Tucson Mexican Baseball Fiesta
Prospect A-Z had a tough letter yesterday in Q, and the subject was Padres reliever Kevin Quackenbush. He has the potential to pitch in middle relief for San Diego in a year or two, but that might be his ceiling. He made his pro debut with Eugene in the Northwest League and dominated, so the Padres promoted him to the Midwest League where he again dominated. From there, the entry deviated to a discussion...
Yesterday’s Prospect A-Z featured Nationals starter Matt Purke. Purke was expected to be one of the top picks in the 2011 draft, but a shoulder injury in his sophomore year at TCU greatly diminished his stuff and his draft stock. His usual 91-94 MPH fastball and sharp slider became 81-84 MPH and flat. Statistically, he was still very good, but the talent he displayed all throughout high school and in his freshman season at...
For the first time this week, Prospect A-Z didn’t cover a shortstop… kind of. Casey Kelly in the San Diego organization played both ways until 2009 when the Red Sox, his original organization, made him finally focus on pitching. Allowing him to play shortstop at the start of his career was a courteous move by Boston to convince him to sign instead of going to play QB at Tennessee, and I’m sure the large...
Yesterday, Prospect A-Z covered Jose Iglesias, Boston’s Cuban shortstop prospect. He’s a tremendous fielder but really struggled at the plate in 2011 at AAA. He’s still young enough to improve and become an every day player in the majors, and 2012 will be a pivotal year for him. It’ll be his second chance in AAA, and Marco Scutaro will be in the last year of his contract. His career parallels fellow Cuban Adeiny Hechavarria,...
It’s Awards Week here at Bus Leagues, that annual event in which we unveil the seasons that our voters determined to be the best in Minor League and Independent baseball. This year, we have nine awards to give out: Player of the Year, Starting Pitcher of the Year, and Relief Pitcher of the Year for Full-Season Minor League Baseball, Short-Season Minor League Baseball, and Independent Baseball. In the Independent Baseball awards announced yesterday, Ronnie...
We’re just a few days away from baseball’s draft pick signing deadline which is at midnight ET on August 15th. That means it’s another year of Bud Selig and Major League Baseball swing and miss at their attempt to maintain fiscal sanity among owners. In an attempt to limit signing bonuses, the commissioner won’t allow most big money bonuses to be announced until the deadline. His thinking is that if bonuses are announced in...
About a month ago, I wrote about individual home run leaders in the minors. As far as individual stats go, and I agree it’s relatively unimportant, the home run leaderboard is the best individual competition to follow for batters. On the pitching side, it’s probably strikeouts. Strikeouts aren’t a perfect indicator, but the best prospects tend to rack up a lot of minor league strikeouts. In a lot of cases, it shows that the...
‘Twas just about three years ago that a youngster from Kentucky named Collin Cowgill slugged his way onto our radar screen with 11 homeruns in 20 games for the Northwest League’s Yakima Bears. As noted here before, I’m a simple man. I like homeruns, I like cool-sounding names, and therefore, I liked Cowgill*. *Have I noted before that there is also now a player named Collin Cargill? Because there is. He plays for the...
A three true outcome player in baseball is simple: a player whose plate appearances end up mostly being home runs, walks or strikeouts. Rob Deer and Mark McGwire were pretty well known for this. In McGwire’s final season in 2001, over 57% of his plate appearances featured one of those three results. This kind of player can often frustrate a lot of fans, but most still have a lot of value. Home runs provide...
You may recall that in mid-May, I wrote a post about a few dudes named Bryce who were tearing up the South Atlantic League. At the time, there were seven (Harper, Brentz, Massanari, Shafer, Lane, Stowell, and Weidman), five of whom were playing or expected to play in the Sally. I promised at the time to revisit these young men at various points throughout the year to see how they were doing, a promise...
