Sung to the strains of Bryan Adams - Summer of '69:

I watched my first six-game plan...
...bought it at the Cannons' site.
They played until their fingers blistered...
...it was the summer of '95.

Me and the family...
...we had a blast in the summer sun.
Mags left, Rose Jr. got called up...
...should have known they wouldn't stay too long.

Oh when I look back now...
...those summers seemed to last forever.
And if I had the choice,
Fitzner Stadium would be my home.
Those were the best days of my life.

Over the span of two years, while the family had free evenings to spend in the summer at the ballpark and relatively good health, my father took me to a dozen games a year...single-A baseball in the Carolina League. Our home team - the Prince William Cannons (then an affiliate of the White Sox) enjoyed an unbalanced, but unusually fun group of prospects, many more than normal who would be bound for the big leagues some day. Passing through the Cannons' line-up cards were single-A stars like Mike Cameron (at that time, more known for his defense and blazing speed than his bat), Magglio Ordonez, Robert Machado, Kurt Abbott, Frank Menechino, Juan Thomas, Todd Rizzo, Tom Fordham, Nelson Cruz, Mike Heathcott, Chris Clemens, Pete Rose Jr, Nerio Rodriguez, Craig Wilson (the middle infielder, not the first baseman/catcher) and Mike Bertotti. I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure high-A ball doesn't usually have quite that many major leaguers and very-near-misses on individual clubs.

The Cannons were like a page out of "Bull Durham"...complete with promotions like the "Score with Hooters!" giveaway that lasted an entire season (if the Cannons scored six runs, everyone in attendance got a gift certificate to spend for 6 free wings at Hooters...we went to 12 games that summer and...as this happened to be a team loaded with lots of big league hitting prospects...we wound up eating at Hooters A LOT!) and the always popular "Diamond Girls Dance Off" (lucky female fans competing to win a job as a diamond girl (scantily clad beverage and food service women who handled the box seats...which, BTW were 18 dollars a game so my family had box seats...LOL) by dancing with them in the bottom of the 5th inning). An impressionable thirteen/fourteen year old like me never had so much fun. :)

Anyway...look at this typical line-up card (absent of names...but I'm getting this from a score-sheet I actually saved from that season (yes, if my father is reading this, I found it a few days ago in my notebooks...LOL)) and try to put your finger on which ones made the big leagues? And which ones starred or flopped once they got there. NO CHEATING!

- 2B) .284/.370/.386 - 88/67 K/BB - 66/19 SB/CS (!)
- CF) .248/.343/.391 - 101/60 K/BB - 22/10 SB/CS
- RF) .292/.344/.461 - 53/25 K/BB - 8/4 SB/CS
- LF) .277/.377/.536 - 128/72 K/BB - 15/8 SB/CS
- DH) .269/.345/.416 - 103/51 K/BB - 14/2 SB/CS
- C) .260/.326/.426 - 68/26 K/BB
- 1B) .277/.338/.416 - 80/45 K/BB
- SS) .264/.345/.377 - 44/58 K/BB
- 3B) .281/.353/.397 - 18/15 K/BB

Fun fact - this particular game I noted three different (!) plays made by the OTHER team and the Cannons still won 11-5 (LOL)

OK...a little hint if you're stumped...here are their ages in line-up order: 25, 21, 24, 22, 22, 21, 20, 23, 24

Their names (and I have fond memories of the PA announcer belting these out with incredibly infectious enthusiasm):

- Essex "GAS!" Burton! (maxed out in AAA very briefly)

- Mike "Summer Glove!" Cameron! (whom we all know and love)

- Carmine Cappuuuuuuuuucchio! (Had 3 years in AAA starting the very next season)

- Jimmy "Little" Hurst! (a play on the Big Hurt - cup of coffee with the Tigers in 1997, never saw the bright lights again)

- Charlie Poe! (Retired after 3 years in AAA)

- Robert "Macho" Machado! (career .230/.282/.344 hitting in 692 big league PAs as a back-up catcher)

- Eddie Pearson (Refused to give up...kept playing baseball until he was 32 and kicked around the Mexican League amongst other AA/AAA equivalent independent leagues)

- Craig Wilson (started for the White Sox for about half of the 1999 sesaon)

- Pete Rose, Jr. (rewarded for a fantastic year in the Reds org. with a cuppa in September of '97...retired at the end of a NEARLY TWENTY YEAR minor league career just the end of last season after some big years in the independent leagues...notably the Atlantic League (Long Island Ducks) and Northern League.

Unless you remembered Mike Cameron's early career...did any of you guess that he would have the best career of that group? Or that the second best career would be from the free-swinging catcher? Cameron was unlucky with his BABIP in 1994 (the year from which this line-up card was taken)...adjust for that and you see a better future perhaps. But he was not bright on the bases despite his blazing speed, and he wasn't a particularly powerful hitter at this time either. I remember him as being quite a scrawny lad back then. A scrawny lad with a very VERY fast swing and some serious defensive chops. It helps that those two flawed-looking prospects were at premium positions, but still...the guy with the lowest BA in the line-up (and not much power to go with it) and the guy with the worst K/BB? Really??

Projecting prospects is hard, folks. Hitters change...they evolve...or they don't change...and they max out at their current true level. If you're a superstar talent and you don't change...you might still make the big leagues. Jimmy Hurst did...he was a BIG TIME prospect back then...the Sox thought they had their future left fielder...he was tremendously powerful, young and athletic on the bases and in the field...he had a cannon for an arm...and his K/BB was quite fine for a slugger like him. He was most assuredly a pitch stalker. But he hit a wall and never amounted to anything substantial in the big leagues.

If you don't start out with much ability and you don't change...you get stuck somewhere lower down and history forgets you, even if you were a fan fave in Prince William (like Carmine Cappucchio...who used to stay after the game for an hour every day signing balls and talking to the kids about baseball). To be fair...as I go through this line-up...I can sort by K/BB and pick out the vast majority of the MLB candidates in order. I can also look at contact rate and rule out some of the decent K/BBs if they don't have other marketable skills. And throwing age in there allows you not ot be fooled by Essex Burton's gaudy SB numbers. Flashy speed, very late for his level...was never a real prospect...though he was certainly fun to watch on the bases from my box seat 15 feet away from the home plate umpire. :)

The general rules that BP uses don't come from nowhere. But studying minor league statistics and making use of good thumb rules is not enough. A little intuition and a little knowledge of things like "projectable power" (for guys like Mike Cameron who you knew would fill out eventually and turn their fast swings and doubles into easy dingers) also helps. As do years of experience viewing statistics that we fans don't have access to for the 'spects. Cameron got to where he is now by dialing up his aggression at the plate and looking to pull the ball for home runs when he got a pitch (and by growing up quite a bit physically). Machado was a good game caller even in single-A, and you can't fake his kind of raw power. But he made the big leagues by eventually cutting down on his K/BB just enough to move from AAA ceiling to fringe MLB ceiling. Sabermetrics will probably, one day, get good enough at pattern recognition and context adjustment to make reliable calls on prospects in AAA who've had a significant minor league career leading up to the AAA data. Following the motion and trend in the statistical line and finding which types of statistics demonstrate the skills you need in the majors will improve the MLEs in time. But I have serious doubts as to whether statistical analysis of even AA players will ever amount to more than an educated speculation. From AA to the show is usually at least 2 years, and for most...3 years before you're starting and getting enough PT to judge you as a big leaguer. And many...many AA stars never even get that far.

Point is...it's fun to talk about the prospects, but you can't make assumptions about where those prospects fit in your organization (or whether you have to worry about a given position in two years) based on who you've got in AA. When you get guys performing in AAA...THEN you can start making plans.