Can Of Corn: Yankees Prospects
7/21Even I, proudly possessed of Southern roots and a Midwestern address, can't resist writing about the Yankees. With the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline making threatening phone calls from the attic, the Yankees, as they do every year, are hogging the bandwidth. With the Bombers poised to do something of import over the next 10 days, many have been led to ruminate on the farm system that's about to be gutted--in as much as you can gut something that is already devoid of innards. The Yankee farm system, at this writing, is devoid of noteworthy prospects in the higher rungs of the system. Dioner Navarro placed 30th on our 2004 Top 50 Prospect List, but a paltry showing this season has dimmed his star. Robinson Cano is the other name bandied about, but he smacks long and hard of pinstriped fool's gold. If they wind up parting with those two, it'll be a little like kicking a cadaver in the groin: perhaps unseemly and not the greatest of ideas, but ultimately the cadaver has more systemic issues to fret over.
Can Of Corn: Open Letter to Commissioner Selig
7/16Dear Commissioner Selig: In the tedious run-up to the recent 75th All-Star game, I noticed you mentioned in passing to reporters that you're open to the idea of extending your reign as commissioner beyond 2006, when your present term will expire. My hopes that you will not do this are both boundless and without bound. Listen, I don't think you're evil or stupid. On the contrary, I think you've been remarkably competent at what you've set out to do. I believe, for instance, that you genuinely want to diversify major league front offices. I can quibble with how you've gone about doing that, but the intent is a noble one. But other than that, I believe your prevailing vision for Major League Baseball, which you've executed with ruthless efficiency, has been thoroughly noxious to a game I can't seem to live without.
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightCan Of Corn: ERA DIPping
7/14All of this touches on why I'm rapidly losing my already withering affection for ERA as even a rough thumbnail estimate of pitcher quality. Michael Wolverton has written cogently on the pitfalls of ERA in the past. I'd go further by saying if you don't take a pitcher's BABIP into account, ERA shouldn't be anywhere on your radar when making player evaluations. I'd liken ERA to the RBI--useful only at the margins, awfully prone to contextual distortions. When we judge a pitcher's performance, we need to grant primacy to the things over which he has the most control: strikeouts, unintentional walks, home runs and groundball-flyball tendencies. To credit or penalize a pitcher for how his defense is performing, how luck fancies him or how he wields a dubious skill of marginal influence is to do a disservice to the spirit of analysis.
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightCan Of Corn: Three Steps to Fix the Red Sox
7/09The last thing Boston GM Theo Epstein needs, other than for Richard Griffin to get a job at the Globe, is my advice. But the best game in recent memory got me wondering about what ails this most engaging of teams. I'm not a Sox fan, but neither do I have any particular animus for them, Ben Affleck notwithstanding. So consider what follows a mission of conscience more than anything else. Like it or not, here's my three-step plan to get the Red Sox to playoffs...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightCan Of Corn: Swish, Kaz and King Felix
7/07I've written before about the outrageous potential of Mariners right-hander Felix Hernandez. Well, he didn't turn 18 until April, and he's already in Double-A. He made his high-minors debut last week against Frisco and in six innings fanned eight, walked two and surrendered only a single run. How Hernandez fares the rest of the season in the Texas League will be more one of the more engaging subplots to be found in 2004. With a high-90s fastball, a hammer curve that's easily the best breaking pitch in the system and a staggering record of performance, Hernandez is a deeply special talent. Here's hoping he doesn't succumb to the panoply of hazards that await young pitchers.
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightCan Of Corn: Minor League All-Star Mailbag
7/02For shame, Dayn, for not even mentioning that Altoona's Jeff Keppinger is the only .400+ hitter in all of Double-A--his nearest competitor (Wright) is a full 40 points BEHIND him. Granted, we know Keppinger's not on anyone's radar as a serious future star, but isn't the point of selecting players for 'All-Star' status supposed to be to reward those having strong performances? I realize Keppinger doesn't have a single home run, but not even acknowledging Keppinger as an 'also-ran' ignores the fact that he is accomplishing something so far ahead of any of his peers to this point, is certainly an injustice. Give our boy Kepp a little love, would ya?
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightCan Of Corn: Triple-A All-Stars
6/30Today, I'm wrapping up my series on level-by-level minor league All-Stars. I've already put together my Low-A Team, High-A Team and Double-A Team. This time, in what's bound to come as a surprise, I'm going to look at my Triple-A All-Stars. Putting together a Triple-A team is a bit of a challenge given the criteria I've set. I'm looking for a blend of performance and genuine prospect status. Triple-A, as you probably know, is fertile ground for retreads and Quadruple-A types, which provides a fairly low level-wide signal-to-noise ratio in terms of prospects. So, for all their merits, you'll see no Lou Colliers, Joe Vitiellos or Mike Colangelos here. What you will see are the best prospects who have spent most of the season at Triple-A and haven't exhausted their prospect status in recent seasons. Before the money runs out...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightCan Of Corn: Double-A All-Stars
6/25You've stumbled into the midst of series on minor league All-Stars. These aren't the ones you'll find on the various and sundry All-Star teams that will soon be squaring off against one another around the minors. Rather, these are the prospects who should be regarded as the luminaries of the minor leagues, at least according to this particular pontificator. Here's my Double-A All-Star ballot, the best of the Eastern, Southern and Texas Leagues....
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightCan Of Corn: High-A All-Stars
6/23You've stumbled into the midst of a series on this year's minor league All-Stars. These aren't, part and parcel, the ones you'll find on the various and sundry All-Star teams that will soon be squaring off against one another around the minors. Rather, these are the prospects who should be regarded as the luminaries of the minor leagues, at least according to this particular pontificator. Last week, I cobbled together my Low-A All-Star Team, and if you'd like further ruminations on my methodology for making these selections you should go check out that article. I'll wait here. Otherwise, here's my High-A All-Star ballot. And by "High-A," I mean the best of the California, Carolina and Florida State Leagues...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightCan Of Corn: Low-A All-Star Team
6/18You've probably read Joe Sheehan's nifty explanations of his AL and NL All-Star ballots. In summary, Joe's theory is that you don't fritter away an All-Star spot on a player who's had a hot two months preceded by season upon season of mediocrity. Instead, you give the spot to a proven, top-tier performer who, ideally, is also enjoying a strong first half. I couldn't agree more with that philosophy. Today, I'm going to begin extending Joe's balloting hermeneutics to the minor leagues. By that I mean I'm going to name my personal level-by-level minor league All-Stars. In the very low minors, where I'm beginning this series, it's difficult to distinguish fluke performance from genuine skills growth--the track record either isn't substantial or isn't there at all. It's when I get to the upper levels of the minors that I'll get to wield my variant of Joe's philosophy. By way of example, I'm not going to hand out any spots to the Hiram Bocachicas of the world. Irrespective of his merits, he's not a highly valuable prospect by any standard. What I'm going to do is give spots to those who are not only performing well in the early months of the 2004 season, but also are doing so in tandem with legitimate prospect status.
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightCan Of Corn: Underrated Pitching Prospects
6/16You'll recall that last week I took a gander at the top five most underrated hitting prospects in the game. This time, it's the pitchers. I believe I amply qualified myself last week, but I'll say again that calling anything "overrated" or "underrated" is horribly, terribly, awfully subjective and assumes I have some sort of internal, ruthlessly accurate method of reading the hype tea leaves. I don't, but I can juggle. Once again, the criteria are that a player didn't appear anywhere on BP's Top 50 Prospect List and has reached at least the High-A level this season. If nothing else, you can dance to it...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightCan Of Corn: Underrated Prospects
6/11Whenever words like "overrated" or "underrated" are introduced into an argument, objectivity generally takes a holiday. Gauging the amount of hype a certain player is receiving and determining whether it's tantamount to his abilities is by nature largely an exercise in opinion. Now that we're all aware that I'm aware that I'm wallowing in subjectivity, I'm going to wallow in subjectivity. Below is a list of my top five underrated position prospects. The criteria are that the player is toiling in at least High-A this season (meaning the California, Carolina and Florida State leagues or higher) and did not appear in any iterations of our Top 50 Prospect List. Let's light this candle...
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightCan Of Corn: Draft Odds and Ends
6/09Tools Vs. Performance - MWF, 8:00 It's not often you find a good tools-versus-performance debate among the fraternity paddle crowd (i.e., college draftees)--usually this forms the parameters of the prep-collegiate arguments that have become old hat by now--but there's one to be found this year in Seth Smith against Dustin Pedroia. Smith, an outfielder for Ole Miss, went at number 50 to the Rockies, while Pedroia, Arizona State's starting shortstop, was the Red Sox's first pick at number 65.
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightCan Of Corn: ‘Bag Man
6/04I am puzzled by your suggestion that Steve Finley is now a Gold Glove-caliber center fielder. The defensive metrics were unanimous about his 2003 defensive year. He was the worst everyday center fielder in the league, not that this is really surprising because he is the oldest. Is there something I've missed? Finley's defensive decline is very important when combined with his offensive decline. He really doesn't deserve an everyday job now. His hitting is not good enough to carry his D. Terrero deserves the job. --M.G. Thanks for the feedback. In point of fact, I didn't say Finley was a Gold Glove-caliber center fielder. I did say that he has a "good glove." That, in my mind, isn't tantamount to being the best. Finley's last three seasonal Prospectus Fielding Runs ratings go -3, 5, 3. While he did have a sub-par year in the field last season, I'm not ready to call him Lonnie Smith just yet. Yes, he's old, but there's still only one year of data to support the idea that he's not longer a capable glove man. According to Finley's Davenport Translations, he's 11 runs above average for his career as a center fielder. As for the assertion that Finley was the worst defensive center fielder in the league last season, it simply doesn't square with statistical realities. For instance, in the NL alone, Preston Wilson, Marlon Byrd, Juan Pierre, Craig Biggio, Scott Podsednik and Marquis Grissom all fared worse than Finley in terms of Fielding Runs. Additionally, non-qualifiers like Reggie Taylor and Ken Griffey Jr. also graded out below Finley with the glove. And Finley doesn't deserve an everyday job? I know quite a few teams that would go a week in burlap underwear for a shot at a center fielder who's hitting .291/.359/.551 and in the final year of his contract. Sure he's old and helped notably by his home park, but Finley remains a quality player, and it won't surprise me if a contender scoops him up this summer.
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightCan Of Corn: O.P.T.
5/26Adam Dunn is O.P.T. draw 162 walks on the season, which would be the fourth-highest total of all-time. Dunn, who's abusing the ball to the tune of .271/.457/.564 and is tied for third in the NL with a .348 EqA, has often been criticized for being too patient at the plate. It's possible there's merit to that idea, but he's knocking the snot out of the ball and he has more unintentional/quasi-unintentional walks than Barry Bonds. If he keeps this up, comparisons to a mid-'90s Frank Thomas won't be off base.
continue reading chevron_rightchevron_rightCan Of Corn: Cards Arms Race
5/21For years now, the words "Cardinals" and "promising prospects" have seemed as incongruous and unrelated as "concept album" and "enjoyable listening experience." On a system-wide level, that's still the case; the Cards remain saddled with one of the weaker stables of minor league talent in baseball. That said, they are cobbling together a promising corps of young starters. In no particular order, let's take a look at a few of them:
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