Travis Ballew is really interesting to me. If he can keep the ball in the park, he has some late innings bullpen time possibly ahead of him. His K rate is just fantastic and could be a fun guy to watch (if he starts in CC). Getting away from Lancaster will help a power pitcher like him. I still want to count Sanudo... but that's probably cheating at this point.
Definitely one of my favorites going forward. Of course, Jason Chowning put up big K numbers, and was strangely cut after being injured in 2012 (just over a month after being named a mid-season All-Star in the SAL). Out of baseball now.
I like Joe Musgrove . He came on strong at the end of last season( and by that I mean he played). He's someone that if his injury problems subside could rapidly climb up our prospect ladder. His upside is as high as anyone in our system but of course his progress has been slowed. It will be interesting to watch him this season. He will either go the way of tanner bushue/ jack Armstrong ... Or he could stay healthy and become a real prospect again. He really does have prototypical size and stuff for a workhorse guy.
I'm still following Musgrove as well. I'm thinking he ends up a reliever, though, if things don't come together for him.
I think the top prospects have been discussed ad nauseum. The mid-tier pitching prospects have caught my attention because Luhnow and Co have done a good job of identifying undervalued players and developing them into legit prospects. Namely taking a bunch of control guys (low walk rate) and teasing out a few more MPH. Gonzalo Sanudo is one of the guys I'm gonna keep an eye on but the '13 Lancaster crew has a bunch of guys I'm curious to see how they translate to the next level. (I posted in the other thread about putting Lancaster stats in proper context.) Aaron West: His 5.22 ERA at Lancaster was inflated by a .384 BABIP and 57.9% LOB. His peripherals were great: 9.28 K/9 and 1.41 BB/9. His FIP was 2.56. I expect a much better ERA at Corpus. Colton Cain: Basically the opposite of West, got promoted to Lancaster late in the season and put up a good ERA (3.24) with crappy peripherals (5.94 K/9) and a roughly average BABIP (.312). I bet he repeats Lancaster; I could see him high 3's/low 4's ERA this year. Luis Cruz: 5.16 ERA at Lancaster then 0.53 ERA in 17 IP at Corpus Christi. Pitched well enough to get added to the 40 man roster. He's a tiny lefty (5'9'') that struck out 10.4 K/9 between Lancaster and CC. Kyle Smith: Luhnow tried to get him in the Quintero deal and eventually got him in the Maxwell deal. Supposedly has great pitchability already, if Luhnow can get some more MPH out of him, baby you got yourself a stew. His second game in Lancaster he put up a game score of 92: 9IP, 2H, 0R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 9K. I don't know if that was the highest in the system last year but that was a damn good start. Brady Rodgers: The safe/low-upside 2012 3rd round pick sandwiched between the Correa/McCullers picks and Rio Ruiz. Another Lancaster guy with a 5+ ERA, high BABIP .359 and sub-2 BB/9. It's almost like a broken record. He doesn't have quite the strikeout rate of his Lancaster peers but he's a good bet to make the majors as a BOR option. I'm also curious to see how Nick Tropeano rebounds after putting up a relatively disappointing season after getting a lot of top 100 HM nods last offseason. There are so many legit starting pitching prospects that the FO will all but forced to do the tandem pitching system again.
I'd like to change one of my picks... Instead of Ravel Santana, I'll go with Brandon Meredith. I'll still have an eye on Santana, though. Hopefully he can show the talent that once made him a top Yankees prospect. George Springer, Domingo Santana, and Delino DeShields are the top dogs in the Astros outfield. Teoscar Hernandez is gaining some steam in the prospect conversation, and Andrew Aplin and Preston Tucker have gotten the lion's share of the glory in the Lancaster outfield. But, Meredith has put up some solid numbers since his draft year (11) while flying nearly undetected. Meredith's walk rate (14.3%, increased from 11.6% in 2012) is pretty good and his K rate is an acceptable 19.7% (down from 23.2% in 2012). He was 6th in OPS in the Cali League in 2013, coming off a 2012 season in which his OPS in the South Atlantic League would've been 6th-best as well. He's also posted wRC+ (more info on this stat here) numbers of 142 in Lexington and 138 in Lancaster (behind Matt Duffy and Preston Tucker). I'm wondering how he's been able to do this so quietly. I'm also wondering why he hasn't been on many people's radars, either. Brandon Meredith might not be a top-30 guy, but he's got to be somewhere in the next 10, at least. Also, it kind of sucks when your age is working against you. This will be his age 24 season... if he were a year or two younger, he'd likely be a top-30 guy.
I noticed him last year at class A when he put up 15 HR and 12 SB in 370 PA's. That's nearly a 20/20 season when projected over 600 plate appearances. The system didn't appear to have that many power/speed guys at the time. I too expected him to get a little more off-season love for his stats at LoA. He put up another decent season at HiA but nothing special considering its Lancaster. He's a guy who will have to hit his way to the majors and will likely never get any prospect loving. As a LF, his bat will especially have to carry him. Can't get too cut up about the age thing. College guys need to move fast (he hasn't) and he's always been old for his level. The prospect pessimist can easily say that's the reason he's been successful thus far. That being said, the Cardinals make a habit of having mid-round college draftees make their debuts at age 25/26 and doing just fine. Matt Carpenter and Allen Craig come to mind.
