Instructional league is a tough place to get a complete look at a player but a great place to get a broad sense of a number of players.  In the regular season, a scout will sit on a minor league team for 5-6 games and get a full look at all the notable prospects.  In instructs, the same 5-6 day look will get you 2-3 games and 2-3 camp days.  The rosters are typically larger than the normal 25, with the Pirates listing 93 players on their instructs roster.  Most clubs sub out the whole lineup around the 5^th inning, so even seeing a prospect start 3 games only amounts to a 1-2 game look.

Where a full report from a pro scout could be up to a paragraph on each tool and a summary, instructs reports are typically a handful of sentences in total.  So, my reports from instructs will be these abbreviated impressions, unless it’s a player I got a full look at during the spring.  The Yankees recently closed camp, so I’ll start this series with a three part look at their players from instructs.

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Prior to playing on the biggest stage in professional baseball almost all ball players must take the long bus rides, live off late-night fast food runs and toil in the near obscurity that can be minor league baseball. For some players on the 2012 playoff clubs those memories are a little fresher than for others. With work well under way on the 2012-13 Top 15 Prospects lists at FanGraphs – due to begin in early November – I thought it might be fun to look back and see what I wrote about those players during the previous three annual prospect reviews. Below are excerpts from what was originally written.

No longer Albert Pujols‘ club, the Cardinals 2012 roster consists of a number of young players developed internally. The organization does an outstanding job of balancing higher-priced veterans with (often complementary) younger contributors. The strong in-house development has been very evident on the pitching staff during the club’s playoff run and post-season success.

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Seeing prospects in person is my passion. In 2012, I was fortunate enough to visit parks in five different leagues — collecting information and video on 200 legitimate prospects or more. The lists released over the next few weeks will highlight the best prospects I’ve seen in person at each position during the 2012 season. The rankings will be adjusted based on projected position at the major league level, not present position (in italics if ranking includes position shift). After writing the first three lists, I realized there’s really no way to keep statistical information out of the equation completely and focus on scouting/projection alone. This has caused me to hedge my bets a bit on high ceiling talents and focus more on the complete player. Additionally, understand this is not meant to be a complete list of the best prospects at each position across all of Minor League Baseball, but the best of what I’ve seen.

Previous Rankings:
The Catchers
The First Basemen
The Second Baseman

1. Mike Olt, Texas Rangers

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Prior to playing on the biggest stage in professional baseball almost all ball players must take the long bus rides, live off late-night fast food runs and toil in the near obscurity that can be minor league baseball. For some players on the 2012 playoff clubs those memories are a little fresher than for others. With work well under way on the 2012-13 Top 15 Prospects lists at FanGraphs – due to begin in early November – I thought it might be fun to look back and see what I wrote about those players during the previous three annual prospect reviews. Below are excerpts from what was originally written.

New York Yankees

The Yankees organization seemingly hasn’t had as much focus on the draft and international market as it has in the past. The club was never one to heavily lean on its own development system – instead preferring to dabble in the free agent and trade markets – but it always seemed to stumble upon some key, home-grown talents such as Robinson Cano and Brett Gardner. That change in focus has resulted in a lack of impact, home-grown players over the past few seasons.

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On the surface, the question of whether or not Mariners prospect Nick Franklin fits in Seattle’s future given the .555 OPS of incumbent shortstop Brendan Ryan seems a bit silly. Yes, Ryan is one of the best defensive shortstops in the game, but the Mariners and their team 87 wRC+ are in desperate need of offensive help all over the diamond. Cue Nick Franklin and his .278/.347/.453 triple slash line as a 21-year old in double and Triple-A. On paper, this presents as a perfect opportunity for the Mariners organization to upgrade internally to a young, cost-controlled shortstop with pop.

However, the storybook ending is far from guaranteed given Franklin’s perceived defensive limitations. Having recently ranked the current shortstop as the best second base prospect scouted in person during the 2012 season, include me on the list of prospect writers who openly question his ability to stick. Add to this my really being impressed with Double-A shortstop Brad Miller and Franklin may find himself battling Dustin Ackley and Kyle Seager for playing time at second or third base.

Video after the jump

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Evaluating a pitcher is simpler than evaluating a hitter.  It isn’t easier, due to pitcher attrition, but pitchers show you everything they have to offer—stuff, location, delivery, athleticism, etc.—pitch after pitch and are dictating the action.  Watching a hitter is more complicated since you’re evaluating their ability to react to what the pitcher is doing, along with the physical tools, ability to use them, approach at the plate, etc.  Hitters can go a couple at bats without swinging and full games without having to show their ability in one of these key areas.

The hit tool is the hardest tool to predict and also is the most important.  Imagine the job of a pro scout grading the hit tool for every player on a team from a five game look.  You’ll have notes from batting practice and every at bat of each player, but the information is asymmetrical.  You don’t know how he responds to a fastball on his hands until one is thrown and maybe he never gets one or he doesn’t swing at it.  You pay close attention to his plate discipline but maybe he doesn’t see any borderline pitches for a game or two.  This is multiplied for every player on the team, some of whom play irregularly, so your notes can have some holes. Evaluating a hitter is difficult because it’s a passive act graded off of a short look but also because it’s very complicated by nature with countless components.

While my method for grading hitters isn’t a revelation, it’s helped me organize my thoughts about hitters while taking notes mid-game and while writing the final evaluations.  I separate the hit tool into three components –tools, plate discipline and bat control—and classify any observation into one of the three groups, then use the grades of each of these components to get to the hit tool grade.  If I don’t take this methodical, checklist-type approach, I end up looking at a mess of notes, outcomes, stats and background info and gut-feeling my way to a hit tool grade.

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Seeing prospects in person is my passion. In 2012, I was fortunate enough to visit parks in five different leagues — collecting information and video on 200 legitimate prospects or more. The lists released over the next few weeks will highlight the best prospects I’ve seen in person at each position during the 2012 season. The rankings will be adjusted based on projected position at the major league level, not present position (in italics if ranking includes position shift). Additionally, I’ll do my best to rank based on notes/video from the park and avoid adjusting for statistics after the fact. Keep this in mind when working through the lists and understand this is not meant to be a complete list of the best prospects at each position across all of Minor League Baseball, but the best of what I’ve seen.

Previous Rankings:
The Catchers
The First Basemen Read the rest of this entry »

As I mentioned yesterday, I had an opportunity to watch a few games of the double-A Eastern League playoff series between the Akron Aeros (Indians) and Trenton Thunder (Yankees). The series featured some interesting Grade B and C prospects who could possibly see time in the major leagues in the not-too-distant future.

The notes below come from a small-sample size observation so they should be taken with a grain of salt but it’s a great starting point to analyze these prospects, and this is part of my regular off-season practice with prospect ranking season just around the corner.

You can read my previous thoughts on the Indians prospects here, and the Yankees players are detailed below. There are a few more interesting prospects on the Trenton squad than there were on the Akron team.

The HittersZoilo Almonte, OF: Almonte, 23, looked a little rough on defense. He overran a ball in right field, although it may have been more over-aggressiveness rather than lack of concentration or ability. I also wasn’t enthralled with his base running and his speed looked averge at best. He’s quite aggressive at the plate and took some huge cuts on balls out of the strike zone, often low. He did not appear to identify breaking balls very effectively. When he does make contact, though, he has pop. Almonte showed opposite-field power with a home run and it was clear that he doesn’t have to pull the ball to hit it out. Even after going deep, the young oufielder had an impressive at-bat with the bases loaded by keeping it simple and not trying to do too much. He took a pitch back up the middle for a two-run single against a left-handed pitcher; if he can take this approach on a more consistent basis he could have a lot more success at the plate and trim his poor walk and K rates. A switch-hitter, he looked much better as a left-handed batter because his swing was not as smooth and natural looking from the right side.

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I had an opportunity to watch a few games of the double-A Eastern League playoff series between the Akron Aeros (Indians) and Trenton Thunder (Yankees). The series featured some interesting Grade B and C prospects who could possibly see time in the major leagues in the not-too-distant future.

The notes below come from a small-sample size observation so they should be taken with a grain of salt but it’s a great starting point to analyze these prospects, and this is part of my regular off-season practice with prospect ranking season just around the corner.

Today, we’ll look at some of the Indians prospects.

The Hitters

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Francisco Lindor is the Cleveland Indians’ shortstop of the future and the top prospect in the system. At the age of 18, he also likely several years away from the big leagues. Drafted eighth overall in 2011, the switch-hitting native of Puerto Rico spent the season with low-A Lake County where he hit .257/.352/.355. An outstanding defensive infielder, he is rated by Baseball America as the game’s 14th-best prospect. Lindor talked about his development — on both sides of the ball — in early August.

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David Laurila: Scouts speak highly of your defense.

Francisco Lindor: I’m proud of that and pretty confident about my defensive game. I work hard on it and take great pride in it. I try to get better every day. I come out here and get my ground balls and double plays. It’s been a big part of my game since I was little, and it will be for the rest of my career.

DL: How much of defensive ability is instinctual?

FL: You need to have the instincts to play shortstop, because you have to anticipate all the time. You also have to prepare yourself. You have to anticipate and prepare yourself for what will happen next. It’s a big combination of both.

[Reading a hitter] depends on the swing and how we’re working him, whether we’re working him inside or away, or with off-speed pitches. You have to know. You have to be alert on every pitch — where the catcher is and where [the pitcher] is going to throw — and you also have to know the player’s swing. And on two strikes, they change their swing, sometimes. You have to read that. You have to think, and anticipate what he’s trying to do, whether he wants to move the runner from second to third or hit something in the gap — drive it. You have to anticipate and know the game.

DL: Do you position yourself or is that the responsibility of the coaching staff?

FL: I kind of know the hitters here, from playing against them all year, so I pretty much locate myself. Read the rest of this entry »