A's Top 10 Prospects

Giants · Post by **Giants** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:03 am

It's what all the cool kids are doing, and Bren too! These are my personal rankings irrespective of anyone else's prospect list.

1. Gerald Demp Posey III - If you don't know who this is you haven't been paying attention. As good a chance to be an elite catcher as anyone ever drafted, and shortstop is a fallback. Rice head coach Wayne Graham called Posey "The best draft pick ever."

2. Derek L. Holland - Last year's major breakout player, and I have a pretty good history with Rangers sudden breakout type players. Fun fact: If you search wikipedia for Derek Holland it takes you to the page of a British Christian fundamentalist writer. Expect that to change within a year or two.

3. Michael Stanton - Apparently his parents were too cool to give him a middle name. For the second year in a row the A's system boasts the minor league home run leader among legitimate prospects, this guy was athletic enough to get a scholarship offer from Pete Carroll at USC. With a cannon arm and a more powerful bat Stanton should slot very nicely next to uberprospect Cameron Maybin in a couple of years. He's also younger than 5 of this year's high school first rounders.

4. Michael Inoa - Could be number one on this list as insanely talented as he is, he's a real life Sidd Fynch only he's actually been spotted. He got an Anglicized first name when the A's signed him, I assume they'll give him a nice middle name too like Kenneth at some point, or maybe they'll just go with Jesus.

5. Angel Miguel Villalona - The AnVil is definitely number one one on the nickname list. At 17 he mashed in full season ball after an adjustment period, lefties especially. He still needs to work on plate discipline, and conditioning may be a question, but if you're wondering why the Giants took Posey instead of Smoak (besides that he's the best draft pick ever) Villalona is the answer.

6. Travis d'Arnaud - Another player too cool for a middle name (is this some sort of trend I haven't heard about?), d'Arnaud broke out in a big way, going .307/.379/.463 in the NYPL before a .297/.357/.469 in the SAL down the stretch. Goldstein had him as the #4 prospect in the Phillies system and Sickels had him #3, while Keith Law had him at #5 even before he broke out this season (BA had him at #7 and was the only major publication not to have him in the top 5). Known particularly for his defense, if the bat is real going forward (he's likely to be tested in the slightly more pitcher friendly FSL) he could be rocketing up prospect lists (and maybe net me something nice in trade since I've suddenly got ridiculous catching depth).

7. Timothy Melville - The third of my trio of first round picks, Melville has as much potential as any pitcher in the system. Really, I'm not sure why he fell to me in the draft, he'd have been a sure first rounder if there weren't any signability concerns and he's healthy. I'm just gonna shut up and knock on wood, because I don't wanna jinx the kid.

8. Blake W. Beavan - So Rick Porcello puts up terrific numbers with a crappy K/9 and no one is worried about it, but Beavan does the same thing (in his professional debut no less) and suddenly falls off the radar? I don't buy it. Beavan acknowledged that his fastball was down, which he claimed was a conditioning issue, and will hopefully bounce back next year. Ironically I'm encouraged, if this was a kid who's whole game was blowing people away and he succeeded even when he couldn't, then imagine the possibilities when his fastball comes back. Plus, he has an incredibly kick ass name, and as Colt McCoy has shown having a really kick ass name can mean that you are pretty good.

9. Warner Madrigal - This is really a test of my scouting mettle. I saw him pitch after the Rangers called him up and was just wowed by his stuff, particularly a nasty breaking ball*. I wound up trading Braden Looper (who likely would have been very useful to me this year) for him, because I think he could anchor the back of my bullpen for a very long time. The results were unimpressive this past year, but the underlying tools are there and he could be special.

10. Kevin John Mulvey - The 23 year old keeps plugging away, going 7-9 3.77 ERA 1.35 WHIP 2.52 K/BB in AAA. Upside isn't huge, but he could be plugged into just about any major league rotation and perform acceptably well in the middle/back of the rotation.

Just missed the cut - Antonio Francisco Bastardo, Sebastian Valle, Cutter K. Dykstra

*Crazy aside story that I feel like throwing in because this is a blog post and not serious analysis. Last year I had enough players involved in the game that I went to see the A's and Rangers play a meaningless September game, mostly hoping to get a look at Chris Davis. Well it was an unbelievably frustrating game considering who I went to see: Davis went 0-4 with four strikeouts, Mark Ellis was also 0-4, Huston Street blew a lead in the top of the 8th inning, followed by Warner Madrigal giving up a 3-run job in the bottom of the 8th for the loss. Before Ziggy was able to wrap it up nicely with a 1-2-3 9th I thought that all of my players met before the game and decided to suck.

Yankees · Post by **Yankees** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 8:56 am

You call John Sickels a "major publication"?

I call him a "guy who reads what everyone else writes and then uses that, along with his 'intuition' after never seeing them play, and rates people on the least subjective scale ever"...

I've had many conversations with my Jays friend on him...and let's put it this way - the scouts read Keith Law's rookie reports before they read Sickels...

Giants · Post by **Giants** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 6:08 pm

Ya I knew someone would make a Sickels related comment. I agree that he's not exactly a font of information or the most rigorous prospect analyst out there, but his site has gotta be top 5 in terms of page views on prospects, and that by itself should be enough to get it considered major (accuracy doesn't count, otherwise ESPN couldn't be considered a major NFL publication

). He also has a soft spot in my heart for finding me Jon Niese.

Pirates · Post by **Pirates** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 9:47 pm

hey, he found me Peter Bourjos, and Justin Masterson, and Lars Anderson.

Padres · Post by **Padres** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 10:41 pm

Brewers wrote:hey, he found me Peter Bourjos, and Justin Masterson, and Lars Anderson.

C'mon Jake ... I read Sickles ... I read and appreciate what he and Jerri have gone through personally ... I appreciate his work more them some others in this league ... but he found you Lars Anderson ...?

Rangers · Post by **Rangers** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 11:00 pm

Yeah those haven't ever exactly been sleepers. I remember I had Bourjos in LWNN before I think Sickels ever ranked him.

Pirates · Post by **Pirates** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 2:43 am

Ill be honest, when I came into the league I didnt know ANYTHING about prospects. In fact when I was in the mini-draft...Matt LeRoy told me to take Ryan Braun in the 3rd Round because I wanted to take Jason Giambi. Someone mentioned sickles site and I just browsed his team top 10's and looked for anyone with a C+ ranking.

Round 8

D-Rays - Michael -5- Bowden (SP)
Nationals - Jorge Cantu (2B)
Brewers- Lars -6- Anderson (1B)
Rangers - Trevor Hoffman (CL)
Mets - Corey Patterson (CF)

Round 20

D-Rays - Jeremy -5- Haynes (SP)
Nationals - Ruddy Lugo (RP)
Brewers- Justin -6- Masterson (RP)
Rangers - Stephen Marek (SP)
Mets - Jamie Moyer (SP)

Round 29

Mets - Edward Campusano (RP)
Rangers - Adam Kennedy (2B)
Brewers - Peter -5- Bourjos (OF)
Nationals - Tony Abreu (2B)
D-Rays - Jeff Marquez (RP)