Thanks, Mike. The Montgomery Biscuits. I can't read or say that team name without smiling. What a funny name for a baseball team. My 7-year-old nephew's Little League team in San Francisco last year was called the Biscuits. Why a LL team would adopt that name escapes me. But my nephew attends a school where he speaks French, so he always gave it the French pronunciation, which increased the team name fun factor exponentially.

Anyway. . . wanted to point out that the Dbacks promoted Gerardo Parra to Hi-A Visalia. Went 4-6 in his first game last night with a 2B and a BI. Curious your latest thoughts w/r/t Parra.

Also - any new thoughts re: Chris Carter. He had a nice little power spike in July (.705 SLG) but appears to have faded terribly in August. But at least he's finally slugging 500 in AAA (even if only temporarily). I still think he needs to be dealt to an AL team.

McGee will be pretty interesting to watch, he didn't get the promotion earlier because he was basically relying on just his fastball to get hitters out; his secondary stuff wasn't bad, he just wasn't using it. I haven't heard what he has done pitch-wise his last few starts, I assume that they got him to use secondaries more and use them effectively or he probably wouldn't have been promoted.

RTFA, Jim :)

McGee said he understood why Tampa Bay waited until August to promote him. He said the Rays told him he needed to work on his curve­ball and change-up to better comple­ment his overpowering fastball.

"I've worked a lot on both lately," McGee said. "I used my curveball a lot two starts ago and my change-up my last time. It all depends on how my stuff is that day."

Longoria was promoted to AAA about a week ago. I wasn't that impressed with him when he played here; his swing is somewhat long and it looked like he could be tied up by inside heat. But the power is real; he crushed a ball out over the CF wall at Five County, which is extremely hard to do under normal circumstances and even harder to do on still summer nights with no breeze a'tall.

-- MWE

I didn't realize there was an article. :-P When I see just player names linked I automatically think it's a link to their stats, though in this context that was unlikely to be the case but I wasn't really thinking about that.

I can't say much on Longoria (besides the obvious from his statistical performance) as I haven't seen him play and I'm nothing resembling a scout anyway. For what it's worth though Biscuits radioman Jim Tocco has heaped a lot of praise on Longoria, saying even last year that he looked like a man among boys playing at AA. I don't know more than the generals on him from the scouting side but he has just dominated since he was drafted; even last year's Montgomery performance is solid enough if you include his postseason numbers.

Some other D'Ray notes:

Jason Pridie has been hitting the snot out of the ball since being called up to Durham. It's not the Blue Monster, either; he's posted a 1.021 OPS on the road. Pridie's resurgence is a little bit reminiscent of what happened with Crawford and Baldelli, although both were younger at the time.

Probably the biggest disappointment this year are the steps backward taken by Eliot Johnson, Wes Bankston (who spent most of July on the DL but who hadn't done much since April), and Joel Guzman.

Dale Thayer, whose 75 career saves in the Southern League appears to be an all-time record for career saves in that league (per Stacy Long's blog), was promoted to Durham. Tony Peguero was demoted back to the Biscuits. Thayer, who was the PTBNL in the trade last year that netted the Padres Russell Branyan for their stretch run, has led the SL in saves in each of the last two years, and is currently leading the league again. He's another one of those minor league closers who could probably help a major league team somewhere in the back of the bullpen.

-- MWE

Thayer isn't a stuff guy by any means but we'll see how he does in AAA. There has to be SOMETHING there to work with to do so well at AA.

Pridie is a real surprise but he has always been a toolsy guy. He's a legitimate CFer too so at the least he can probably make the majors as a 4th or 5th outfielder.

Elliot Johnson is by far the biggest disappointment to me, he wasn't a great prospect but there was plenty to like. Bankston I already basically gave up on before the season started, I used to like him a ton as an above-average first baseman in the majors but he just can't stay healthy and the hitting has collapsed this year and last, he never had a real high ceiling so there's not much reason to hold out hope now. As for Guzman I don't even give a damn any longer, he's just a complete mess. Promotions to the majors and struggles from the middle and lower ranks have depleted the prospect depth quite a bit this year but even with his tools Guzman won't even sniff my Top 15, I imagine I'll bury him outside the Top 20. Maybe that's a little extreme but from both his performance and everything I've heard about him I have a very low opinion of his prospect status.

Kershaw's pitching line:

4 1/3 IP, 3 H, 2 ER (both solo HRs), 4 BB, 4 K.

Kershaw was all over the place early, running lots of deep counts, but except for a pair of solo HRs he wasn't hit especially hard. He left trailing 2-0, but Wade, Orenduff, and Troncoso held the Mudcats scoreless and the Suns came back against Nestor and Mobley late to win 3-2.

As a side note: Carolina's bullpen has had problems throwing strikes all year. It's frustrating to watch, especially since the team has played well enough otherwise to be in most of their games, like tonight's, even with very little in the way of quality hitting prospects.

-- MWE

What has happened to Adam Lind? According to MiLB.com he's still a Syracuse Chief but hasn't played since July 29. I haven't been able to find any injury report or any news at all.

Lind was hurt diving for a ball in that July 29 game.

-- MWE

thank you.

More promotions:

Houston C prospect JR Towles moves up to AAA, his second promotion of the year. Towles didn't hit well at Salem, but found his stroke after being promoted to Corpus Christi (.324/.425/.551).

The Braves bumped Chase Fontaine, a second-rounder a year ago, from Rome to Myrtle Beach. Fontaine hit .288/.402/.399 in 95 games for the R-Braves.

Boston promoted 1B Aaron Bates from Lancaster to Portland (EL). Jon Still, the Red Sox 4th round pick in 2006 out of NC State, moves up from Greenville to take Bates's spot with the JetHawks.

-- MWE

The Dbacks recently promoted Aaron Cunningham, the outfielder they acquired from the White Sox for Danny Richar, to AA Mobile; they also promoted Gerardo Parra, a toolsy left handed hitter, to high A Visalia.

Mike - Chris Carter to Boston (AL team - not tooting my horn. . . MANY were calling for him to DH). He finally put up decent AAA power numbers this year. Still would love to hear your thoughts, particularly re: whether his power bursth the last couple of months has changed your thinking. I admit he's still a long-shot to be a ML regular, but his bat is fun to fantasize about.

I'm just delighted the guy is someplace where he might get a shot.