Mid Season Promotions

[battlekow]

Kevin Goldstein on Lawrie today:

 

No hitter in the Midwest League is generating more buzz than Lawrie, Milwaukee's first-round pick last June. 21-for-51 in his last 13 games with 14 RBIs, Lawrie entered the year seen as somewhat raw due to his Canadian background, but he's showing a good approach, a feel for consistent hard contact, and the ability to use all fields. At .326/.375/.616, he's one of the best combinations of numbers and scouting reports you can find, as long as we don't talk about the defense, where the reviews of him at his new position of second base are borderline laughable.

I'm certainly not a scout, but I'd like to think I could recognize a "laughable" defender when I see one, and I certainly didn't find his defense risible. Raw, maybe, but he showed good range and a very strong arm. I haven't heard anyone else here that's seen Lawrie play second report a hilariously bad quality to his defense, either. Are we all just fanboys?

[TheCrew07]

I often wonder if "scouts" plural is actually "scout" singular and it's basically the same comments defensively from spring training. Goldstein has never impressed me too much so I'm biased against his opinions and I'll leave it at that. Isom has commented on some nice plays Lawrie has made but beyond that I really don't know. I'm hoping to catch some games in the next 2 weeks with the DV camera and put some video up at least.

[BoKnowsBall]

From what I saw I feel like he fields his position well enough but where he has lots of troubles is in the cut off and relays from the outfield and positioning etc...

[trwi7]

I'm certainly not a scout, but I'd like to think I could recognize a "laughable" defender when I see one, and I certainly didn't find his defense risible. Raw, maybe, but he showed good range and a very strong arm. I haven't heard anyone else here that's seen Lawrie play second report a hilariously bad quality to his defense, either. Are we all just fanboys?

I agree. I mentioned after the Rattlers game at Miller Park that he made a great play ranging to his left that I was amazed he even got to but the throw was just a little late. He's certainly not the best there, but to call him laughable is just ridiculous.

[battlekow]

I posted the whole article on Lawrie from Baseball America in the general T-Rats thread, but I'm going to excerpt Jeff Isom's quotes about Lawrie's defense here, since we were already talking about it:

Defensively, Isom has been impressed with Lawrie's work ethic and coachability since moving from behind the plate to second base. He's made five errors (three fielding, two throwing) in 24 games, but Isom is confident Lawrie will continue getting better, and he appears to have come a long way from his amateur days, when he was criticized for not taking his defense seriously.

"Seeing his first few games in spring training, I thought 'Wow, this could be interesting this season,'" Isom said. "But he's such a great athlete. He's taken to it. He's made himself into a pretty good second baseman.

"You see the improvement on a daily basis. What makes him so special is you can tell him what he's doing wrong and then he adapts and changes right away. He applies everything that you say right away. You won't have to tell him a second time, whether it's positioning or the little nuances of the game. He makes adjustments on the fly, picks up things, retains information and throw in he's a great athlete in there. The kid's done a great job and continues to improve daily."

[paul253]

If he continues to stay healthy, I'd really love to see Mike Jones moved back up to Huntsville. His numbers are really good so far, and as long as he continues to keep those walks down I think he'll be fine. Its time to see what he can do and whether to continue to give him chances. I'd really love to see him make it to Milwaukee, but he needs to move up to see if he can handle it.

[brewmann04]

I hope we see Mike Jones back up in 2a before the end of the first half of the season.

[filthyfrog]

A common complaint with Weeks's defense over the last few years has been that even when he's not making errors, he's failing to turn double plays. Lawrie seems to start or turn one or two every game. While MiLB box scores obviously don't track missed double play opportunities, there are enough double plays to suggest that it's not a problem for him.

 

However, and I hate to say this, there have been several recent cases of scouts saying a Brewers prospect couldn't handle his position and the Brewers saying that he'd be fine. Braun was an obvious disaster at 3B, Fielder has been below average at best, and everyone knows how frustrating it's been to watch Weeks learn on the job. So far the scouts are up 3-0, which does not bode well for Lawrie or Gamel.

[battlekow]

I'm not even talking about whether Lawrie is going to end up sticking at second base. I'm just a little up in arms over the hyperbolic comment. The kid's been playing second base professionally for a month, so even if he was terrible, it wouldn't really be cause for comment yet, but he's clearly not "borderline laughable" out there, or someone who wasn't anonymous would have said something about it already.

[nate82]

Hopefully Lawrie's defense can keep up with his bat. I could see Lawrie up in AA around June or July and then spending either all of 2010 in AA or the majority of the year in AA. Mid 2010 is the earliest I could see Lawrie in AAA I don't believe his defense will be able to keep up with his bat though and that will hold him back in AA for a little bit. Lawrie should be ready by the time the Brewers would have to make a decision on keeping or trading Weeks though.

[paul253]

I'd like to see some of the A+ pitchers moving up. Anundson, Braddock, and Jones especially. I think Wooten and Mercedes should move up too. Hopefully Rogers will have progressed to the point where he can pitch more than 2 innings at a time to replace one of them. It seems like most of our best chances for decent pitching prospects are going to be coming out of this A+ squad. Jeffress remains a work in progress.

[WisconsinSportsRule]

At this point, is there any possibility Lawrie goes back to catcher if Salome and LuCroy can't get it done in a few years?

 

I'd think the Brewers wouldn't want to move him, but his defense sounds pretty bad. I know, he young.

[BrewCrew Fan]

Just out of curiosity, if I remember correctly, didn't Lawrie just take up catching shortly before the draft and the problem was that he was learning a new position? The Brewers didn't want to go through the time frame of waiting for him to learn the position of catcher so between him and the Brewers they decided that it would be best to move him to a position that could help move him up the ladder a little more quickly. Coming out of High School I would have assumed that he had played another position. Wonder what that was. If I remember reading somewhere the biggest knock on Lawrie was that he never put much into his fielding but was an exceptional hitter. I think that he'll learn the position, he seems to have a good arm and he's pretty fast so range should not be a problem. Best of luck to him.

 

On a side note.... I wonder if the decision to move Lawrie to second had anything to do with why the Brewers kept Cutter in the outfield. Rumor had it that they where going to take a look at him as a second baseman during winter ball and this obviously didn't happen and I'm wondering if it was because of the Lawrie decision.

[uwisfan]

I've been to 2 T-Rats games so far and didn't think his defense stuck out in a negative way at all. I guess I wasn't following closely enough, but I did recall in both games him making very impressive defensive plays. Nothing negative stuck out in either game. The last game, there was a line drive off the pitcher that I thought he had no chance at whatsoever. He zipped over to the ball with impressive speed and threw a bullet across his body to nail the guy at first. I actually thought his defense was mildly impressive.

[southpaw121505]

I could see Lawrie in AAA I don't believe his defense will be able to keep up with his bat though and that will hold him back in AA for a little bit.

I could be wrong here, but I don't think his glove should matter for advancing through the minors. I could care less if he's working on his defense in low A or AAA, I feel like it's more important that he's facing the appropriate pitching, the defense can be worked on anywhere. The only time I see defense matter for advancing purposes is when making the leap to the show.

 

 

Also, I don't know if this is the place for this and I'm sorry if it's not. But I'm curious if anyone more knowledgeable about our prospects than I am wants to take a stab at some projections. I'm mostly curious about Lawrie, Gamel, Cain, Escobar and Salome and how they project or compare to other players in terms of power(any of them 30 or 40 HR guys), speed, avg., etc. I didn't wanna make a new thread for this so hopefully this is ok.

[paul253]

Rob Wooten had another save tonight, which brings him up to 11. Just looking at his stats, he appears to be dominating A+ batters. I'd like to see him moved up sooner rather than later. He's a little bit older, so I'd love to see how he fairs against more advanced hitters. If he had success the rest of the year in Huntsville, he could start next year at AAA and maybe be ready for Milwaukee by 2011. I'd also like to see Roque Mercedes take over closing duties at Brevard County. And it looks like Mike Jones had another good start tonight. Thats really good to see.