All my posts are my opinion - just like yours are. If I forget to state it and you're too dense to see the obvious, look here!
OK look at Danny Herrera Minor league #, forget he is 5'7 and 150lb and throws a 86 MPH .Now imagine he is 6'4 220 and throws 94 to 96 with those same #.How would you feel about him then?
I have a good feeling about Herrera. He's obviously not a top prospect in terms of the normal indicators. But he seems to deceive the hitters and get a lot of ground balls.
Sometimes a guy just has a knack for getting hitters out. I assume he will be at AAA this year and it will be interesting to see if he continues to be effective.
Krivsky and Co. obviously like him, I don't think they wanted a pure throw in, but wanted somebody who has a chance to help the Reds, even in a limited role.
I put a lot of stock in minor-league numbers myself -- at some point, potential has to start yielding actual results. At the same time, there are lots of different ways to get results in the minors and not all of them equally translate to big-league success.
The lower minors are full of hitters who lack patience and can't hit good breaking stuff to save their lives. A pitcher who has good command of his breaking stuff can mow those guys down. But at each bump in level, critically flawed hitters are weeded out, leaving more guys who can hit the breaking stuff, especially if they're looking for it. If the pitcher can't set up the breaking pitches with a decent fastball, he will probably hit a wall at some point, the Jamie Moyers of the world excepted.
Similarly, hitters can feast on minor-league pitching just by having the patience to wait out the guys who are having trouble throwing strikes, and the ability to kill a mistake fastball. But they can't really hit *good* pitching, and as they move up the ladder they're exposed as pretenders.
For a guy like Herrera, one test I'd like to see -- and I have no idea how one would obtain this information -- is, what results is he getting against hitters who project to be major-leaguers someday, as opposed to organizational filler? If he's getting the good hitters out, too, that's an encouraging sign. Especially if he does it at Triple-A, since that level has a lot of fringe big-leaguers who have been around the block a few times.
Reading comprehension is not just an ability, it's a choice
His hands are probably too small for a knuckler, but that would have been a great pitch for him to add.
In Arizona this past winter he posted a 2.53 ERA with batters hitting .212 against him. Most of the guys sent to Arizona are considered to be major league bound.
Well the Reds can slot him in to the Carlos Guevara lifetime Chattanooga slot in the pen.
This is sounding like a favorite Childhood book about the "Littile Engine That Could". We all need a little fantasy, eh?
His biggest barrier will be the Reds FO.
If he can get people out, well then, I don't care if he's 5'8" or 6'8". Thanks for the info guys, especially danwl. It's appreciated!
I can't remember if I said this here or some time ago on another thread. I knew a guy who played college ball at Xavier, a contemporary of Charlie Liebrandt when he was at Miami(?). Liebrandt, a lefthander, was drafted out of college, Jim signed as a free agent with the Cardinals. He went to Spring Training but ultimately left before the season started. He recognized that he, a righthander pitching the same speed Liebrandt was (high 80's, if I remember correctly). He knew, though, that he'd never ulimately make the majors with that stuff. Liebrandt, of course, went on to a 14 year career in the big leauges. Being lefthanded is a gift from God (said the leftie here).
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