I'm listing a new poll for the Rockies based on new lists by John, BA, and others.  Who should the Rockies seek at #25 overall?

The names who I expect to be already gone are-

Beckham, T.

Posey, B.

Alvarez, P.

Matusz, B.

Crow, A.

Smoak, J.

Beckham, G.

Skipworth, K.

Alonso, Y.

Friedrich, C.

Hicks, A.

Hunt, S.

Wallace, B,

Melville, T.

Martin, E.

Fields, J.

Please provide comments- especially if you want the Rockies to look at someone not mentioned.

Guys, This is my first year as a scouting director for John's mock draft. Colorado has done well with both college (Tulowitzki) and high school (Francis) amateur drafts. I will likely take a dual approach to helping the Rockies in the mock draft. But, my information will benefit from solid information from others. I would love to get any kind of feedback for what you think would make sense for the Rockies' future. Thanks in advance!

I've attached a new poll for you...

I had the good fortune of traveling to Fifth-Third Field in downtown Toledo to watch the Mud Hens square off against Clay Buchholz and the
Pawtucket PawSox last evening. If you are interested in a firsthand report, enjoy the following.

The pitching matchup was RH Anastacio Martinez vs. RH Clay Buchholz.
Martinez was good through the first two innings, but Buchholz ran into immediate trouble in the bottom of the first. After making leadoff hitter Andres Torres look bad striking out, Buchholz lost 2nd hitter Henry Mateo on a base on balls. Third place hitter Timo Perez promptly cranked a long HR to straight-away RF to put the Hens up 2-
0. Buchholz walked 2 more (Hannahan and Clevlen) in the 1st before closing out the inning. Toledo was up 2-0 after 1 inning.

In the top of the 3rd inning, Pawtucket 9th-place hitter Alex Prieto started things off with a 1B, and Brady Clark doubled him to 3B.  Prospect SS Jed Lowrie then singled home both runners to tie the game at 2. Martinez must have hurt himself on that pitch because Toledo manager Larry Parrish relieved him with RH Jeremy Johnson who had not
been warming up to that point. The PawSox had no outs, but only managed one more single, and did not score further. Tie game, 2-2 going to the bottom of the 3rd inning.

Buchholz again ran into trouble in the 3rd inning. The first three hitters (Mateo-1B, T.Perez-2B, Hannahan-BB) reached to load the bases
with no outs. However, Buchholz bore down to K Shelton, induce Clevlen into a shallow fly to RF, and then Prieto made a tremendous play in the hole at 2B to retire David Espinosa on a ground ball to end the inning (scored 4-1, pitcher covering).

Buchholz only was able to complete 4 innings due to a seriously-elevated pitch count. His final line; 4 3 2 2 3 7 (1 HRA).
Buchholz's fastball settled between 91-94, and in the 3rd and 4th, he was very successful with what appeared to be a slider (82-84). He also threw a curve and change in the 70s. He is a slight pitcher (sure didn't look 6'3") with a similar frame to Bronson Arroyo, but he throws hard with movement. He's impressive, but he'll need to refine his command to help the Red Sox in 2007 and beyond. Buchholz's command reminds me of Chad Billingsley's currently.

In the bottom of the 5th Craig Hansen entered the game. He was similarly impressive for two complete innings. He threw hard (93-95)
and left with a line of 2 1 0 0 1 1. Hansen would sometimes get out of sync, but overall looked better than I've seen him.

The PawSox got to the Hens' bullpen in the top of the 6th. With one out, DH Jumpin' Joe McEwing lined a single. Toledo went to journeyman LHP Vic Darensbourg to face George Kottaras. Kottaras
grounded a tailor-made DP ball up the middle that Toledo 2B Henry Mateo waved at as it went by him into CF. 3B Ed Rogers plated the go-ahead run with a slow groundout to Hannahan at third, and then Alex Prieto got his 3rd hit of the night- an RBI double off the LF wall to score Kottaras.
Pawtucket 4, Toledo 2 going to the bottom of the 6th.

Toledo got a couple of runners into scoring position in the remaining innings (including a hard-hit opposite field double by Shelton in the
bottom of the 6th), but could not cash in any more runs.

Final Score, Pawtucket 4, Toledo 2.

Reports on PawSox players-
Leadoff hitter Brady Clark started off the game with 2 hard-hit doubles - one to LF and one to RF. He was also hit by a pitch in the
back in his 4th PA to finish 2-for-4. He still looks like he could help a ML club off the bench facing primarily LHs.

2nd place hitter Jed Lowrie was the most impressive position player in the game. In his first career game at AAA, Lowrie was adequate at
SS, but really was on every pitch he swung at. He exuded confidence as a switch-hitter, baserunner, and fielder. A former player at Stanford, Lowrie turned 23 in April and just got done
hitting .297/.510/.401 in the Eastern League.

OFs David Murphy and Brandon Moss hit 3rd and 5th. They both are athletic-looking players, but Moss in particular had a long swing.
Murphy seemed like he was the better overall player, but I doubt he has the power necessary for a Fenway every-day OF.

C Kottaras is the only real remaining prospect in Pawtucket's lineup. He showed very little as a hitter, and with his slight frame, there's not much projection for power. I think he may come up
short in his goal to be the next Greg Zaun.

On the pitching side, Buchholz and Hansen were solid, and journeyman RH closer Bryan Corey was "lights out" (following 25yo set-up man,
Edgar Martinez) in retiring 3 of the 4 batters he faced on Ks to end the game.

On the Toledo side, they were missing mainstays Ryan Raburn, (all-time Toledo HR leader) Mike Hessman, and Mike Rabelo who are all currently in Detroit.

In addition to older players like Torres, Mateo, and Perez, they also had David Espinosa, Eric Almonte, and Dane Sardinha in the 7-9 spots
in the order. Sardinha was particularly excreble last night going 0-for-4 with 3 Ks.

The 4-6 hitters were probably the most interesting for Toledo.  Hannahan may be a decent 1B/3B corner bench guy with a LH stick and a
little bit of pop. Shelton still can drive the ball to all fields and has a good approach at the plate. And Clevlen has above-avg. tools across the board and is the youngest at 23. Like a lot of the Tiger prospects, he has K issues.

Detroit used 6 pitchers due to Anastacio Martinez's injury. In addition to Johnson (who was tagged with the loss) and Darensbourg
who were mentioned earlier, Preston Larrison, Fernando Rodney, and Corey Hamman pitched scoreless relief from the 6th inning forward.

Rodney was making his first rehab appearance. He was dominating - striking out 2 in one inning (the 8th) despite walking with one out.
At times Rodney overgripped his slider, but overall, he was the best pitcher all night.

I still like Hamman who mopped up in the top of the 9th. For a smallish LHP, he gets great movement on an assortment of all types of
pitches. There's no reason he can't have a Brian Shouse-like career in the Majors.

I realize this is a little long, but I enjoy going in-depth on the guys that I get to see throughout the summer. Nothing like a minor
league ballgame on a warm summer night!

Comments of all types are appreciated.

With 6 innings of 1-run ball tonight, he's lowered his season ERA to 1.97.  Young also allowed his first HR (to Tony Clark) since April- over 80 innings.  

I realize he pitches in San Diego (0.82 home ERA), but he's under 3.00 on the road also.  It's not fair to just say he's a product of his park any more as he's holding opposing hitters to a .530 OPS overall.

With his tall frame, Young is now polishing hitters off with a fantastic strikeout rate.  Is there anything we can glean from Young's development that Pittsburgh, Montreal, and Texas all overlooked?

JK about the other Chris Young.  Kinda.

I realize he's repeating the league, and that league is the PCL, but...
tonight's 1-for-3 brought his average down to .381, he's slugging .606, and he's carrying a reasonable .456 OBP around in his 42 games at Iowa.

Here's his counting stats-
AB  H  2B 3B HR RBI BB SO
155 59 12  1  7   20  20  21

Many people consider Eric Patterson the real prospect on this Iowa team, but Patterson is the same age (24) as Cedeno, and Patterson has an 833 OPS.

Cedeno's 1062 OPS is second in the entire PCL to 29-yo Mitch Jones of Las Vegas.

Anyone think Ronny Cedeno could play everyday in the Big Leagues right now - or does he project to be a "AAAA hitter?"

When checking out various prospects up for vote in the community voting, I came across Brignac's splits.  Obviously we only have half a season of sample data, but here's the LH hitter's 2007 L/R breakdown:

Pitcher AVG SLG OBP  AB   H 2B 3B HR RBI  BB  SO      
vs. L     311  451  346  122  38  6  1  3  13   7  20
vs. R     204  371  271  167  34  7  3  5  28  17  26

To me, a couple of things stand out.  It's interesting that he's faced about 25% less LHs than RHs.  It would figure the discrepency would be larger.  Also, despite the underlying secondary numbers favoring Brignac facing a RH, it's obvious far more balls (singles) are falling in against southpaws.

I don't know whether it's good news that Brignac hangs in so well against LHs, bad news that he's struggled against RHs, or just bad luck that more balls aren't falling in vs. RH pitching.

What are others' thoughts?

Walker had a cup of coffee in the E.L. (31 AB) last year, but is currrently leading the Eastern League in OPS (.932) this season - amongst those qualifying for the title.  His line of .319/.559/.373 in a decent pitchers' league suggests his power is coming rapidly.  Of his 73 hits, 33 have been for x-bases.  He has also made good contact with 21 BBs and 35 Ks.

Although I still question the wisdom of moving him awat from catching so early in his career, maybe the positional change was what it took to get his bat going.  

Is it time for him to move to AAA (at age 21) since he seems to have mastered AA pitching?  Or can he better adapt to the position switch to 3B by staying at this level for another 4-6 weeks?

I realize we had input on Rowell's future when we did the group top 100.  I haven't heard word on where Baltimore will be starting Rowell in 2007, and since I haven't seen statistics on him yet, I wasn't sure if he is in Extended Spring Training or if he's injured.

I picked Rowell as a potential "Jim Thome-type" bat for a Strat-O-Matic team I have.  What are your thoughts on his development?  The O's were aggressive with Markakis... can they push Reimold aggressively also?  I'm aware he'll need to move across the diamond defensively, but I'm not sure what the ceiling is for his bat at the ML level.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Does anyone know when (or how) Baseball America releases their annual top 100 prospect list?  I'm a BA site subscriber.  Will I have access to their top 100 soon?  

I like to compare John's work to BA and BP.  I'm also preparing for two SOM drafts the last weekend of this month (February).

I know BP's book comes out in one month, but I wasn't sure about the release of BA's prospect list.  

Thanks to anyone who can help.