CheezWizHed

I would imagine that the competition level at the instructional league must be pretty low. Probably on the R or R+ level on average? With such a wide range of players participating, I can't imagine the stats to be overly useful, just the scouting reports (e.g. bat speed, FB/CB/CU, defense).

How does it line-up with your own gut feelings? I was surprised to see Monte and Gatewood down in the 80s.

I'm curious... any significance to the bolded players?

Yes, that is the juxtaposition. He had an electric arm, but TJ surgery and out a year when he was a bit old for the level anyway. Its hard to be aggressive (pitching more innings) on a guy coming back from TJ surgery. I'd be ok if they put him at AA to start the season (aggressive placement). Personally, he and Kirby drop down my list pretty far due to TJ surgery. But when they prove to be healthy, they jump back up quickly also.

And just because I can, here is my list grouped by position: [pre]Position Position Rank Overall Rank Name RHSP 1 3 Phil Bickford RHSP 2 4 Luis Ortiz RHSP 3 7 Cody Ponce RHSP 4 11 Jorge Lopez RHSP 5 12 Brandon Woodruff RHSP 6 13 Marcos Diplan RHSP 7 14 Freddy Peralta RHSP 8 18 Miguel Diaz RHSP 9 19 Corbin Burnes RHSP 10 21 Jon Perrin LHSP 1 2 Josh Hader LHSP 2 22 Kodi Medeiros LHSP 3 29 Wei-Chung Wang LHSP 4 41 Nathan Kirby LHSP 5 77 Quintin Torres-Costa RHRP 1 24 Jacob Barnes RHRP 2 33 Damien Magnifico RHRP 3 39 Yhonathan Barrios RHRP 4 49 Nate Griep LHRP 1 32 Brent Suter LHRP 2 65 Mitch Lambson LHRP 3 69 Clint Terry LHRP 4 80 Drake Owenby 1B 1 20 Jake Gatewood 1B 2 31 Garrett Cooper 1B 3 54 Ronnie Gideon 1B 4 59 Gabriel Garcia 1B 5 70 Dustin Demuth 2B 1 5 Isan Diaz 2B 2 55 Franly Mallen 2B 3 56 Tucker Neuhaus 2B 4 67 Javier Betancourt 2B 5 72 Wendell Rijo SS 1 17 Gilbert Lara SS 2 64 Yadiel Rivera SS 3 71 Angel Ortega SS 4 76 Blake Allemand SS 5 81 Luis Aviles 3B 1 10 Lucas Erceg 3B 2 36 Garin Cecchini 3B 3 62 Chad McClanahan 3B 4 66 Nate Orf CF 1 1 Lewis Brinson CF 2 6 Corey Ray CF 3 8 Brett Phillips CF 4 9 Trent Clark CF 5 25 Monte Harrison CF 6 28 Kyle Wren CF 7 40 Tyrone Taylor OF 1 15 Ryan Cordell OF 2 23 Demi Orimoloye OF 3 26 Clint Coulter OF 4 34 Michael Reed OF 5 38 Victor Roache OF 6 42 Malik Collymore OF 7 44 Rymer Liriano OF 8 47 Troy Stokes OF 9 78 David Denson C 1 16 Jacob Nottingham C 2 27 Mario Feliciano C 3 37 Manny Pina C 4 52 Max McDowell C 5 53 Dustin Houle[/pre]

[pre]Ranking Name Position 1 Lewis Brinson CF 2 Josh Hader LHSP 3 Phil Bickford RHSP 4 Luis Ortiz RHSP 5 Isan Diaz 2B 6 Corey Ray CF 7 Cody Ponce RHSP 8 Brett Phillips CF 9 Trent Clark CF 10 Lucas Erceg 3B 11 Jorge Lopez RHSP 12 Brandon Woodruff RHSP 13 Marcos Diplan RHSP 14 Freddy Peralta RHSP 15 Ryan Cordell OF 16 Jacob Nottingham C 17 Gilbert Lara SS 18 Miguel Diaz RHSP 19 Corbin Burnes RHSP 20 Jake Gatewood 1B 21 Jon Perrin RHSP 22 Kodi Medeiros LHSP 23 Demi Orimoloye OF 24 Jacob Barnes RHRP 25 Monte Harrison CF 26 Clint Coulter OF 27 Mario Feliciano C 28 Kyle Wren CF 29 Wei-Chung Wang LHSP 30 Devin Williams RHSP 31 Garrett Cooper 1B 32 Brent Suter LHRP 33 Damien Magnifico RHRP 34 Michael Reed OF 35 Aaron Wilkerson RHSP 36 Garin Cecchini 3B 37 Manny Pina C 38 Victor Roache OF 39 Yhonathan Barrios RHRP 40 Tyrone Taylor CF 41 Nathan Kirby LHSP 42 Malik Collymore OF 43 Taylor Williams RHSP 44 Rymer Liriano OF 45 Adrian Houser RHSP 46 Braden Webb RHSP 47 Troy Stokes OF 48 Trey Supak RHSP 49 Nate Griep RHRP 50 Jordan Yamamoto RHSP 51 Zack Brown RHSP 52 Max McDowell C 53 Dustin Houle C 54 Ronnie Gideon 1B 55 Franly Mallen 2B 56 Tucker Neuhaus 2B 57 Daniel Missaki RHSP 58 Jon Olczak RHRP 59 Gabriel Garcia 1B 60 Carlos Herrera RHSP 61 Nash Walters RHSP 62 Chad McClanahan 3B 63 Payton Henry C 64 Yadiel Rivera SS 65 Mitch Lambson LHRP 66 Nate Orf 3B 67 Javier Betancourt 2B 68 Angel Ventura RHSP 69 Clint Terry LHRP 70 Dustin Demuth 1B 71 Angel Ortega SS 72 Wendell Rijo 2B 73 Tristan Archer RHRP 74 Bubba Derby RHSP 75 Mitch Ghelfi 1B 76 Blake Allemand SS 77 Quintin Torres-Costa LHSP 78 David Denson OF 79 Conor Harber RHRP 80 Drake Owenby LHRP 81 Luis Aviles SS 82 Tyrone Perry 1B 83 Carlos Leal C[/pre] I hope I'm covered if I duplicated a name...

AJ Bombers has had custard since it was added to the ballpark. I vote for a Culver's stand just for the custard. Culvers is substandard frozen custard for the Milwaukee area... it must be Kopps! [sarcasm]And any further discussion on other inferior custard stands will be banned! [/sarcasm]

JB makes a very good post that points out why having LH/RHB balance is pointless. Our RH hitters hit the most HRs and had the 5th OPS in the NL. Predominately against RH pitchers. On a team that had the 9th worst record in MLB. It also says that our RH hitters don't have a need for platoon splits (746 vs RHB, 764 vs LHB). We should be looking for more players like that (LH or RH). Do we want to improve and get better hitters? Yes. The only time it really matters on LH vs RH is when a player has huge splits and you need to platoon him with another player (who generally also has huge splits the opposite direction). But if you want to really get better, its probably best just to find players that hit well off of LH and RH pitchers. For situational hitting, you need some decent bench guys. But for the overall grind of 162 games, ignore the handedness and focus on getting good hitters (or pitchers for that matter).

After the AFL season is completed maybe?

FYI, if you try to download this from Google Docs, it seems that the formatting is messed up and the drop-downs don't work. I'm working on another delivery solution...

So who won?

My favorite team is the Brewers. My second favorite is whomever is playing the Cubs. My third favorite is whomever is playing the Cardinals. The last two can swap at times... (same applies for Packers, Vikings and Bears in that order). The Tony La Russa led Cardinals was the worst. I was actually a Cardinal fan of the Ozzie Smith era, but I became a baseball fan after the 1982 WS, too. I have a harder time hating Mike Matheny due to former Brewer ties. Having worked in Chicagoland, my Cubs-hate comes from working with the fans... they were pretty obnoxious.

This is why I put my name on the back of any jersey I buy. Players do stupid things all the time or leave in FA or trades, but I'm still a fan of the team.

It started as a rapid blink (mabe three) and we thought it was voluntary. Then his arms and hands started twitching at the same time as the blinking. Not just a muscle twitch, but more like when you are dreaming about falling and twitch/jump to wake up. His whole hand/arm would flinch about three times uncontrolled. But things have been better since he stopped getting up to play games in the middle of the night. I guess he was doing it for about two months.

I just bought tickets to every Cubs home playoff game and sent them to Steve Bartman.

Too bad Villar couldn't get his 20th HR.

Fixed that for you.

Well, Suter pitched well in Colorado Springs, so he should be well versed in how to manage the altitude.

I've been playing around with a spreadsheet to auto-generate my Top25 (or even Top 100) and I thought I would share it here for anyone that is interested in playing around with it. A couple caveats: - Its not meant to mirror the 20-80 ranking scale. It could, but I didn't. The absolute number is only good for comparing prospects to each other. - I allow for you to tailor it the way you want, so don't complain if my priority system is different than yours. You can change it. - I hope its useful for you. I found it interesting to level-set my thinking about different prospects. Instructions: "Ratings" Tab: - Go ahead and add in the names and select your ratings of players. Don't change the gray columns as they are auto-generated (actually Column A also). - MLB Ceiling: What is the best possible outcome for this player - MLB Floor: What is the worst possible outcome for this player -YTD Production: how do you rank how they are playing today? - Ave MiLB production: how has their career gone so far? - Defense: how do you think their defense rates? -Birthday: Age and Age @ Level are auto-calculated -FYI: This is calculation based on age that effects the overall ranking in column R. Level: What is the player currently at (I tie this to YTD production based on where he played the majority of the year). The further from MLB, the lower their score is calculated. Risk: Injury, High K rate (batter), high BB rate (pitcher), etc.. Just remember distance from MLB is already covered under "Level". -- I've hidden the score columns, but you can unhide everything if you are trying to figure out how it works. After you fill out the first tab, the prospects should be ranked in column A. Proceed to Tab "Rankings" "Rankings" - You shouldn't need to edit anything here. It will auto-populate the list of players and list of players by position. "Ranking Weights"- Here is were you can tailor the spreadsheet how you like it. - Ceiling, Floor, And Production (YTD and Ave MiLB) produce a base value. I'm weighted more on projection than on current production, but both count. - The multipliers are modifiers of the base -- Level: The further you are from MLB, the lower your score will be (multiply by 0.7 if the player is at R+) -- Age: This is the age where I start to consider a player old for that MiLB level. The player's age compared to this number is factored into this age to product a multiplier in the "Ratings" tab. --Defense and Risk: Again, more modifiers to the base score, similar to Level. So, as we approach the end of season Top25, I hope this is a helpful tool. I'll try to answer any questions people have so that you can modify it to your scouting desires!

FYI, my son's doctor appointment went pretty well with the doctor thinking it was more puberty related. And after sharing this story with a friend of mine, he related that his grandson had the same thing and grew out of it.

[sarcasm]I had no idea the Astros' management were such big Marquette Warriors fans. That's old school![/sarcasm]

Yes. An arm injury I believe. Looks like he was just activated again on Sept 20th.

I found that to be really funny for some reason, just the sound of it... However, its great if you wang chung tonight.

I know of a company that makes windows that can tint via an electrical controller. They can go from complete black-out to completely clear. That would be an interesting improvement. Also, most glass blocks UV light (no matter how translucent). The resulting light may still be helpful to the grass, but certainly most of the light is coming from the roof.

Interesting. Johnson has a software, management, and stats background. Blast! I knew I should've applied...