Monday news and notes

Mark Sheldon has up an article at Reds.com on Todd Frazier and his hopes to impress during spring training. Frazier says that he feels stronger and quicker. Hopefully that carries over to a strong 2011 season.

5 Tool Talk has up its Top 100 Draft Prospects. With college baseball starting up soon, and high school baseball right around the corner I figured draft talks were about to ramp up. There are some scouting reports available for some players on the list. It is a solid reference point for you draft hounds.

MLB Bonus Baby has up the Top 20 2010 International Signings. The Reds are omitted from the list, but lets remember that sometimes that doesn’t matter. Ronald Torreyes was an absolute unknown who the Reds probably signed for a small amount of money (compared to the guys on this list) and got no notoriety and well, he is probably a better prospect than a lot of guys who got a higher bonus no less than a year and a half ago.

I have been having some interesting discussions about Billy Hamilton over the past week, since Bill Bavasi said that the Reds weren’t afraid to fast track him. I have taken the stance that they shouldn’t fast track him because he is fast, but to let his bat itself dictate whether he moves quickly or not. Sunday night (well actually around 2am on Monday morning) I went back through the Pioneer League between 2005 and 2010 and looked for ‘comparables’ for Hamilton’s 2010 season. What I looked at are the stats I find most important offensively when looking for a comparison: Walk Rate (BB/PA), Strikeout Rate (K/PA) and Isolated Power (SLG-AVG). I kept the age of the players to look for at 18-20 since Hamilton was 19 last season. The best comparison for Billy Hamilton was actually another Red prospect. Jose Gualdron. The two players had a walk rate within 0.2% of each other, a strikeout rate of 0.4% of each other and their Isolated Power were .003 apart. There were of course two other big differences in their stat lines. Hamilton had a batting average that was .318 to Gualdron’s .282 (though Hamilton had a BABIP of .388 to Gualdron’s .339 which makes up a bulk of the difference) and then there is the 48 steals for Hamilton to just 3 steals for Gualdron. What does that mean? Well, it doesn’t mean much to be honest because every player is different and the scouting reports on the two players are incredibly different. I did however find it pretty interesting. I will say this though, the Pioneer League is very hitter friendly, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Hamilton slug much lower than he did in 2010.

One comparison that has been sticking with me a little bit lately is one that I hope isn’t true, as I am not big on the player I am about to mention despite scouts loving him. Dodgers prospect Dee Gordon. Both are considered outstanding shortstops on a tools scale, with plus plus speed. Both guys have good bat speed at the plate. Gordon didn’t show up as a good comp in the Pioneer League, but here are their two lines lined up next to each other:

Gordon didn’t put up the big steal numbers in 2008, but given what he did the next two seasons (126 combined steals in 2009 and 2010) I imagine that the Dodgers held him back some at first as he was considered very raw coming out of the draft (much like Hamilton). My main issue with Gordon has been his lack of power and what I see as a lack of future power. Gordon is listed as 5’11” and 150 pounds, but I think that might be a little generous (at least on the weight side). Hamilton is a little taller, listed at 6’1″ and listed at 160 pounds. I haven’t yet had a chance to stand next to him, so I don’t know how accurate either of those are. Dee Gordon has shown up well in the Top 50/100 prospect lists so far this offseason. He ranked #70 in Keith Law’s Top 100, in the Top 30 for each of Baseball America’s writers Top 50’s in the Prospect Handbook (Callis, Lingo and Manuel) and #44 in Milb.com’s Top 50 list. What do you guys think of the comparison though, particularly on the tools side of things?