Ask Baseball America By James Bailey
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April 27, 2000I'm going to start today by going back to Tuesday's discussion on building an organization through pitching prospects. Reader Paul Covert wrote in and said he thought 50 percent was a little on the optimistic side for top pitching prospects making it in the big leagues as regulars. He looked through the Top 100 Prospects lists from 1990-95 and found that of the 14 pitchers who were ranked in the top 10, half of them made successes of themselves: Steve Avery, Ben McDonald, Arthur Rhodes, Pedro Martinez, Jason Bere, Allen Watson and James Baldwin. The other seven: Kiki Jones, Todd Van Poppel, Roger Salkeld, Brien Taylor, Frank Rodriguez, Tyrone Hill and Jose Silva. This got me thinking about going a little deeper in the rankings. So I went through the Top 100 lists from 1990-95 and looked at all the pitchers who were ranked among the top 50 players from those six years. There were 88 (some appeared more than once, but I counted them only one time). Of those 88, 38 have seen what I would subjectively refer to as success. That's 43 percent. For some, "success" is a tough call. Baldwin, for example, has won more than 11 games in each of the past four seasons. But he also owns a 5.19 career ERA. Is that the success you are looking for with the No. 8 prospect (and highest rated pitcher on the list) in 1994? Maybe not, but I included him in the winners bracket because he he's entering his fifth consecutive season as a mainstay in Chicago's rotation. As for the Marlins, to put it scientifically, they will actually be bucking the odds if two of their four young studs become major league successes (not three as I said earlier). I think they will, but we'll have to check back in a couple of years to see where they fall. It was very interesting your comments on the Marlins and White Sox minor league pitching depth. I am curious on how you would rank the Royals in the mix. The Royals have an incredible number of pitchers who could make an impact in the next couple of years: righthanded starters Kyle Snyder, Dan Reichert, Jeff Austin, Chad Durbin, Junior Guerrero, Mike MacDougal and Brian Sanches, lefthanders Chris George and Jimmy Gobble, and relief pitchers Orber Moreno, Lance Carter, Robbie Morrison and Jay Gehrke. Llimback@aol.com The Royals do have an impressive collection of young pitchers. Snyder, George and Austin are all potential No. 1 or 2 starters, and Guerrero could be in that class as well. I'd rank them not far behind the White Sox and Marlins. They probably have more depth then the Marlins, but it's tough to match Anderson, Beckett, Burnett and Penny as a foursome. Reichert is working out of the bullpen now and I'm not sure what the Royals plan for his future. I've heard some people say with his fastball and slider combo he'd make a nice closer. Either way, I think breaking a guy in in a relief role is a good way to go, because it keeps him from racking up a lot of innings his first year or two in the big leagues. I really enjoy this column a lot, but I do have a single complaint. It seems to me that the Red Sox get little credit for the pitching talent in their minor league system. With all the talk about the Marlins and White Sox, why is there no mention of the Red Sox' Triple-A (and even lower level) pitching? Tomo Ohka, Jin Ho Cho, Sunny Kim (who, at 22, quietly blew away the best hitting prospects in the game last fall in the AFL), Juan Pena (hurt, but pitchers often return from elbow MCL surgery with increased velocity, and he's only 22), and Brian Rose (poor start this year, but formerly 17-5 in Triple-A) make up a pretty good crop of arms. Each has had similar (or better) minor league success when compared with the White Sox' and Marlins' big guns. And that's just at Triple-A and the majors! Jason Sekany (Triple-A) has improved every year, Paxton Crawford is off to a good start in Double-A, and Brad Baker's been excellent at Augusta. Throw in Seung Song (No. 1 overall pick in Korean draft) and Mat Thompson (2nd round '99), who both throw mid-90s, and Casey Fossum, all of whom had excellent debuts last summer. Having Pedro has helped them sign some quality Dominican arms too. Seems to me their system is really underrated, perhaps because many of their best arms are Asian, and represent relatively unknown commodities. Zach Nightingale Worcester, MA At the risk of incurring the wrath of Red Sox fans again (please, send your hate mail to your Congressman or somewhere else this time), I'm going to say I wouldn't include the Red Sox in this discussion. To me, they have maybe a little better than average a collection of arms. What separates them from the others is that I don't see any potential No. 1 starters in their system. For depth, Ohka, Cho, Kim, Song, Baker, Fossum, Thompson, Sekany and Crawford isn't a bad group. I'm not counting Rose, because he's already thrown 139 big league innings and isn't rookie eligible any more. Pena may come back from his arm trouble, but when you talk about why pitching prospects flame out, injuries are the No. 1 reason, so it's hard to have as much enthusiasm for him until we see the comeback. With Pedro in place, if the Sox can nail down a good No. 2 starter, perhaps this corps of arms will be good enough to round out a real good rotation for the next few years in Boston. But I still wouldn't rank them with the Marlins, White Sox, Royals, etc. When do we get to turn up the hype-o-meter a couple notches regarding Bobby Bradley? One year out of high school he has the following numbers after four starts at low A Hickory: 4-0, 3 earned runs allowed in 26 innings with an incredible 43 strikeouts and an equally incredible 2 walks. Do you think the Pirates should promote him to Lynchburg soon or would Bradley be better served by continuing to dominate in the Sally League? Hickory, by the way, has to be one of the more interesting teams in the low minors. They have four of the Pirates Top 10 prospects (Tony Alvarez, J.R. House, and Luis Torres in addition to Bradley), plus Jeremy Cotten (a second-round pick in 1998, who appears to be back from the dead with 11 doubles in 76 at-bats after a terrible 1999), and Jovanny Sosa, who still lacks patience but is still only 19. These guys are all young and should rise through the system together in the coming years. Have you seen them play yet? Best wishes, Joel Charny I think you can turn up the hype-o-meter on Bradley any time now. The guy has been awesome so far this year. But if I were the Pirates farm director, I'd leave him in Hickory until at least midseason. I can see moving guys quickly through the upper levels, but I prefer seeing young guys spend some time at low Class A. There's nothing wrong with letting him dominate the South Atlantic League for a couple of months before moving him to the next challenge. I haven't seen Hickory play yet, but as a matter of fact just last night I was combing through the SAL rosters, jotting down names of players I wanted to see. Hickory was one of the teams that jumped out as a must-see. The next step is to comb through the schedules and see when the best opportunity will be. I guess I should get moving, just in case the Pirates decide to push Bradley along. Directory: mlb mlb -> By Ken Gurnick mlb -> Los angeles dodgers clips mlb -> 2010 – What’s the name of the umpire whose errant call cost the Tigers’ Armando Galarraga a perfect game in 2010? 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