The most impressive stat to me is that he already has 9 outfield assists.

Last year, after being a 1st team all JUCO player, he was drafted out of Middle Georgia college and followed over the summer by the Sox. He hit a homerun and a double off Ross Detwiler, the #6 overall pick this year, in an exhibition game against Team USA and the Sox signed him for $140,000 nearly on the spot.

He's an interesting prospect with several above average tools.

Actually a pretty good choice to be the next over-hyped darkhorse.

I havn't seen him play, but I'd love to. Been hearing about him since he was signed. I'm upset my Dawgs evidently didn't recruit him ever since he blossomed at MGJC. And I'm bummed my Braves didn't pick him after he ripped it there, this is our kind of guy.

The Sox really like drafting Georgia boys (Egan, Moss, Mike Rozier, Scott White, Mickey Hall, Matt Murton, Reddick). Can't blame 'em, we play great ball.

I've seen elsewhere that he does have several good tools (especially a hell of an arm) and is a good overall athlete.
Hes from small town south GA and doesn't seem to have done any East Cobb stuff in HS so he might have plenty of room to grow, since he hasn't had the high-level experience and refinement many guys do, yet is still performing.

Anyone else noticed that Bryce Cox has turned into a pumpkin?

Real pity, especially since most of my memories of him are in the postseason last year (esp Omaha), where he was just lights out in the old-school fireman role. Just amazing clutch pitching

Jason Place's OPS climbed over .700 last night.

Hey what's everyone's top ten?

I have

1) Ellsbury
2) Buccholz
3) Bowden
4) Lars
5) Lowrie
6) Moss
7) Place
8) Bard
9) Murphy
10) Johnson

1/2 and 4/5 are pretty interchangeable to me. I think everyone below Place is pretty close to a nonprospect. I do have some visions of Bard turning into a good major league reliever though. I think the top five is really strong. Except for that crazy period where Anibal Sanchez was like the #8 prospect, this is the strongest the system has been since I've been following it.

Maybe I'm out of touch, but I think Ellsbury and Buccholz will make BA's top 20, Bowden will be in the 40-75 range, Lars might squeek into the top 100 and PECOTA will probably say Lowrie is top 50.

JB H,

I don't know much except for what I read from others. Comparing your list to Soxprospects.com Top Ten (your top ten shows up in its top 11), why do you like Johnson over Masterson? The latter makes soxprospects at #6. Just curious for comparison sake.

I don't watch the games or anything, but Masterson was drafted lower, assigned lower and hasn't performed any better than Johnson so far. I think it's kind of a crapshoot below Place anyway.

there's so many annoying things about lancaster.

I made a mistake. soxprospects has bates in the top 10 and Place at #12. Place is a tooly high schooler and I seem to remember some talk that the Red Sox knew they had to change his swing. I think it is a little early to give up on him.

Lars is an interesting one. I'm really waiting to read what the scouts think. He's a 19-year-old hitting for power in low-A, so the baseline is good, but the questions are - how serious are his contact problems, and how projectible is his power? Anderson will need to hit for a good bit more power as he develops, especially if he can't fix the contact issues and becomes a low BA hitter.

There's probably a good case to be made right now for Buchholz as the top prospect in the system - his upside remains #1 starter, and he's dominating AA in, like, his third season ever as a pitcher.

Place by month:

OPS:
April: .620
May: .710
June: .844

LD%:
April: 14%
May: 13%
June: 19%

BB/K:
April: .20
May: .41
June: .62

AB/K:
April: 2.4
May: 2.96
June: 3.0

I think there is a strong argument to be made that he has experienced real improvement over his first 2.5 months.

I think there is a strong argument to be made that he has experienced real improvement over his first 2.5 months.

Yeah, but he has a really, really long way to go - one K every 3 AB is terrible.

Has he changed his swing? CBW and his hitting-analysis friend dude (and many others who watched the video) hated Place's swing last June, and failure to make contact would seem quite expected given the flaws in that swing. There were reports that hte Sox had tweaked Place's swing in instructional league, but now he's back with a pretty big problem that likely has a lot to do with his swing.

Anderson will need to hit for a good bit more power as he develops, especially if he can't fix the contact issues and becomes a low BA hitter.

His power is fine right now. You're going to be hard-pressed to find 19-year olds with .300 IsoP's. He's got awesome power to all fields. All he needs to do is stay on a typical development curve and he'll be a power-hitting 1B.

Yeah, but he has a really, really long way to go - one K every 3 AB is terrible.

And as long as he continues to improve there won't be a problem.

And he has changed his swing and continues to tweak it, which has been mentioned here over and over again, and which you have ignored over and over again.

Oh, and ya know who's first in the International League in OPS? Brandon Moss. I really like this top 6.

The evidence is in the obvious improvement in every aspect of his offense.

You can't expect Matt to just accept some random online statement as a point of fact.

Well I'll just attribute that to laziness.

From an article 5 days ago:

"Jason has been making some steady improvements since the beginning of the year," director of player development Mike Hazen wrote in an e-mail. "His May/June numbers are more indicative of where we felt he would be at this stage, his day-to-day consistency is improving and we are encouraged by this as well as his approach to the game both offensively and defensively."

Apropos of nothing, how's Jon Egan doing, Kevin?

That quote doesn't even mention Place's swing, let alone give any specific information about what changes he's been making and why he can be expected to strike out way, way less in the future than he does right now. I'd love to be wrong, but I just don't see where your certainty on this comes from.

Oh, and ya know who's first in the International League in OPS? Brandon Moss. I really like this top 6

I think Moss will go as far as his defense will take him. I think he is very likely to be an 800'ish OPS hitter in his prime. If he's a good outfielder, that's a solid regular. If he's not, then he's a bench player. I don't really have any idea how good he is in the field though.

temple, the idea that Place is a outrageously raw player who is making steady progress is an easy story to believe. But those splits don't really mean anything at all. There is a ton of variance in a hitter's line over like 65 PAs or whatever. Even if we knew for a fact that he was making real, month-to-month progress, you shouldn't expect the splits to be that clean.

I think Moss will go as far as his defense will take him. I think he is very likely to be an 800'ish OPS hitter in his prime. If he's a good outfielder, that's a solid regular. If he's not, then he's a bench player. I don't really have any idea how good he is in the field though.

He's a very good defensive player who will stick in RF.

There is a ton of variance in a hitter's line over like 65 PAs or whatever. Even if we knew for a fact that he was making real, month-to-month progress, you shouldn't expect the splits to be that clean.

But they are that clean. That works out nicely, doesn't it? I'm not just looking at one stat, there's improvement across the board. By the way, it's spelled B-U-C-H-H-O-L-Z.

Considering:

1. He's a year and a half older
2. His OPS is .170 points lower
3. He's not going to stick at catcher
4. He's been on the DL twice already
5. He's got a worse BB/K ratio

He's not doing better than Place. Positional adjustments only apply if that player has any chance of staying at that position. And in truthfulness, Place has gotten very good reviews in CF, while Egan receives average to below average reviews behind the plate. Sucks.

10 games does not evidence make.

Has his offensive production not improved over the course of the season? Please, answer me that.

Even in your snarky responses you are factually incorrect. He's 20. Keep 'em coming though.

I would like it if you didn't cherrypick a few recent games as evidence that his problems at the plate are abating. If he had an entire month of .844, then I would begin to see something. But 10 games? Nah.

I actually didn't cherry-pick at all. I used splits by month, which is the opposite of cherry-picking. And because you can't actually answer the question, I'll just assume you know you're wrong. There's a reason you've earned a reputation as the biggest blow-hard on the site.

The May numbers you posted stink nearly as bad as the April ones do. Isn't stinking like being dead? I mean, whether you're just normal, everyday run-of-the-mill dead, or Phil Leotardo spectacular dead, you're still dead.
And once you're dead, you can't be resusitated.

Did he improve or not? That's the crux of the question. The fact that you try to move the target around is pretty sad. If he didn't improve, just say it. Because to me, it looks to be improvement. And no, going from horrendous to bad doesn't discount improvement. You can't expect players to hone their skills on a dime.

asking if he improved or not is a hugely different question than asking if his numbers got better

Hey! It's only 5 games but since we're cherrypicking June stats, that blows Place away. And a BB/K ratio of 0.50 to boot!

Hey, guess what, he's back on the DL with the same injury. It was fun while it lasted I guess.

asking if he improved or not is a hugely different question than asking if his numbers got better

And it was already answered by the Red Sox director of player development upthread.

since June is only a third of the way over, it would have been nice if you mentioned that the staats generated during that time are rather lacking on the sample size side.

I suppose I guess did incorrectly assume that members here had a cursory knowledge of the length of calendar months, and a general semblance of where we were within those months.

If he had a history of success that you could look back on, that would be one thing. But he has a history of sucking and I think I'll wait a little while longer before i jump on the bandwagon, thank you.

He had a performance in the GCL last year that earned him the #5 prospect ranking in BA's GCL Top 20, which is done with the influence of managers and scouts. I don't know how that is a "history of sucking."

Second, ask Coorey how he is doing with my advice on the NBA playoffs this summer. I think I'm 13-14 so far. My first miss was last night, when I told him the Cavs would win but lose the next two. Assuming the Spurs win the next one, out of 15 games, I missed being perfect by a crummy 3 points.

I have no idea what any of this even means or refers to, but I'm pretty sure you just wanted a place to say it.

And as long as he continues to improve there won't be a problem.

Well, it depends on how far he improves it, and what he does when he does make contact. 1/3 is still far too many; he needs to get a heck of a lot closer to 1/4.

You also have to take into consideration, as far as Place's June stats go, that most of those games have been against Kannapolis, which has one of the worst pitching staffs in the league. Place did have a good effort in a game against Rome, but that was against some of Rome's lesser pitchers.

-- MWE

If you don't know, ask him. All you have to do is click on his handle to send him an email.

Because I don't really care either.

Well, then you would also know that we all know that 10 games is far too few to start to making definitive statements about "improvement" and "tweaking" showiing results.

Because he improved last month as well.

I'm more interested in hearing what the scouts are saying about him this year, when he has been stinking the joint out in low A. FWIW, Egan crushed Place last year in the GCL. So why are you pimping Place when Egan hit much better than Place last year and played a much, much more demanding defensive position?

Because Jon Egan was the highest drafted player from the 2005 Draft to repeat the GCL in 2006. In his first year in the GCL, Egan hit .222/.340/.294, far inferior to Place's first-year performance of .294/.386/.442. That's the line you want to compare to Place, not Egan's 2006 GCL line.

Well, then STFU about who's the blowhard and who isn't. I think we both know who it is.

I'm not quite sure how basketball predictions prove or disprove if you're a blowhard or not.

Christ, Temple. Egan's a catcher. Why can't you understand the difference betweena catcher and a corner outfielder?

1. Because he won't be a catcher for that much longer.
2. If you want to call him a catcher, then you have to call Place a centerfielder, not a corner outfielder. Place as a CF has received far more positive reviews than Egan as a catcher.
3. Didn't you just finish lecturing me about how #### is #### no matter how you frame it? Let me re-print it for you in case you forgot:

The May numbers you posted stink nearly as bad as the April ones do. Isn't stinking like being dead? I mean, whether you're just normal, everyday run-of-the-mill dead, or Phil Leotardo spectacular dead, you're still dead.
And once you're dead, you can't be resusitated.

As a player who is a year and a half older than Place, and only has a .534 OPS in low-A, shouldn't we just acknowledge that #### is #### and these numbers won't play anywhere on the diamond? At least you can practice what you preach.

That's not my site anymore than this is your site and I have nothing to do with the scouting reports attached. I will add that we have heard no positive remarks about Egan's defense since his debut season (2005), but there was a poster who saw him play earlier this season and left unimpressed.

Place by month:
LD%:
April: 14%
May: 13%
June: 19%

BB/K:
April: .20
May: .41
June: .62

AB/K:
April: 2.4
May: 2.96
June: 3.0

I don't think you can take the LD% data seriously. We've seen that the FB/LD distinction can be fairly gray in the majors where the people collecting the data take things pretty seriously. I think it's best to look at small sample minor league LD%s very suspiciously. In this case we're talking about 5 LDs out of 26 BIPs. Change one hard to say LD into a FB and the LD% drops to 15% which is basically what he did the first two full months.

The BB/K is much stronger and encouraging although Place has already demonstrated some flakiness there. His BB rate was surprisingly high last year in the GCL and I think some folks started to get the idea that maybe he was already a bit more polished than expected, but that idea quickly evaporated against full season A ball competition. I suppose you could take this rebound as a Ron Sandler-esque "once you show a skill you always have a skill" thing, but there's also a lot to be said about Emiegh's point that really bad lo-A pitching may be a factor here as well.

And I have to be honest, the use of the extra digit after the decimal point to make the May AB/K ratio look a tiny bit worse than June - improvement! - did give me a chuckle. After a brutal 2.4 AB/K start to the year, Place seems to have plateaued for 6 weeks at 1 K per 3 AB. Considering that is his most fundamental weakness the lack of progress there over a pretty substantial period of time has to be pointed out. It's nice that he's walked more and has had a much higher BABIP on top of that stagnant K rate, but he's really got to start pushing his contact rate up or the other improvements will end up to be fleeting.

Can we count Place's two hits tonight, since they came against one of the best pitchers in the SAL? Or do we have to discount them because they came against Kannapolis?

Temple - your being rather unreasonable. Mike made a very strong point earlier in regard to the quality of competition, that Place played in his very limited June sample size. I'd like to see Place continue to show progress as well, however, but leave your Van trademarked rose colored glasses somewhere else.

The point would have been much stronger if it included any data that Kannapolis had an effect on Place, positively or negatively. Simply stating that Greenville has played a lot against Kannapolis in the last two months doesn't tell me much.

I could have easily said that over the same time period in which Greenville has played Kannapolis (league's 4th worst pitching) 9 times, they have played Augusta (league's best pitching) 8 times. What's the difference? Without numbers it means nothing.

well, after reading this thread, i've settled on the following rankings.

1. Lars
2. Place
3. Egan
4. Reddick
5. kevin (even if you count him as a CF rather than a corner outfielder)

actually, if we count temple as a shortstop, i'd rank him ahead of kevin. even if you count kevin as a center fielder.

Reddick has 2 homeruns tonight.

Bizarro game for Buchholz tonight: 5 2/3, 4 H, 4 ER, 1 HR, 3 BB, 12 K. I think he has trouble with command with more than 4 days rest--or something.

In that game, the Portland pitchers K'ed 19 hitters. I wonder if they're having Buchholz work on something in particular, he hasn't gotten as good results recently as he did earlier in the year.

Still also smacked 2 HR in that game. Reddick's over .500 in SLG and Still is just under.

Hey wait, there's one more guy who hit 2 HR, and his #1 fan didn't even mention it! Engel does it too.

He didn't walk a batter until his last inning, when he walked 3. It might have been more fatigue, or simply him losing the feel of his fastball.

BTW, with all the talk surrounding Lancaster's ballpark situation, it has quietly slipped under the radar that they are the best team in the Cal League.

They are also cranking out 6 runs in the first on the road tonight, behind an Aaron Bates HR. That guy, like many of our prospects, K's a TON. What's with that?

Temple, is there any way to tell if any of the A+ pitchers are any good? They all seem to have terrible stats.

No way unless you watch them I guess. We used to have someone from the Lancaster booster club give us reports from every game, but she threw a ####-fit after they lost 30-0 and I don't think I've heard from her since.

Masterson has been much better of late and his season GB% is up over 51%. I think if anyone can weather that storm it will be him, both because of his pitching style and makeup.

Hey, see my question in the draft thread. thanks.

Nice pick on Reddick.

Unrelated minor league question: now that Gallardo has been promoted, is Buchholz the best pitching prospect in the minors?

It's between him and Lester. :)

A nice rebound for Bowden: 6.2 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 8 K. Lester 7 IP, 8 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K. Lester's doing well but no K'ing anyone lately.

Place with another 0-fer with 2 K's. Rest of team hits .345.

Well at least you've find your own little silver lining in the struggles of the Sox 1st rd pick. Congrats.

<quote>Unrelated minor league question: now that Gallardo has been promoted, is Buchholz the best pitching prospect in the minors?</quote>

The only guy I can think of having an argument would be Adam Miller. I might take him, but I think I'd lean towards Buchholz right now.

Am I right for thinking Garza is a step below both of them?

Good write up - always wondered what had happened to JJ... (and never knew his first name was Josh)

Patrick Sullivan has his take on Boston's ml top 5 over at Baseball Analysts:

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2007/06/stocked_sox.php

He puts Lars Anderson third, ahead of Bowden, and Moss fifth.

Thanks, PJ. One great thing I picked up from that article was links to the daily updated 2007 bb-ref Red Sox organizational depth charts (MLB - rookie league), which I had no idea existed.

Red Sox hitters

Red Sox pitchers

Lars and Moss are too high. Both have K'ed too much. Bowden is 20 and holding his own in AA--that's excellent and he's got to be at least #3, possibly 2.

Reddick was called up to double-A for at least tonight's one game playoff.