Saturday, February 26, 2005
Prospecting
The inspiration for posts have not been frequent of late and has lead to some silence on Metsmerized. Luckily, Baseball Prospectus released its list of their top 50 prospects and John Sickels did a list of the top 20 Mets prospects.
For the BP list, they did not give commentary on the list so it was hard to gauge their reasoning. Obviously, we know they value skills and numbers over tools, but the list left me with a lot of questions. For example, they rated Matt Cain behind Jered Weaver even though Cain has dominated at High A, pitched well at Double-A and is younger! This makes no sense to me. If you were going by tools, you could make the argument if you thought Weaver had better stuff, but Cain has already put up numbers in professional baseball. From reading the BP prospect roundtables, they seemed to be all over the place in determining the list and not as consistent as past years. I would like to know if they do a vote, or if it is a consensus or if one person takes the commentary and makes the list.
As a Mets fan, the on thing that jumps out at you is Kazmir is ranked one spot ahead of Yusmeiro Petit. As I commented in an earlier post, it would be interesting to see how BP rated Petit and Milledge as opposed to Baseball America where Milledge was #1 and Petit #2. As I hypothesized, they had Petit ahead of Milledge but I was pleased to see Milledge at #19. Although Milledge has a rep as toolsy guy, he did have an enormous year in 2004, too big for BP to ignore. Although Delmon Young is #2, the difference between him and Milledge is not that large. In fact, you could argue that Milledge has a higher ceiling because he has speed and is a better fielder. Right now, Milledge is comparable to a guy like Rocco Baldelli due to his lack of plate discipline. Obviously, Baldelli would be nice, but if he can work on the walk rate, he could become closer to Carlos Beltran. His future will be exciting to follow.
Similarly, it is nice to see Petit get some love from BP but it isn’t surprising. This is a huge year for him and if he succeeds at Double-A, he will be on the fast track to Flushing while silencing critics who say he lacks “stuff.”
Only one Yankee, Eric Duncan, made the list and I was surprised to see him at #13 right ahead of Kaz and Petit. His line of .254/.366.462 in the Florida State League is not that impressive, but the walk rate is impressive and that must’ve been what clinched it for him; however, his line of .260/.351/.479 in the first part of the year at Low A is nothing special either, Milledge’s were far more impressive but Duncan walks a lot more.
As for Sickels, he has Petit and Humber rated ahead of Milledge, which is surprising and somewhat curious. Sickels does not speak too highly of either though, giving Petit a B+ and saying he thinks he is the #21 pitching prospect. His criticism of Petit and Milledge are what you would expect and what I have outlined before, but apparently he sees their shortcoming as larger obstacles than most.
On the plus side, he speaks glowingly of Gaby Fernandez and from what I’ve read, I have become very excited about this guy. He is a ways off but another guy worth following. I enjoy tracking the Mets farm system and was so dismayed when they made the “Black Friday” trades and a big reason was because I had enjoyed following those guys. On a side note, I saw the Justin huber is now being moved to first base primarily thereby diminishing his value and making that trade a little easier to swallow.
Looking at the Sickels’ list, it is apparent the Mets system lacks depth but is top heavy, particularly in the pitching department. The assessments in BP and by Sickels are fair. The BA top 100 prospect list will be released Monday and will provide an interesting point of comparison.
For the BP list, they did not give commentary on the list so it was hard to gauge their reasoning. Obviously, we know they value skills and numbers over tools, but the list left me with a lot of questions. For example, they rated Matt Cain behind Jered Weaver even though Cain has dominated at High A, pitched well at Double-A and is younger! This makes no sense to me. If you were going by tools, you could make the argument if you thought Weaver had better stuff, but Cain has already put up numbers in professional baseball. From reading the BP prospect roundtables, they seemed to be all over the place in determining the list and not as consistent as past years. I would like to know if they do a vote, or if it is a consensus or if one person takes the commentary and makes the list.
As a Mets fan, the on thing that jumps out at you is Kazmir is ranked one spot ahead of Yusmeiro Petit. As I commented in an earlier post, it would be interesting to see how BP rated Petit and Milledge as opposed to Baseball America where Milledge was #1 and Petit #2. As I hypothesized, they had Petit ahead of Milledge but I was pleased to see Milledge at #19. Although Milledge has a rep as toolsy guy, he did have an enormous year in 2004, too big for BP to ignore. Although Delmon Young is #2, the difference between him and Milledge is not that large. In fact, you could argue that Milledge has a higher ceiling because he has speed and is a better fielder. Right now, Milledge is comparable to a guy like Rocco Baldelli due to his lack of plate discipline. Obviously, Baldelli would be nice, but if he can work on the walk rate, he could become closer to Carlos Beltran. His future will be exciting to follow.
Similarly, it is nice to see Petit get some love from BP but it isn’t surprising. This is a huge year for him and if he succeeds at Double-A, he will be on the fast track to Flushing while silencing critics who say he lacks “stuff.”
Only one Yankee, Eric Duncan, made the list and I was surprised to see him at #13 right ahead of Kaz and Petit. His line of .254/.366.462 in the Florida State League is not that impressive, but the walk rate is impressive and that must’ve been what clinched it for him; however, his line of .260/.351/.479 in the first part of the year at Low A is nothing special either, Milledge’s were far more impressive but Duncan walks a lot more.
As for Sickels, he has Petit and Humber rated ahead of Milledge, which is surprising and somewhat curious. Sickels does not speak too highly of either though, giving Petit a B+ and saying he thinks he is the #21 pitching prospect. His criticism of Petit and Milledge are what you would expect and what I have outlined before, but apparently he sees their shortcoming as larger obstacles than most.
On the plus side, he speaks glowingly of Gaby Fernandez and from what I’ve read, I have become very excited about this guy. He is a ways off but another guy worth following. I enjoy tracking the Mets farm system and was so dismayed when they made the “Black Friday” trades and a big reason was because I had enjoyed following those guys. On a side note, I saw the Justin huber is now being moved to first base primarily thereby diminishing his value and making that trade a little easier to swallow.
Looking at the Sickels’ list, it is apparent the Mets system lacks depth but is top heavy, particularly in the pitching department. The assessments in BP and by Sickels are fair. The BA top 100 prospect list will be released Monday and will provide an interesting point of comparison.
# posted by Wally Backman @ 2/26/2005 08:02:00 PM 
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