Baseball America's top 100 prospects

[OnBaseMachine]

22 AROLDIS CHAPMAN LHP, REDS
Best Tool: Fastball.
BA Grade: 80.
Opening
Day Age: 22 ETA: Mid-2010

43 TODD FRAZIER OF/2B/3B, REDS
Best Tool: Power.
BA Grade: 60.
Opening
Day Age: 24 ETA: Mid-2010

45 YONDER ALONSO 1B, REDS
Best Tool: Bat.
BA Grade: 65.
Opening
Day Age: 22 ETA:2011

72 MIKE LEAKE RHP, REDS
Best Tool: Command.
BA Grade: 70.
Opening
Day Age: 22 ETA: 2011

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today...10/269553.html

[RedsManRick]

Interesting to see Leake at "just" 70 on command. I wonder what 80 looks like.

[OnBaseMachine]

I was surprised that one of Chris Heisey and Travis Wood didn't make the top 100.

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by OnBaseMachine

I was surprised that one of Chris Heisey and Travis Wood didn't make the top 100.

I wasn't. Heisey is not a spring chicken, doesn't have inspiring tools and has had 1 great stretch of 250 at bats in AA.

With Wood, his lack of an above average fastball probably doomed him. BA tends to give a little more weight to a fastball than the whole package.

[OnBaseMachine]

There's a few players on that list who I would take Wood, Heisey, and even Francisco over. Most notably, Josh Vitters, who continues to be overrated. Honestly, I don't see the difference between Francisco and Vitters. Both have plus power, questionable defensive skills, and bad plate discipline. Not sure why Vitters is ranked so high while Francisco isn't in the top 100. The Cubs placed five prospects in the top 100 - it's pretty obvious that Jim Callis had a strong influence on the list.

[edabbs44]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

I wasn't. Heisey is not a spring chicken, doesn't have inspiring tools and has had 1 great stretch of 250 at bats in AA.

With Wood, his lack of an above average fastball probably doomed him. BA tends to give a little more weight to a fastball than the whole package.

Have to agree, Heisey needs to prove a bit more and Wood, the same.

[HokieRed]

I'm more surprised by Wood's being left off than Heisey's. Doesn't mean I think Wood's a top 100 prospect but he is a lefty who had about as good a season as any starter in the minors last year.

[RedsManRick]

Vitters is two years younger than Fransisco, has yet to be moved off 3B, and came with a very high pedigree. BA incorporates a lot of qualitative info in their rankings and Vitters has had less time to show off his warts and tarnish scouts' opinion of his potential.

Regarding Heisey & Wood, I think we have to remember that 100 prospects really isn't all that much when you're talking about 30 teams' minor league systems. That's just over 3 guys per team and only 3 teams had more than the Reds' 4.

It doesn't take more than 1 or 2 big warts (Heisey's age and lack of a standout skill, for example) to keep you off the list. If you were to do 101-200, I think you'd find 5 or 6 Reds. Only 9 of the top 100 were 24 or older and only 14 were 6th round picks or later.

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

With Wood, his lack of an above average fastball probably doomed him. BA tends to give a little more weight to a fastball than the whole package.

I think you're right but LH starting pitchers are rarely flame throwers. That's what sets Chapman apart from the rest. For every Randy Johnson there's generally two or three guys like Tom Glavine, Jamie Moyer, Cliff Lee and Andy Pettitte.

[nemesis]

Originally Posted by HokieRed

I'm more surprised by Wood's being left off than Heisey's. Doesn't mean I think Wood's a top 100 prospect but he is a lefty who had about as good a season as any starter in the minors last year.

Actually he was the MiLB AA pitcher of the year. It would count for something ya'd think...

Wood is vastly underrated IMO. He has produced solid if not spectacular numbers at ever single level of the minors.

His rookie league stats were:

2 - 0 with a 1.29 ERA in 14 games and 49 Innings

His first full season stats at Dayton were:

27 starts 140 Innings 3.66 ERA

On a Pitching staff that included Cueto, Fisher, Ondrusek, Valiquette and Jeff Stevens who brought us Phillips...

The lineup included Bruce, Denove, Tatum, Janish and Rosales.

Alot of 40 Man Roster talent on that 2006 team.

IMO the 90 Inning jump in workload from 2005 to 2006 is what did his arm in for those 2 years in a row.

In 2007 he started 12 games and had a very weak line of:

12 starts 46 Inn and a 4.86 ERA

In 2008 he did very well as a repeat in Sarasota...

9 starts 47 Innings 2.70 ERA

We all know how bad he was at Chattanooga...

17 starts 80 Innings 7.09 ERA

Arm fatigue lead to bad mechanics and lead to quite a few MPH lost off his fastball and not giving his Plus Plus change the same affect.

One more year removed from arm surgery in 2009 and a retooled delivery added 3 to 5MPH back to his fastball (88 to 91) made his change more effective. Lead to a record setting AA season of:

19 starts 119 Innings 1.21 ERA

Followed by a solid AAA debut:

8 starts 49 Innings 3.14 ERA

I really believe he became a pitcher last year for the first time in his career. I see no reason with the offense he has behind him this year in AAA as well as other AAA Veterans in the Rotation with him (Lehr, Lecure, Klinker, Maloney) He won't feel the pressure of being an ace and will be able to relax and instead of trying to be too fine with his pitches, he can just pitch.

His stuff translates well IMO to the Reds staff in 2011.

With 4 fireball arms in Cueto, Bailey, Volquez and Chapman... a soft tossing lefty could be a perfect compliment to the staff. Think Tom Browning on a staff of Rijo, Jackson and Armstrong.

A rotation of:

Cueto
Volquez
Chapman
Bailey
Wood

has the "potential" to develop into a top 3 rotation in baseball.

[dougdirt]

nemesis, its more about what its believed you will do than what you have done. Travis Wood is an excellent prospect who has put together several strong seasons. He has had some health issues though that work against him in rankings like this. His ceiling also is theoretically limited because of his size and fastball (as we all know, guys can outperform their "scouting" ceiling in terms of actual results ie: guys without #1 stuff actually performing like #1's - Cliff Lee is a good example of this). Since Wood doesn't project out to be a TOR guy or even a #2, he is going to get overlooked on lists like this because Top 100 prospects are generally the elite of the elite. Wood is likely a Top 150 guy, which still puts him in the Top 1% of all minor leaguers.

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

... he is going to get overlooked on lists like this because Top 100 prospects are generally the elite of the elite. Wood is likely a Top 150 guy, which still puts him in the Top 1% of all minor leaguers.

Really? You mean there are 15,000 guys in the minors? That sounds high to me. That means each major league team would have 500 minor league players or 20 teams with rosters of 25. Are there really that many guys in the minors?

[Caveat Emperor]

Originally Posted by Sea Ray

Really? You mean there are 15,000 guys in the minors? That sounds high to me. That means each major league team would have 500 minor league players or 20 teams with rosters of 25. Are there really that many guys in the minors?

Knock it off.

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by Sea Ray

Really? You mean there are 15,000 guys in the minors? That sounds high to me. That means each major league team would have 500 minor league players or 20 teams with rosters of 25. Are there really that many guys in the minors?

The Reds invited 153 players to MILB spring training - not counting guys invited to ST with the big club, so lets just say 170 guys. We can figure other teams are similar. So we are at 170 times 30 = 5100 players. Then we look at the Dominican Summer League and Venezuelan Summer League and have an additional 40 teams of about 35-40 players on each team (active and inactive) and we are adding in another 1500 players, so we are at about 6600 players. 150 divided by 6600 = 2.3%. So I SLIGHTLY exaggerated. Still, we are talking about absolute cream of the crop guys at this point in the Top 150.

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

The Reds invited 153 players to MILB spring training - not counting guys invited to ST with the big club, so lets just say 170 guys. We can figure other teams are similar. So we are at 170 times 30 = 5100 players. Then we look at the Dominican Summer League and Venezuelan Summer League and have an additional 40 teams of about 35-40 players on each team (active and inactive) and we are adding in another 1500 players, so we are at about 6600 players. 150 divided by 6600 = 2.3%. So I SLIGHTLY exaggerated. Still, we are talking about absolute cream of the crop guys at this point in the Top 150.

OK. I agree with your bottomline that guys in the top 150 are cream of the crop but disagree that rounding 6600 to 15000 constitutes a slight exaggeration. For the life of me I couldn't come up with even half of that figure.