Low Minors M's (Gordon Gross)
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=== Ji-Man Choi ===
Ji-Man Choi has not been healthy. It’s like losing Snelling’s early years, because all the kid has done everywhere is hit, albeit in brief spurts. He’s strictly a 1B/DH now (no catching with a broken back) but the 2 year detour in his development is the Ms fault, not his. Of course, it’s hard to get 1B hype unless you were really highly drafted; the bar is set pretty high in performance for those who weren’t.
Just keep in mind that after only a season’s worth of at-bats, a very raw 21 year old Choi has a .325/.430/.485 line, without much in the way of homeruns. Assuming he goes to High Desert this year he’ll still be under-rated, because of course he’s gonna hit in High Desert. Just remember to keep an eye on him: if you cut off MWL performances at 60+ games, he’s first in OBP, and 5th in OPS.
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=== Timmy Lopes ===
Rookie league stats aren’t useless… but they’re certainly filled with noise. That said, any time you hit 13 triples in 50 games, you’ve probably got some speed and ability to put the bat on the ball. Timmy Lopes is really interesting. I think a couple of our other teens will wind up in Everett this year, but Lopes might start in the Midwest League at second base. He didn’t turn 18 til after the draft – dude’s a baby.
With no HR power in his swing that makes him a Chone Figgins/Joey Cora type, but, uh… Figgins had pretty huge leadoff value for quite a while, no? I don’t think his swing mechanics are gonna lead to him getting too many more HRs with age, either – but I didn’t think Jimmy Rollins would, and he was very valuable even before his increased power. I like Lopes a lot. We’ll see how he does in full-season ball.
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=== Leon Landry, Julio Morban ===
Landry and Morban are basically copies of each other, except one guy was an IFA and one went to college here in the states (LSU, big baseball school). Both played in High Desert so either could succumb to post-partum stat depression upon leaving.
As center fielders, though, they have a ways they could fall and still be quality hitters for their position. I get why they’re not higher on the list (nobody wants to get caught by the flood of failed hitters once they depart the desert) but Morban has always had one of the sweetest swings (health is his real issue).
Mistrust of Landry is Landry’s own fault. He did poorly in the MWL the previous season. Adam Jones failed in the MWL too – a lot of people do. Morban and Landry are two to watch in 2013 for sure, because if either can keep hitting in AA… look out.
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=== Others ===
We just have a lot of players with huge upside potential. Kivlehan is old, but I don’t care. Brian Jordan got in his first full big-league season at age 28 with a similar history (defensive back in college, etc). The difference is Jordan played baseball his whole college career. Kivlehan only just picked up a bat again after a 4 year layoff and won the Big East POY in college, then the NWL POY as well. He led the league in OPS.
His upside is a complete unknown – there’s no ceiling. Maybe he can’t hit a breaking ball, and he’ll completely faceplant at higher levels, like some of our foreign free-swingers. Or he could be an absolute terror once he gets some reps. Right now he’s doing everything with pure natural talent.
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Gohara and Diaz are live arms with basically zero experience as well. Either could be the next Campos to shoot up the charts, while Pike is more of a Hultzen-as-a-teen type with 3 pitches and a nasty breaker to go with his polished approach. I do like Pike quite a bit - but what's not to like about a polished lefty with a nasty curve and good change who can touch low-90s with his heat, accurately?
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DeCarlo was drafted very high for a raw kid from the Northeast, but was compared favorably with first round talent from warmer weather states (Daniel Robertson comes to mind).
Robertson is rated as the #10 prospect for the As, and a B-. Both play third base, both posted essentially the same line, with Robertson getting a 100 AB promotion to short-season A and faceplanting. Is Robertson better? Can’t say yet – as I said, rookie ball lines are very unreliable and DeCarlo skipped many of the national showcases that would have gotten him better pre-draft publicity. DeCarlo showed he was willing to take a walk and had some power.
That’s enough for now; if he’s worse than Robertson a) it isn’t by much at this point and b) certainly not several hundred prospect slots worse.
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=== 30,000 Feet ===
It’s just a very volatile low-minors situation. I don’t blame Sickels for wanting more data before plucking names out of the hat for the next batch of B prospects in our system, but it sure looks like the train’s continuing. We’ll see next year which of these guys bounces up. I expect many of them to rise to the occasion. Zduriencik picks seem to have that way about em…
~G