As the Reds get a big win over Philly led by rookies Cozart and Frazier, I thought now would be a good time to applaud theReds system for its huge contribution to this very good 2012 season.
Let's look at the Reds starting 8. At least 5 of them are home grown talents and that's if we consider Ludwick the LF. If you plug Frazier in there, we've got only Rolen and Phillips as guys who didn't come from our system. However we traded our system prospects for both Rolen and Phillips so they are also in a sense products of our system. The pitching staff is also well represented by past Reds prospects
But part of this confuses me. How can we be this good given the lack of hype given these guys when they were in the minors? Seems to me that guys like Hanigan, Cozart, Stubbs and Frazier were projected as platoon/utility major leaguers. Were they ever top 50 or top 100 prospects? How high did Votto ever rise on a national prospect list? What I'm getting at is that our guys are over performing their projections. I think our prospects are being underestimated to a certain extent.
Now I'll grant you that a case can be made that Bruce and Mesorasco have underperformed their hype to this point but who would have projected the huge contributions we're now getting from the likes of Hanigan, Cozart and Frazier? Who projected Frazier as a Rookie of the Year candidate in March? Even Votto...I never recall him being hyped as a potential MVP guy when he was playing at AA and AAA.
Thoughts?