Cody Puckett went 1-3 with a walk and a 2 run HR in a Phoenix Desert Dogs win on Wednesday afternoon. Nick Christiani threw a perfect final frame with a strikeout to ensure the win (non save situation). The good guys play tomorrow evening against Peoria, who has the Pitch F/X cameras installed in the stadium, so hopefully some of our pitchers can make an appearances and we can get our hands on some data.
Let’s talk about the Rule 5 draft. The Reds have some decisions to make on some players before the December draft rolls around. I think there is only one guy who is an absolute lock to be added to the roster: Neftali Soto. I could see a way that they would leave Kyle Lotzkar unprotected by thinking that no one would risk a pick on him, though I do think he is at least an 80% sure bet to be added. There is still some confusion on whether or not Henry Rodriguez is eligible or not. If he is eligible, I think he would be a lock as well, but there are people in both camps who seem to know the rules and they have differing opinions on whether or not he is eligible. Then there is a handful of guys who are at least worth talking about:
- Scott Carroll
- Josh Ravin
- Pedro Villarreal
- Cody Puckett
- Blaine Howell
- Travis Webb
- Denis Phipps
Each of the pitchers has a good arm, but still has at least one question mark to go along with them. Cody Puckett has some good power and some position flexibility working in his favor, but has not been a model of offensive consistency either. Denis Phipps has had one good offensive season and it was carried by an incredibly unsustainable BABIP, but he is one of the better defensive outfielders in the organization. Going over the roster, how many of all the players mentioned (both bulleted players above and the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph) would you keep, while factoring in free agency as well.
I think that both Puckett and Webb will likely have their fate determined by how they perform in the AFL this fall.
I plan on beginning a new series of articles next week, that will have one article per week on the depth of each position in the minors. Have any suggestions for the first position to be reviewed?
Tomorrow afternoon Baseball America will release its International League Top 20 Prospects. I feel pretty comfortable saying that both Devin Mesoraco and Yonder Alonso will make the list. I think that perhaps Zack Cozart and Dave Sappelt may find themselves towards the back of the list, but I haven’t checked out the depth of talent in the league either.
I have been working on creating spray charts for all of the guys in the minor leagues (for the Reds only at this point, but eventually at some point in January I will probably do about 100 guys outside of the Reds system as well). One thing I do while creating the charts is calculate their average, slugging and isolated power (slugging minus average) to get a good idea of the kind of power they hit for to each field. One thing I really like to look at is the opposite field power of players, as I think it really gives you a good idea of their power potential. Among the lefties, Yasmani Grandal has shown the most power to the opposite field. Among the righties, Neftali Soto is easily the best opposite field power hitter of the bunch. The guy with the most power to center field among the 25 players I have been able to create charts for is Todd Frazier, who showed nearly the exact same IsoP to center as he did to his pull side.