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Prospects and other stuff

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Prospects
Baseball America published their list of the top 10 Tigers prospects. Curtis Granderson tops this year list.

1. Curtis Granderson, of
2. Kyle Sleeth, rhp
3. Justin Verlander, rhp
4. Joel Zumaya, rhp
5. Humberto Sanchez, rhp
6. Tony Giarratano, ss
7. Jeff Frazier, of
8. Ryan Raburn, 2b
9. Eric Beattie, rhp
10. Eulogio de la Cruz, rhp

Notice that 3 members of the top 10 were drafted last year, and had little (Jeff Frazier 79 AB’s before breaking his hand) or no experience (Verlander, Beattie) at the professional level. Unfortunately this speaks more to the quality of the farm system then the quality of the 2004 draft.

The most notable omission from the list is Chris Shelton. In Pat Caputo’s chat, he cited Shelton’s lack of athleticism and the fact Shelton doesn’t sting the ball as why he didn’t make the top 10. Chris Kline’s review of the top 20 AFL prospects corroborates Caputo’s findings, as Shelton didn’t make the top 20. This despite Shelton out performing everyone on the list in the AFL

With Shelton we get to see the split between performance versus tools analysis of players. Tools wise he grades out pretty average. He’s poor defensively, has a poor arm, is slow, and doesn’t hit for power. However, he does hit, and his performance in the AFL showed that. Now maybe I don’t remember clearly, but Wade Boggs didn’t really sting the ball, or play great defense (27 errors his first full season at 3B, and 20 the next year). However, he managed to put together a pretty nice career .415 OBA. I have no idea how scouts graded Boggs, and I’m working from my memory of his playing days. Maybe scouts loved him, and he was a stud defensively who hit line shots all around the field, but I don’t remember him that way.

Am I saying that Shelton will be the second coming of Wade Boggs? Of course not. I’m just not ready to dismiss him because of how he grades out. I would definitely prefer if he could play some position, but what is wrong with a team developing a designated hitter? Why should the position always seem to go to an aging player with bad knees. If a young guy can hit, then let him hit.

Other Stuff
While a ton of baseball blogs have come and gone in the last couple years, Twins Geek is still going strong. John Bonnes’ site has been around longer than this one, and it’s one of the blogs that I try to emulate here. Well, at the beginning of the season, John got a deal to blog about the Twins for the Star Tribune. John’s final post for the Star-Trib ran last week. In his piece, Bonnes talks about some of the conflict between bloggers and journalists

But the most serious criticism was from journalists who felt that the weblog was an end-around of their union, providing additional sports coverage without paying the dictated wage to a member of the writer’s guild. In the bigger picture, a divisive presidential campaign increased tensions, when biased bloggers would take shots at mainstream media coverage. Many journalists ended up reacting to bloggers the way pharisees reacted to self-proclaimed prophets.

and why it doesn’t have to be that way…

Which is the first reason why the marriage of traditional journalism and on-line weblogs should work. Next to the “who, what, when and where” facts of a story, there’s plenty of angles that can be explored or intricacies which can be elaborated on a weblog. That’s content that traditional media should not only feel compelled to provide, but should be thrilled to provide.

Between what John has already said, and Aaron Gleeman weighing in on the issue there isn’t really more for me to add. I just wanted to give a shout out to Twinsgeek as it returns to its old home.

One thought on “Prospects and other stuff”

  1. It will be interesting to see what Shelton’s role is. I view him a lot like I did (and still do) Eric Munson. We’ll send him down to AAA, and he’ll hit the crap out of the ball, but there’s really not a spot in the lineup for him.

    Sounds like someone Beane would be interested. Straight up for Mulder?

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