Comments on: Six Pirates Rank in Baseball Prospectus Top 101 Prospects

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:04:00 +0000

OFF SUBJECT………

If anyone is interested and can get Root Sports Pgh.

Reds & Bucs @ 7:00 pm est. from 4/15/11 Morton vs Arroyo

By: Nate

Nate — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:36:00 +0000

Yep. 11 or so losses, $2million, and one wrong call are the difference between having:

Taillon, Mel Rojas, Jr, Tony Sanchez, and nobody
versus
Harper, AJ Cole, Strasburg, and Sano

Wow. I think the Nationals are now my most hated team.

By: John Lease

John Lease — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:22:00 +0000

It’s nice that someone thinks our minor league system has something to offer. Considering that 2 of the players haven’t played a single game yet, it seems mainly to be about what they signed for and what scouts said. I’ll reserve judgement on Cole and Bell until they play some actual games against opponents.

By: AndrewB

AndrewB — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:05:00 +0000

Or drafting AJ Cole instead of Mel Rojas Jr for that matter.

By: F Lang

F Lang — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:06:00 +0000

I think Heredia could get way up there too. He has the potential to pitch himself up to low A at 17-18 years old. If he is flashing good command, a solid breaking pitch, and 95mph fastball in Low A the end of the summer, he should be headed for the top 25 or so next year. The Pirates have so many “potential” guys though. A lot could change with these guys moving up. Colton Cain, Kingham and others hopefully will be moving up too.

By: F Lang

F Lang — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:52:00 +0000

No doubt tim. I was doing some studying for fantasy baseball and I noticed so many low average, high K power hitters. Just after a quick once-through the magazine I found 34 guys that fit into a 120K’s and under .270 avg category. It seems to me like unlike in the steroid era, guys are once again having to sacrifice average and k’s to hit for power. Maybe the pitching is better and there are a lot of young guys that will improve right now but there seems to be way more Steve Balboni, Pete Incaviglia, Rob Deer types than there were 10 year ago. Even Mark Texeira can’t hit .260 anymore. If you can get a kid like Josh Bell and develop him into a .300/30HR guy you have something special…the # of guys that can do that is so low now. A guy that hits .280 and 20HR almost has decent power again so a guy like Neil Walker doing that at 2B is a big plus in todays game. This is great to see. I know chicks love the longball but I like seeing the game played the right way.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:49:00 +0000

Can I pretend we signed Sano just for today?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:42:00 +0000

A lot of times it seems that these rankings start with the best bats and work its way down to the pitchers. I’m sure its because big time bats have been historically more projectable than pitching but a team like the Pirates whos top talent is in pitching takes a bit of a hit for that. If Marte were to hit 28 hrs last year they might have a top 3 system IMO.

By: Tim Williams

Tim Williams — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:42:00 +0000

Thanks. I’ve gotten a few comments about the smaller print. I made it to match the font size in Baseball America’s book. If I would have gone with last year’s font size, it would have added over 100 pages to the book.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:40:00 +0000

Good to see our system finally making some strides in the rankings. By the way, Tim, I just received my Prospect Guide a couple days ago and wanted to tell you: It’s a terrific read again! Also, I like the improvements you made over last years edition except for the smaller print. But, I think thats just the age of my eyes!!! hahahaha