LookinUp

Yup. Nothing at all crazy like BP's.

Welk will have to excel at his level while moving up, over a full season of minor league ball. There's more, of course, but I suspect people will be a little conservative on their opinions until he does. I don't know if Tony/Luke have seen him or not. But Henderson is VERY young. If he performs, it'll be hard to over take him in the rankings, or stay ahead of him in the minors, because he'll be busy over taking a bunch of other folks. That's not a knock on Welk though.

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Buerhle had a plus, or even plus plus, change, right? Sorry. Going by memory. That is certainly a dream comp.

I think a team might prefer to trade for a tendered Villar than sign a FA Villar. He might get twice as much guaranteed in FA.

Means' velocity ticked up last year. I think I also saw Luke (on twitter?) say that his spin rate also went up. He was a few years older than Rom. There's certainly hope.

I swear this is the hardest group I've seen to evaluate. It's a good problem to have. I think our minors has a lot of ML contributors in the fold, or at least guys with a reasonable shot. I would rank many slightly different, but the write-ups really are most important and very appreciated.

We are at a place in the list where you could make a case for a lot of guys, including all of of these. That's awesome because I really like a bunch of guys in this group. I picked Hanifee and Hernaiz mostly because of a couple of comments about Hernaiz's upside and higher ranking on the lists. I do think Fenter is intriguing, want to see Stowers in full season ball, think Adam Hall has tools to work with and hope that McKenna can figure it out. Heck, Bannon and Zimmerman could end up with a lot of ML innings this year and who knows if Sedlock continues to move back closer to where he used to be. I went with perceived upside of Hanifee and Hernaiz.

For both Rom and Wells, I think I'd just characterize the rankings as different strokes for different folks. I like that each are in the organization, but I really don't value either from an upside perspective. If the goal is to be able to carefully manage a couple of future major leaguers so they can get some outs before getting hit hard, they seem like the guys. I think they get a lot of points because their minor league results are so good. They're better performers than many of their peers, but I think some of those guys will pass them by over time, so I'm personally looking forward to other write-ups to come. I do like that Rom is 19. The write-up addresses the likelihood of adding velocity, but I'm not quite as down on that possibility for a 19 year old just because there are so many ways to optimize a delivery and add some physical maturity (even though he has a pretty mature body now) that could result in a few ticks. For a pitcher like this, 3 MPH would make a huge difference. In that sense, I'm higher on Rom than Wells.

No. It makes him better than Kremer, all other things being equal. Whoever comes up with the 3rd pitch or otherwise improves would have improved from the current assessment, which has Baumann better than Kremer.

He's a fascinating story to watch unfold. He might be a guy who really helps a team win games in the regular season but can't be much of a contributor against the best lineups. The problem is we play in the AL East, where the best lineups pop up most years.

Neat write-ups. Certainly guys to follow. This quote was the most striking to me: That is bold. Hopefully he's a hit!

There's no doubt in my mind that Kremer can be every bit as good as Means assuming he too suddenly gains the feel for a ML+ change-up and gains a couple of ticks of velocity out of nowhere. It can happen, it's just not likely to happen. The prospect rankings weren't wrong on Means. Means just broke the rules.

I kinda feel like their future role will depend on the team almost as much as the player. Akin would likely eat some innings for the O's as a starter this year if given a chance. It might not be his best role, but that might be his role on a bad team. Flash forward 3 years and he's really excelling (a true plus) out of the bullpen on a team with Rodriguez, Hall, Means, Hancock and Bundy starting.

I think where I (and others) generally have trouble with prospect rankings is differentiating between a mid-case sober projection and an orange-colored glasses projection. You and Tony are projecting continued improvement in Mountcastle's approach. You're not just doing that because you're homers. You're doing it because of his age, bat speed, results at many levels. E.g., good information. Compare that to a guy like Kremer that we're talking about in another thread. To excel, he has to improve. The problem is that his profile isn't one with tremendous upside, age/results, etc. It's not that he can't. It's that the liklihood of him doing so is lower because of everything in his profile. He has a smaller neddle to thread. Mountcastle's profile essentially says that he can hit just about any pitch in just about any count. He'll have to adjust to guys throwing 98 with movement and command, and you think he will. Fair enough, from my perspective.

According to the write-ups, Baumann has a 60 FB and a 60 Slider. Kremer has a 50/50 FB/Curveball. That's kind of different. I agree about the third pitch, but Baumann was throwing 98 in the 9th inning of a complete game. I get that it was AA and a pitcher's environment. Still, that physicality is on a different level than Kremer. Even Baumann's command was at least on par with Kremer's this year. I get that Kremer didn't have a great year, but if everything clicks for Baumann, he's a much better pitcher than if everything clicks for Kremer.

I'm all for it if he helps us get from 58 to 62 wins next year. Oh wait. No I'm not. Rule V or Martin, IMO. Stay cheap. There's a time to spend a bit to shore up SS. This isn't the team to do that.

On Baumann...yeah, but the velocity is there and his 2nd pitch is on point too. I don't think that's necessarily close. On Lowther, I kind of agree. I totally understand having him higher because results matter, but it's not like the physical talent blows away Kremer.

Of the names on that list, I wanted to see a Rom/Hanifee choice. I didn't. If Wells in in there, I wouldn't be shocked. I went with Rom and Stowers though. The names I wanted to see were Adam Hall and Hernaiz. Just shows that I get out of my depth pretty quickly at this point in the list. I do think the range of probabilities for these guys are wider than they are towards the top of the list. Some could click big time. Most are more likely to miss altogether (compared to guys higher on the list). I personally like Hanifee more just because I think you need to be an exceptional pitcher to succeed without much velocity. Rom and Wells each have that issue, but each might actually be pretty exceptional at the non-velocity part of the game. Hanifee has more natural arm talent, but didn't have a good year. He's probably unlikely here, but I like the upside if it's still there.

I'm not seeing a ton of difference between Lowther, Kremer and Akin in terms of FV. Hopefully 1 of the 3 hits his ceiling and another turns into a nice swing man. Really like having several of these guys in the system. Throw in Harvey and Baumann and I think you have the makings of a solid future staff. Let's hope the top guys turn into what we hope they can.

I think if you look at the substance, Tony's take here is very defensible. It's not like he wrote the kid off. He said the ceiling can be a mid-back end starter. That's a good ceiling, but it's apparent the velocity needs to tick back up and the secondaries need to improve. To project all of that to happen would be wish casting more than forecasting. I don't think it's unreasonable to think he can get the velocity back, but command and secondaries are tough roads to hoe. Thinking about it another way, if you "wish cast" every player above Kremer on this list, he probably jumps one guy (Lowther). The rest, if they hit their ceiling, would likely be better than Kremer with the possible exception of Harvey, because you might take a #3/4 starter over a lock down bullpen guy. Even that's debatable. Looking below Kremer, I'm guessing a wish cast of Hall and Hernaiz and probably another guy or two would also jump Kremer, understanding they're really far away.

I agree that he's his own worst enemy, but don't think it's because he thinks he's in a slump. I think he has a guaranteed contract and is unwilling to work to earn it. Can't wait for him to be gone, regardless of his laudable charitable donations.

I've been seeing this term "vertical spin axis" a lot lately. What exactly is that? How does it affect the pitch? Just a random "you're a good poster here" note to you, @wildcard. You really generate a lot of discussions, regardless of whether I agree or don't with your thoughts. Keep it up!

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I remember really having hope for all of these guys. Klein and Henry were injury guys, IIRC. Adams may have been a knuckle head. Tim Berry's last name was Berry, and that was big at the time, lol. A family member's boyfriend grew up with Drake, so had to root that way. Crazy how many of these guys with decent talent washed out. That list is a case study in what we're hoping Elias fixes.