Baseball America's Top 20 Midwest League Prospects

[dougdirt]

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today...2/2612401.html

Only Billy Hamilton (2) and Daniel Corcino (16) make it from the Dragons.

I will be pretty honest..... to me, Billy Hamilton wasn't even the 2nd best prospect on his own team, so to see him ranked #2 in the entire league is wild. As an athlete, the guy is off the charts. As a baseball player, he has an incredibly long way to go. Right now, his hit tool might be a 30. Right now, his power is a 20. Great athlete or not, you can't carry those tools currently and rank as the 2nd best player in any professional league IMO.

I am very surprised by Daniel Corcino's ranking. Midseason he was talked about by BA as being just outside the Top 50 prospects in all of baseball, then winds up being the 7th pitcher listed here. Stuff wise, he was outstanding this season. Numbers wise, he was outstanding this season. I just don't get this one.

Yorman Rodriguez.... attitude issues and all, was the second best prospect on the team for me this season. He should have been on the list. The guy was one of three 18 year olds in the league and he held his own just fine. He wasn't over his head. He didn't do well either. But the tools were all there.

Ronald Torreyes.... one of the other 18 year olds in the league. How an 18 year old goes out and hits .356 and doesn't make the list is a bit shocking. I know the list is based on the managers input from the league and only playing in the second half meant some guys probably didn't see him, but this is a big omission to me.

Anyways, that is my take on the list.

[New Fever]

From the chat:


Kyle (Oxford): No room for Ronald Torreyes after the way he hit the ball as an 18 year old in the second half of the season?

Jim Callis: I'll throw out the usual caveat that it's tough making a Top 20 in a 16-team league. In a normal-sized league, Torreyes would have made it because I had him in the 21-25 range. He just has a tough profile as a 5-foot-6 second baseman who lacks the arm strength to play on the left side of the infield and be a utilityman. He can hit, he can run, he has a little pop. But he's got to max out his ceiling with all of those tools to be a big league regular.

[New Fever]

Greg (KY): Your take on Donald Lutz? Thanks.

Jim Callis: Nice sleeper prospect. Dayton had more prospects than any club in the MWL, and Lutz was one of them. His bat will have to carry him, but he offers plenty of raw lefthanded power.

ScottAz (Phx, AZ): We keep hearing about hamilton's arm being too weak for SS. On the 20-80 scale what does it rate? How does that comp to the mlb ave?

Jim Callis: It's average, so it rates a 50. He has to load up to try to make plays deep in the hole. Additionally, he'll sling the ball form a low arm slot, so he beats his first baseman up by throwing him sinkers.

Tom (New Mexico): Corcino's ceiling? Confident he'll reach it?

Jim Callis: No. 3 starter with a good chance to reach it. He draws a lot of Johnny Cueto comps for his size and quick arm, though Cueto's slider was better (Corcino still has a good one) when he was in the MWL five years ago.

[redsof72]

Some thoughts:

First, as I have said many times, opinions vary significantly. There is no right or wrong.

My initial impression, however, is that they are pretty much spot on. I said in another thread last week that the four position players in the division who stood out as the top prospects this season were Hamilton, Marisnick, Castellanos, and Liriano and I was pretty confident that some combination of those four would be the top four from the East, and they had them as 1-2-3-4 so I am obviously in agreement with that. Glad to see they had Hamilton at #1 (of the position players from the East, that is).

Corcino...I probably asked eight scouts at ballparks this season how they turned him in. Most all said as a big league reliever. One, who has coached in the big leagues, said, "I would expect that most guys put him down as a reliever but I wrote him up as a number five starter." I still think Corcino is the number one pitching prospect in the org right now but the Reds don't have a surefire big league starter. Callis saying he is a #3, again, that is the highest I heard anyone project him all season among people on the outside. I will say that Corcino's pitching coach thinks that he will be better than a #3 starter. Corcino's detractors don't like his max-effort delivery and arm angle. This type of contrast in evaluation is a common thing.

Torreyes...one thing that bugs me a little here is the legend of his size continues to grow. Now he is 5'6". Take this to the bank: Torreyes is 5'7", 145 lbs. For better or for worse, that is what he is. I love Torreyes as a player and he was the most polished player on the team despite being the youngest guy, but he is going to have to prove himself at every level. It would have been a pleasant surprise to me to see him in the top 20 and I am glad they said he would have been in the next five. Don't bet against him. He is a "ballplayer."

Lutz would have been a top 20 guy if he had a higher profile. He kept getting better and better and by the end of the season, he was one heck of an all-around player. Keep in mind the scouts stop coming by around the third week of July for the most part. People who did not see him in August/September did not see the true picture. Lansing went into the playoffs determined not to let Lutz beat them. Their strategy was a huge statement about their respect for him. He is 22, but because of his limited experience growing up in Germany with no real leagues to play in, that is less of a concern. He is improving faster than any player in the organization compared to the players around him and against him.

Yorman...I would have been shocked out of my shoes if he has made the top 20. Yes, he has some tools, but none of them really looked special. Unfortunately, other things did stand out. Bad player this year in a league where a teammate younger than him hit .356. I would like to see what Yorman could do with more effort. Maybe we will find out in 2012.

There are many other players on the 2011 Dayton team that could be quality major leaguers...Barnhart, Vidal, Hayes, Renken, Smith, Lotzkar, Rogers, Howell, and perhaps even some others, but it might take another good year to draw enough attention to jump onto these kind of lists. I noted that he Callis said Dayton had the most prospects yet only two were on the list. That statement is very telling.

[Benihana]

Not surprised Duran didn't make the Top 20 list. Am surprised however that no one on this thread has mentioned him yet.

[dougdirt]

Not surprised Duran didn't make the Top 20 list. Am surprised however that no one on this thread has mentioned him yet.

I don't think anyone had any sort of expectations that he should have made the list, thus no reason to bring him up. I think that at best, I would probably say he is behind four other every day prospects on the team in terms of prospect value (Hamilton, Torreyes, Rodriguez and Vidal) and I am certainly willing to listen to and strongly consider Lutz in that discussion too.

[Benihana]

I don't think anyone had any sort of expectations that he should have made the list, thus no reason to bring him up. I think that at best, I would probably say he is behind four other every day prospects on the team in terms of prospect value (Hamilton, Torreyes, Rodriguez and Vidal) and I am certainly willing to listen to and strongly consider Lutz in that discussion too.

I was more referring to redsof72, who mentioned no less than 13 players on the team but did not mention Duran.

[redsof72]

Duran...Hard to really take him seriously yet. He can hit the ball a country mile but has areas of his game that...lets put it this way: If Billy Hamilton's speed is off the scouts' scale, Duran has some areas that are also off the scale only on the other end.

Every player does not have the same work ethic. Every player is not a Votto who is out on the practice field at 7:00 a.m. in spring training, or on the other end of the spectrum, a Frank Pfister, who does not have the talent but is out there by himself, every single day, working, working working. Every player is not a Torreyes who understands that nothing is going to be handed to him. Every player is not a Miguel Rojas, who is alone in the batting tunnel first day off the road trip, hitting off the tee, hours before anyone else arrives. Every player is not a Mesoraco, who heard for three years that he was a bust but never let that deter him from working every day on his weaknesses.

You wish every player was like that, and many are, far more than could be named here, but not all. Signing bonus does not equate to big league productivity. If it did, Chris Heisey would be home watching the Reds on TV, watching B.J. Szymanski play at Great American Ballpark.

[lollipopcurve]

Every player does not have the same work ethic. Every player is not a Votto who is out on the practice field at 7:00 a.m. in spring training, or on the other end of the spectrum, a Frank Pfister, who does not have the talent but is out there by himself, every single day, working, working working. Every player is not a Torreyes who understands that nothing is going to be handed to him. Every player is not a Miguel Rojas, who is alone in the batting tunnel first day off the road trip, hitting off the tee, hours before anyone else arrives. Every player is not a Mesoraco, who heard for three years that he was a bust but never let that deter him from working every day on his weaknesses.

You wish every player was like that, and many are, far more than could be named here, but not all. Signing bonus does not equate to big league productivity. If it did, Chris Heisey would be home watching the Reds on TV, watching B.J. Szymanski play at Great American Ballpark.

This is a great post.

Along the same lines, I wonder to what extent organizations enable these kinds of attitudes -- both the strong and the weak work ethics -- often based on where players were drafted and how much $$$ they got. I'm sure it's built into the system to some extent -- organizations want to show that their draft/signing decisions are good ones -- but at the same time it's counterproductive to coddle spoiled supposed prospects and ignore supposed non-prospects as some of these kids begin to show they may have been mislabeled. I sure hope the Reds development system is good enough that that built-in dysfunction does not hold sway.

[_Sir_Charles_]

Duran...Hard to really take him seriously yet. He can hit the ball a country mile but has areas of his game that...lets put it this way: If Billy Hamilton's speed is off the scouts' scale, Duran has some areas that are also off the scale only on the other end.

Every player does not have the same work ethic. Every player is not a Votto who is out on the practice field at 7:00 a.m. in spring training, or on the other end of the spectrum, a Frank Pfister, who does not have the talent but is out there by himself, every single day, working, working working. Every player is not a Torreyes who understands that nothing is going to be handed to him. Every player is not a Miguel Rojas, who is alone in the batting tunnel first day off the road trip, hitting off the tee, hours before anyone else arrives. Every player is not a Mesoraco, who heard for three years that he was a bust but never let that deter him from working every day on his weaknesses.

You wish every player was like that, and many are, far more than could be named here, but not all. Signing bonus does not equate to big league productivity. If it did, Chris Heisey would be home watching the Reds on TV, watching B.J. Szymanski play at Great American Ballpark.

On one of the saddest days of the year for me, I find myself surprised to see one of the best posts of the year. I was unbelievably optimistic for this season, but by the end of the year I was enjoying the minor league clubs far more than the Reds. I hope we see more big leaguers carrying forward their youthful enthusiasm for the game to the majors. It seems to happen far too often that once they reach the majors, the effort and desire to improve fall off a cliff.

[BuckeyeRedleg]

redsof72, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your contributions to this site.

Thank you!

[Blitz Dorsey]

Really makes you question the validity of everything Baseball America is doing with such a sloppy list. Maybe if Torreyes hit .400 they would have been impressed? I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and presume a batter needed 300 ABs to qualify or something, but if that's the case they should have made that clear. For an 18-year-old to hit .356 and not be one of the "top 20 prospects" in his low-A league is a complete joke. BA should be ashamed. I suppose I should quit using them as my "bible" when it comes to prospect rankings. That is atrocious.

And then they completely overcompensate on Billy Hamilton who did have a very good year and really hit well the second half of the season. But #2 in the whole league while Torreyes doesn't even make the list? Wow. Then again, 103 steals is ridiculous in this day and age, but that's still a sloppy list on BA's part.

[dougdirt]

Really makes you question the validity of everything Baseball America is doing with such a sloppy list. Maybe if Torreyes hit .400 they would have been impressed? I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and presume a batter needed 300 ABs to qualify or something, but if that's the case they should have made that clear. For an 18-year-old to hit .356 and not be one of the "top 20 prospects" in his low-A league is a complete joke. BA should be ashamed. I suppose I should quit using them as my "bible" when it comes to prospect rankings. That is atrocious.

And then they completely overcompensate on Billy Hamilton who did have a very good year and really hit well the second half of the season. But #2 in the whole league while Torreyes doesn't even make the list? Wow. Then again, 103 steals is ridiculous in this day and age, but that's still a sloppy list on BA's part.

I think it should be noted that this is more based on what the managers in the league think, not as much what BA's writers think or what professional scouts think. With that said, the writers do have some input. I do agree with you that if Hamilton is #2, then Torreyes should be on the list. Is Hamilton the better prospect? Yeah, he is. But the gap isn't nearly as large as their rankings suggest. Torreyes was said to be in the #21-25 range if the list went that far, so yeah, he was eligible. He just didn't make it.

[redsof72]

It is not the 103 steals that made Billy the #2 prospect. It is the once-in-a-lifetime athletic ability that shows up in all phases of his game. We don't know if any Single-A player can improve his skills enough to play in the majors. It will depend on a lot of things (in no particular order):

1) Tools
2) Skills
3) Work ethic
4) Staying healthy
5) Coaching
6) Ability to implement the coaching into on-field performance
7) Willingness to listen
8) Ability to adjust
9) Instincts
10) Baseball IQ

They all have a long way to go. Hamilton has something none of the rest of them have: A body capable of things that few have ever seen.

[mace]

Tucker Barnhart was named to the Minor League Gold Glove team. The only player from the Midwest League or Reds organization. That's quite an honor, I'd say.

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/n...&tcid=fb_share