Comments on: Daily Farm Report – 8/5/12

By: Gruntosaurus

Gruntosaurus — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 04:07:52 +0000

Sickels has an interesting article on Shelby: http://www.minorleagueball.com/2012/8/6/3224230/minor-league-prospect-note-shelby-miller-rhp-st-louis-cardinals
He is clearly still bullish.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 03:56:37 +0000

Is maness being brad thompson really that bad? For a long reliever he wasn’t terrible. I understand if that isn’t what we want, but for a seventh starter/long reliever making league min. That has value. Not every prospect can be elite.

By: BigJawnMize

BigJawnMize — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 03:26:34 +0000

I had an email exchange with an industry friend of mine that said that he looked as good as ever a couple weeks ago. Rumor is that the Cardinals were not pleased with the make-up side of the game.

By: tom s.

tom s. — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 02:44:19 +0000

good find, although he never made it above A+ ball. i think seeing maness at memphis next year will be very interesting.

By: Gruntosaurus

Gruntosaurus — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 01:34:16 +0000

Not a lot, but they do exist. I can’t resist this: go to baseball-reference.com and check out the minor-league line for a fellow named Brett Black. He made Maness look like a complete wild man. Problem is, you still gotta have stuff, and his was insufficient to get more advanced hitters out. He topped out at high A, rattled around the indy leagues for a while, and hung ‘em up with a CAREER K/BB rate about the same as what Maness has had at Springfield this year.

There are probably other stories like that one out there, but I happen to know his, ’cause he’s my cousin’s kid.

By: tom s.

tom s. — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 01:06:31 +0000

i agree that there aren’t many archetypes for guys like maness, but there aren’t a lot of guys with his kind of control who fail either. there just aren’t many comps for that kind of extreme K/BB ratio.

i just have no idea what to make of him. i guess my one comment is that if he’s brad thompson with really, really good control, that’s probably a reasonable major leaguer. thompson was an archetypal replacement value guy with a cumulative 4.19 K/BB in the minors. maness to date has a 10.62 K/BB rate in his minor league career. maness also has a better GB rate (72.9%, 58.5%, 56.2%) than thompson’s 47-50% GB rate.

if maness has control significantly better than thompson, he could be a guy with a 4% BB rate (rather than 6 or 7% for thompson) in the majors. that, with the improved GB rate, could make a big difference.

By: cariocacarinal

cariocacarinal — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 00:52:25 +0000

Look at minorleaguecentral .com under Maness’ stats and there is a section on “balls not in play” and “pitches” that might interest you. On the surface, it looks like his swing/looking ratio is about league average.

By: Gruntosaurus

Gruntosaurus — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 23:41:44 +0000

When the league average for K/BB is something like 1.9:1, I’m not sure the difference between 5.2:1 and 9.5:1 puts one “on a whole other level” from the other when both are obtained by having very low BB rates. Wonder Brad’s BB rates were extremely low; Maness’ are preternaturally low. They are similar in K/9 rates, H/9, WHIP (some advantage to Wonder Brad here and in H/9), HR/9. Note that this similarity is not a bad thing in and of itself. Thompson was a very effective pitcher at AA. It just didn’t last.

To jjray’s point: I’m not sure how good a proxy HBP rates are for pitching inside. Maddux, etc., certainly weren’t afraid to pitch inside, but never had high HBP rates. HBP are a pretty good surrogate for control issues in many cases, but obviously not here.

Pitchers who reach the majors with profiles like Maness are very rare birds. Not a single pitcher in the modern era has a career K/BB ratio greater than 5 over a career of at least 1000 IP, and even single-season ratios greater than 5 (minimum 1 IP/team game, so only starters) are rare — 68 since 1900 if I count correctly, a large fraction of them by guys named Halladay or Schilling or Maddux or such. We just don’t have much precedent for guys like this reaching the majors.

By: illinoiscardinalfan

illinoiscardinalfan — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 23:34:38 +0000

Miller could do a lot to rehabilitate his status as a top pitching prospect by finishing strong. It would make it pretty easy to forget how much he has struggled this year at AAA.

By: Uncle Randy

Uncle Randy — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 22:03:03 +0000

Thats reassuring. I don’t like this talk of Brad Thompson.