The online coverage of minor league baseball is vast. There is no shortage of outlets where opinions are given. The same can be said of the coverage devoted to individual MLB teams. But there has been a distinct lack of coverage for players who have exhausted their rookie eligibility.
This blog sets out to change that...
"Pitching has got to be the foundation in the organization. Everybody wants a good pitcher. The more pitchers we have, the stronger our organization will be." - Dayton Moore, Kansas City Royals General Manager
this past wednesday, i made the trip to lakewood with the express purpose of watching drew naylor pitch. i was not disappointed. while his fastball only sat in the mid 80s touching 91, his curve was tremendous, and was well worth the trip. he showed the ability to both spot it for a strike, and bury it in the dirt. it is already a major league quality pitch.
naylor's changeup was mostly a show me pitch, but it did show the potential to be a quality major league offering. naylor was able to use it to record the most favorable outcome, as well as to generate missed swings. he was not yet able to consistently locate it in the strike zone, but that's a pretty minor quibble for a low A pitcher.
i could scan and post my charts, but i don't think i want to do that, so i'll just throw out the same information i gave for masterson last august:
i managed to get some video during the game, but it's not of very high quality, just good enough to make out some basic mechanics, but not good enough to view the track of the ball in flight.
lasting impressions were that if he gains 2 or 3 miles per hour on his fastball in the next few years, and sits easily at 88-92, touching 94, instead of 85-88, touching 91, he'll be a great pitcher. that's not an easy proposition, but give him 2 years to grow, fill out, and stay healthy, pitching in the minors, and it's not that far fetched an expectation.
i know that justin masterson is kind of out of the scope of what this blog is supposed to focus on, but with the two pieces that i'm planning to write (a graduated rookie list, which would rank all players who will have lost their rookie eligibility this season, and a top young pitchers list, which would rank the top 200 or so pitchers under the age of 25), i think i'm preparing to enter the nexus between prospects and young veterans.
i went to the harrisburg senators, portland sea dogs game on sunday, august 5 for the express purpose of watching justin masterson with my own eyes. i had read a lot of information that i liked about masterson, and i wanted to see if he was as good as advertised.
he was, but at the same time, he wasn't.
after he was promoted to AA, and while he proceeded to tear it up, i had heard a few things about him that i wanted to see for myself. i had heard that he throws with a low 3/4 arm delivery (true), which gives his fastball sick lateral and downward movement (true). i'd heard that he could also run his fastball up in the zone up to 98 MPH (i did not see this). his slider was described as a plus pitch (it wasn't), but it showed great promise when he threw it at josh whitesell's back foot, resulting in a swing and miss strikeout.
masterson's warm up before the game seemed cursory, at best, but it's possible that he threw and stretched before he came out to left field. he tossed with the catcher for about 5 minutes, then threw about 15-20 pitches off the mound in the left field bullpen before going into the dugout. i'm not going to criticize this, or suggest tweaking his warm up regimen, but he did start the game off wild, and threw 22 of his 81 pitches in the first inning.
masterson's fastball is as good as advertised, even though it was not as fast as advertised. it kept hitters off balance all game, and it was not driven once. it looked as if harrisburg hitters were afraid to even swing at it because they knew that all they could do was pound it into the ground.
his changeup was fairly mediocre, and he still could improve by refining it, but i don't think that'll be a necessity until he gets 4 or 5 starts in at the major league level. i don't think it will be exposed until that time.
of the sliders, there was only 1 that impressed me. in his final inning, against josh whitesell, the best hitter, by far, on harrisburg's roster, masterson got the count 1-2 with 2 FBs and a change. he threw a purpose pitch fastball inside of the plate, that was called a ball. masterson then buried whitesell with a backfoot slider that he had no chance to hit.
i don't know why he was taken out after 81 pitches, but he was hit in the right leg with a batted ball in the 3rd inning. the trainer came out to see if he was okay, but masterson waived him off, and completed the inning, and another 3.
there has also been talk of moving him A)to the bullpen or B)to AAA, so either of those are possibilities. i did not see him on the field at the end of the game when portland came out to celebrate their extra inning victory, so along with his leg swelling up, those are two possibilities for him being gone at that time.
the following is video that i shot of him with my cameraphone, out in the bullpen when he was warming up before the game. the quality is fairly mediocre, but it's good enough to get the point across.
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.
