The Phillies are likely to activate Ryan Howard in time for tomorrow’s game according to multiple reports. Howard has yet to play this season after injuring his Achilles on the final play of last year’s NLDS. As Philadelphia awaits the return of its slugging first baseman, here are some links from around the league…
- Right-hander Dylan Bundy of the Orioles tops Baseball America’s updated list of the game’s 50 best prospects. Shortstop Jurickson Profar of the Rangers and outfielder Wil Myers of the Royals round out the top three.
- “It’s something I’m not at all opposed to,” said Brandon McCarthy to Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle when asked about the possibility of signing a long-term deal with the Athletics. “But it’s got to be something that makes sense for both sides.”
- The Dodgers have signed second round pick Paco Rodriguez for a straight slot $611K bonus, reports Jim Callis of Baseball America (on Twitter). He says the left-hander out of Florida eats hitters up with his cut-fastball.
Brewers need to trade Grienke and K Rod to Texas for Profar.
They do but Texas doesn’t.
KRod doesn’t really sweeten the pot there.
pretty huge leaps for barnes & bradley
Considering their dominance of the lower levels it’s not that surprising. Add to that Bradley hasn’t skipped a beat since being promoted to AA.
given their ages & backgrounds, it definitely surprises me. 22 y/o college kids are supposed to do well at the lower levels
they deserve recognition, but 13 & 32 seem too high to me. i’d take taillon, miller, and teheran over barnes without blinking. and gose over bradley every day
They were actually asked about that (Barnes being too high) in their chat after the list came out and they said it came, not from his performance, but from the ‘stuff’ they saw from him (his ‘stuff’ was better than those other guys in their opinion), and said that it came from talking to scouts, and scouts opinions had him that high.
I was shocked to see him there too, but if that’s what they were seeing and what scouts were saying I can’t say that it is unwarranted.
Also, while you could probably say that about Bradley in A+, I don’t think it’s really fair to say that he’s supposed to be doing this in AA, especially in his first pro season. I wouldn’t be shocked in the least if he sees time in AAA before the end of the season (in fact, I might be a little surprised if he doesn’t). FWIW Sickels also had Bradley ahead of Gose (Bradley 36 to Gose 51) in his mid-season update (to be fair, he also had Barnes at 41).
” I wouldn’t be shocked in the least if he sees time in AAA before the end of the season”
Am thinking he probably finishes 2012 at Portland and if he continues to rake? 2013 is at Pawtucket. They took their sweet time promoting him to AA to begin with after high A ball was not even a challenge and AA seems to be not much more after close to 100PA. The only thing dropping any is his bb/k ratio and it is still pretty good, just not in the positive ratio any longer as you know am sure.
Am thinking that as long as he is ready by the end of next year the FO will be happy.
They only left him in A+ until after their All-Star break because he was voted onto the team, Boston has a history of doing that and he was up the first game after the break.
If he keeps hitting like this in AA I’d be at least a little surprised if he didn’t get a taste of AAA before the end of the year (even if it’s just 50 plate appearance).
Was meaning by end of May when his Obp was still around .500 and even then, his .avg was hovering just underneath .400. His line never changed from mid May until he was promoted 3 weeks ago, after the break.
We talked here some earlier about the Sox waiting to promote obvious players who will be called up in the past also, yeah.. They have done it before I remember also.
Onto another player.. Barnes has had some issues his last 3 games, uncharacteristically getting somewhat roughed up. Maybe he needs to sit out a couple of turns? Curious on your thoughts there. Him giving up more than 1 run is astonishing going from his track record this year at both levels and in 3 straight games, giving up more than 3 seems like an indicator he may be tiring, or perhaps working on his changeup? Have not seen anything at soxprospects about him possibly working on his change and was wondering if you had as to what may be going on.
Well, Barnes is already 2/3 of the way to matching the most innings he’s ever thrown, and he’s going every 5 days instead of every 7 now, so I think there’s a pretty good chance that he’s getting tired and sitting him once or twice through the rotation might not be a bad idea. But it was actually asked in BA’s chat after their top 50 came out whether those starts affected his stock much and they said that his “stuff” was still the same in those starts, he just wasn’t getting the results, so it really didn’t affect their opinion of him much.
sickels’ opinion isn’t worth much to me at all, but BA’s definitely is. i don’t know nearly enough to argue with them, but i’m definitely surprised
i didn’t say they were supposed to be doing exactly as well as they are, just that they are supposed to be doing well. the difference between ‘doing well’ and what they’re doing deserves recognition
to be clear, i’ve liked barnes and bradley — especially bradley — from day 1. i just didn’t see that kind of ceiling
Yeah, I hear what you’re saying, and I actually thought the same thing.
I agree with you about Sickels vs BA too, but that was sort of my point. Sickels’ lists are kind of like if you or I decided to do a list (or you or I doing a list if we had access to a few scouts for opinions maybe), and I actually think Sickels ranked the guys closer to where I would have ranked them, but BA does it on first hand experience and direct input from scouts (they actually said in their chat that they run their list by a bunch of independent scouts and adjust it before it’s published), so if anyone is going to know where these guys should rank it would be BA/the scouts.
So while I was also surprised to see them so high, and thought they’d be lower, I really can’t do much other than defer to what BA says about them (because, as you said, I don’t know enough to argue with their placement of specific guys).
And yeah, I guess I misinterpreted what you meant when you said they should be doing well.
3 former Phils on that list. Wish them all the best.
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Also, really excited to see Howard in the line up tomorrow. It’s probably too late for him to have any significant impact but just seeing him in the line up after the way the season ended last year will be nice to see.
wow the yankees have three in the top 50…. 28.Mason Williams (OF), 30.Gary Sanchez (C) and 39. Tyler Austin (OF) all three are hitting very well and Mason williams is starting to show some power and then Tyler Austin is really showing he can fill in at RF by 2014. hopefully the yankees dont trade them. prob end up with someone else on the DL for the year.
It’ll be interesting to see if the Indians try to move Lindor or stick with Asdrubal long term.
its interesting to see the huge gap in opinion of Oscar Taveras. Usually the top guys are consensus among all the draft guys out there but Taveras was #8 on i think Baseball Intellect(maybe prospectus) in their midseason ranking and is #18 on BA. I honestly can’t think of 17 other prospects i’d rather have than Taveras.
I wonder if you’re thinking of Sickels having him at #9. Baseball Prospectus hasn’t put their list out yet, and from what I can find Baseball Intellect never even did a top 100 this year (let alone a mid-season update).
Tragedy of the Orioles: They were going to draft Wheeler and Joe Jordan drafted . . . . Hobgood ;-(, and they could have had Sano but McPhail refused to pony up.
You mean Angelos failed to pony up. He’s the owner.
Things of interest and gathered also on the BA Top 50:
Normal from it:
1 Cub on the list
1 Astro on the list
Small market teams have small presence in general..
Not normal:
Only **1** TB Ray on the list.
Large market teams have multiple entries here.. Boston, NYY, Jays, medium market STL have 1/4 of the people listed.
Yanks could have really used Cole right about now. Seeing how our pitching prospects have collapse.