SB Nation User Blog: rooster

Ranger Prospects on the Futures Rosters

rooster — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:07:34 -0000

US Squad
Teagarden
CD

World Squad
Elvis Andrus
Maximus

Nice to see the Rangers' representatives are hitters, since the real meat of the farm system is the young pitching. I had hoped Feliz would be on there, but I think these rosters are pretty stacked.

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Minors 6/24

rooster — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:35:13 -0000

A lot less to talk about today on the farm. However, my main man Main makes his first start this year for the Arizona team, where he would've been rated the top prospect last year by BA if he had pitched enough innings to qualify. Ditto for the Northwest League.

Arizona Rangers Box

Elsewhere, grandpa Kirkman goes for Spokane, Loe goes for the Redhawks, Frisco is off, and the Cal league has its All-Star game tonight.

It's hard to get past all of the pitching on the farm, but one young hitter that has caught my attention is Eric Fry, who is an OF for Spokane. Before the season last year, JD mentioned Fry as a sleeper in the system. He was unimpressive as a 19-yo in both the Arizona and Northwest leagues. He has taken the Northwest League by storm this year, posting a .318/.400/.636 line in 22 AB. That's an OPS of 1.036, which ranks 6th in the league.

Fry was drafted in the 33rd round in 2006, after his sophomore season at San Jacinto JC, where he played CF. He signed at the last minute, passing on a commitment to Oklahoma State. Like Ed Koncil this year, Fry is described as a vocal leader on his JC World Series teams that brings athleticism and power to the table.

Fry was drafted in the 25th round in 2005 by the Tigers. Below is his MLB.com description:

29th round -- Eric Fry, CF, Barbe HS, Lake Charles, La.: Despite his 5-foot-10 height, Fry is seen as an athletic outfielder who has a chance to hit in the pros. He was rated the 26th best draft-eligible prospect in Louisiana by Baseball America. He becomes the 10th player drafted from the school since 2001.

Also, I think a mid-season top-25 prospect list will be posted at MVN today, which should generate some discussion.

Minors 6/23

rooster — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:57:19 -0000

Quite a bit on the farm to talk about today. We've all seen it. Feliz had his Sickels' grade bumped from B- to B+. The best part of Sickel's report is

Midwest League sources indicate this fastball is consistently in the mid-90s, and he's made major strides refining his curveball and changeup.

Nice to see confirmation of what we all have heard on what has been going on with Feliz.

Two games already in the books on the farm.

Frisco mashed Corpus Christi 15-7 behind a solid outing from Diamond: Frisco Box The game was not as close as the final score, and Diamond's outing was better than his line indicates. He threw more than 60% of his pitches for strikes. In the one inning he ran into trouble, he gave up a flare single that snow-coned out of Majewski's glove as he dived toward the infield, a seeing-eye grounder up the middle, and a solid single to RC. His WP was clearly a K-pitch that got away from him a bit, but the announcers said it hit off the catcher's shin guard. Doesn't soound THAT wild. Andrus hit lead-off and went 3-5 with a BB and K.

The Arizona League saw the debuts of Wieland, Evans, and Roark. Wieland was solid, and Roark dominated his inning with 2 K and 1 GB. It might take only a few appearances in Arizona before Roark is closing at Spokane. He had a great, but short, career at Illinois. Also Macumba went deep. That's a triple and homer in his first two days stateside.Arizona Box.

Getting close to the mid-season prospect list update. Some rumblings on the board have Feliz, Davis, and Smoak in the top 3. Whatever the case may be, the top-10 has gotten more crowded, IMO, with Borbon, Feliz, Smoak and Maximus moving into my top-10 that was Hurley, Davis, Main, Kiker, Teagarden, Andrus, Beltre, Castillo, Beavan, and Duran before the season.

Feliz and Davis made the BA prospect hot list last week. It looks like Feliz will make a return this week. More honors were bestowed upon Davis by milb.com. Davis and Cruz are co-offensive players of the week in the PCL, and Ben Harrison gets the award for the Texas League.

Pitching at Coors

rooster — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:03:06 -0000

Nice article at Hardball Times that uses PITCHf/x to illustrates what the thin air in Denver does to fastballs, sinkers, sliders, and curveballs. Turns out the perfect pitcher for Coors is... Edinson Volquez. High heat and changeups should be affected in a positive way at Coors. All else suffers.

Twenty-two more words: Take a wild guess at which team has the league’s youngest player? Martin Perez is 17 months younger than anyone else. 1. P Martin Perez (17 years / 2 months) 2. P Carlos Pimentel (18 / 7) 4. P Wilfredo Boscan (18 / 8) 9. P Neil Ramirez (19 / 1) 12. 1B Michael Ortiz (19 / 1) 16. 3B Matt West (19 / 1) 23. SS Edward Koncel (19 / 11) Spokane has seven of the league’s 25 teenagers. Average age of roster: 21 years, 2 months, also the league’s lowest.

Newberg Report, 6/3: Rangers Bullpen

rooster — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:25:02 -0000

Newberg Report, 6/3: Rangers Bullpen

His tag line:

Time to gear up for the draft, which begins on Thursday. Texas will select
five new players by the time Day One ends. Presumably none will be asked to
help fortify the big club's bullpen this week.

I wouldn't go on record before the draft about that!

Minors 5/14

rooster — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:48:52 -0000

I love day games. It's the easiest time of day for me to stay up-to-date, and even moreso today with the bosses out of town.

Frisco is up 3-2 in the 3rd. Davis and Harrison has gone deep. Might be some concern over Mendoza, who was making a rehab start and was pulled after 34 pitches. No audio broadcast of the game on milb.com, so I'm not sure what's going on.

Bakersfield is down 0-2 in the 2nd. Hunter struck out the side on the 1st, but is on the brink of imploding with two outs in the 2nd as he's given up a HR and three singles (one to a guy hitting .178 on the season).

Below are the final box scores. Still working on how to streamline entering tables, meaning without putting in all the table format by hand, so it looks pretty crappy at this point.

Bakersfield stats

High Desert 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 7 2
Bakersfield 0 1 0 0 3 1 1 1 X 7 11 0

Player AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO AVG
Borbon 5 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 .321
Vallejo 4 2 2 1 0 0 2 1 0 .282
Gerrard 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 .284
Tracy 5 1 3 1 0 0 1 0 0 .250
Whittleman 3 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 .285
Herren 2 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 1 .237
Restko 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 .200
Gradoville 3 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 .234
Lemon 3 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 .305

Player IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
Hunter (W, 5-4) 8.0 6 2 2 0 8 1 3.55
Stewart 1.0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1.56

Frisco stats

Final 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Frisco 0 2 1 1 4 1 0 0 2 11 16 2
Midland 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 5 6 4

Player AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO AVG
Andrus 4 3 3 2 0 0 1 1 0 .281
Murphy 3 2 2 1 0 0 2 0 0 .313
Ramirez 4 1 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 .383
Davis 5 1 2 1 0 1 2 0 0 .322
Majewski 5 1 2 1 0 0 1 0 0 .293
Harrison 4 1 2 0 0 1 2 0 1 .333
Frostad 4 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .288
Gradoville 4 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 .500
Ragsdale 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .245

Player IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
Mendoza 1.1 1 2 1 2 1 0 6.75
Hodges (W, 5-2) 5.2 3 1 1 4 4 1 3.40
Touchet 0.1 1 2 1 2 1 0 6.86
Gonzalez (S, 1) 1.2 1 0 0 0 1 0 6.52

Minors 5/11

rooster — Sun, 11 May 2008 17:18:20 -0000

Day games today! And, Happy Mother's Day to those of you who are mothers. I hope you all have treated your mothers well today

I'll put this up early, and I may not get around to many updates as we're busy getting the house ready for the market and getting me ready for my wife's business trip next week that will leave me alone with a 4-year-old and a 6-month-old. No hard feelings on the Jayslick front, just been too busy to post much lately.

A couple of interesting guys on the mound today. Blake goes for Clinton at 2:05 CT, while at the same time The Pirate returns to AAA.

Davis is highlighted on MJH's report today and in Lucas' farm update. I'm a little confused by the set of statistics used by each. Lucas shows Davis' numbers are almost identical to last season's, but MJH points to a regression toward the Bakersfield numbers and away from the early Frisco success. I think Lucas' numbers from last year include both Bakersfield and Frisco.

Either way, not a lot to dislike about a power hitter who has the hitting ability to bat .300+. My initial impression with Davis' success last year was that he looked like a Dean Palmer from the left side. After another year to watch his stats and read analysts, I think Davis has better hitting ability than Palmer and probably just as much power.

Another note: I'm beginning to believe that Boggs has quite a bit more upside than Murphy. Alot of folks made a big deal out of Murphy batting left handed and having relatively late career success in that it reminded folks of Rusty. I wondered the same thing during the offseason. I'm not wondering that anymore. Murphy looks more like Delucci, though with a bit more ability in the OF than Delucci. However, I think Boggs' minor league numbers are somewhat reminiscent of Rusty, especially the jump in performance from age 24 to 25.

Bottom line, if I had to place odds on who would be with the Rangers for the next 5 years, I think Murphy is more likely to stick around as a 4th OF. Boggs may very well be traded, if the Rangers decide to trade for or pick up via FA a masher LF, but he also seems more likely to be a starter for the Rangers. Boggs has made the decision to not flip Byrd for Murton appear very wise.

Minors 5/6

rooster — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:40:37 -0000

Clinton has all ready won, 11-6. A number of nice hitting performances. Notables:
Gac, 2-3, HR, 2 BB
Smith, 2-4
Lawson is heating up. .313 in the last ten games and 2-4 today

Gomez was roughed up a bit. 5IP, 4R, 8H, 2HR, 3K, 1BB but with 9 GB outs to 3 FB outs, suggesting the homers were off mistake pitches and that it wasn't an entirely bad day for him.

Frisco has all ready started. They trail 5-2 in the 4th. Davis has a walk.

Later, Phillips goes for Bakersfield and Mathis takes the hill for the Redhawks.

Minors 5/5

rooster — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:50:15 -0000

OMG, mighty Cruz has struck out. Gold picked up the slack, though, with a HR to lead off the 2nd. Mr. Automatic, Mayberry, is 1-1. The Rangers can't demote Boggs. There is no place to put him on the farm. Redhawks lead 1-0 while batting in the second.

At approximately 7p, the human hitting machine begins his attempt to be named Texas League Player of the Week for consecutive weeks. I'm not betting against it. It might be that the only thing to hold back Max is the weather. Rain near Frisco with the weather service posting a 60% chance of rain this evening.

Superman, I mean Blake Beavan, starts tonight for Clinton.

Everyday is a fun day on the farm!

Wison just got her GED. This is the reason she took the time to get it: Wilson told The Tenness...

rooster — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:09:38 -0000

Wison just got her GED.

This is the reason she took the time to get it:
Wilson told The Tennessean that her 7-year-old daughter was the big reason to finally finish, saying, "I certainly don't want her to think you can be this successful without an education."

Uhhhh... Wilson your whole life proved that you can be "this successful without an education". Apparently she failed the logic portion of the GED, but we can all hope that her daughter will be educated enough to see through this illl-logic and skip school to become famous.