Variables Don't; Constants Aren't: look out for:

Sunday, May 6, 2007

look out for:

rocky cherry, RHRP CHN

cherry is a the right handed equivalent of ray king. he is death on RHP. he does not get as many groundballs as the most notable ROOGY, chad bradford, and that'll take his ceiling down a little bit, but he can still be an extremely effective bullpen cog. he is currently riding the shuttle between chicago and iowa, but he has been effective thusfar at the major league level.

sean green, RHRP SEA

green is a standard issue AAAA RP, except for 2 things. he is 6'6", and he throws a 2 seam fastball with nasty sink. this combination leads to the complete domination of the game once he enters. his strikeout rate isn't great, and he walks a significant amount of batters, but because of his fastball, no hitter is going to drive what he throws.

wes littleton, RHRP TEX

a late addition, but he's worth it. littleton doesn't strike many hitters out, but he also doesn't walk them. he allows a fair share of homeruns, but that could be due more to the hitting environments that he has pitched in than anything he has control over. he has an awkward sidearm delivery that has proven to be effective versus hitters the first time around, but he may have trouble once hitters adjust to his motion. another cause for concern could be that he has a tendency to put on weight in the offseason.

but for now, he should be an effective bullpen cog for texas.

Organizational Depth Reports (ODRs) will be my takes on the depth of pitching for each of the 30 major league baseball teams. i'll try to feature one player in each organization and give my honest take on what i like, or what i don't. for some organizations, i will outline a sleeper who i feel is underrated or prepared to make an impact at the major league level. these sleepers will mostly be guys in the mold of chien ming wang and aaron laffey, guys who exhibit strong ground ball tendencies and low BB rates. organizations like the mets and the mariners might not have a sleeper indicated, but teams like the white and red sox have a few guys that i feel are underrated. if i've seen these pitchers throw i'll include a scouting report that is what i see, not what i've heard. the pitchers i outline will be guys on the fringe of the 25 man roster, not the cream of the crop, such as scott kazmir or cole hamels.

for the most part, 2007 draftees will not be included, however guys that i really like (blake beaven and david price) or guys that are flat out dominant (adam mills and dan duffy) will be included.

what this list attempts to do is identify the 10 pitchers who are most likely to make a positive impact at the MLB level within 3 years for each team, then rank them according to their likelihood of reaching MLB, and the impact they can have once there.

if i had to approximate the formula, it would be 3 parts upside, 1 part likelihood of making the big leagues within 3 years.

if i haven't seen a teenage pitcher that you feel deserves mentioning, feel free to comment. but if i haven't seen said pitcher in a game, and if i don't have much analytical data to go on, i find it meaningless for me to rate a pitcher that i don't have a feel for. if i don't have a feel for them, and if i have no way of approximating a feel for them, any ranking of them would be disingenuous.

after i go through all 30 organizations, i will publish my take on the top 75 professional pitchers under the age of 25. these will be the cream of the crop, the absolute best. some of the guys in that list will be established major league stars, while others will be minor leaguers that have yet to make their debut, so this is not a stereotypical prospect list, in the sense that all pitchers included are rookies, so much as a list of the 75 pitchers who will dominate baseball for the next decade.