To be fair to Jason, he didn't look at Vinnie and say, "not a prospect." OTHERS looked at him, and told him he wasn't a prospect, and Jason, being a very busy man, took them at their word.
Catricala is not a player I have seen much of, but word is he's not a prospect so I have never paid attention much. He's a good minor league player and hits a lot of fly balls with a big swing, which explains some of his success, and failures, in the Cal League.
Once the "hot streak" continued in AA he took a closer look for himself, and you can see how he feels about Vinnie with his new ranking. One of the problems with believing professional scouts just because they're professionals.
Much as Conor Dowley has. He ranked Vinnie as having one average skill (power) and a bunch of below average ones (the guy who has never hit lower than .300 in the minors and significantly higher than that at half his stops has a low hit tool because his bat doesn't stay in the zone forever like Seager's does). When someone gets incredulous, he responds:
Forgive me if I trust the four scouts I talked to who’ve seen him at least 15 times between them just this year more. In fact, I might have been a little kind compared to their reports.
So apparently he's being generous when he says Vinnie's a classic org guy at age 22, "a good guy to keep around who can give your minor league squads some extra “oomph”, but not a serious prospect." And uses comps like Brian LaHair (who couldn't hit oppo pitching to save his life even after thousands of minor league ABs), Johan Limonta (lazy player who never improved) and Luis Jimenez (really? What's with the fat, slow 1B comparisons?).
Catricala is not the fastest guy in the world, but he's not a plodder. His glove is minus at 3B right now but plus at 1B, and the OF would be fine for him. He has positional options that mountains with hands like LaHair don't have.
He's right, Vinnie's bat is not the fastest but he squares up more than his share of pitches and drives them a long way. I think the Safe will hurt him, but that doesn't make him an org player - that makes him a potential stud for someone else, or a good player for us.
Vinnie's front half is like still water. He moves his front foot like an inch, drops his shoulder and drives the ball with that compact swing using torque and the rest of the muscles on his opposite side to lift the ball instead of wrist hinge or pure batspeed. It's definitely a workable power solution as long as he can identify pitches early - and so far he's shown he can. I can't understand looking at him and thinking he's not a prospect. He was driving balls out of MWL parks by 50 feet - that's not Cal League fly ball luck, that's power. Power he duplicated in the Southern League.
It's like there's only one way to succeed in the bigs according to some scouts. One way to swing, one thing to do, or you're "not a prospect." Man, somebody better tell Cal Ripken and Joe Morgan, who changed their stances and movements around their swings a dozen times during their careers.
Vinnie is not the second coming of A-Rod or anything, but he's gonna be a ML ballplayer. So's Seager. Whether you want them on your team is another matter, but Vinnie was not coincidentally a top-5 hitter in three full-season leagues before the age of 23. You may not like the KIND of prospect he is (tweener 3B/1B/OF who pays attention on the basepaths, decent eye, K and walk rates, good-contact flyball hitter who reads pitches early to compensate for slower bat, with tons of doubles, 15-20+ HRs and a high BABIP) but that doesn't make him "not a prospect." It makes him not YOUR kind of prospect.
Which is fine...but then advocate trading him, not discounting him.
Scouts have reversed themselves now, btw, and are touting Catricala as if they'd always been fans. It leaves the guys who relied on their reports twisting in the wind a bit, but such is life.
Vinnie can still fail, and give doubters and discounters the final victory - but all prospects can fail. That doesn't make them "not a prospect." It makes them ballplayers.
He has a Nick Markakis skillset from the right side of the plate. In what universe would we not want that in a prospect? With our OF depth I could see us using Vinnie as a trade chip - we need a catcher more - but I think we'll just let him simmer in AAA until we get the Ichiro thing figured out and see where Guti's at. Vinnie's played half his games in the OF in AA, at about Mike-Carp level.
If Wells doesn't work out as a starter and Trayvon is in CF, don't be surprised if Vinnie the Cat is our next serious attempt to plug that hole.
As more than just an org guy.
~G