The Reds extended Dusty Baker for two more years. You guys know that I am not a fan of the deal for all of the reasons we have talked about in the past, so I am just going to leave it at that. Discuss it further today if you would like (I know that a lot of us talked about it yesterday in the State of the Farm post).
Ray Guilfoyle takes a look at fantasy outfield prospects for 2013 and Billy Hamilton is one of his subjects. He believes though that Hamilton might only be a late season call up as he takes time to learn center field. I think he could be right, but if Hamilton shows the right things defensively and hits early on while whoever is playing center for the Reds at the time shows some struggles at the plate, I believe Hamilton could be up before the end of May.
Billy Hamilton was voted as the minor leagues most exciting player by other minor leaguers. He received 12% of the vote, only Mike Trout got more than 5% other than Hamilton.
Baseball America has up a for pay article on Didi Gregorius. One scout says that he is under the radar and that he likes his ceiling and that he hasn’t had a chance to put it all together yet.
Speaking of Gregorius, he was named the International League’s #7 prospect for 2012 by Baseball America last Friday. I think the league as a whole had a down year for prospects, but no other Bat was able to make the list.
The hitters are off to a quick start in the fall/winter leagues.
- Didi Gregorius – .429/.438/.500 in 14 at bats.
- Billy Hamilton – .500/.500/.500 in 10 at bats.
- Donald Lutz – .438/.471/.625 in 16 at bats.
- Felix Perez – .353/.353/.353 in 17 at bats.
- Miguel Rojas – .286/.375/.357 in 14 at bats.
You can track the full list of the Reds affiliated players throughout the offseason here. Normally I would post all of the stats, but I haven’t re-installed Excel yet, so I can’t. Next time will feature all players.