colbyjack

Both Cody Hawn and Chad Bell are off to fine starts with Walters State. Hawn is hitting .367/.435/.667 with 5 HR over 60 ABs. He has been hitting in the 2 hole all season long and is also scoring a bunch of runs (20). Bell is 3-0 with a 3.28 ERA. In 24.2 IP he has allowed 27 hits, 9 BB while striking out 26.

All of the toolsy CF come from the HS ranks, with Hicks and Galloway the best bets to be worthy of the 16th overall selection at this point in time. While fewgoodcards covered Hicks, Galloway is an incredibly smooth 5-tool athlete that has also shown a knack to deliver the big hit when needed. Anthony Gose is similar to Hicks in that he has very good tools and athleticism and can throw in the mid-90s as a LHP, but needs to refine his hitting. Xavier Avery is the fastest player in the class and also excels in football, a testament to just how good of an overall athlete he is. Robbie Grossman is an all-out player that has good but not great tools across the board. LJ Hoes may be the most polished of the bunch and is a good overall athlete despite probably having the lowest ceiling of the players mentioned. Paul, just curious, why do you want to see the Brewers draft a second baseman? That's not exactly a position you go out of your way to grab, even if it were a perceived need (which IMO, it's not).

There are already a few thread that kind of discuss people's favorite prospects and what players might be good matches for the Brewers at #16. If Kyle Skipworth manages to fall to 16, for a reason other than being represented by Scott Boras, you have to take him. However, I honestly don't see him slipping past the top 10, and he could go within the top 3-5 overall picks. Heck, I wouldn't be shocked to see him go first overall to the Rays. Perry, Burnett and Satterwhite have three of the best pure arms in college baseball, but project as relievers at the pro level. If the Brewers take a chance on such a live arm I think history suggests they do so on the HS level, where Sonny Gray might be a good fit. Perry, Burnett and Satterwhite have a lot to prove to me this spring, as they throw hard but everything else with them is in question. I think Aaron Hicks make a ton of sense for the Brewers, as does Buster Posey a catcher from FSU. Shooter Hunt from Tulane is one college arm that could be of great value in the middle of the first-round based on the number of quality college arms that afewgoodcards mentioned, and Cole St. Clair is a personal favorite of mine. I also like Gordon Beckham as mentioned as well as South Carolina's James Darnell and David Adams of Virginia. I'd love to see the organization load up on college arms with a bunch of their extra, early comp picks, but since they haven't taken a college arm early since Jack Z. has been scouting director I guess I'll believe it when I see it. It's hard not to like Jemile Weeks, although Aaron Hill isn't a very good comparison. Weeks has a patient eye and very good speed to go along with a good glove. Obviously if he struggles to hit he's going to be a liability similar to Tony Gwynn Jr., although Gwynn would be a lot more valuable to any team if he were able to play 2B as opposed to the OF.

moffydream, as an employee of Perfect Game I respect you for having a subscription to BaseballWebTV, but that subscription isn't meant for you to download the videos, re-format them into different movie types and share them with other people. I would recommend that you remove them from you blog as you have them and in the future please directly link to videos that you would like to refer to, even if those videos are for subscribers only. And really that is a policy we have across the board here. You may notice that certain Baseball America subscriber-based content is linked to and then summarized, but never copied and pasted.

moffydream, welcome to the site. However, I have to ask you if you work for Skillshow and/or Perfect Game USA and if not how you were able to obtain those videos. Thanks.

Thanks for the link Mass. I'll add it to the draft resource thread to go along with everything else once they get their default draft page up. The videos are always awesome, as it's a resource most of us don't usually have. However, there are some errors in the reports, or at least oversights that likely can be chalked up to unfamiliarity with these players, and I'm guessing that is because Jonathan Mayo, whose work I respect, is writing the reports. He probably has some great resources to pull from, which I'm guessing includes access to the MLB's scouting bureaus reports. However, he lacks some history based on what I know about guys like Aaron Hicks and Tyler Chatwood and what Blazer commented on Michael Tonkin, history that he would be aware of if he did a little more homework on these players. Plus, the college mention almost seemed like an accident and I'm curious as to why he even bothered writing that part of it. I guess I'm a little more critical of this stuff since Mr. Mayo is getting paid to do this stuff full-time yet doesn't have as good of a feeling for these players as a lot of other people do that don't do this stuff for a living.

We've had the anti-Berman/ESPN in general conversation plenty of times before, but Berman in particular is so out-dated because he has been relying on the same schtick for 25+ years. At first he seemed pretty funny and his style was so new that he helped launch ESPN into the status it now enjoys. But I don't think it's a coincidence that ESPN has phased Berman out of even it's NFL coverage. From "back back back back," to "rumbling stumbling bumbling" to the whole "whoop" thing, his stuff is very, very old. I can't think of any other sports personality in the history of sports that relies on so many gimmics for so long like he has. He's like Fozzie Bear -- whakka whakka whakka! However, I'm not going to vote for a certain play because of how Berman calls it. That is, if I were to vote on such a thing.

Yup, they must have sent out the acceptance letters first. Just got my "better luck next time" email.

How does Callis just gloss over Soto's freak BABIPs (both AAA & MLB)? That seems irresponsible for a sportswriter/analyst answering this particular question. Callis may very well be aware of BABIP, but that isn't that common of a term, at least not something most readers of Baseball America are going to be able to identify with. BA isn't in business to break down more complex statistical trends, although they do dabble with them from time to time, and have switched to the BA/OBP/SLG offensive line instead of the previously favored BA/HR/RBI. I'm curious, why is the answer to how a scouting dep't. is broken down interesting? Is it just because you previously weren't familiar with how a scouting dep't. was organized? This map is a few years old, but it breaks down the Brewers scouting dep't. at the pro, amateur and international levels to give you a better understanding of how the Brewers specifically are organized: http://www.brewerfan.net/ViewScoutingMap.action?draftId=6

Let's try to keep this thread to submitting your vote for the five finalists. There was plenty of time to ask questions about the individual designs in the previous thread. And as noted in that thread, the Brewerfan.net logo will be added to the t-shirt design at some point in time, either to the front and/or the back of the t-shirt.

I'm going to give my vote to the snows in October design. It is very clever, and I think it fits perfectly with the other designs that are going to be added to the line this year, and I like that it is specific to the Brewers and playoff baseball and not necessarily related to this site.

Alright, the submissions are in. I've taken the five best designs based on the feedback and comments from the other thread. Please chime in on this thread as to which design you like the best. Please do so by the end of day on Friday, February 22nd. I also want to point out that the winning submission is subject to being touched up either by myself or another member of the staff, with the permission of the winner of course. Here are the five finalists: I Hart Brewerfan http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y155/colbyjack/shirt1.jpg Got Passion? http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y155/colbyjack/shirt2.jpg Turn on the 'Fan http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y155/colbyjack/shirt3.jpg National Tour http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y155/colbyjack/shirt4-1.jpg Snows in October http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y155/colbyjack/shirt5.jpg

A friendly reminder that the contest is open through Friday. I will be closing this thread first thing Saturday morning, so any submissions that are not entered by then will not be accepted. At that time I will also try to develop some kind of polling system while pulling the 5-6 best designs so everyone gets the chance to vote on which design they would like to see on a t-shirt. Oh yeah, and we can't use that "In Doug we Trust" image with the mustache, since that's another one that has already been used elsewhere.

Prince's signing bonus was $2.4 million.

What will happen a lot of times is in the 8th rounds or the latter rounds.....then the big clubs will talk to the guy they drafted... and he might have been hurt... might be a HS kid with some Raw talent.... so the Big club will go way outside of the slotting to make sure he is Signed and not able to go back into the draft the next season.... I wouldn't say it happens a lot, but yes, it happens. The Brewers did this with two of their draftees last year, Scarpetta and Zarraga. Look at the red Sox drafted Matt laporta in 2006 in the 13th round I believe(he was injured and fell all that way)....ended up not signing and going back to college and became a first round pick.. It had more to do with him being injured. His agent was, and still is, surprise surprise, Scott Boras. He had a bad year but LaPorta and Boras both knew that he had first-round talent. The Red Sox took a flyer on him in the 14th round, just in case. And keep in mind teams do take flyers on players like this in similar situations as somewhat of a backup plan if they aren't able to get one of there earlier picks signed. For the most part they never really intend to sign those players. The Brewers might have done this in taking Richard Hague as late as they did, who all but made it clear that he was going to Rice. Or Chase Reid who ended up at Vanderbilt. Or Cody Hawn and Chad Bell. You can pull examples from every team like this from each and every year. Like when the Brewers drafted Hunter Pence... in the Late late rounds. Completely different scenario. The Brewers liked Pence and drafted him with the intention of following him as a draft and follow candidate. They drafted him in 2002 out of Texarkana Junior College but he ended up at Texas-Arlington, a D1 program in which he was no longer a candidate to be followed through the DFE process. In addition, the Astros took him in the second round of the 2004 draft, TWO years after the Brewers selected him. So sure, the Brewers could have ponied up the dough and looked like geniuses in doing so, but when they drafted Pence they were doing so hoping his skills would further develop. And when the Astros took him in the 2nd round in '04, most felt they were reaching considerably to select him. And I did mention Brackman's name above. I understand what you're trying to say, but saying that a team can re-build more quickly by spending more in the draft is somewhat of a blanket statement. You don't necessarily have to go out of your way to ignore the slotting recommendations to build a better ballclub from the bottom up. It doesn't hurt, but it doesn't always help either.

Well it is real...because in the 2007 Draft there were some teams ahead of the Cubs that were thinking of drafting Vitters....but because of signability he fell to the Cubs who had no problems with signability even though they took until the deadline to sign him.... I'm guessing you're thinking of the wrong guy. The Cubs picked third overall last June, as it's hard to label any player "falling" two spots. Considering David Price was the top overall prospect a good year before the 2007 draft and how the Royals targeted Rick Porcello and Mike Moustakas before the draft, two of the pricier draft-eligible players that were available for the 2007 draft, you can't really say that Vitters fell because of financial reasons. Basically, Vitters was by far the most signable of the three. Not too many guys fall to the middle of the 2nd round or beyond and end up being signed. Those that do typically end up going to college, meaning everyone passes on them. The big names you see falling are guys like Ian Kennedy, Daniel Bard, Joba Chamberlain and Andrew Brackman, who made it to the lower part of the first round and supplemental round the years they were drafted. But even then, those three guys had concerns about their stuff (Kennedy), command (Bard), health (Chamberlain) or a mixture of things (Brackman - health + command, and he ended up having TJ surgery). Luke Hochevar is the only guy that comes to mind quicky in recent years that truly fell for no other reason than he was represented by Scott Boras, and of course he went first overall the next year to the Royals. Guys like Matt Wieters, Rick Porcello, Jered Weaver and Stephen Drew fall every year, but they usually only do so 10-15 spots at the most. Matt Harvey fell to the 3rd round last year, but even the spend-happy Angels couldn't get him signed and he ended up at UNC. And what do most of them have in common? Scott Boras.

The whole draft slotting thing is gaining a lot of momentum recently, and I think that whole point is really overblown. Yes, both the Yankees and Red Sox have cashed in on some nice players that have fallen, but another part of the strength of their systems is making the right picks (Clay Buccholz and Jacoby Ellsbury of the Red Sox in particular, who signed for slot value) and their presence on the international free agent market. Plus, the Yankees picked up some nice players in exchange for Gary Sheffield a year ago, which clearly helped. You don't have to outspend to turn your system around in a hurry. You need to make good picks and have a good scouting staff to make the correct recommendations. I've commented about this elsewhere, but everyone points to the fact that the Astros and Pirates have a bad system because they haven't exceeded slot recommendations. They have a bad system because they've made bad selections, regardless of how much money they have spent.

if Sheets is in the TOP 20% of the Free Agent SPers than he would be a Type A.... You already caught this, but I just wanted to reinforce that the ratings are handed out to all players. The free agent type classification isn't just pooled from the players that are eligible for free agency.

I don't know if I would say that the tour is worth the 6 hour drive. It's a nice brewery and a nice tour, and the lodge is nice as noted, but you only get two drink tickets for the lodge, although the tour is completely free. If you only have a day, I would say hit some of the breweries in Milwaukee such as Lakefront and/or Sprecher while hitting Friday's at MP for lunch. As for having stuff to do in the Chippewa Falls area, it depends what time of year you go. If you go this time of year, there isn't much to do unless you want to do some bar-hopping. If you go in the summer, Leinie's is right down the road from Lake Wissota where you can camp, rent a canoe to go out on the lake (relatively calm lake with limited boats), go fishing, hiking, etc. There is a nice bike trail that goes through this area as well if you and your friends like to bike. The Northern Wisconsin State Fair is also held just down the road from Leinie's in mid-July I think.

Are there slots for picks past the 1st round? Yes, slots are recommended for the first five rounds I believe. Every pick after the fifth round is recommended to not sign for any more than what the last pick in the fifth round signed for, or something in the $125,000 range. And this IMO is where some really good players could be had, as $125,000 is a good chunk of change that is really hard to pass up, especially if you're a 44th round pick like Shawn Zarraga (who landed nearly twice that much IIRC).

Robideaux, yes, in theory I would prefer that the team spend an extra $3 million on the draft than they do on Guillermo Mota. I wish it were that easy. Also, any story that is comparing the Houston Astros to the Detroit Tigers is comparing two far extreme ends of the spectrum and doing so for the sake of making a point while ignoring teams that have adhered to slot value that have thrived. The Astros have a lot more problems going on than just adhering to slot value. Having one of the worst farm systems in baseball goes a lot deeper than that.

I think his upside is a pitcher similar to Doug Davis. However Jackson now has more than 300 innings pitched at the AAA level with an ERA in the 4.50 range. That's not exactly encouraging hoping this guy will ever make significant contributions at the big-league level, and while he has been tougher on left-handed batters, he hasn't been flat-out dominating to entice anyone to put him in the bullpen and try to get some value out of him. There is some reason for hope. He has good poise, which he displayed in his big-league call-up, and unlike Davis he seems to attack hitters more than work the corners. I know I was unimpressed by his breaking ball during his call-up, and his cutter isn't as good as Davis for him to be as effective. He did strike out a lot more batters last year, but he also gave up a lot more hits than what he has done in his career. I just fear that he peaked. He soared through the Blue Jays system before the Brewers acquired him, probably largely due to his approach being too much for younger hitters to handle, but hasn't been nearly as consistent or as effective since reaching AAA. He definitely is the type of player that could peak even later, as Doug Melvin has stated that crafty lefties of his ilk seem to take longer to find their groove (a la Davis), and may be just a case of a player needing everything to click for him to be successful. Color me skeptical, but obviously I root for any player on the cusp of the big-leagues being successful. As others have mentioned, if Jackson does have success, there's a good chance it likely will be with another team unless he's significantly better starting this coming year.

First of all, it's hard to complain too much about how the Brewers have approached the draft since they used it almost exclusively to build the team they currently have. For every player you can point to and say shoulda/coulda/woulda, there's likely a player or more that exceeded expectations, and then some, from that very same draft. Second, I don't like the idea that a few million dollars is nothing in today's sport. While in totality that may be true, $3 million bucks to the Brewers means significantly more to them than it does to the Mets. $3 extra million they spend on the draft may be money taken away from their big-league team and vice-versa. Or it could be money taken away from their improving presence in Latin America, or in the past, money taken away from their efforts with the draft and follow process. The team has an operating budget to adhere to, as that kind of money just isn't going to magically appear without some other area taking a hit. I do understand the arbitration ramifications, but when you talk about hitting on one out of three, you're probably talking about a span over three different drafts, and in doing so you're probably missing out on a player the team selected with one of those proposed picks. For instance, what would have happened had the Brewers taken Luke Hochevar or Mike Pelfrey in 2005 instead of Ryan Braun? I remember a few people being upset that the Brewers passed on those pitchers, citing that the team was cheap, but clearly the team got a much better player with that pick. And yes, I would gladly take Jered Weaver over Mark Rogers or Ian Kennedy over Jeremy Jeffress, but even so, you win some, and you lose some, and even then, the Brewers haven't completely lost yet with those two players. And even if the team does increase their draft budget by $3 million, what happens next year? Are people going to expect them to raise it $3 million more? I'm sorry, but I just don't understand people complaining about the Brewers and spending money. While they have adhered to slot values, they've never gone the opposite route, they've spent a lot of money on DFEs (they made a huge statement when they signed Parra and never really let up using the process as well, if not better than, any other team in baseball), they're starting to spend more on foreign players (starting with Pascual a few years ago and continuing through last fall with a couple of notable, big money signings), and they always manage to sign a late rounder or two to well above slot value (Scarpetta and Zarrage from last year being the most recent). And to be honest, I never thought the Brewers big-league payroll would approach $70 million, at least not this quickly. While I'm not a big fan of the pre-determined slot values, they're not there just because the commissioner's office thinks all of the teams are way out of line with their spending. The majority of teams want the commissioner's office to do something about the signing bonuses since they don't want to see them continue to get out of hand. And teams that don't adhere to the suggested slotting amounts don't exactly get penalized, as anyone has had the opportunity to spend more if they want, that secret wasn't just revealed, but the commissioner's office may take their sweet time to try and impress onto the team's owners why they should or shouldn't move forward with a deal that may be on the table. Keep in mind that ownership plays a big part of this, beyond just day-to-day baseball operations that the general managers oversee. Quite often an owner will step in and dictate that his team can't spend more than X amount of dollars on a certain pick. The owners for the most part are definitely aligned with the commissioner's office on this one. Sorry if it seems as though I'm going off on this subject, but I just think it's one area that shouldn't receive much criticism given the work the Brewers scouting department has done. I realize they could be doing even more with more money, but again, they've done just fine adhering to the "rules."

http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/prospects/?p=745 Baseball America's Chris Kline is joining Allan Matthews in the amateur scouting world. Matthews took a job with the Rockies a month or two ago, with Kline becoming the upper Midwest area scout of the Pirates recently. A very cool opportunity for both individuals, beginning their careers as sports journalists/columnists. Matthews' appointment isn't that surprising, who attended scout school a year or two ago and clearly had a grasp for scouting terminology. Kline's hire is a little more surprising, although few covered the minor leagues like he did for the past couple of years. Congrats to both. Definite proof that hard work and dedication can pay off.

I'm going to turn this thread into somewhat of a JUCO follow thread since the lack of the DFE process has increased my interest on the JC level. There's a very big tournament this weekend, the Rahal-Miller JUCO National Classic, hosted by Chipola, with Walters State, the CC of Southern Nevada and St. Petersburg taking part. These four teams are currently among the top five ranked teams in the country according to PGCC with a very nice collection of pro-level talent (15 of the top 50 juco prospects, again according to PGCC). Former Brewers draftees taking part include Cody Hawn and Chad Bell of Walters State and Aaron Tullo of St. Petersburg. It will be interesting to see what these three can do playing against some of the top juco teams in the country.