The Fringe Five is a weekly exercise (introduced two weeks ago) wherein the author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own heart to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.
“Excuse me, sir, but what precisely do you mean by fringe?” a decidedly polite reader might ask. To which query the author would respond: “Currently, a fringe prospect is one who was absent from all of three notable preseason top-100 prospect lists.” And to which the author would continue responding as follows: “There is more discussion of the definition of fringe here.”
Since last week’s edition, there have been two changes to The Five — one promotion and one demotion. With his call-up to the Yankees 25-man roster, second baseman Corban Joseph has become ineligible for inclusion here, per the author’s mostly arbitrary rules governing the matter. Meanwhile, despite the obvious charms of his changeup, Arizona right-hander Chase Anderson’s recent difficulties with Reno have compelled the author to include him (i.e. Anderson) merely among the Next Five.
Those caveats made, let’s proceed to this week’s Fringe Five.
Chad Bettis, RHP, Colorado (Profile)
The 24-year-old Bettis missed all of 2012 to a shoulder injury, but was impressive the season before that in the High-A California League, striking out 184 batters in just 169.2 innings while posting a 2.73 FIP. Bettis has returned to form, basically, as a member of Colorado’s Double-A affiliate, the Tulsa Drillers, recording a 30:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 26.2 innings over five starts. As Marc Hulet notes, he was particularly impressive in his April 24th outing, during which he struck out 11 of 25 batters faced.
Bettis sat in the mid-90s with his fastball during that start, while also showing a slider with impressive vertical, almost splitter-esque, movement.
Like this one, from the first inning, to strike out Rolando Gomez:
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