MLB.com's Top 50 prospects: Jeffress #44, Gamel #23, Escobar #8; John Sickels' list now online

[EbbaStClaire]

I believe most posters on this website don't realize the value of exceptional defense at a key position. We are so used to good hit, mediocre fielders that an Ozzie Smith or Omar Vizquel type player is foreign to the Milwaukee Brewers. I have only seen Escobar play 3 games and I don't recall seeing an exceptional play but his quickness, jump on the ball and his arm strength are quite unbelieveable. Another reason for his ranking is his continual improvement and he is only 21 years old. I don't see any reason why he shouldn't be rated in the top 10 even if he never hits above .250. Many individuals pan Jeter because he doesn't play good defense and I agree that his range leaves a lot to be desired. Even as a Yankee hater I have to admit he makes key defensive and offensive plays in big games contrary to last years Brewer centerfielder. So how many exceptional shortstops have there been that are great hitters and great fielders? I think we as fans should be overjoyed that we have a player of Escobars' potential and I would never trade that defense away.

[twobrewers]

Everyone ahead of Escobar was a 1st round draft choice.

 

Well done Brewer scouts.

[sheetskout]

The thing that worries me is that of his 179 hits only 37 went for extra bases. I don't project Escobar to hit more than ten home runs in his best year. That's a TON of singles though. I wonder how he's going to fare against better fielding.

 

Congrats to Alcides though as I thought he'd be down in the teens at least. BA should have him at number two (behind Gamel). I follow BA a lot and although they like Alcides, I think they gave props to Gamel last season on a more consistent bases (see: hotlists).

 

Either way, I'm happy with out situation. We're not the Oakland A's, but we're definately not the Houston Astros as far as our systems go.

[logan82]

I believe most posters on this website don't realize the value of exceptional defense at a key position. We are so used to good hit, mediocre fielders that an Ozzie Smith or Omar Vizquel type player is foreign to the Milwaukee Brewers.

I think most posters realize the value of good defense. The problem is that Escobar is behind Hardy who is our best infield defender and shows up on the top of most lists for top defenders at SS. If JJ was a poor defender then I think there would be more of a push for Escobar, but JJ is a good defender who hits very well.

[yoshii8]

homer wrote:

That's just one ranking though. I bet Baseball America will have him ranked somewhere else.

We'll see when the BA rankings come out, by its still very impressive for him to be ranked this high.

[twobrewers]

Well, LaPorta was ranked #14 - and the Brewers seemed to value Escobar more than LaPorta when talking with the Indians during the CC Sabathia trade.

 

So I would guess the Brewers think as much of Escobar as MiLB.com.

[Never Outhustled]

BA should have him at number two (behind Gamel). I follow BA a lot and although they like Alcides, I think they gave props to Gamel last season on a more consistent bases (see: hotlists).

Gamel was on more hotlists, but Escobar ranked ahead of Gamel in BA's top ten prospects of the Southern League.

 

Escobar doesn't have much power yet, but that doesn't automatically mean he will never hit for power. He's young and still developing physically, and his homer totals did jump to 8 this past season. Hanley Ramirez was a favorite of BA despite never hitting more than 8 homers in a minor league season. Like Escobar, he was young for his league each season, incredibly thin, and impatient at the plate. Now he's as good as anyone in the majors. BA was right on him, and hopefully Escobar can have a fraction of that success.

[ILuvDaBush]

What's the ceiling on his SB potential? Could he be a 50SB candidate? Even with 35-40 SB potential, and a .300 AVE, along with his defense, he has phenomenal value.

[logan82]

Baseball Prospectus has Milwaukee's top 11 prospects up now. Of course most of it is for subscribers only, which I am not. Link

 

 

 

Four-Star Prospects

1. Alcides Escobar, SS

2. Brett Lawrie, C

3. Mat Gamel, 3B

4. Jeremy Jeffress, RHP

5. Angel Salome, C

Three-Star Prospects

6. Lorenzo Cain, CF

7. Jake Odorizzi, RHP

8. Jon Lucroy, C

9. Cutter Dykstra, CF

Two-Star Prospects

10. Wily Peralta, RHP

11. Caleb Gindl, RF

 

Just Missed: Evan Frederickson, LHP; Taylor Green, 3B; Seth Lintz, RHP

Ranking Challenges: There is no true, classic top prospect in the system, but a set of five very good prospects that are hard to separate, as they all combine much to like with significant issues. The dropoff from the first five is sizeable, as the system's become rather mediocre quickly due to graduations and trades

 

Edit: Just posted all the free information.

[jjfanec]

That list surprises me. Lawrie is ahead of Gamel and Jeffress which does not make sense to me. Taylor Green is not even on the list which is just wrong.

[SenatorShriv]

Green is not even on the list which is just wrong.

No kidding. I would want to see another year of success before putting him in the top tier, but he should definitely be in the second tier.

 

I also found it interesting that the put Salome in the top tier. I'm interested to see where some of the other prospect rankings place him. I am personally getting over some of my concerns about his defense and would rank him on equal footing with any of our other prospects but not everyone else seems to agree.

[Mass Haas]

Noted minor league blogger and author John Sickels will have his Brewer list out in a day or two, and he's encouraging discussion now --

 

His Prospect Grades and What They Mean

[ILuvDaBush]

1. Mat Gamel 3B AAA

2. Alcides Escobar SS AAA

3. Jeremy Jeffress RHP AA

4. Angel Salome C AAA

5. Jonathan Lucroy C AA

6. Brett Lawrie C Rookie-league

7. Taylor Green 3B AA

8. Lorenzo Cain CF AAA

9. Jake Odorizzi RHP low-A

10. Cole Gillespie LF AAA

 

That would be my guess, though I'm very excited to see where Sickels ranks Lawrie. He is notoriously conservative with players who have no track record.

[nate82]

That list surprises me. Lawrie is ahead of Gamel and Jeffress which does not make sense to me. Taylor Green is not even on the list which is just wrong.

Lawrie doesn't surprise me at all really. If he would be put at 3B instead of catcher I believe without any set backs we could see Lawrie in Milwaukee by the mid 2011 season or the start of the 2012 season.

[TheCrew07]

I think most posters realize the value of good defense. The problem is that Escobar is behind Hardy who is our best infield defender and shows up on the top of most lists for top defenders at SS.

Advanced metrics haven't been kind to JJ... I'm on record as to how I feel they lack value, but I haven't seen any national publications rave about JJ's defense as a pro. In the minors certainly, but in the majors not so much, and I especially haven't seen anything since the horrible injury.

 

If Sheets and Sabathia both walk then I believe that Hardy or Fielder should be moved for pitching. Escobar is an excellent prospect, under appreciated by those that prefer pure stats over scouting, and will be an above average SS for a long time.

[jjfanec]

Lawrie doesn't surprise me at all really. If he would be put at 3B instead of catcher I believe without any set backs we could see Lawrie in Milwaukee by the mid 2011 season or the start of the 2012 season.

Jeffress and Gamel are both top 50 or better prospects. I just do not think Lawrie should be ahead of them. Jeffress has to have as high of upside as Lawrie and Gamel has been extremely productive

[endaround]

I think most posters realize the value of good defense. The problem is that Escobar is behind Hardy who is our best infield defender and shows up on the top of most lists for top defenders at SS.

Advanced metrics haven't been kind to JJ... I'm on record as to how I feel they lack value, but I haven't seen any national publications rave about JJ's defense as a pro. In the minors certainly, but in the majors not so much, and I especially haven't seen anything since the horrible injury.

 

If Sheets and Sabathia both walk then I believe that Hardy or Fielder should be moved for pitching. Escobar is an excellent prospect, under appreciated by those that prefer pure stats over scouting, and will be an above average SS for a long time.

 

Advanced metrics have JJ as behind only Rollins in the NL for full time players. How about instead of making the major league team 4 wins worse Escobar gets traded before a poor AAA season lowers his value?

[sveumrules]

endaround wrote:

Advanced metrics have JJ as behind only Rollins in the NL for full time players. How about instead of making the major league team 4 wins worse Escobar gets traded before a poor AAA season lowers his value?

no doubt a poor season would lower his value, but lucky for us he's only gonna be 22 next week so he's got plenty of time to develop.

 

or we could just start him at 2b this year.

[endaround]

Sure he does, but that's why you don't trade Hardy and put Escobar in Milwaukee. My guess is Escobar's BABIP falls down to a reasonable level in Nashville which makes him a .290/.320/.390 hitter in AAA.

[TheCrew07]

Maybe this year's metrics which I haven't reviewed, but that hasn't been the case in the past.

 

I have a very hard time accepting your logic that Escobar will regress as a player when he's gotten better every year against better competition. You're assuming that his stats will flatten out as he moves up, but he's not following the usual trend. You also continually disregard the scouting reports we get during the season via the pre game audio, Money was very complimentary of the adjustments he's made offensively.

 

He's a young player who's continues to grow, he's not a MLB player at his peak.

[endaround]

How is he not following the usual trend? He plays in A+ can't hit enough to get promoted and repeats doing better the 2nd year. He gets promoted to AA his offense dives down and he has to repeat. His second time in AA he hits well enough for promotion but its based on a too high BABIP so no reason to expect him not to come back down. Yes he's doing better but the competition he's facing is improving as well.

[TheCrew07]

Umm, his offense didn't nose dive, it actually improved... what are you basing this on? He's had one statistically below average season in his career, and he's made drastic improvement the last 2 season. His BABIP may well regress, but his overall offensive game continues to improve.

 

 Year Age Tm Lg Lvl Aff G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS SB CS SB% SH SF IBB HBP GDP +----+----+---+---+---+---+----+-----+----+----+---+---+---+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+---+----+---+---+---+---+---+ 2004 17 HEL PIO Rk MIL 67 231 38 65 8 0 2 24 20 44 .281 .339 .342 .681 20 9 69%  2005 18 WVA SAL A MIL 127 520 80 141 25 8 2 36 20 90 .271 .305 .362 .667 30 13 70% 11 4 0 7 4  2006 19 BRE FSL A+ MIL 87 350 47 90 9 1 2 33 19 56 .257 .296 .306 .602 28 8 78% 7 7 1 3 4  2007 20 TOT 125 494 64 151 13 7 1 53 18 71 .306 .331 .366 .697 22 13 63% 8 5 4 3 10   BRE FSL A+ MIL 63 268 37 87 8 3 0 25 7 35 .325 .345 .377 .722 18 10 64% 2 3 0 3 4   HVL SOU AA MIL 62 226 27 64 5 4 1 28 11 36 .283 .314 .354 .668 4 3 57% 6 2 4 0 6  2008 21 HVL SOU AA MIL 131 546 95 179 24 5 8 76 31 82 .328 .363 .434 .797 34 8 81% 10 7 0 3 10 +----+----+---+---+---+---+----+-----+----+----+---+---+---+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+---+----+---+---+---+---+---+  1 Season Rk 67 231 38 65 8 0 2 24 20 44 .281 .339 .342 .681 20 9 69%  1 Season A 127 520 80 141 25 8 2 36 20 90 .271 .305 .362 .667 30 13 70% 11 4 0 7 4  2 Seasons A+ 150 618 84 177 17 4 2 58 26 91 .286 .317 .337 .654 46 18 72% 9 10 1 6 8  2 Seasons AA 193 772 122 243 29 9 9 104 42 118 .315 .349 .411 .760 38 11 78% 16 9 4 3 16 +-----------------+---+--------+-----+----+----+---+---+---+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+---+----+---+---+---+---+---+  5 Seasons 537 2141 324 626 79 21 15 222 108 343 .292 .328 .370 .698 134 51 72% 36 23 5 16 28 +-----------------+------------+-----+----+----+---+---+---+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+---+----+---+---+---+---+---+ [/pre]

In 2008 he struck out a little bit more than I would have liked but he also walked more, his OPS is trending upwards with his power. The evidence above tells me that he's improving, that he's trending upwards. I can see where someone would look at this average, k rate, and walk rate, make the statistical argument about BABIP, and pigeon hole him as a slick fielding weak stick. I don't believe that's who he is based on the other information that's made available during the season. I think that Escobar being untouchable when Sabathia was acquired speak volumes about how the organization feels about his upside.

 

I get the statisical argument, but that's a rather narrow view in my opinion, especially when were talking about top prospects. There isn't a projection system out there that can predict a break out year because they are all based on historical data. This is why I prefer to also include the professional opinions and observations (scouting) that gets reported during the season when I form my opinion. This is a kid with great work ethic that never focused on his offensive game until he signed with the Brewers, he wasn't a polished hitter by any stretch when he was signed. I've always been most concerned about his power, with that aspect coming around and the glowing reports he gets from coaches, management, and scouts outside of the organization I'm as pumped about Escobar as I was for Braun, and he's potentially replacing my favorite Brewer. I'll think he'll be no worse than league average for a MI with the bat, with the potential to be an above average player best case scenario. He's not a super star with the bat, but he's not the player you paint him to be either.

 

I recall that you said Salome would have washed out already (before the season) if he wasn't a catcher because he didn't hit well enough. How do you feel about him now? Which minor leaguers in the system do you like?

[And That]

He plays in A+ can't hit enough to get promoted and repeats doing better the 2nd year.

After playing a year and a half in advanced A and a year and a half in AA, he turns 22 in a week. While age doesn't necessarily correlate, it is certainly reasonable for a talented 19 year old to struggle in advanced A.

[twobrewers]

Has anyone ever gotten endaround to change his mind?

[endaround]

I'm not saying it isn't reasonable, I have no problem with how he's progressing. But I see no special jumps to his progress that merits believing that he won't struggle as a 22 year old in his first season in AAA especially given his lack of plate discipline and power. I see no reason to believe he can outperform Hardy next year.