Baseball America is the go to in the minor league game. John Sickel's Minorleagueball.com site is really good and offers a similarly good top 100 ranking. Fangraphs is one of my go-to baseball websites and occasionally has good minor league coverage. They recently hired Kiley McDaniel to be their lead prospect writer and he's a really knowledge industry writer.
I agree with the Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus suggestions. I was going to mention it, but I am glad to see Sickel's minorleagueball.com get some love. I think the information you are getting from him is great, and it's free! I actually think Baseball America's coverage dropped after Jim Callis left last year. He went to work for mlb.com directly, and I think the coverage there is getting better and better, at mlbpipeline.com.
[rquoter]@Ken_Rosenthal Memo from John Schuerholz to minor-league clubs confirms digital timers will be installed in all Double A and Triple A parks for ’15 season. Plan for AA, AAA will include inning break and pitching change time limit and individual pitch time limit. Exact limits not yet finalized, but will be based on regulations used in 2014 Arizona Fall League, which had a 20-second pitch clock. Three timers in each park: Two offset behind home plate but beween dugouts and one in outfield beyond fence or near scoreboard. Each AA-AAA club will be responsible for hiring and paying a timer operator. All necessary equipment will be bought by MLB Advanced Media.[/rquoter]
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Astros Minor League RHP Andrew Walter received a 50-game suspension without pay following a second positive test for a drug of abuse.</p>— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) <a href="https://twitter.com/brianmctaggart/status/558029855858909186">January 21, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
AJ Reed ranks #5 on MLB.com's 1B prospect list. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/prospects/watch/y2015/#list=1b
Crawfish boxes released their top 30 along with a series of podcasts discussing the rankings. http://www.crawfishboxes.com/2015/1...-houston-astros-2014-prospect-podcast-special
Tony Kemp more or less is ranked #11 2B prospect by MLB.com [rquoter]Next up As Jose Altuve was putting questions about his height to bed by winning the 2014 American League batting title, another speedy, diminutive second baseman was matriculating in the Astros' Minor League system. Tony Kemp, like Altuve, is listed at 5-foot-6, and is starting to put together an impressive track record at the plate. The 2013 SEC Player of the Year excelled in his first full professional season, hitting .316/.411/.449 with 41 stolen bases in 131 games between Class A Advanced Lancaster and Double-A Corpus Christi.[/rquoter] http://m.mlb.com/news/article/107441844/2015-prospect-watch-top-10-second-basemen
The system's backed up with fringe/utility infielders like Kemp, Sclafani, Torreyes, and Fontana. Each of them has some interesting traits. Kemp's got the best hit tool and speed. Torreyes has incredible plate discipline (6% K rate). Fontana has great on-base skills and Sclafani is a jack of all trades.
Too much depth, almost. It'll be interesting to see if Luhnow moves even more minor leaguers, especially with two top 5 picks coming in.
Listening to Peter Gammons on the radio in Chicago driving back to the office. A decent interview (although Peter's age is showing).... until the end when he goes on a tangent about how the Cubs are the smartest team in baseball and Jed and Theo are "so so so far ahead of a team like the Astros." He then went off on how behind the curve the Astros are and mocked them for taking Appel over Bryant. He said the Astros "gave away their best pitching prospect Folty" and had the Astros offered Appel and Folty for Bryant Jed would have laughed in their face. This is not the first time that Peter Gammons has personally pointed out the Astros.
He was always biased, but I appreciated his obvious love of the game, connections, knowledge and the stories he would tell. I was going to excuse his behavior because he is old and really not in good health... but he is only 69 years old.... he sounded like he was in his 80's and really sounded like he was losing it a little bit (Mike Ditka is too). I don't know if his hatred of the Astros is because they went the way of complete rebuild or if he had bad experiences with the Astros front office. Regardless, enough is enough... he very clearly does not like the Astros front office and is not being objective. If he wants to criticize taking Appel, okay... but this idea that the Astros front office is way behind the times is simply false. Maybe the Astros front office will crash and burn but there is no basis for it now.
