Baseball America's Top Ten Reds prospects

[redsof72]

Lotzkar is a good prospect. I said he struggled to get his ERA under 5.00 and maybe that was a bit of an exageration or my memory was a little off. He made 10 starts. After his fourth start, his ERA was 6.19. After his seventh start of the 10, his ERA was 4.66. Then he finished up with 8.2 scoreless innings combined over his last three starts to lower it 3.58. Of Lotzkar's 10 starts, he had three starts where he pitched five innings and those were his longest starts. In the other seven starts, he went a combined 22.2 innings and allowed 19 runs. I will be the first to agree that none of that means too much. But my point is, when you looked at Lotzkar last season, you saw a guy who, for the most part, was going to struggle out there. Soto, by contrast, was a star who carried his team to the playoffs and was the heart of the offense. The two players were both out of the same draft as high school picks. Both are tools guys.

Lotzkar has good stuff. But he certainly doesn't throw as hard as Stewart, or even close. He certainly doesn't have Stewart's slider (though Baseball America rated Lotzkar's curve as the best in the organization. What they did not take into consideration is that he does not yet have command of that curve and that is why he throws 20-25 pitches per inning).

Lotzkar is a promising young pitcher, certainly light years ahead of Ravin at this point. I am not knocking him. But to me, I just didn't see anything that special. I have seen dozens like him. I talked to a lot of the managers around the league and I don't ever remember anyone saying, "boy, that Lotzkar, he looks like he'll be something special."

I hope I am selling him short and the biggest Lotzkar supporters are the ones who are seeing it correctly.