Francisco Samuel ranked 18th best prospect in FSL by BA, Jones snubbed!
Posted on September 29th, 2008 by erik in Francisco SamuelFrancisco Samuel ends up being the only Cardinals who ranked in the FSL Top Twenty. A travashamockery, I say!!
Control is the only thing keeping Samuel from rocketing through the Cardinals system. His stuff was generally unhittable—Vero Beach pitching coach R.C. Lichtenstein likened it to Jose Valverde‘s—but patient hitters found they could work him for walks.
The Jose Valverde comparison is pretty interesting, and obviously it would have to be based only on stuff, as Papa Grande has a hundred pounds or so on El Mosquito. You also have to wonder if he will add even more to his 94-98 MPH fastball as he fills out. There’s a lot to dream on with Samuel, you just hope that he gets his control to at least a passable level.
In a chat, Jones was said to have just missed the list.
He was the toughest guy to leave off the list…Jones doesn’t really have an overwhelming tool, although his arm is his only really below average one. There are a lot of 50s and 55s there on the 20-to-80 scouting scale, as he’s an average hitter and has average power. He’s a very solid player and the fact that he didn’t sneak on to the back of this top 20 doesn’t mean he’s not a prospect. He was No. 21 on this list.
No overwhelming tool? Wha? I don’t get this. BA has been trumpeting Jones’ tools year after year, and when he finally puts them together into game usable skills, they downplay them. Even if what he says about his hit tools is true, he has well above average speed, so to say he has no overwhelming tool is just not true.
This is absurd.
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I wonder whether Tyler Henley would have made the top 20, had he not missed so much time due to injury. His numbers weren’t electric, but they were quite good.
Funny thing about Jones, BA thinks he wasn’t a top 20 top prospect in the FSL, which I don’t get. Yes, a player can make more than one list (as evidenced by Walden and other prospects that have made two lists), Jones just wasn’t good enough to make this list. I really don’t see how, but BA has better resources than I.
A few years ago, BA didn’t even rank Bryan Anderson among the top *thirty* Cardinals prospects after his terrific age-18 season in rookieball. Could be that Jones’ omission from the FSL list (and Anderson’s) was simply an oversight.
I’d have Jones in the FSL top 5 for certain (probably top 3); I could rationalize his being as low as 7 or 8. But leaving Jones entirely off the top 20 list would be as silly as…as…well, as silly as leaving Richard Castillo off of a Midwest League top 20 list.
Richard Castillo wasn’t that good this year. Huge problem with giving up taters and, despite the misleading ERA, he wasn’t that dominant. He’s young for the league but otherwise he had a good, not great, season.
Jones wasn’t an oversight, JJ Cooper said he would have been 21st and was the hardest guy to leave off the list.
BA has the Instructional League rosters out: http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/prospects/?p=1719
Niko, Ryde and Mr. Bravo are among the group to go.
Scott Cousins (#9 overall, top OF): .285/.356/.465; finished season at AA, 23 years old
Daryl Jones: .316/.407/.483; finished season at AA, 21 years old
I’d like to hear their explanation on this one.
Hugo, if you ask me the biggest names on that list is Roberto De La Cruz and Cesar Valera.
Lynn to winter ball is a bit of a surprise given the injury and the workload.
I’m pretty sure he’s on the texas league list, maybe that’s why
Does anyone take these BA list seriously? Can you after this?
Jones is indeed #18 on the Texas League list. That’s from the print edition, which arrived over the weekend. (I guess whoever wrote that list still considers “speed” to be a tool.)
In BA’s defense, we’re talking about selecting 20 top prospects from a 12-team league. I don’t know how many teams move guys up and down the way the Cardinals do, but you have to think there are dozens of players under consideration.
Even if the BA reporter talks to a dozen managers, coaches, and/or scouts, one from each team, there have to be gaps in their perspective and their memories. They can’t possibly have seen every promising player enough times to have a balanced opinion.
I get the impression the BA writers work hard at this and take it seriously. Let’s appreciate it for what it is.
Lou-
I think you are right that the writers take this seriously, I just don’t think it is much of a tool in terms of tracking prospects. Just as you say, they really can’t see a player enough to put together rankings so the methodology is probably really flawed in this instance. I mean these are based on BA’s interprtation of coversations with managers and scouts, right there you are talking about something that is really subjective. After seeing this list though I am starting to think that there are plenty of prospects that are left off.
BJM
Ian’t Lance Lynn with fall instrux league. That’s not winter ball, it ends in a few short weeks. He was only sent home to rest before they wanted him to pitch again this fall to see if he was ok.
Most of the best of the FSL farm didn’t hang around long enough to make the list or were injured.
Don’t you have to have to put in a certain amount of at bats or innings ?
Jones definitely got enough at-bats at A+. He was there from April through late-July. He was only in AA for a little over a month, yet he made that Top 20 list? I am still confused.
I gently beg to differ, avru. Castillo was very, very good in the MWL.
The homers? All but one were solo shots.
“But, Bob, that’s probably just luck, or mostly so.”
I would’ve thought so, too, azru’sbrain, but then I checked his splits. With men on base, Castillo held opponents to something like .240 slugging. And with RISP, batters slugged…just…a meager…wait for it…one sixty-seven. :)
Castillo!
Slugging allowed with men on base isn’t something very likely that will correlate from year to year. I wouldn’t use that as a basis for your argument.