BA does screwy things at times. Halman as the #1 Ms prospect last year for example.
Saunders is a very good prospect (the #2 or #3 Mariner spec) and if Ackley weren't in the system I'd be down with developing him at the MLB level.
As is I think we're better off trading for a guy like Seth Smith who has both short+long term upside and cashing Saunders in for a prospect of lateral value at a position of need. If Saunders struggles in '10 offensively as I expect he will, and Ackley is ready for the bigs by '10/11 (as I also expect he will), then you've blown Saunders' trade value and no longer have a spot for him on your roster.
I have a hard time believing that teams will give up prospects like Alcides Escobar or Brett Wallace for Saunders straight-up, but there has to be a good fit out there. Saunders+ for LaPorta maybe.
... per Baseball America.
This ranks The Mick ahead of cyber-Seattle matinee idol Alcides Escobar (#6), who the blog-o-sphere in turn ranks ahead of any Mariner prospect since 1977, possibly excluding ARod depending on the World Series game that night. Saunders also ranks ahead of Cameron Maybin and Brett Wallace; the only other Rainier to make the top 20 was Adam Moore (#17).
The only three PCL'ers ahead of Saunders, per Baseball America:
#1 Buster Posey, the $6M man of the 2008 draft, going fifth overall to the G'ints ... an ex-SS compared roughly to a cross between Pudge Rodriguez and Johnny Bench defensively, and immediately to Pudge Rodriguez at the plate. OK, we kid, but the tools scouts are madly in love with his intangibles behind the plate.
#2 Neftali Perez, who got promoted to Texas and then, we hear, to a higher league.
#3 Travis Snider, who was supposed to win the 2009 American League ROY but instead spent the year hitting a lefty .337/.431/.663 for Las Vegas.
Then it was Saunders, then Cameron Maybin and Alcides Escobar. Ask one of the locals if Escobar-for-Saunders would be a reasonable swap :- )
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BA Flip: Saunders is "an explosive player for his size."
SSI Chop: They mean he has fast-twitch muscles and athleticism that you usually don't see in somebody who, standing still, looks like John Olerud.
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BA Flip: "Has the bat speed to turn on 95 mph fastballs."
SSI Chop: That would be correct. We noted several times, The Mick's surprising ability to read a pitch, SUDdenly whip the bat through and pull it hard, even at 97, even to RF.
You can't teach bat launch, and The Mick does have it.
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BA Flip: "Makes consistent hard contact."
SSI Chop: They mean his HIT ability, the ability to square the ball up, is above average even by ML standards.
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BA Flip: "Some of his doubles should turn into homers."
SSI Chop: Well, I s'pose.
He does hit with the correct hand in Safeco, and hit 13 homers in less than half a season in Cheney, slugging .544 (lots of doubles and triples also). He actually dials it up pretty good, was on a pace for about 110 K's and 60 walks, prorated. So, okay.
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BA Flip: "Doesn't have blazing speed, but intelligent on the bases, looks for chances..."
SSI Chop: Part ways here. I started calling him Michael "Blackout" Saunders because he literally covered more ground in LF than Franklin Gutierrez would have in LF, and as much as Ichiro would have.
I mean, Saunders doesn't have blazing speed next to Desmond Jennings or somebody, but he's got as much as Gutierrez.
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BA Flip: "Showed a solid arm in the past and has enough range to play in center."
SSI Chop: This is such a huge advantage for Saunders in the M's current org, that he's a legit center fielder playing alongside Gutierrez and Ichiro.
The M's didn't particularly have a good all-around infield in 2009 before Jack Wilson got here, and yet as we all know, they won UZR by a mile or five. The three CF's (Chavez/Saunders) were the main reason for the UZR.
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I'm into gloves if they're legitimately impact, as Jack Wilson's and Adrian Beltre's are. As you know, we don't believe in playing backup CF's in LF, but in this case you've got a "backup CF" who packs a PCL Blue-Chipper developmental bat. Saunders is a cross between Endy Chavez in the top half of the inning and Mike Carp in the bottom half.
If the offseason config leaves Saunders in LF, that's ho-kay by me.
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
With Ackley, Gutierrez, Ichiro and the field here ... if you could convert Saunders into a blue-chipper at ANY other position you'd be golden.
I might even flip him for a 24-karat setup man.
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Zduriencik of course enjoys traffic jams like Saunders-Ackley-Gillies etc and the M's seem to have a bias towards defense.
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Interesting thing though for M's fans, is you start to realize that baseball insiders think VERY highly of Michael Saunders.
That kind of ranking looks pretty weird in retrospect, and to some, even at the time.
It's not a reason to discount everything BA says as false, or to ad hominem their detailed scouting reports, but yeah it's worth watching to see when they're getting carried away about some guy's physical upside.
Great point amigo.
The Mariners need to play carefully with depth. If you can get someone in MIF for Saunders, that can be a coup, but you can also shoot yourself in the foot bad as well (o, hai asdrubal cabrera). Not that Cabrera was traded for depth, but he was traded from what the team, at one time (for right or wrong ignored), considered a position of depth.
I don't expect Z to Bavasi something up, but behind Ackley and Saunders, the depth gets thinner in terms of impact prospects. Sometimes it might be better for the team to consider moving players around instead of actually moving them off the team (Ackley DID play 1B in College & not all players die from moving around the diamond).
Gillies might be the most-esteemed 'spect in the OF after Saunders and Ackley... so, yeah...
That concept needs to be savored... like a fine espresso draw...
Not every list BA comes up with is a collaborative effort. Each of the rankings for individual teams is done by a single person which means it reflects just one persons opinion. They are also heavily influenced by what that club thinks of their players. So the ranking of Halman #1 this year was the decision of Matt Eddy alone, and it could have been because the M's were super-high on him. I think this is a perfect example of why ordinal rankings are a terrible way to convey information.
Also, Saunders is not the type of guy BA normally drools over. Instead, scout types have been very slow to warm up to him, so if scouts are now raving about him then I would take what they say very seriously.