Who Is RedsZone's #10 Prospect?

[RedsManRick]

Originally Posted by HokieRed

I voted Cody Strait again. Seems to me to be very much undervalued not only by the board but by John Sickels. Just did some unofficial stat calculations on the Florida State League: only three guys in that league had better than .450 percentage of their hits for extra bases. Strait is one of the three and only hundredths of a point from the top. The other two stole 2 and 9 bases respectively, Strait stole 50, tied for the league lead. One of these other two, Paul Larish of the Tigers, is a B- prospect for Sickels, #6 in the Tigers system. Yet Strait doesn't even get mentioned on Sickels list or in his additional category. And it's not a matter of age--Larish is seven months older than Strait. Another comparison is with Paul Janish, also seven months older than Strait, #11 for Sickels in our organization. Janish had 30% of his FSL hits for extra bases last year, Strait 45%. Janish is apparently a fine fielder but Strait was, I believe, the highest rated defender of any Reds minor leaguer.

I agree Hokie. I did some reading on him as well. It sounds like contact rate is the concern -- but the FSL is notorious for depressing offensive production. If Strait can maintain his speed and power and hit .270+, he could shoot WAY up prospect boards in 2007. His numbers across the board remind me a lot of Corey Patterson. Given Strait's age, he's going to need to move quickly while developing a little more patience, but he should be fun to keep an eye on.

[M2]

Just a little something to mull over as we try to determine the Reds' top 10. Here's what BA's John Sickels had to say about Zach Ward in a Twins chat:

"He's probably in the top 30 but was not a factor for the top 10 for me. He's probably going to be a reliever, with his delivery and his stuff and his mentality. Then if he's a reliever, is he better than Eduardo Morlan, or Pat Neshek, or Jose Mijares, or Tim Lahey, or Yohan Pino, or . . . it's tough to project relievers. Ward would have been top 10 in the Reds system, and he's not really--in my mind--close to top 10 for the Twins. That says something about the Twins' system, but more about the Reds, IMO."

http://www.baseballamerica.com/onlin...es/262932.html

So we're not the only ones wrestling with the Reds' lack of depth.

[IslandRed]

I remember that came up in the aftermath of the Lohse/Ward trade. Someone asked how we could trade a pitcher that was probably in our top ten prospects and the rebuttal was that losing the tenth-best prospect is no big deal if we only have five or six that are supposed to be good and he wasn't one of them.

[camisadelgolf]

I was just looking back at some of the previous lists, and I laughed when I saw that we ranked Sean Watson ahead of AL MVP Josh Hamilton. Watson's likely one of the 10-12 candidates who will never play MLB.

[medford]

Originally Posted by camisadelgolf

I was just looking back at some of the previous lists, and I laughed when I saw that we ranked Sean Watson ahead of AL MVP Josh Hamilton. Watson's likely one of the 10-12 candidates who will never play MLB.

Not much talk about Hamilton either. Other than him jumping near the top, and I guess Janish jumping into the top 10 w/ Loo droppig out, the top 10 from 2007 would remain the same as today if asked to rank all these guys (though obviously in a different order). I guess we all forget just how much uncertaintity there was w/ Josh Hamilton when we got him from the cubs following the rule 5 draft.

[camisadelgolf]

Good point, medford. Years from now, we may be talking about this year as one of the best groups of prospects ever. Imagine having a top-10 prospect list of this:
Joey Votto
Josh Hamilton
Jay Bruce
Johnny Cueto
Drew Stubbs
Homer Bailey
Travis Wood
Paul Janish
Daryl Thompson
Jared Burton

. . . because those are players the Reds had going into 2007.