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I'm also very surprised at the high ratings of Hagadone and Bard - especially Hagadone. With Bard, a guy who sits in the upper 90s is always going to get some prospect love. But Hagadone. He's been good, sure, but hardly unhittable, and he's only thrown 10 innings in full-season ball. BA apparently loves him, which is really good news. (I guess maybe they just hate Josh Reddick, but that seems unlikely.)
I'm a big fan of Yamaico Navarro. Not for any good reason - I've never seen him play - but he's produced everywhere he's been, he's been young for his league everywhere, and all accounts are he plays a solid SS.
He's 21 years old, listed 6' 4", 215, but with only 41 games at AA. 2010? End of '09?
If you look back over TempleUSox's oeuvre in ST, you'll be able to find a variety of analyses of Anderson that project him as something like Lou Gehrig, but without the disease. I kid, but Temple's done some good scouting and aggregation of scouting, and Anderson's been really impressive so far.
Where do we think he'll land on the BA Top 100? I'm going to guess 14.
I don't really have a problem with Hagadone's ranking (although I think I would've put Reddick above him). Most of the other guys on the list were just drafted and didn't even do much in their debuts. BA is such a tools/projection oriented list that I think it's reasonable for them to be high on a power LHP who they think will be back at full strength from his injury.
These are best understood not so much as places for debate but more as new information to be added in to our evaluations. None of us get to watch these prospects much, and none of us get to talk to a large array of scouts and coaches to get their observations. What BA does is both (especially the latter), and then they feed this information to us. We then can re-calibrate our ratings of players based on the new information BA provides.
So when I'm surprised at the ranking of Hagadone, I'm not disputing BA's decision, I'm preparing myself to upgrade my own evaluation of Hagadone based on new information in his scouting report.
My only real worry with Lars is his K rate: 1/3rd of his AA at-bats. His BABIP had to be huge to hit .316.
My long-term guy to watch is Almanzar. Just turned 18, would be a HS senior if he grew up in the states. The Sox f*cked up moving him to low-A too quickly, and he'll need to put some more meat on his bones, but upside is Dave Winfield.
I still don't really buy the Bard hype. He's still 23 and not performing all that close to a major league level. But then again, if on April 14th he has 3 IP 6K 0BB I'll have convinced myself he's Troy Percival :)
BA thinks Lin is one of the best outfielders in the minors, which gives me hope for him. Great defensive players don't have to hit very much to be worth having
I'll say 11 for Lars.
That's probably an adjustment to the level and the tougher hitting environment in the EL. His K rates have been more than acceptable everywhere else. The bigger potential issue with Anderson, I think, is that he hits a lot of ground balls - he doesn't really lift and drive the ball - so his power might not develop as one might want for a 1B. But that's nit-picking.
Lin's going to have to hit more than he has, though.
-- MWE
-- MWE
The problem with the Hagadone ranking is that there really isn't any new information in the report itself.
Hagadone threw 10 innings over 3 starts. I seriously doubt there is a large number of scouts and coaches who were able to make solid judgements of his stuff.
Yes, Callis says that he's ahead of schedule and hard working and all that. I suppose that's "new" information, but imo wildly incomplete at best. Every pitcher who had a setback rehabbing from arm surgery was at or ahead of schedule right up to the moment he had his setback. It's nearly meaningless at this point.
BA is at it's best integrating the opinions of professional talent evaluators outside of the organization with insider information culled from the organization that knows the player best. And then filtering both of those perspectives through the writer's own perspective on prospects.
I just don't see how that's even possible given the peculiarites of Hagadone's season.
So it's been suggested that the kid has a decent upside?
It really doesn't take that much watching to figure out what the guy's repertoire includes, and to make solid judgments about the quality of those pitches; you can certainly do that in 10 innings. What you can't see in 10 innings are how well the guy makes in-game adjustments, how hitters do against him the second and third time around, can he get hitters out when he doesn't have his best stuff, how he handles the stress of starting every fifth day for 20-25 starts, etc.
On this list, Hagedone is being compared to the guys right around him: Bowden, Bard, Reddick, Kelly. He's not being compared to every other prospect in baseball. And there are just as many questions about those guys as there are about Hagedone. The ranking of Hagedone at #3 says a lot more about the guys behind him as it does about Hagedone.
-- MWE
Am I being overly pessimistic?
That frontline starter projection is largely driving this ranking and it's not supportable imo.
Otoh, one of the other things that Callis said in the chat is that the Sox farm is probably around 10th or so. Not a big deal at all given all the graduations, but arguing about the 3rd (or perhaps deservedly lower) prospect in a merely above average farm system is perhaps juuuust a tiny but picayune? Nah.
Hagadone should have no chance at all at being anywhere near the Top 100.
---
See, frontline starter! Even if there are reasonable arguments that BA doesn't have sufficient evidence and shouldn't call him that, it's good evidence that someone thinks he's that good, and that makes me more optimistic about Hagadone. Whom up til now I had found pretty uninteresting.
Do any of the other Red Sox prospects have a chance at the top 100? Or are Lars+Bowden it?
I think the next three - Hagadone, Bard and Reddick - all have a chance. Obviously, I don't think Hagadone should be and to the extent that he's ranked higher than the other two it suggests nobody else will make it.
But, the Top 100 doesn't always follow the team lists because the Top 100 is a group effort.
I can see Bard sneaking in. Big time fastball, still the recent 1st rd pick pedigree. I'd be surprised if the other people contributing are as high as Callis on Hagadone.
Last year BA published a list of all the players who fell out of the Top 100 who at least got some support. I'd guess the Sox trio are more in that group.
I think that's about where he projected before the TJS. In fact, when he was drafted, I thought (and said) he was a lefty version of Papelbon.
-- MWE
Given how decent-to-good the recent graduations have been, I'm having a trouble seeing how this is a knock on the Red Sox system. Getting guys into the majors where they can significantly help the big club is to be desired-is the Sox system suddenly considered better if Jed Lowrie got just a small cup of coffee this year and is still a "prospect"?
These ratings are not to be debated. They are supposed to inform your opinion. So you now think that the Red Sox are a top 10 farm system.
Personally, I enjoy debating these. The scouts and pundits are wrong often enough that I think that an outsider looking at performance can be a very good reality check. In this case, I don't see how a player like Reddick has anywhere near the question marks that Hagadone has. Hagadone's a pitcher, who's done practically nothing above short-season ball, who's coming off surgery. Those are three big questions marks. Reddick has shot through the minors, is playing at a level above his age, has a great arm, and may have a problem with patience. No comparison IMHO.
Reddick's power, and his ability to handle pitches in the strike zone that aren't right in his hitting zone, are big question marks. At AA he hit a bunch of popups and lazy fly balls. Reddick doesn't chase a lot of bad pitches (which is why his strikeout rates have been decent), but he doesn't make solid contact with enough good ones.
-- MWE
that doesn't jive with what i've read on reddick. i thought the story was that he swung at everything but was really good at making contact?
At making contact, yes. At making solid contact, no.
Reddick's FB rate was nearly 50% at Lancaster, and over 50% in AA. His LD rate was just over 15% overall, and just 5.5% at AA. Those aren't good, nor are Reddick's in-play power numbers. Considering Lancaster's ballpark, a .109 ISO on BIP and 21% of in-play hits going for extra bases is just a so-so performance; you'd like to see something over .125 ISO on BIP with 25%-30% of in-play hits for extra bases.
-- MWE
-- MWE
Keep in mind that this is Callis's ranking of the Sox prospects. The top 100 are a group affair, and it's not uncommon for top 10 or 30 lists to wind up effectively rearranging a team's ranking.
If I'm the Red Sox, I'm trying to figure out if any teams share the BA opinion on Bard, then I am trying to trade Bard to those teams before he goes poof.
His 2008 performance seems to indicate a genuine turnaround.
Buchholz, Masterson, Ellsbury, and Lowrie
Not to mention Papelbon, Lester, Pedroia, and Delcarmen over basically the last 3 years. You can't do that every year.
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