressive enough, but he boosted that to 16.9 in his 25 combined regular season and playoff innings in the majors last year.

#3 Freddy Freeman

Freeman will show up this spring with the first base job and expectations he can be as impactful as Heyward. A lefty like his close friend Heyward, Freeman’s best attribute might be his defense, though he finished in the Class AAA International League’s top 10 in batting before turning 21 in September. His 18 homers last year dispelled concerns the 6-5, 225-pounder might not develop big-time power.

#6 Logan Morrison

Florida has plenty to chirp about with its trio of young studs on offense. Twitter-happy Morrison - and not Mike Stanton or Gaby Sanchez - remains eligible for our list thanks to his late-July 2010 call-up. Morrison moved to the outfield last year after older Sanchez beat him out for the Marlins’ first base job.

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Deep League NL Prospects 2010

Posted in Minors, MLB, Prospects on April 10, 2025 | Leave a Comment »

Each year I read all the minor league resources I can get a hold of. A comprehensive list of web sites on the minor league players to know is sure to include Prospect Junkies, MLB Fantasy Prospects , Prospect Insider , Project Prospect , Rays Prospects ,Mets Minors , Braves Minors ,Scouting Book and Johns Sickels Minor League Ball . Many of the selections are players that won’t neccesarily make an impact in 2010, but could be big contributors in future years. Without further adieu, here are my 2010 selctions:

Josh Thole

Logan Morrison

Chris Dominguez

Jaff Decker

Evan Frey

Jay Jackson

Craig Kimbrel

Josh Lindblom

Ian Desmond watch

projection example nut and bolts

A closer look

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Things Going Wright

Posted in Around the Web, Mets, Minors, Prospects on March 5, 2025 | Leave a Comment »

As the Mets had one of their worst offensive seasons in team history in 2009 scoring only 671 runs, with only 95 HRs. As, compared with 799 runs and 172 HRs the previous year. We have former Mets executive Tony Bernazard to blame, but when David Wright goes yard to the right side for the first time in a while (inside edge database reference).

With a new approach at the plate instilled by hitting coach Howard Johnson, along with added muscle, we expected a big bounce back from Wright. The Citi Field dimension change sure helps too. Ike Davis is not too far away either .

Some other Tape Measure Blasts:

The *Free* Amazin Avenue Annual is out.
Hit Tracker is a good resource for seeing the long ball data
Mookie’s revenge? Over the Monster has an Annual too
Kevin Goldstein’s 101 prospects
Top Prospect Compilation
Base-Heads A.L. East prospects via MLB Fantasy Prospects

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Names to Know 2010 Edition

Posted in American League, Around the Web, Minors, MLB, National League, Opening Day, Projections, Prospects on February 24, 2026 | Leave a Comment »

Each year, USA Today comes out with their 100 names you need to know for the upcoming season. The list is different from typical prospect lists. Its typically a good resource for fantasy leagues, as these are players who have a good chance to make contributions for the upcoming season:

These aren’t necessarily baseball’s 100 best prospects because many top prospects are too far down in the minor leagues to contribute in the majors this season. Others are stuck behind established major leaguers.

Not all of the players on our list have rookie status, either, but our standard for inclusion is that a player must have had more innings (for pitchers) or at-bats (for hitters) in the minor leagues in 2009 than he has had during all of his major league time.

Conversely, Baseball America released their top 100 prospect list for 2010 .

The Top 100 Prospects list is the culmination of our offseason prospect coverage, which begins with our reviews of the top talent in each minor league and proceeds with ranking the talent in each major league farm system.

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Possible Gems with Rule 5 Draft

Posted in Minors, MLB, Prospects, Rule5 on February 21, 2026 | 1 Comment »

In preparing for your fantasy drafts for 2010, most owners will target a few sleepers to go along with the consistent performers. However, most of the time with sleepers, you have to have the roster flexibility, and realize they might not make an immediate impact early on. But, if you can uncover a player you can get at a below market value, that can provide long term dividends, that might be the difference to give you a competitive advantage.

One avenue that I check out each and every year, is to take a look at the Rule V draft selections, that are chosen at MLB’s winter meetings. Last year, I selected Everth Cabrera in all of my leagues, after researching all the players in the 2008 Rule V class. When I announced his name at the draft, everybody was like who??? I had seen that with the Rockies minor league system, he had achieved over 70 stolen bases. Moreover, I had witnessed that Cabrera could hit, whereby he launched a triple while watching a spring training game on TV. I was sold on this player going into draft season.

In looking at the latest rule V draft, the following players look intriguing :

Pirates - John Raynor (from Marlins)

Royals - Edgar Osuna (From Braves)

Indians - Hector Ambriz (From D-Backs)

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June Draft Here We Come

Posted in American League, Around the Web, National League, Prospects on March 14, 2025 | Leave a Comment »

The Oakland A’s changed the way players are picked in the draft with their affinity towards college players. However, in recent times a player such as Clayton Kershaw was drafted out of high school, and within a few seasons, he was making contributions to the major league team. With the upcoming draft, here are a few links:

Draft Order

Player Report

MLB Mock draft

Looking 2009 draft

Top 60 prospects

Saberscouting

Dropoff after SD State pitcher

college news

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Chris Dickerson - the Corey Patterson Clone?

Posted in Minors, MLB, National League, Projections, Prospects, Reds on February 26, 2026 | Leave a Comment »

The Reds Chris Dickerson (like it says here) has a track record of the high strikeout numbers. I decided to take a look back at his minor league performance, and he is pretty consistent with double digit home runs and the 20 or so stolen bases.

HR     RBI  SB    BB    SO   AVG  OBP  SLG  AB    Team-Yr League
6     15    5     17    35  .304 .413 .608 102    CIN-08  (NL)
11     53   26    54    102 .287 .384 .479 349    LOU-08  (AAA)
13     44   23    52    131 .260 .361 .435 354    LOU-07  (AAA)
12     48   21    65    129 .242 .355 .424 389    CHAT-06 (AA)

Dickerson did have an off the charts display in his callup to the major leagues last season. Dickerson was in the company with some of the best in the game (.608 TB/AB), but this was only a small sample of plate appearances.

So, what can we expect out of the young outfielder who is trying to earn a starting job with the team. My thought is last season was more than a little above the level we will see out of Dickerson.

I am predicting 14 HRS , .245 BA, 67RBI , and 20 SB.

Lets see what some of the prediction systems say:

Bill James is super high on him. .268BA, 21HR, 37SB, 93RBI

The Chone predictions does not seem that high on him though.

From the scouting perspective, John Sickels thinks the speedster strikes out too much but makes a valuable fouth outfielder. I do think the best compareable I know of is Corey Patterson.

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Players Report Today

Posted in Albert Pujols, American League, Around the Web, Nationals, Prospects on February 17, 2026 | Leave a Comment »

The players reporting at camps today are playing second fiddle to the A-Rod press conference. Alex meets the press and they will be looking to drill down on the line of questioning, unlike what Gammons did. Alex made this bed and now he has to sleep in it. Its been said that Michael Phelps was better received in his apology, stay tuned….

The projected standings on the season are out from BP.

Its not baseball season without the Usa Today’s 100 names to know

The 2006 MVP debate continues of Pujols vs Howard at dugoutcentral. They also have rookies to watch in the NL.

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