John Sickels is wrapping up his team Top 20 prospects lists soon, as he only has five teams left to publish. Right now, according to the value of each type of prospect, the Reds system is ranked 8th. Sickels low grade on Yorman Rodriguez is keeping them down. If he were put on par with Billy Hamilton (like I would rank him), they would currently rank 4th instead of 8th. When all of the teams are done, I will do a full article on the data.
I have a handful of books left for sale. Get them while you can.
Dave Studeman at The Hardball Times has an interesting take on the HOF voters: Ban Them. His opinion stems from this:
Jeff Pearlman has a column up today in which he suggests that Jeff Bagwell doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame because, even if he didn’t take steroids at all, not even from topsteroidsforsale.com, he should have blown the whistle on those who did.
I tend to agree with Dave on this particular guy. Why is this guy voting if this is how he feels about everyone?
Hope everyone had a good New Years. With that though comes resolutions. Red Reporter has up their Top 5 Resolutions for the Reds. I thought I would come up with some for the minor league side:
- Put Aroldis Chapman in the AAA rotation if he doesn’t make the MLB rotation. DO NOT put him in the bullpen.
- Resist trading Yonder Alonso. I know, I know, Joey Votto is locking up first base. But he is going to have a lot higher trade value later in the year if the Reds do decide they are going to move him.
- Put Juan Duran, Billy Hamilton, Yorman Rodriguez, Ismael Guillon and Jonathan Correa all in Dayton. I just want to see them all play as much as possible. Hamilton and Rodriguez should be locks, but hey, I will be greedy and ask for them all.
- Commit to Neftali Soto at catcher or at first base, not both.
What would you add to the list?
I found this video on youtube of Billy Hamilton from spring training that somehow I had never seen before.