battlekow

And half those baserunners came in the seventh inning.

I know you addressed this somewhat in your comments, LouisEly, but it doesn't make much sense to call Hardy an All-Star and Hart a "solid major leaguer".

FWIW, Tyson Ross was bizarrely taken in the first round of Sickels' mock draft.

I should add, the HR Jeffress gave up was to Desmond Jennings, the #6 prospect in a ridiculously stacked Tampa Bay system. This is his first game back from injury, so a leadoff homer off Jeffress is a nice feather in his cap.

Jeffress gave up a solo homer in the first--and his ERA went down!

I did pretty well (P50 ranking in parentheses): 01. LaPorta (1) 02. Gamel (2) 03. Escobar (3) 04. Salome (5) 05. Jeffress (4) 06. Lucroy (9) 07. Gillespie (7) 08. Green (6) 09. Cain (12) 10. Braddock (10) 11. Brantley (11) 12. Gindl (15) 13. Aguilar (18) 14. Hammond (19) 15. Iribarren (13) 16. Pena (8) 17. Errecart (16) 18. Nelson (17) 19. Bryson (24) 20. Anundsen (26) From the P50 top 20, I missed Josh Butler, who doesn't deserve to be anywhere near the top 20, and Brent Brewer, whose continued lack of production was enough to make me overlook his tools and pedigree.

What was the deal with the "we signed Garciaparra, oh wait no we didn't, oh wait yet we did" thing?

I know. This is purely for entertainment purposes. I tried to point out the obvious examples of where sample size was wildly confusing the results, such as Errecart vs. Fielder.

Using Jeff Sackmann's MLE Calculator, I translated Huntsville's starting eight to Miller Park so that they would be directly comparable to their Milwaukee analogues. I've bolded the "winner": CATCHER: Angel Salome: .329/.363/.488/.851 Jason Kendall: .259/.339/.341/.680 If only Salome was merely bad defensively... FIRST BASE: Chris Errecart: .254/.313/.447/.760 Prince Fielder: .273/.360/.434/.794 Not nearly as close as it looks right now, obviously. Errecart is only the seventh-best prospect in the Stars lineup, which is pretty remarkable. SECOND BASE: Mike Bell: .233/.272/.366/.638 Rickie Weeks: .201/.325/.354/.689 Mike Bell has nice power, but even with Rickie struggling to clear the Mendoza Line, he's the more valuable hitter, and his defense has come around to where he's no longer a detriment. THIRD BASE: Mat Gamel: .326/.376/.551/.927 Bill Hall: .227/.296/.420/.716 Gamel is better than Bill Hall right now, in every facet of the game. SHORTSTOP: Alcides Escobar: .272/.303/.352/.655 J.J. Hardy: .254/.333/.331/.664 Hardy has the higher OPS, but Escobar's defense probably swings it in his favor as the stats currently stand. James Jerry isn't going to slug .331 all year, though (I hope). LEFT FIELD: Cole Gillespie: .236/.311/.418/.729 Ryan Braun: .299/.328/.576/.904 Poor Cole Gillespie, who should start think about hiring a hitman or two. CENTER FIELD: Michael Brantley: .277/.334/.327/.661 Mike Cameron: .231/.289/.470/.759 As much as everyone seems to love Brantley, his walks will not translate to the Major Leagues unless he can display some semblance of power; even Escobar is blowing him away in that department. RIGHT FIELD: Matt LaPorta: .236/.326/.448/.774 Corey Hart: .296/.345/.463/.808 This is really the most interesting contest. Hart is a much better hitter for average, but doesn't have nearly the plate discpline that LaPorta offers. Given that the Brewers saw LaPorta as the best power bat in the draft last year, I'd say he slightly edges Hart in slugging ability, too. Hart's been a little better so far though, and is probably significantly better on defense. In conclusion, two of Huntsville's sticks, Salome and Gamel, are unquestionably better than their big-league counterparts, but are held back by their defensive inadequacies. Two more, Escobar and LaPorta, are quite close in value to their Brewer complements. Errecart and Bell are afterthoughts, while Gillespie and Brantley must wait and see what happens.

Supplemental round: Ryan Perry at #32 and Jarret Martin #35.

In the first round, the "Brewers" selected Shooter Hunt. Ethan Martin got taken at #11 and Tim Melville was popped at #15; everyone else rumored to be in play (Fields, Hewitt, Lawrie) was still on the board.

Glad to see someone else likes Gorgen.

The meat grinder keeps on going: Gamel 2-4 with a double and homer and Salome 3-4 with a double. LaPorta, in danger of being passed by Mike Bell and having the worst batting average on the team (!), responds with a double to go along with his two walks.

Frerichs has some nice K numbers: 40 in 26.3 IP now. [EDIT] What does he throw?

Yeah, I don't think Iribarren is going to be a utility player, at least not in the sense that Counsell is; he isn't going to replace Counsell next year. Nevertheless, being able to play two (or four, counting the corner OF spots) positions instead of one can't possibly hurt.

It is indeed Axford.

I'd quibble a bit on Lucroy, who was the consensus second-best-hitting catcher in the draft last year behind Wieters, and whose defense has been better than advertized; I have him just outside the top five. That said, I think LaPorta, Gamel, Escobar, Salome, and Jeffress form a pretty clear top five, in whatever order.

Gamel is #2 in this week's Hot Sheet: Escobar is "in the team photo":

I think several players at A and A+ have a good shot at MLB success. (Taylor Green, Lucroy, Wheeler etc.) I don't think Wheeler is in the same class with Green and Lucroy. Also, let's not forget about Lorenzo Cain.

I think his inability to play SS/3B precludes him from doing so in the majors; I don't see why being able to play CF would prevent him from playing other positions if he was in fact able to do so.

01. LaPorta 02. Gamel 03. Escobar 04. Salome 05. Jeffress 06. Lucroy 07. Gillespie 08. Green 09. Cain 10. Braddock 11. Brantley 12. Gindl 13. Aguilar 14. Hammond 15. Iribarren 16. Pena 17. Errecart 18. Nelson 19. Bryson 20. Anundsen

Iribarren has not stopped playing 2B; in fact, he played it today.

Quote from Norwich Bulletin article: Further clarification from the author:

Baseball America: PG Crosschecker:

Presented purely for your amusement/enjoyment, an (unpublished) interview I did a little over a year ago with Cole St. Clair: How frustrating has it been to be sidelined with injury while your team is competing? It's been enormously frustrating to spend all my time this season on the bench, but I'm looking forward to my return back to the mound within the next couple of weeks. It's never been easy for me to watch other people pitch, but I think that my absence from the team hasn't done all that much damage because it's given pitchers like Bobby Bramhall and Ryne Tacker an opportunity to get a lot of innings and really prove how good they are. You played on Team USA this summer with some of the most talented players in college. Did you learn anything useful from any of them? Playing for Team USA was quite an experience, but I can't recall anything I really learned from other players. I definitely grew as a player, but a lot of what I changed was more self-imposed than an idea taken from someone else. I did learn a lot from the international players, especially the hitters on the Japanese team. It was amazing to watch them play, and I really enjoyed the challenge of pitching to a hitting style I had never seen before. Who impressed you the most? Julio Borbon of Tennessee probably impressed me the most out of the players on the American team this summer. Julio played almost every game and combines solid defense in center field with a potent bat and the ability to drag bunt at will. He looks like a little slap hitter when he comes up to the plate but he has a lot of power, which he showed with close to five homeruns on the summer. You went to high school with Philip Hughes. Do you keep in touch with him? If so, has he given you any good advice? Unfortunately Phil and I never got that close during high school, and we have drifted apart since. I hear that he is doing quite well this year and has a shot of making the rotation and I wish him all the best. Any good stories about him from high school? On about every team I have played on since I started using my current windup, I have had someone imitate me, and I think Phil to this day had the most accurate recreation of my mannerisms. Do you model your game after a particular pitcher? What major league pitcher would you compare yourself to? I don't really try to model myself after particular pitchers, but I enjoy watching the games on TV now and really paying attention to how they are setting up individual hitters throughout the course of the game. I got a chance to watch a Dodgers/Giants game this summer when I was stuck in the hotel in Cuba and I remember being fascinated at the difference in how [Greg] Maddux and [Jason] Schmidt were pitching. I think if I had to compare myself to a Major League pitcher, it would be a taller version of Billy Wagner but with less velocity. You've given up only five home runs in over 120 innings at Rice. How do you keep the ball in the park so well? A lot of my games have been pitched at Reckling Park, which is dubbed "The Graveyard" by our hitters because of the very deep alleys. Other than that, I can't really explain it. Can you explain the origin of your unusually high leg-kick? I was working with John Ramey, a scout for the Braves, during my junior year of high school, and he told me the higher I could get my leg, the better, so I adjusted my windup, and somehow it became what it is today. You've experienced pretty much every possible role for a pitcher. Which do you prefer, and what do you see yourself doing as a professional? I have always enjoyed the challenge of starting because I feel like after the first time through the lineup you really start to pitch, as opposed to the reliever mentality where I am most likely only going to face someone once, so I am usually able to stick to what I want to throw and know that he probably doesn't know what to expect. While I believe that starting is where actual pitching happens, there is an art to relief pitching and an adrenaline boost at the end of the game that is very appealing. It is very difficult to say which I would rather do. How would you approach pitching to a slap hitter as opposed to a power hitter? Do you have different out pitches for different styles of hitters? With all hitters, I try to find the weakness in their swing and exploit it, but slap hitters generally don't want to pull the ball so I am more likely to challenge them to do so. With power hitters, I try to change my patterns just enough so that they can never be 100 percent sure of the next pitch, or at least of the location of it. Are you a good hitter? Do you miss hitting? No, I am not a good hitter, and if I ever end up playing for a National League team, I foresee a lot of bunting in my future, but I do enjoy pretending that I can hit in my games of fungo golf in the outfield during downtime on the field. I do miss hitting at times but I don't miss striking out. What professional teams do you cheer for? I am and will always be an Angels fan. I grew up about ten minutes from the stadium, so I have been to a lot of games over the years. What's one thing you'd like baseball fans to know about you that they probably don't? Despite what I look like on the mound, I am actually pretty relaxed in my everyday life. A lot of my friends are very amused at the differences between my attitude on and off the field.