TheCrew07

I don't understand the fascination with Rivera some have around here, he's simply not a good player. That being said, Kendall needs a day off here and there or it's going to be a long second half for him, he's no spring chicken anymore.

I was worried that Turnbow might end up in the "Who's Not"... whew. Though he probably because he's had so much big league experience, I'm unsure what rule system they apply to minor leaguers.

Thanks for the videos! I'm really jealous of you guys that get to watch the minor league players... my hope is someday the Foxes are a Milwaukee affiliate... that's about my only chance to see our kids play live.

Cody doesn't have great stuff, there were articles Mass linked when he was traded for, and if I wasn't at work I'd take the time to go find his post. He had a nice outing last night, but I'm unsure how well he projects. I agree with the rest of your post though, there's a ton of potential at A and A+ collectively. As I've been saying all year, in 2 years our pitching depth will look fantastic if these guys continue to progress. The system isn't devoid of quality relief prospects either, you have Pena at AAA, Ryan at AA, and Aguilar at A+ (though probably not for long), there's plenty of help coming, just not this year. I could see Pena and Ryan in the bullpen by next year as a realistic possibility, the starting pitchers are more than likely 2 years away, probably 3. I'd rather they not push them just to fill a slot, that hasn't worked out so well in the past, see Neugy... Inman might have helped next year, but he wasn't going to be a solution this year, health will always be key for the Crew, they don't have the depth yet to be able to survive key cogs going down for any amount of time. I really like the potential in the starting rotations at both levels of A ball, we just have to hope they continue to progress and fullfill some of that potential. Getting back to Narron, I always had it in my head that he topped out around 82? I don't remember exactly where I read that, but And That posted it as well I see, so I feel pretty comfortable posting that. Hammond has turned out to be better than I had thought to this point, I he performed last year as I had always sort of expected he would, so it was easy for me to write him off. He was never high on my radar, so I haven't followed him hardly at all.

This offseason, because he wasn't going to make it just as a 2B, the ability to play more than 1 position increases his value.

I would rather have Escobar and Hardy up the middle than Weeks with either of the other 2. Weeks has exciting potential, but how long can a team afford to wait on it? That answer isn't "indefinately", as much as some of us would like to think. Yes teams give up on some players too early, but if you're in contention, how long is too long or not long enough? There's just so much gray area there...

Nice game for the WV pitchers... Seidel has been finding way too many bats this season, this was an encouraging start for him to be sure. Cody blows people right off the bat, I would haven't guessed that either. It's been a good 2 days following the younger minor league arms.

Part of me wants to believe that Errecart is the true beneficiary of all of the other bats around him... but I don't want to take anything away from him. If he continues to hit for power and can improve his numbers slightly he's got a legit shot. I'm just unsure how he'd fit in Milwaukee, we already have too many 1B/Corner OF prospects.

Wow young JJ... I echo And That, this is the best outing of his career, and I must say, I'm somewhat floored by it... Nice job young man. If we were to see a line like that I would have thought it would have come much later in the year. Anundsen and Bryson pitched pretty well respectively, too bad WV continues to struggle at the plate. Brantley's OPS doesn't bother me all that much... not yet.

They aren't similar pitchers exactly in what they throw, I meant more very soft tossing lefties. I think Shouse succeeds largely because of his arm angle, Narron's greatest asset is the change up. I don't really feel all that great about Shouse as a pitcher, though he gets good results, and that's honestly the same way I've felt about Narron which is why I never include him in the prospect discussions. He gets good results with nothing spectacular, or as my father always said, "With smoke and mirrors". Parra was an easy lefty to project, JDLR was easy to project, the stuff esd obvious, and in JDLR's case, it obvious takes more than great stuff to succeed. When a pitcher doesn't have the "stuff" I'm very skeptical how long they can maintain success before MLB hitters figure them out.

How many people that post on this site have their own blog? Accepting anything posted in a blog as credible journalism is pure nonsense, and I still have a hard accepting that media outlets let their "journalists" blog... there's nothing credible about random thoughts and opinions about a subject. Then again, credibility isn't exactly what we're all about anymore, which is a shame, because it's an admirable quality. It's hard not to share rumors you hear, and I understand that, and I've been caught up in that in the past. Bob Wickman is from my home town, played 2 sports for my father, still comes to our Alumni night for football and I had credible information that he was going to retire. Then Atlanta came along and made an offer that was much more than he thought he was going to get and he went back for another go round... all I could think about the day he signed his contract was what I had posted. There's a fine line to walk here, the whole spring training move thread is a fine example of this discussion... that being, what exactly is credible information? To think I thought blogging was a fad...

I always thought of Narron as Shouse without the unique arm angle, maybe I'm wrong.

He was playing 1B because he didn't have a natural position with the ton of OF prospects he's played with, or at least that was my opinion. Until AA he played with more polished defensive CFs that couldn't really play anywhere else on the diamond, so he was the guy that got moved to get his bat in the lineup.

Personally I'd rather wait till Aguilar hits AA for at least half a season before I try to project him at all.

Villy, Villy, Villy... just make pitches in the future so this all gets put to bed. I really liked the rotation coming into the year with Sheets, Yo, Suppan, Villy, and Parra. Parra is making strides, though he still wastes way too many pitches, he needs to be more economical. Yo is done, Sheets has just been OK since his little injury, and Villy hasn't been arguably the worst pitcher in the rotation. In many ways this feels like 2006 all over again... I honestly thought that Villy would be a very solid back of the rotation guy after all the experience he got last year. 2 long losing streaks nearly back to back will do that to me though. This is why I've narrowed my focus to Huntsville temporarily, there's always something positive out of Huntsville, even if they lose.

Time is not on Jones' side... or at least that would be my guess.

Mercedes must have electric stuff because his performances above Helena have been lack luster at best. I don't remember if he was one of the players Pogo profiled last year from WV or not.

It occurred to me today that it might be messages that lock it up. My xbox will lock up, and then I'll come back and I'll have a message or 2 waiting that I never saw come through.

ohh yea, my 360 locks up about every 1.5 hours or so... Max Payne did the same the same thing on the old Xbox, wasn't that a Rockstar game as well?

That's such a depressing line I don't have the words. I actually feel sorry for the guy.

Everytime someone brings up Escobar's new found power stroke I have to resist the obvious urge to request he get tested... because it's such an obvious bad joke... On a serious note, the early returns on this season are very encouraging for Escobar, maybe the serious look he got in ST made him re-examine some holes in his game. I'd be thrilled if he can keep his SLG higher than his OBP and float around the 700 OPS range, I agree with Battlekow that he's likely a 7-8 hitter at MLB, but I have no problem with him hitting at the top of the order at AA. It seems to me that Salome is only playing 2/3 of the games this season, but Corporan is doing a servicable job as well. I was surprised that one of the opposing managers mentioned he had serious MLB potential in a game recap recently. He had a really nice season at BC last year, but really tailed off when he hit AA. Back to Salome, my first inclination was that having all those off days doesn't help one work on their game... and Salome needs the work. Then it occurred to me that it's actually easier to get after it on an off day because you don't have to worry about wearing down during the game. I'd be really interested to see what the daily ritual is for Salome, Gamel, and Laporta... great bats with Defensive questions. What are these guys doing everyday to get better, or is the minor league season such that they just tread water and get through it and do most of their work in the off season? It seems that Laporta would have the easiest time getting defensive work in, but tracking fly balls of a fungo is much different than off of live hitting when the ball will tail, which to me is the biggest key to getting a good jump in the outfield. A good friend of mine hosted 4 of the Green Bay Bullfrogs last summer and I wonder how similar the daily routines are? They didn't spend much time working on defense, they were all preoccupied with their bats, and rightly so as the bat is the single biggest tool.

I've never had much love for Branyan, but I must say he's hitting the crap out of the ball right now. He's doing everything he can to earn another call-up, and the more I think about it, the more I like him on the big club instead of Gwynn. I guess I've slowly migrated to the dark side... pretty soon I might be running around posting Ginter love too...

Geez, my boy Periard got lit up again, only this time he really got rocked. Other than Hand, there hasn't been a starting pitcher step up in WV or BC thus far this year. That notion is a tad depressing with all of the good starting pitching prospects there are between the 2 teams. (Periard, Braddock, Hand, Jeffress, Bryson, Anundsen, Seidel, Butler...) The other 7 haven't been bad, but they haven't been great either, I was hoping 2 or 3 of those guys would have stepped up their game and begun to separate themselves by now. Come on boys! I know we're dealing with extremely small samples for Jeffress and Braddock, and Scarpetta still hasn't pitched at all, and there's plenty of time... Yo and Inman just spoiled me, I want dominance at every level...

The whole "prospects haven't prove anything" label is as worn out as the "overvaluing prospect line". How can you over value or under value something if you aren't sure exactly what you have? How you can you declare it a good trade before the prospects turn out? Just because they haven't contributed anything today, doesn't mean they won't have success later. Trades for prospects are only clear years after the fact, and that's just the way it goes.

I wasn't a big Stetter guy, but I'm less of a Jackson guy. When I saw this I was left thinking "Why?", and as I type this I still have that thought lingering. The lack of anything resembling MLB quality in the upper levels of the farm system is a real drag right now. In a couple years though we'll have a bunch of nice arms at AA and AAA, assuming players progress 1 level at a time.