“Batting average, unfortunately for a lot people, and it’s only been really noted in the last five or 10 years, that it is somewhat of an overrated stat. There are so many other numbers that are more important to a team winning a ballgame – that’s all that matters.” – Eric Wedge, Manager, Cleveland Indians

Thank you, Eric Wedge, for this response to the question of whether or not Grady Sizemore’s declining batting average over the last few seasons set off alarm bells. Sizemore hit .289-.290 in 2005-06, his first two full seasons, before dropping to .277 in 2007 and .268 last season. His wOBAs in that span: .359, .386, .376, .384. Grady’s proportion of hits to at-bats may have dropped a bit, but his overall offensive productivity is extremely high. His batting average may have been .268, but Sizemore hit 33 HR, 39 2B, stole 38 bases, and earned 98 free passes.

Oh, and Grady plays a mean centerfield, as well. His UZR marks since 2005: +3.7, +14.3, +2.6, +6.1. Averaged together, Sizemore has been a +6.7 runs/season fielder. He is also the model of durability, amassing 157+ games in each of his full big league seasons. As evidenced by his four consecutive 20/20+ seasons, Grady also runs the baseball very well. Our wOBA includes stolen bases, but if you subtract the EQSBR from the EQBRR at Baseball Prospectus, Grady looks worthy of an additional two or three runs per season on the basepaths.

Add everything together and we have win values of +5.3, +7.7, +6.0, +7.0 (his posted win values plus a couple additional baserunning runs). That is a grand sum of +26 wins in four big league seasons, and Sizemore is still just 26 yrs old, suggesting that continued improvement is not out of the question. Grady has made $4.2 mil in his young major league career while producing at levels valued around $102 mil, a mind-boggling number. Has anyone who previously did, stopped caring that he posted a .268 batting average last season?

I’m not here to bash the batting average statistic. I think it has uses, and it works well in a slash line, but it is not the barometer many make it out to be. In the case of Grady Sizemore, who adds to a team from so many different areas, batting average falls even further down the list of metrics of interest. I’m very glad that his manager understands this fact and realizes he has a very special player on his squad, not one who needs to fix his mechanics to hit for a higher batting average.

It’s party time – we’ve got box scores again. Honest to goodness, real life, team against team box scores. This is fantastic.

Jeff Francoeur went 0 for 4 and left 3 men on base.
Gerald Laird hit a triple.
The Reds threw Edinson Volquez, Johnny Cueto, and Homer Bailey at the Rays in succession.
Jerry Hairston Jr hit a grand slam.
Horacio Ramirez couldn’t get out of the first inning.
And yes, Andruw Jones struck out in his only at-bat.

Welcome back, baseball. It’s been too long.

Yes, I know, spring training doesn’t mean anything. The records and statistics don’t matter. The games don’t count. In many cases, the game is decided by whether one team’s has-been is better than another team’s never-will-be.

I don’t care. It’s baseball. It’s box scores. We can say goodbye to our latest winter of discontent. Hooray baseball.

The Chicago Cubs organization has assembled one heck of a 25-man MLB roster for the 2009 season, but the same cannot be said for the minor league system, which is one of the weakest in the National League. But that’s what happens when you operate with a ‘Win Now’ mentality.

AAA/AA
Jeff Samardzija has received more than his fair share of press since being drafted by the Cubs in 2006 out of Notre Dame. Despite his inexperience and time spent on the football field, Samardzija had a solid MLB debut in 2008 with the Cubs, and allowed just 24 hits in 27.2 innings. He posted rates of 4.88 BB/9, which is obviously too high, and 8.13 K/9, which is a much better rate than what he posted in the minors (5.2 K/9 career). The right-hander could be in the Cubs bullpen this season, or the organization may choose to work him out as a starter in Triple-A, where he’ll continue to show a blistering fastball and intriguing splitter.

Right-hander Kevin Hart has been helped by a move to the bullpen, where he can focus on his mid-90s fastball and cutter. He struggled at the Major League level in 2008 and posted a 6.51 ERA (4.69 FIP) with 39 hits allowed in 27.2 innings of work. Hart struggled with his control in the Majors and posted a walk rate of 5.86 BB/9. He also added a strikeout rate of 7.48.

Welington Castillo, 21, has come a long way in a short time after making his North American debut in 2006. The Dominican catcher split the 2008 season between High-A and Double-A and even received a one-game trial at Triple-A. At Double-A, Castillo hit .298/.362/.414 in 198 at-bats. With 18 walks in more than 300 at-bats in 2008, the right-handed hitter needs to be more patient at the plate if he is going to succeed at higher levels. Defensively, Castillo has a canon for an arm and also possesses the raw tools to be above-average behind the dish.

Outfielder Tyler Colvin barely deserves mention despite being a former No. 1 draft pick. Colvin has failed to make adjustments to his approach at the plate and is painfully impatient. His 7.5 BB% in 2008 was a career “high” but his average plummeted to .256 during his second stint in Double-A. He also failed to reach double digits in stolen bases, with just seven.

A+/A
Josh Vitters had a false start to the 2008 season but ended on a high note, while having a very productive season in short-season ball. He hit .328/.365/.498 with an ISO of .170 in 259 at-bats. They were good numbers, but most of the top high school picks from the 2007 draft (Vitters was taken third overall) were playing in full-season ball. Right now Vitters is more of a 15-homer hitter, but he has the potential to develop 25-homer power. Defensively, he projects to be average.

The club’s first round draft pick in 2008 out of college, Andrew Cashner has a rough introduction to pro ball. A closer in his final college season, Cashner was moved to the starting rotation in pro ball and allowed 19 walks and 19 hits in 16.1 short-season innings. He can touch the high-90s with his fastball out of the bullpen, although he is more likely to work in the mid-90s as a starter. Cashner also has a plus slider and is working on a change-up.

Jay Jackson took to pitching in pro ball after spending his college career as a two-way player. He was drafted in the ninth round of the 2008 draft and is likely headed to High-A ball to begin 2009. Jackson played at three levels in his debut. In four games at High-A, Jackson allowed 11 hits and seven walks in 17 innings. He also struck out 21. The right-hander has a low-90s fastball (that can touch the mid-90s), a slider, curveball and change-up.

Infielders Ryan Flaherty (college) and Starlin Castro (Dominican Republic) have very different backgrounds, but both will add to the Cubs’ infield depth in 2009. Flaherty, 22, should move quickly after hitting .297/.369/.511 in his debut in short-season ball. Castro is a solid defensive player, with good speed and the ability to hit for average (He hit .311 in rookie ball). How much power he’ll develop is the biggest question.

SS/R
Pitcher Dae-Eun Rhee, 19, and shortstop Hak-Ju Lee, 18, were both signed out of Korea, although Lee has yet to play in pro ball. Rhee pitched in A-ball in 2008 and allowed just 28 hits in 40 innings. He posted rates of 3.60 BB/9 and 7.43 K/9. He then unfortunately blew out his elbow and required Tommy John surgery. Lee is an athletic shortstop who should hit for a good average. He also has blazing speed. Ironically, during off-season training, Lee also blew out his elbow and had Tommy John surgery, but he is expected to be ready for the short-season league in June.

Up Next: The Cleveland Indians

These lists do not include all the talented prospects in each system – just a snap shot. Some players have been left out because I have covered them recently and not much has changed (You can link to the older posts from each player’s FanGraphs page) or I am planning a separate post on them in the very near future.

Here at FanGraphs, we’re big fans of Sean Smith’s CHONE projection system. It’s proven to be equally or more accurate than any other projection system out there, he provides the data for free on his site, and he’s a good guy.

So, today, with news from the game at a virtual standstill, I figured we should take a look at the projected standings that he recently put up, based on the CHONE forecasts and his playing time estimates.

None of the projections should be all that surprising. The East divisions are very good, the West divisions are not, and the AL is still better than the NL. Perhaps fans in LA will be surprised by the lack of wins projected for their two teams, but as we’ve talked about, the Angels win total was built on a house of cards last year, and the Dodgers haven’t re-signed Manny Ramirez yet.

I know that whenever a projection system is published, a bunch of you guys immediately look at the results and proclaim they’re too low, because the projected leaders have less wins/home runs/strikeouts/whatever than the previous historical leaders. As we always try to explain, that’s because of regression to the mean. We understand that the final AL West winner isn’t likely to have 85 wins. Even CHONE will agree with you on that.

Let’s walk through an example, shall we? The Angels are projected to win the AL West with an 85-77 record. But that’s just a mean projection, based on the range of probabilities of the Angels winning anywhere between 60 and 110 games. Obviously, at the extremes, the odds are very tiny, so the distribution of the probabilities will look like a bell curve. Actually, let’s just show it to you.

At each win total between 81 and 89, there’s a greater than 5% chance of that win total occurring, if we agree that the Angels are a true talent 85 win team. There’s less than a 1% chance of each win total at less than 72 or greater than 98, but those are still possibilities, even if they’re pretty unlikely. Those are the individual probabilities – now let’s look at the cumulative probability.

We find 76 wins at the 90% mark. In other words, we’d expect this Angels team to win at least 76 games 90% of the time. 50% gets you to 85 wins, while 10% gets you to 93 wins. So, while 85 wins is the mean for the Angels, and they have the highest mean of any team in the division, it is not predicting that the division winner will finish with 85 wins.

The Angels have a 19.3% chance of winning 90+ games, based on this distribution. But they’re not the only team in the division. The A’s, with their projected 81-81 record, have a 6.7% chance of winning 90+ games in 2009. The Mariners, with their 78-84 projected record, have a 2.4% chance of winning 90+ games. And the Rangers, projected at 72-90, have a .1% chance of winning 90+ games. The sum of these probabilities is 28.5%. In other words, despite projecting the best team in the division to win 85 games, CHONE is still saying that there’s a 28.5% chance that the division winner will win 90+ games.

Hopefully, this is somewhat helpful – when you look at projected standings, they are giving you relative strength from team to team. In every division, it’s pretty likely that some team will outperform their expected win total, and that the division winner will end up with more wins than the mean of the projected top team. This is not a flaw of projection systems – it is a reality of math.

Other than stolen bases, which I addressed a few weeks ago, very little has been published on catcher’s fielding numbers. Tom Tango first conceived his WOWY technique in studying catchers. Now I’ve extended my stolen base study back to the beginning of the current RetroSheet in 1953, and added the rates of wild pitches and passed balls allowed back to the same date. It should put a smile on Tango’s face that Gary Carter of his beloved Montreal Expos rates third in career SB_RAA behind Ivan Rodriguez and Jim Sundberg, and fourth in career WP_RAA behind Bill Freehan, Bruce Benedict and Brad Ausmus, and second overall behind only Pudge, along with the best single season of +28.2 in 1983…the worst, Dick Dietz, -18.6 in 1970.

I had earlier included groundballs to catchers when I ran my infield defense. There just aren’t that many grounders fielded by catchers – the most in any one season over the past sxi years was 74 by Jason Kendall in 2006. Single season RAA on grounders ranges from Jason Phillips’ +1.1 in 2004 to Mike Lieberthal‘s -2.4 in 2003. Totals for the last six years range from Carlos Ruiz’s +2.4 to Lieberthal’s -3.4. (I don’t yet have a groundball table built for seasons before 2003).

The process is the same as I descrobed in the previous article on stolen bases. I queried RetroSheet’s events table, creating a new table of every combination of catcher and pitcher in each year, how many batters were faced with runners on base, and how many wild pitches and passed balls occured. A total was made of each catcher’s stats in each year (the “with” part) and also the stats of each pitcher he caught, while working with any other catcher (the “without”). These were weighted to the smaller of the sample sizes, and then summed into season and career totals.

The single best season for preventing wild pitches and passed balls, since 1953, was Bill Freehan of the Tigers in 1971. The pitchers he caught that year would have been expected to throw 62 wild pitches and 20 passed balls in Freehan’s playing time, but he only allowed 31 wild pitches and 7 passed balls to get by hum, saving an estimated 12.6 runs that season. His total allowed of 38 was 46% of the expected 82. Freehan had the highest career RAA of +52.0, while Jorge Posada had the lowest at -38.2.

On the other end is one of America’s favorites, who not only couldn’t hit, but apparently couldn’t catch either, Bob Uecker. In 1967, appropriately his last in the majors, in which Uecker split time between the Phillies and Braves, in only 80 games played he allowed 40 wild pitches and 25 passed balls, 222% above his expected totals of 18 and 12.

The major league average is .016 wild pitches and .004 passed balls per plate appearance with a runner on base. The best career normalized wild pitch rates go to Bruce Benedict, Yogi Berra and Mike Redmond at .010; Brian Downing, Del Crandall and Jason Varitek at .011; and Rod Barajas, Manny Sanguillen, Bill Freehan, Kirt Manwaring, Sherm Lollar and Steve Yeager at .012. The worst wild pitch rates are Earl Battey at .021; Junior Ortiz and Mike Macfarlane at .021; and Miguel Olivo, Johnny Roseboro, Tim Laudner, Jorge Posada, Pat Borders, Thurman Munson, Hal Smith, Darrell Porter and George Mitterwald at .020.

The lowest normalized passed ball rates were Brian Downing, Charlie O’Brien, Bruce Benedict, Dan Wilson, Yogi Berra, Brad Ausmus, Del Crandall, Sherm Lollar and Ron Karkovice at .002, with the worst being Miguel Olivo and Bob Brenly at .008; and Joe Azcue, Jorge Posada, Earl Battey and Lance Parrish at .007.

The top 5 ratios of reducing both are Bruce Benedict 56%, Yogi Berra 59, Brian Downing 60 and Mike Redmond and Del Crandall 64% each. The worst were Bob Brenly 142%, Earl Battey 140, Miguel Olivo 140, Jorge Posada 132, and Junior Ortiz and Mike Macfarlane 129% each.

In 2008, the best at runs saved blocking the plate were Kurt Suzuki +6.9, Kenji Johjima +5.8, Brian McCann +5.2, Ramon Hernandez +5.1 and Jason Varitek +4.1, while the worst were Miguel Montero -3.0, Miguel Olivo -2.8, Kevin Cash -2.7, Greg Zaun -2.7 and Jesus Flores -2.6. In case you were thinking that one year might be a small sample size for some of these backup catchers, Montero, Olivo and Flores are also among the five worst career rates for active catchers, along with Mike Rivera and Jorge Posada.

Career WP&PB Records
Yearly WP&PB Records

Read the rest of this entry »

The Minnesota Twins used all of seven starters during the 2008 season, the fewest number in the Major Leagues along with the Phillies and Angels. It looks like two of those seven are now gone as Livan Hernandez is signed with the Mets and news today comes out that Boof Bonser is still experiencing pain and is now set to undergo exploratory surgery on his throwing shoulder.

That type of surgery is rarely good news and it seems likely to expect Bonser to miss most of, if not all of, the 2009 season. On the surface, that would not seem to be that big of a deal, as Bonser was not favored to be in the Twins rotation breaking camp. Scott Baker, Francisco Liriano, Kevin Slowey, Nick Blackburn and Glen Perkins are the oft-reported rotation.

The top four is fine, but supporters of Perkins and detractors of Bonser are ignoring the effects of BABIP and batted ball profiles; Bonser’s FIP (4.19) being almost a full point lower than Perkins’ (5.14). Bonser was better than Perkins in 2008 and projected better than him in 2009, no matter the Twins reluctance to acknowledge that fact.

The loss of Bonser not only spells a loss of opportunity to upgrade from Perkins at the back end of the rotation, but also the loss of depth in the rotation. It is rare, as you may have noted above, for teams to avoid using a number of starters beyond their original five. No matter which of the two ended up outside of the rotation, the presence of both helped to assure the Twins of some insurance in case parts of their young rotation falters.

In what looks like a possibly tight AL Central, these young starting pitchers are the Twins biggest competitive advantage, and a blow to that, is a blow to their overall playoff chances. Hopefully, for them, Bonser’s surgery does not reveal any structural damage.

Thinking back over the last decade or so, it is tough to consider any player with elite talent yet a proneness to injuries more frustrating or disappointing than Mark Prior. One player that could give Prior a run for his money, though, is Nomar Garciaparra, who staked claim as one of the top shortstops in baseball for several seasons before falling off the map due to health issues. Following several injury-plagued seasons, Garciaparra is legitimately considering retirement against joining either the Athletics or Phillies.

Nomar burst onto the scene in 1997 by hitting 30 home runs, 44 doubles, and posting a .375 wOBA as a rookie. Not shockingly at all he went onto win the Rookie of the Year award and actually finished 8th in MVP voting. He successfully avoided the sophomore slump by launching 35 longballs in 1998, finishing 2nd in MVP voting on the heels of a .401 wOBA.

His production improved further in the subsequent two seasons, to the tune of .436 and .432 wOBA marks, respectively. As you might have imagined, he finished in the top ten in MVP voting in each of these years. Then, in 2001, Nomar missed most of the season with an injury, a sign of what was to come even though most chose to ignore its rammifications.

Nomar bounced back in 2002 and 2003 with wOBAs of .373 and .371, still very solid production albeit nowhere near the 1999-2000 seasons. Fortunately, our Win Values begin here, giving us a glimpse of what Nomar may have been worth in his first four seasons. In 2002 and 2003, Garciaparra played well enough to be worth +5.5 and +5.7 wins, while losing some range thanks to injury issues and suffering an offensive decline from his 1997-2000 campaigns.

With this in mind, it isn’t hard to believe that, with better fielding and the previously discussed gaudy offensive numbers, Nomar could have been worth around +6 wins as a rookie, +6.5 as a sophomore, and over +7 wins as a junior and senior. Unfortunately, a quick look at his Win Values now shows a +5.5 win player who suffered a drastic dropoff in performance and struggled to stay on the field. Ultimately, with almost equal time as a tremendous player and one not in the lineup more often than he was, Nomar’s legacy has become quite comparable to my favorite NBA player of all time: Grant Hill.

Both are players who, when at the top of their respective games, were all-stars, MVP contenders, faces of the league, and considered heir apparents to the greats of the game. As we know, both fell by the wayside due to injuries, yet have hung on in vastly reduced roles over the last few seasons. I would like to avoid having a Hall of Fame discussion, however, so I will instead focus on what Nomar could bring to the table in 2009.

He is no longer a starter, but his ability to play 1B, 3B, and occasionally fill in at SS—a -5 UZR/150 at SS in 2008 is not that bad—make him a very versatile bench player. On top of that, he can still hit lefties, with a .339/.424/.643 line against southpaws last season. As long as the Phillies and Athletics avoid paying him starter-type money or relying on him in their overall seasonal scheme, he will be a very solid addition.

The Phillies apparently don’t want to get involved in a bidding war with Billy Beane for Garciaparra’s serviced, and the Athletics are offering more of a chance to play, making it likely that Oakland would be his destination should he choose to prolong his career. Then again, the Phillies just won the World Series and he may decide to end his career with a contending team in the hopes that they repeat.

Either way, I feel that Nomar deserves to have the first half of his career remembered just as much as the more recent years, a call that will go unanswered by many current fans, I fear. He was one of the best players in the game for a four-year stretch, but it has become increasingly hard to believe that we ever engaged in those classic A-Rod/Jeter/Nomar debates.

In about an hour, the final World Baseball Classic rosters will be announced. Unfortunately, the bigger news is going to be who isn’t playing, rather than who is.

Johan Santana isn’t pitching for Venezuela. Albert Pujols isn’t playing for the Dominican Republic. Josh Hamilton isn’t playing for the U.S.A. Canada has to go forward without Rich Harden or Erik Bedard. Even lesser players, such as Ryan Rowland-Smith (Australia), Jose Mijares (Venezuela), Joel Pineiro (Puerto Rico), and Juan Rincon (Venezuela) have opted to decline invitations as well.

The finalized rosters aren’t going to look much like the provisional ones released earlier this year, as scores of players are opting to train with their teams this spring rather than represent their countries. I’m sure they all feel they are making the correct choice, and I’m not here to pass judgment one way or another. There’s certainly positives and negatives to be gained from participating in the WBC, and that’s heightened by the timing of the event.

I know there’s no perfect time to have this tournament, but the middle of spring training simply doesn’t appear feasible. There are too many conflicts of interest between what is good for the player, their MLB organization, and their country to have the event during March. There has to be a better time to do this.

So, here’s my suggestion. Cancel the All-Star Game, turn the three day break into a seven day break, and have a single elimination tournament that lasts a week. The top two teams would play four games, and everyone else less than that, so you’re simply not adding significant strain to the pitchers selected to compete. It’s a normal turn in the rotation for the four starters selected. They take the hill in mid-season form, because it actually is mid-season.

The whole point of the All-Star game has been to watch the best of the best compete against each other, and recently, MLB has tried to give it some meaning as more than an exhibition game. Just rename the thing the All-Star Tournament, and now, you have the best of the best playing against each for something that actually does matter.

The pointless All-Star game goes away, and the WBC gets to live out the dream of having international competition on a big stage with the best players in the world. We’ll get Johan vs Pujols. We’ll get 15 dramatic winner-take-all contests with all the drama of March Madness and all the talent of the World Series. It would be a ratings bonanza and a pretty huge cash cow.

MLB, WBC, make this happen please. The current situation just isn’t working for anyone.

One of the really cool things that Baseball Info Solutions keeps track of is when there is a shift and it effects the outcome of the play. If it doesn’t effect the outcome of the play, it’s not recorded as a shift, even if one was employed.

In 2008, the top 5 players that were most effected by shifts (positively or negatively) were:

Carlos Delgado
Ryan Howard
Jim Thome
David Ortiz
Adam Dunn

Delgado’s BABIP on shift effected plays was at the .191 mark, compared to his .284 BABIP on every play. This is entirely different from say, Ortiz’s BABIP on shift effected plays which was .299, compared to his overall .273 BABIP. Makes you wonder if shifting on Ortiz is a good idea, though it would definitely take a deeper dive into the numbers to know for sure.

Anyway, this was really just a quick preliminary look at the data, but with everyone talking about shifts and BABIP lately, I thought this might be of some interest.

The upper levels of the Kansas City Royals system is pretty thin depth-wise but the club has some interesting prospects in the lower minors, which should make things very interesting in the next two to three years when they’re ready to compete for Major League spots. The club had one of the best drafts in 2008.

AAA/AA Prospects:
Daniel Cortes, 21, has improved more so than just about any prospect in the system in the past two years. He was stolen from the White Sox in a trade for reliever Mike MacDougal. Cortes’ improvements can be tied to a fastball that has jumped into the mid-90s range, as well as the development of a curveball that is now a plus pitch. The right-hander’s change-up, though, is lacking and he could be facing a move to the bullpen where he could become a dominating eighth- or ninth-inning pitcher. He posted a 3.48 ERA (but 4.40 FIP) at Double-A in 2008 and allowed 103 hits in 116.2 innings. Cortes posted a high walk rate of 4.24 BB/9 and a strikeout rate of 8.41 K/9, which should be higher given his stuff.

For whatever reason, the Royals organization just does not seem to believe in Kila Ka’aihue. This comes even after the first baseman slugged 38 home runs between three levels in 2008, including the Majors. The 24-year-old prospect also hit more than .300 at every stop but the Majors, where he hit .286 in 12 games. There is reason to be cautious with Ka’aihue, given that this was by far the best season of his career, but the power is for real – even if he may hit closer to .260. The Royals are going to pay Mike Jacobs a lot of money to do what Ka’aihue can probably do for a league-minimum salary – and the youngster also has much better plate discipline (107 walks in 2008, compared to Jacobs’ 36 free passes).

Carlos Rosa is a hard-throwing right-hander who has been working as a starter in the minors, but projects better as a reliever due to his lack of a third pitch. He throws a mid-90s fastball, as well as a slider that has plus potential. Rosa suffered a forearm strain in 2008 that was bad enough that it nixed a trade with the Marlins in the off-season.

Blake Wood, 23, is a big, strong pitcher and a former third-round pick out of Georgia Tech. He has the stuff to be successful (low-to-mid-90s fastball, good curveball, OK change-up) but he struggles with consistency and has battled injuries. Wood split 2008 between High-A and Double-A but struggled at the higher level. His ERA rose from 2.67 to 5.30 but he moved to a much better hitter’s park. His walk rate rose from 2.35 to 3.32 BB/9, while the strikeout rate dropped from 9.89 to 7.89 K/9. Overall, Wood allowed 128 hits in 144 innings.

A+/A Prospects:
Mike Moustakas, the second overall pick of the 2007 draft, had a solid first full pro season in 2008. In A-ball, the infielder hit .272/.337/.468 with a .196 ISO in 496 at-bats. His numbers are even more impressive considering the fact he hit just .190/.253/.226 in April. Defensively, Moustakas played shortstop in high school but moved to third base as a pro. He has a strong arm (He can hit the mid-90s on the mound) but his range is limited at shortstop. Moustakas will begin 2009 in High-A ball and could see Double-A in the second half of the season.

Danny Duffy, 20, posted some impressive numbers in 2008 with just 56 hits allowed in 81.2 innings at A-ball. He also posted rates of 2.76 BB/9 and 11.24 K/9. As he moves up the organizational ladder, though, Duffy’s strikeout rates should drop as his fastball is average at 88-92 mph and his secondary pitches are currently inconsistent, although the curve has plus potential. The southpaw projects as a No. 3 starter, but the shoulder woes he suffered in 2008 – and caused him to miss that last month of the season – are worrisome.

Danny Gutierrez came out of nowhere in 2008. The right-hander was in his third pro season after signing as a draft-and-follow in 2006. Gutierrez received a jump in velocity prior to the 2008 season, which helped him allow just 83 hits in 90 innings. He also posted rates of 2.50 BB/9 and 10.40 K/9. The 21-year-old prospect suffered a hairline fracture of his elbow and missed a month of the season early on, but he is healthy now and could move quickly with three pitches (89-94 mph fastball, curve, change).

SS/R Prospects:
Eric Hosmer was the most potent high school bat in the 2008 draft and could be an absolute offensive stud in the years to come. His bat is also extremely advanced for a high school player and he could take a similar path to the Majors as Toronto’s Travis Snider, who made it to the Majors in under three years. Hosmer appeared in just three pro games after signing late and he also got caught up in the contract dispute that Pedro Alvarez had with the Pirates. Regardless, he should open 2009 in A-ball and could see High-A ball in the second half of the year.

Catcher Jose Bonilla was one of the top prospects in rookie ball after hitting .357/.405/.625 in 112 at-bats. He needs to show a little more patience at the plate (4.3 BB%). Defensively, Bonilla has a strong arm (He threw out more than 40 percent of base stealers) and is at least average in all other facets of the position.

Johnny Giavotella got a lot of attention after being taken in the second round of the 2008 draft and hitting well in his debut at A-ball. He posted a line of .299/.355/.421 with an ISO of .122. The 21-year-old second baseman is a hard worker who will probably top out as a utility player, but he could put up solid numbers as a regular at the MLB level for a few seasons.

The Royals drafted three promising young high school pitchers in 2008, including Tim Melville, Mike Montgomery and Tyler Sample. Melville has the highest ceiling despite being taken in the fourth round (His bonus demands dropped him out of first-round consideration). He has a mid-90s fastball and solid curveball. Montgomery posted a 1.69 ERA (3.13 FIP) in 42.2 rookie ball innings in 2008. The southpaw has three solid pitches, although he does not throw as hard as Melville. Sample towers above opponents at 6’7” but the third-round pick had a rude introduction to pro ball with a 9.00 ERA in 27 rookie ball innings.

Up Next: The Chicago Cubs

These lists do not include all the talented prospects in each system – just a snap shot. Some players have been left out because I have covered them recently and not much has changed (You can link to the older posts from each player’s FanGraphs page) or I am planning a separate post on them in the very near future.