The minor leagues are a vast landscape of prospects, fillers and veterans. Each year, players from all three of those category impact the major leagues — sometimes for the better, sometimes not. But before they make their September callups or injury replacements, let us familiarize ourselves with some of the standouts.

International League (AAA)
IL Leaderboards

Brad Eldred (.374 OBP, .695 SLG, .465 wOBA, 197 wRC+)

The 31-year-old Eldred was slugging away in the Tigers minor league system (since released and playing in Japan). Like Dan Johnson (173 wRC+) with the White Sox, Eldred would have required multiple injuries before getting consideration at first base. The Tigers have both Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder, while the Sox have a trio in Adam Dunn, Paul Konerko and now Kevin Youkilis. That cavalcade of injuries never came — nor an age of enlightenment in which Delmon Young is no longer a DH in Detroit — Eldred never got a steady shot with the Tigers.

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In the 2011 draft, Baltimore drafted prep catcher/third baseman Nicky Delmonico in the sixth round for a bonus of 1.525 million. Entering the 2011 high school season, the Knoxville, Tennessee product and son of former Volunteers head coach Rod Delmonico was expected to be a first round pick before injuries and bonus demands caused him to slip. Additionally, a strong commitment to the University of Georgia and opportunity to play alongside his older brother made him an extremely hard sign. However, the Orioles ponied up the cash and somewhat surprisingly signed the left-handed hitter causing him to instantly become one of the top position prospects in the organization.

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Since seeing Taijuan Walker last week in Chattanooga, the requests for comparisons between the young right-hander and fellow uber-prospect Dylan Bundy of the Orioles have been coming hot and heavy. The exercise of choosing between the two best pitching prospects in baseball (for me at least) is essentially splitting hairs. Does one prefer velocity or movement? Tall or short? Ceiling or floor? Ask ten industry sources and the vote would likely be split down the middle with each having a perfectly reasonable explanation for wanting one over the other. It’s a scenario where there really is no correct answer, only speculation based on experience and personal preference.

In recent weeks, I’m one of the fortunate few who have seen both Dylan Bundy and Taijuan Walker in person. Reports with video on both are linked below.

Dylan Bundy Report with Video

Taijuan Walker Report with Video

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Did you know the FanGraphs leaderboards — which already no doubt consume the majority of your time like they do mine — also carry updated minor league data? Yeah, right here:

Under the Leaders tab, yo!

Let us take a moment, you and I, to delve into the numbers of my favorite of the minor leagues, the International League.
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DATA!

Let us delve once again into the numbers. The season is now two months aged and we have more stories unfolding than we have enough digital ink to cover: Will the Red Sox ever find an outfielder? Is Adam Jones the new Matt Kemp? Can the White Sox really make a playoff push in a rebuilding year? And will the 2012 Pirates really go down as one of the worst offenses in modern history?

We will not truly know the answers to these questions for some time, but we can peer into the murky mirror-mirror that is the De-Lucker! and at least get a better feel for the state of everything. Much of the offensive fluctuations in the early part of the season come from strange movements in BABIP. The De-Lucker! attempts to smooth those fluctuations and give us a better guess as to who is doing well and who is not.

And Josh Hamilton, you will see, is in both categories.
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A huge part of the Baltimore Orioles unforeseen success this season has been keeping their best players healthy: J.J. Hardy, Adam Jones, Matt Wieters and Nick Markakis have all played in at least 46 games. The Orioles found out Thursday this trend will not continue through June. Markakis has been diagnosed with a broken hamate bone (the same injury as Pablo Sandoval earlier this season) and will likely miss the rest of June in recovery.

The Orioles have been relatively blessed all over the diamond in terms of injuries — only Nolan Reimold has missed serious time among key contributors, and the rotation has only had to go through one spot start in two months. But with Markakis and Reimold both on the mend, the Orioles will be exposed at one of their suddenly weakest positions. Can the rest of the team keep them near the top of the standings until their outfielders return?

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Last Friday, I wrote that if Adam Jones sustains his performance all year, he could be looking at a contract extension in the range of $120 to $140 million by selling himself as Matt Kemp Lite. Today, the Orioles are rumored to have come to an agreement with Jones on a deal for a reported $85 million over six years.

For the Orioles, getting Jones at this price is a slam dunk. Given what he’s already accomplished in the first several months of the season, Jones was going to get a significant raise in arbitration from the $6 million he’s making this year, likely putting him in line for a $10 or $11 million salary in 2013. Given that the Orioles clearly weren’t going to non-tender Jones under any scenario, we can essentially assume that part of the deal was already predetermined to a large extent, so the Orioles are essentially adding five years and $75 million or so onto their existing commitment.

Have you seen what 5/75 buys in free agency lately? Last winter, that was close to the amount C.J. Wilson signed for, but he took less money to stay on the west coast, and the Angels were buying his age 31-35 seasons. In 2010, 5/75 would have left you without enough cash to sign Adrian Beltre, but you could have won the bidding for Adam Dunn and had enough left over to sign Carl Pavano or John Buck. In 2009, that money could have gotten you really close to signing John Lackey or you could have had some leftovers if you signed Jason Bay instead. In 2008, you would have come up just shy for A.J. Burnett or outbid the Braves for Derek Lowe. In 2007, you’d have had enough for Aaron Rowand but not quite enough for Torii Hunter. I think you get the idea.

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For my day job, I write up scouting reports on amateur players for ESPN’s Draft Blog but have been catching minor league games on the side when my schedule permits. I’m happy to bring some of my scouting reports to FanGraphs, and first up is the buzziest prospect of them all, Orioles righty Dylan Bundy. I caught his start in Charleston versus the Yankees affiliate on May 7th and I pieced together some video from the game:

Video after the jump

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On Tuesday, Adam Jones took a 1-0 fastball from CC Sabathia in the second inning and launched it out to left field. On Wednesday, in the 15th inning, he destroyed a curveball from Nate Adcock, breaking a 3-3 tie and giving the Orioles a go-ahead run that led to their extra inning win. Yesterday, the victim was Luke Hochevar, whose 4th inning slider didn’t break far enough out of the zone, allowing Jones to deposit it over the center field wall for his third home run in as many days.

The power surge continues Jones’ strong start to the season, and his 13 home runs are now just six fewer than he had in both 2009 and 2010. The long ball barrage has raised his overall season line to .295/.345/.604, and his 159 wRC+ puts him in the top 20 in offensive performance to begin the year. Once you add in the fact that Jones is a center fielder who also runs the bases well, Jones has been a top five player in the sport so far.

While it’s still early, his strong start is evoking memories of Matt Kemp’s breakout year last season, and the two might be a bit more similar than you think.

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With an inability to develop quality arms stateside, the Baltimore Orioles have made an attempt to solve their pitching woes through the international market. Specifically, the Orioles have dove headfirst into Asia — too aggressively for the tastes of some in the Far East — bringing in two starting pitchers for 2012 in Tsuyoshi Wada and Wei-Yin Chen. Wada will spend the year rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, but the early returns on Chen have been extremely positive. Chen held the Yankees to two earned runs over 7 innings Tuesday night, extending his streak of starts with three or fewer earned runs through his first seven career starts. Chen owns a 2.66 ERA and a solid 3.41 FIP in his first 44 innings as an American professional, exceeding the expectations many had for him entering the year.

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