The Arizona Fall League rosters were announced by Major League Baseball last week. The league allows up-and-coming prospects (usually from high-A and double-A levels, as well as recent high draft picks) to continue honing their skills away from the fall instructional leagues held by each organization. Play will begin in early October and run until late November with the six teams – each one made up of five organizations’ players – continually facing each other.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll take a look at some of the more interesting names on each team. The rosters that were recently released are preliminary rosters and some players will be added, while others could be removed. Over the past two weeks, we’ve looked at five teams:

Today, we finish up our Arizona Fall League preview with a look at the Surprise Rafters.

The Surprise Rafters (Click HERE for the entire roster)
New York AL, New York NL, Kansas City, St. Louis, Texas

Danny Gutierrez | RHP | Texas
Gutierrez was recently involved in a rare prospect-for-prospects trade between Texas and Kansas City, which netted the Royals outfielder Tim Smith and catcher Manuel Pina. Gutierrez entered 2009 as a highly-regarded pitcher in the Royals system but then he got hurt and reportedly had some run-ins with the organization. When he got on the mound this year, the right-hander produced solid numbers, including 20 hits allowed in 32.1 innings between high-A and double-A. He walked just seven batters.

Lance Lynn | RHP | St. Louis
A supplemental first round draft pick from 2008, Lynn has been on the fast track to St. Louis and spent the majority of the year in double-A. He also made one triple-A start. At double-A, Lynn allowed 117 hits in 126.1 innings of work, while posting rates of 3.63 BB/9 and 6.98 K/9. The right-hander doesn’t strike out a lot of batters, but he’ll put the ball in play, get his fair share of ground balls and does a nice job of keeping the ball in the park.

Evan Reed | RHP | Texas
Reed was nabbed in the third round of the 2007 draft as a college reliever who was expected to make it to the Majors quickly. However, the Rangers tried to make him a starter and that backfired in 2008 when he imploded at high-A. He moved back to the bullpen in 2009 and saved 25 games in high-A but was still a little too hittable while battling his command. Enthusiasm for his big-league role must be tempered to setup man.

Bryan Anderson | C | St. Louis
Anderson was on track to make his MLB debut in 2009, but he was derailed by an injury so he’s looking to make up for lost time. The Cardinals organization isn’t in the market for a big league starter with Yadier Molina already in the fold so Anderson is ticketed for a big league back-up role unless he gets traded out of town. He’s an OK defensive player, but his strengths lie in his offensive skills and his ability to hit .280-300 from the left side.

Austin Romine | C | New York AL
Jesus Montero gets a lot of attention – and deservedly so – but Romine is a pretty darn good catching prospect in his own right. The 20-year-old prospect hit .276/.322/.441 with 13 homers and 11 steals in 442 at-bats at high-A ball. With a little more patience at the plate (6.2 BB%), he could jump into elite status.

Jeff Bianchi | SS | Kansas City
Bianchi received some love (including from yours truly) back in 2005/06 after he hit more than .400 over two rookie seasons while battling injuries (He accumulated just 140 at-bats). With the injuries perhaps having taken a toll on the youngster, Bianchi all but disappeared offensively for two seasons before resurfacing in 2009 in high-A and double-A. Combined, the 22 year old hit .308/.358/.435 with 22 steals. He still needs to work on his plate approach, though.

Ike Davis | 1B/OF | New York NL
Davis had a dismal pro debut in 2008 and took a lot of heat. He really turned things around this year and ended up in double-A. Overall, he hit 20 home runs in 429 at-bats after failing to hit even one in 2008 in 215 at-bats. Davis also hit for a solid average in 2009 (more than .300 in double-A) and he did a nice job of getting on base (11.2 BB%).

Marcus Lemon | 2B | Texas
He’s not flashy, but Chet’s son has had a pretty solid career so far and projects as a fringe regular, or big-league utility player. He struggled in double-A in 2009 but he’s still just 21 years old and he swings from the left side (and has hit more than .300 against southpaws in his career).

Ruben Tejada | SS | New York NL
Only 19, the Mets pushed Tejada to double-A in 2009 even though he hit .229/.293/.296 in 497 high-A at-bats in 2008. He responded to the challenge and improved his stats to a line of .289/.351/.381 with 19 steals in 488 at-bats. Tejada also struck out just 12.1% of the time.

Tyler Henley | OF | St. Louis
Henley has a nice year as a 24 year old in double-A. The outfielder hit .303/.367/.482 with 13 homers and nine steals in 423 at-bats. He has fringe power for a corner outfield spot so he’s likely to end up as a fourth outfielder, but he could end up getting some regular playing time if the cards fall in his favor.

David Lough | OF | Kansas City
Lough is still learning how to be a baseball player after spending time in high school and even college focusing on other sports like football. He’s catching on quickly though and flew through high-A after hitting .320 in 222 at-bats. In double-A, Lough continued to perform well with a line of .331/.371/.517 with nine homers and 13 steals in 236. Lough is moving from sleeper to legit prospect.

Among American League pitchers with at least 50 innings, name the guy with the highest strikeout rate. Not surprisingly, its Joe Nathan – he’s pretty good, as everyone knows. Who is second? If you knew that it was Robinson Tejeda, well, then you’re probably a Royals fan. In a disastrous season for Kansas City, Tejeda is standing as one of the reasons to find some joy.

Despite throwing three major league quality pitches, Tejeda was pretty lousy during his career in Texas thanks to Daniel Cabrera style command. He was the classic throw-hard-with-no-idea-where-its-going guy, and Texas got tired of his act after a couple of years. His stuff wasn’t even translating into missed bats – in 2006, he posted a 4.89 K/9, for instance. He was just a thrower with no obvious skills besides velocity.

However, he broke through as a reliever after being claimed on waivers by the Royals last year, racking up 41 strikeouts in 39 1/3 innings in his most successful big league season to date. His command was still bad, but at least he was offsetting it with swinging strikes.

This year, he’s taken it up another notch, as hitters are making contact just 69% of the time when they swing at one of his pitches. He was good enough out of the pen to convince the Royals to give him another try in the rotation, and so far, it’s worked out tremendously well.

Over his first two starts, he’s faced the Angels and Tigers, and he’s run up 14 strikeouts in 13 1/3 innings. He’s even thrown strikes around 65 percent of the time, which is a huge improvement from his usual close-your-eyes-and-hope approach to pitching.

Tejeda’s certainly in for some regression (that 1.8% HR/FB rate is obviously not sustainable), but now that he’s showing he can rack up strikeouts while pitching 5+ innings in a game, he’s a pretty interesting piece. Even with the crazy walk problems, he’s got enough stuff to work as a back-end starter.

All of the minor league regular seasons are officially over, and it will soon be one of my favorite seasons of the year — prospect evaluation and ranking time. I personally love reading the various scouting reports and rankings; I devour it as much of it as I can stand. Now excuse me while I become a wet blanket.

I think as we look at minor league stats and read scouting reports, if we are not careful we can get rose-colored glasses when it comes to our outlook of the future of these players. The truth is most of these players we find ourselves pulling for simply won’t ever make it.

Victor Wang has done some tremendous research about prospects and their value. In determining their value he had to find the rate of which players bust in each category he divided them into. This is a healthy dose of realism to keep in mind when we’re looking at the any one club’s farm system.

* 10% of top 10 hitting prospects bust.
* 31% of top 10 pitching prospects bust.
* 21% of top 11-25 hitting prospects bust.
* 32% of top 11-25 pitching prospects bust.
* 35% of top 26-50 hitting prospects bust.
* 33% of top 26-50 pitching prospects bust.
* 45% of top 51-75 hitting prospects bust.
* 39% of top 51-75 pitching prospects bust.
* 43% of top 76-100 hitting prospects bust.
* 43% of top 76-100 pitching prospects bust.
* 59% of ‘B grade’ hitting prospects bust.
* 52% of ‘B grade’ pitching prospects bust.
* 83% of ‘C grade’ hitting prospects bust.
* Around 75% of all ‘C grade’ pitching prospects bust.

Top 100 prospects are Baseball America’s. B and C grades are as ranked by prospect wonk John Sickels.

Top ten hitting prospects are just about can’t miss. Not all of them reach the level of stardom, but they seldom fail to bring value to a team. Going on down the line, the rates of attrition obviously get higher and higher. I find the failure rates among top pitchers to be striking, and it’s interesting to see how things even out between hitters and pitchers as you go down the grades.

This isn’t anything really new, but it is something to keep in mind when reading these rankings. Reading some reports you would be almost led to believe that even the majority of C grade hitting or pitching prospects will end up being at least a major league utility players or a middle relievers, but that’s simply not the case.

Feel free to soak up all the prospect hype you can find, but always take it with a grain of salt.

Neither quite deserves their own piece.

Adam Eaton designated for assignment by Colorado

He’s bad. I mean really, really bad. I will be shocked if he gets another shot in the majors heading forward. His 7.14 combined tRA (6.77 and 6.63 the past two seasons) and 5.95 FIP tell the story. He’s not good at preventing walks, striking batters out, or missing bats. With a laundry list of concerns like that, it’s not much of a surprise that Eaton was unable to reach the 50 inning plateau on the season despite starting eight games and appearing as a reliever in four.

Of course the sample size is small this year, but we know from previous history that he’s simply a poor pitcher. At this point I wonder if he just gets gigs because general managers remember his name from a few years ago.

Rodrigo Lopez released by Philadelphia

Lopez appeared in seven games for the Phillies, starting five of those. FIP and tRA lock horns on degrees of success thanks to a line drive percentage just shy of 26%. That’s an unsustainable number, but Lopez has always had some issues with being unable to strand runners and a move back to the American League in a starting role is less than ideal.

The bigger story here is not that Lopez was released, but that Oakland is looking at him. It’s a logic fit, mostly because Lopez is cheap, available, and able to eat pitches so that Brett Anderson and Trevor Cahill won’t have to. Anderson is nearing 2,500 and Cahill may reach 3,000. Much like Brett Tomko, Lopez isn’t going to set the world on fire or cause good vibrations. Best case for him is to pitch well enough to earn a shot at the pen in spring training.

The most common off-season related article theme so far appears to deal with the Mets. Jayson Stark (taken apart here) wrote a piece all but announcing that they had to rebuild and had to trade Jose Reyes or Carlos Beltran in order to do so. Why do they have to though? Well because of injuries, and they need a few new players, and oh yeah, they need to shake things up; because nothing quite shakes up a roster like trading one of your legitimate studs at potentially their lowest value.

Reyes is a soon-to-be 27-year-old shortstop signed through 2011 for 20 million. Further, since 2006 Reyes has posted WAR of 5.5, 5.1, 5.9, and a injury depleted 0.7. Unless he eats bat boys in the clubhouse or brings back Hanley Ramirez, there’s not a logical reason to deal him.

The Mets are one of those intriguing teams to me. They have a plethora of stars and the media jumps on the “TRADE X” bandwagon every time something goes wary. Heading into next season the Mets will have David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Carlos Beltran. Depending on Johan Santana’s health, they could legitimately post four four/five win players without spending a dime on free agency.

A new first baseman, probably a new catcher, and a new rotation piece will be pricey, but the market for sluggers looks to be oversaturated once more. How much would a Russell Branyan or Nick Johnson really cost? Or they could always operate with a small market’s team mindset*; focusing on role players and smaller additions rather than the big names and marquee fillers.

Besides simply not making sense, does anyone honestly trust Omar Minaya to trade Reyes, Beltran, whomever and get a fair return?

*Speaking of which, one of my baseball fantasies is Billy Beane taking over the Mets. A) David Forst gets his GM gig, B) Beane would be re-energized by a new challenge, and C) he could work with fantastic resources.

This morning, when debating what to write about today, I thought about penning something about Albert Pujols. It’s tough to say anything new and interesting about the man, because after all, what is there to say? He’s the best player in baseball and everyone knows it. So, I wrote about the legendary Juan Uribe instead.

But then, Albert just insists on being covered. I was considering mentioning how unbelievably hot he’s been lately this morning, and now, he’s just finished an afternoon game against Milwaukee where he went 3 for 5 and launched two more home runs, giving him 47 on the season. His stretch of baseball the last six days has been obscene.

September 4th, @Pit – 2 for 4, HR, BB, .38 WPA
September 5th, @Pit, Pinch hit game winning HR, .33 WPA
September 6th, @Pit, 3 for 5, .10 WPA
September 7th, @Mil, 3 for 4, 2 2B, BB, .25 WPA
September 8th, @Mil, 1 for 3, HR, 2 BB, .15 WPA
September 9th, @Mil, 3 for 5, 2 HR, .17 WPA

13 for 22, 2 2B, 5 HR, 4 BB, 0 K. Not a bad week.

I guess we shouldn’t be that surprised. After all, we’re talking about a player who hasn’t had a single day all season where his OPS was less than 1.000. It hasn’t been under 1.100 since mid-June. His performance today pushed him over the +8.0 win mark for the season, and he’s now on pace to have the best offensive season of his career.

The man is an incredible player. He could go 0 for the rest of his lifetime and still be a first ballot Hall Of Famer. He’s one of the greatest hitters to ever live. He is amazing.

When the Giants announced they would skip Tim Lincecum start, the disappointment of not getting to see a potential back-to-back Cy Young pitcher in the heat of a Wild Card race, was tempered by the excitement of seeing his replacement, Madison Bumgarner, get the first Major League start of his career.

Coming into the season Bumgarner was widely consider one of the top ten prospects in the game. Since then no one can argue with the results, as he has gone 9-1 with a 1.93 ERA 19 year old in AA. But the way he got there has been a little disappointing, his strikeout rate has fallen to 5.8 per 9 and his walk rate risen to a still good 2.52 per 9 . So a tiniest bit of the top-prospect sheen has probably come off, still he was young for that level and no one disputes his enormous potential.

His start against the Padres went pretty well, 5.1 innings, four strikeouts, one walk and two runs given up on solo homers to Kevin Kouzmanoff and Chase Headley. It looks to me like Bumgarner threw 51 fastballs, six changeups and 19 of the breaking pitch he has been working on improving this year, which looks like a slider.

The pitchf/x system had his fastball in the high 80s and only breaking 90 mph twice. I think the system might have been a little ‘cold’ (there is some game to game variation in the pitch/fx readings), since he is reported to work in the low 90s and Kevin Correia’s fastballs were clocked about one mph slower than his average.

Here are the locations of this his pitches to RHBs, with swung at pitches darkened, whiffs outlined in black and the two home runs outlined in red.

He kept the off-speed and breaking pitches down or away and got some whiffs on them. The fastball was in and around the zone, he has great control, and got a fair number of called strikes.

Over all an exciting and encouraging outing for a talented pitcher getting his first start in the majors just a month after his 20th birthday.

The San Francisco Giants win in spite of their offense, not because of it. However, they are getting some positive contributions from their position players, including the surprising Juan Uribe, who they picked up on a minor league deal in spring training. Uribe not only made the club, but has become one of the team’s more valuable players while swinging a ridiculously hot bat of late.

For the season, he’s hitting .282/.320/.492, good for a .344 wOBA. Toss in quality defense at second and third, as well as passable work at shortstop, and Uribe’s been worth 1.9 wins in 341 plate appearances this season. He’s going to end the year as around an average major league contributor, and the Giants got him for next to nothing. However, even with his struggles the last few years, perhaps we shouldn’t be totally surprised at Uribe’s production.

His overall profile hasn’t changed at all. Coming into the season, CHONE projected he would walk in 6.2% of his plate appearances, strike out in 18.3% of them, and hit for a .158 ISO. His actual marks? 6.0%, 20.1%, and .211. The power number is up a little bit, but he posted ISOs over .200 in 2004 and 2006, so it’s not like this is a new skill for him. His plate discipline numbers are practically identical across the board to his career averages. He’s the same guy he’s always been, but just getting better results.

Why? Our good friend BABIP. When Uribe posts a reasonably normal batting average on balls in play, he’s a decent hitter. From 2005 to 2008, however, he posted four straight years with below average numbers on balls in play, bottoming out at .244 in 2006. This year, he’s at .319 – the highest mark of his career.

Hitter BABIP isn’t nearly as luck related as pitcher BABIP, but it’s still subject to significant fluctuations around a player’s “true talent” level. That Uribe can run the following six BABIPs in succession is a great example of this: .311, .271, .244, .262, .289, .319.

The only major difference between Uribe this year and the one that the White Sox saw the last few years – and of course, the one no one wanted to employ this winter – was the amount of times the balls he hit found the fielders gloves. Even the most accurate projectors of BABIP will have fairly significant variation, and finding these types of players is a great way for teams to find hidden value. Not all low BABIP guys are “unlucky”, but if you want to find a guy who can take a pretty big step forward in a hurry, look for players like Uribe who have established levels of skill and could be productive hitters with some better results on balls in play.

The Giants are sure glad they took a shot on him.

Padres’ general manager Kevin Towers says the Padres can be “pretty good” next year. I’d like to know what Towers means by pretty good. Surveying the team – wearing Petco adjusted glasses, of course – I have a tough time seeing it.

Unless you just don’t pay attention to baseball at all, you already know about the greatness of Adrian Gonzalez. The Padres entertained offers this deadline before ruling to keep their star slugger. What sort of talent do they have to compliment him in order to contend in a strong division next year? Getting a full season of Kyle Blanks should help. His power is the real deal – evidenced in part by a .202 ISO in Triple-A, .264 in the majors this season. While his bat could be something special, he’s been forced to the outfield because of Gonzalez’s presence. Blanks looks more like a defensive lineman than a first baseman, let alone an outfielder. In a small sampling, Blanks’ UZR is -9 per 150 games. Having seen him play a few times, he looks faster than I expected a 285 pounder to be, but he’s not going to be confused with Nyjer Morgan anytime soon.

Everth Cabrera looks like a Rule 5 steal. He draws walks at a decent clip – 11% of his plate appearances this year – and he’s one of the fastest players in baseball. While in small samples his UZR numbers are not great, scouts believe he is a solid defender.

So there we have two cost-controlled players that should be above average contributors, or thereabouts. Kevin Kouzmanoff is having a fine season (2.4 WAR) and Tony Gwynn Jr. has been surpisingly good since coming over from Milwaukee (1.9 WAR). On the downside, former top prospect Chase Headley has not lived up to expecations (.320 wOBA, -10 in LF), and there’s little seperating Nick Hundley and David Eckstein from replacement players.

As for their rotation, the Padres look like they will have a crew of Chris Young, Tim Stauffer, Mat Latos, Clayton Richard and Aaron Poreda. Latos and Poreda both have high ceilings, but it would be a lot to expect either to blossom into top-shelf starters by next season. Stauffer and Richard are both solid-ish, and who knows what to expect from Chris Young going forward?

Their bullpen looks to be a strength, with Heath Bell blossoming into one of the more dominant closers in the game, and San Diego has no trouble finding diamonds in the rough when filling out a ‘pen. Take for instance Luke Gregerson (2.44 FIP), who was just in Double-A last year and came over from St. Louis in the Khalil Greene deal.

The Padres dumped a lot of salary by getting rid of Peavy, and by my estimates they only have about $30 million committed to next year’s roster, which should give them some money to play with this winter. But who knows what the new ownership group will be willing to shell out in free agency? And even if they do add through free agency, I can’t see that putting them into contention next year.

I think Towers is a bright guy, but I don’t quite get his optimism. I do think the Padres will improve. How couldn’t they? But unless pretty good means 77 wins, I just don’t see it.

Once upon a time, Kiko Calero was one of the pieces in the Mark Mulder deal and gained notoriety for being a solid reliever in Oakland. Calero fell out of the majors and public consciousness since developing a health allergy.

Nowadays, most people seem to be unaware of Calero’s presence in the majors. Quietly and in relative obscurity, Calero has posted an impressive 2.39 tRA and 2.38 FIP through 50-plus innings of work. Despite a fastball that sits in the 87-89 range, Calero has compiled a 69.1% contact rate (for comparison, Mike Wuertz is 57.5% and Jonathan Broxton’s is 68.6%), nearly a career best and a figure that speaks volumes about his devastating slider. His ability to miss bats is going to make him attractive because that should bode well for his strikeout rates moving forward.

Calero did miss three weeks in mid-June thanks to right shoulder inflammation. He’s had all types of issues with that arm since 2004 including rotator cuff tendinitis and surgery. Is there a risk here? Absolutely there is, but the cost doesn’t figure to be outstanding. His 2009 salary is a measly half a million. Even if he gets a deal similar to the one Joe Nelson received last year – similar in destination, injury history, and reliance on non-fastballs – one-year and 1.3 million, that risk is relatively low considering the reward.

In a free agent pitching market dripping with injury proneness, Calero may get lost in the shuffle and wind up a nice sleeper candidate for next year. Assuming his arm doesn’t detach before then.