With a quarter of the season in the books, Joel Sherman of the New York Post looks at some players whose may simply headed for poor seasons rather than slow starts. Sherman constructs a lineup for his “It Gets Late Early” team, a Bizarro All-Star lineup of notable names who haven’t lived up to expectations — Shelby Miller, Ken Giles, Prince Fielder, Russell Martin, Mark Teixeira, Dee Gordon, David Wright, Erick Aybar, Carlos Gomez and (somewhat surprisingly) two regulars from the league-leading Cubs, Jorge Soler and Jason Heyward. Here’s more from around baseball as we head into the new week…
- Jonathan Villar has been a nice surprise for the Brewers, and an NL scout tells John Perrotto of TodaysKnuckleball.com that Villar’s good start could be for real. “I thought Villar was nothing more than a utility guy but he’s starting to prove me wrong,” the scout said. “He’s really maturing as a player. He may never be a star but he’s starting to look like an everyday guy to me. I don’t think what he’s doing is a two-month fluke.” It’s worth noting that Villar has a whopping .398 BABIP en route to his .286/.382/.390 slash line (and 14 steals) over 181 plate appearances, though his speed has also been a factor in allowing him to turn grounders into hits. As Perrotto notes, Orlando Arcia is still slated to be Milwaukee’s shortstop of the future, though the Brewers may have found an unexpected deadline trade chip in Villar.
- The Athletics don’t seem likely to make any notable acquisitions to help their injury-ravaged roster, CSNBayArea.com’s Joe Stiglich infers from Billy Beane’s comments. The sheer number of injured players “would impact any team in baseball,” Beane said, “and it’s certainly going to have a greater impact on us, given we’re not going to have the depth or the resources” to find easy replacements. The A’s fell to 19-26 after today’s loss to the Yankees and Oakland has already been cited as a possible trade deadline seller.
- Cardinals pitching prospect Alex Reyes threw four scoreless innings in a Triple-A start today, his first action since returning from a 50-game suspension for marijuana use. Suspension notwithstanding, Reyes could very possibly still reach the majors this season given his status as one of the game’s best prospects; the righty was rated very highly by Baseball America (7th), ESPN’s Keith Law (8th), Baseball Prospectus (10th) and MLB.com (11th) in preseason top-100 lists. In an interview with MLB.com’s Nick Krueger, Reyes discusses his outing and how he hopes he can regain the trust of both the organization and the fans.
- There’s still quite a bit of uncertainty surrounding the June amateur draft, as Baseball America’s John Manuel writes. Some of the uncertainty could stem from the fact that “there’s more comfort this year with the high school class than the college class,” one scouting director tells Manuel. “It’s not a clear-cut Top 10 group . . . not as high-end a group as you would have hoped for this year.”
Villar could slide to 2nd or 3rd when Arcia comes up. He doesn’t have traditional power for 3rd, but outside of Cecchini the Brewers don’t have any prospects there. Don’t know how blue his chip is anyway. Gennett doesn’t seem to be working out at 2nd as hoped, so Villar could take over there.
On Sherman’s article, I’m surprised Justin Upton isn’t on that list.
Good call on JUP. He is really struggling at the plate.
Yeah, it’s really puzzling with Justin Upton. He and Matt Kemp are having similar seasons – both have seen their wak rates crater to unacceptable levels – Kemp has walked just twice all season and currently sports an OBP in the 230s – and Upton is on pace for something like 250 Ks. Kemp is probably just on the downside of his career – he looks really bad out in the field, physically bad – can’t run or field anymore. J. Upton should be young enough that this is a blip, but it’s almost June now…
brewcat,
You are completely overlooking Hernan Perez as a prospect at 3B.? Perez is opening eyes big time.and is barely 25 himself and is getting a lot of playing time right now (he got 2 hits off Syndergaard yesterday) He’s got more power than Villar and can also steal bases.
They could deal Gennett and open up 2B for Villar, or make Villar a super-utility guy in the mold of a young Ben Zobrist. They might even think about trying him in the OF,
I don’t see Villar being traded at the deadline, unless someone blows them away.
I agree as well that I would trade Scooter before Villar. Sterns has really done well with the pieces he has brought to Milwaukee and has done it at half the price as Doug Melvin. Why does everyone just assume Arcia is coming up at the end of the year or even next year for that matter? Let Sterns decide whens best for him, no need to rush him its not like we’re contending anytime soon.
brewcat- We have Gilbert Lara who’s very young but I would still say he has more upside than any other 3B prospect we have on the team.
Don’t forget about Jake Gatewood at third. He’ll be in high-A at the end of this year.
Alex Reyes doesn’t have to regain trust from the fans. I don’t care if he smokes a joint on the pitchers mound so long as he can help the Cards win.
I guess it’s not a moral judgement, more that if he gets caught again, he gets banned again. Still, it’s a nice image, smoking a fat one between pitches!
Lol. Hey, Doc Ellis pitched a no hitter on acid.
What’s a little weed. Lighten up baseball.
I know it is more of a “if he gets caught” thing, but the Cards could have activated him since you can’t suspend a roster player for marijuana use. Anyways…