Baseball America Midseason Top 10

[Greenleaf1]

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2017-milwaukee-brewers-midseason-top-10-prospects/#AdXotB7kbPvDRGKz.97

 

1. Lewis Brinson, OF

2. Brandon Woodruff, RHP

3. Josh Hader, LHP

4. Luis Ortiz, RHP

5. Corbin Burnes, RHP

6. Isan Diaz, 2B

7. Keston Hiura, 2B

8. Corey Ray, OF

9. Mauricio Dubon, SS

10. Lucas Erceg, 3B

 

Looks about right to me.

[RWeeksFan23]

Shouldn't Burnes be higher? Low 1 ERA in AA is impressive, he should be above everyone besides MAYBE Brinson.

[paul253]

Very deep system. A top ten with no Bickford, Phillips or Clark. (Whatever happened to Bickford anyway? I know he was suspended 50 games but that has been up for awhile now and still no Bickford). It's amazing how far this system has come in 2-3 years. It wasn't all that long ago that Coulter and Taylor were our top two prospects.

[Mass Haas]

Whatever happened to Bickford anyway? I know he was suspended 50 games but that has been up for awhile now and still no Bickford).

 

From May 4th --

 

Brewers prospect Bickford has hand surgery

By Adam McCalvy / MLB.com

[gregmag]

I really don't get the top-10 love for Erceg. He's 22 in high-A, which is reasonable but not young, and he has a .645 OPS. I'm sure there are mitigating factors, and it's way too early to make definitive judgments, but I just don't think he's shown enough to justify that ranking. His teammate Trent Clark is 20 and a secondary offense machine; his teammate Monte Harrison is 21, has a similar draft pedigree, and has put together an excellent year. Jacob Nottingham is 22, has reportedly made defensive strides at a tougher position, is outhitting Erceg, and has a longer track record. Then there's Brett Phillips . . . I'd take any of those guys over Erceg right now.

 

Dubon's the other guy I sort of question. I like his youth, but his power spike last year looks like, well, a power spike. I guess 9 is reasonable if he can stick at ss and if scouts see room for his offense to grow.

 

Oh, and I don't get Ortiz at 4. Since getting here he has shown nothing, which isn't the be-all and end-all, but he also screams "fragile," which is not what you want a pitcher to scream. I'd rather have Burnes or F. Peralta.

[Jenkins5]

Finally I am not the only one who is pretty down on Ortiz! I get he is young but has not flashed at all! Peralta has come out at a similar age & been electric! Burns should be in front of Ortiz without a doubt. Hader, Woodruff, Burns, & Peralta are my top 4 pitchers. Ortiz would be next in line. He has looked extremely overrated & none of his numbers really stand out much to me.

 

Phillips smoked ball all season & is year removed from being a top 30 milb prospect.... now he isn't even top 10? That is questionable to me. I get at start of season due to how bad he was last year but he turned it around!

 

Trent Clark, Freddy Peralta, Maverick Phillips, Jacob Nottingham are all more deserving than Erceg. Heck even Gatewood & Harrison. Both are slightly younger & have far out produced him. He's sitting with a sad 77 wRC+

 

wRC+ BB% ISO Spd OPS Age

Harrison...133, 4%....., .242, 7.4, .833 21

Gatewood 126, 10%..., .178, 4.5, .809 21

Clark....... 124, 19%..., .154, 7.1, .777 20

Diaz........ 103, 12.5%, .160, 3.7, .721 21 (just turned)

Ray........... 88., 10%.., .125, 6.1, .688 22

Erceg.........77..., 5%.., .135, 2.7, .645 22

 

Erceg is allergic to walking. Harrison is at same 5% however his career marks are usually higher and closer to 10%.

 

Ray will be on them no matter what due to draft position & tools but hard to argue either as of have higher ceilings or are better than the younger trio of Harrison, Gatewood, & Clark.

[Jenkins5]

Lets look at the AA Ortiz argument as well with our Top 5 pitchers

 

Name......Age..K/9 ...K% .BB% .BAA . xFIP

Woodruff. 23., 9.82, 27%, 6.5%,.208, 2.79

Hader...... 22 11.53, 33%, 8.5%,.189, 2.67

Burns...... 22., 9.13, 27%.., 3%, .178, 2.30

Peralta.... 21, 14.05, 37%.., 9%, .191, 2.28

Ortiz....... 21.., 7.85, 21%, 11%, .221, 4.19

 

Peralta & Hader (only 2016 AA stats) are pretty similar

Burns & Woody are pretty similar

 

 

Talent is there with Ortiz & he has stuff but so do those are guys. Age is only an excuse for so long. Peralta is same age even younger. Moreover, the other 4 aren't concerns with conditioning or at least yet. Ortiz since high school has battled with his weight jumping way up.

 

In my books he is #5 with Diplan, Bickford, Ponce, Mederois, Lopez behind. Yamamoto making case to join that tier while Lopez & Mederois are battling to drop out of it. (Mederois is electric when he pitches 2nd however.... just awful starting games)

[LouisEly]

I have Phillips (#7), Taylor Williams (#9), and then a battle between T. Clark and F. Peralta for #10/#11, and Ray (#16), Erceg (#15), and Dubon (#14) out of my top 10. At #12 I have Ponce and #13 I have Bickford.

 

Cordell, Nottingham, Harrison, and Diplan round out the top 20.

[brewcrewdue80]

What if Ortiz is working on a 3rd pitch in starts or 4th vs just sticking with best two? I'm amazed Dubon made the top 10. He must be Gold Glove potential or else he's very much overrated. Out of the top 10 that's about the only one I'd say didn't belong. But if you grade on a 100scale. Erceg would be a 78, Harrison 77, Ponce 76, Phillips 76, Peralta 76, Gatewood 74, Dubon 72. I could probably put someone ahead of him but I'll be happy with that 15.

[Jenkins5]

What if Ortiz is working on a 3rd pitch in starts or 4th vs just sticking with best two? I'm amazed Dubon made the top 10. He must be Gold Glove potential or else he's very much overrated. Out of the top 10 that's about the only one I'd say didn't belong. But if you grade on a 100scale. Erceg would be a 78, Harrison 77, Ponce 76, Phillips 76, Peralta 76, Gatewood 74, Dubon 72. I could probably put someone ahead of him but I'll be happy with that 15.

 

That very well could be, good call on that. It is just amazing how much his command has fallen off since coming over to the Brewers. Command was one of his strongest qualities. I'm sure he will figure it all out and get back on track.

 

The more I look at the numbers, the more Peralta looks like a right handed Hader. He has big command issues like Hader but up until AAA and major leagues, it is easy to be effectively wild and get away with just being nasty. For his career he has sat at above 10 k/9 striking out around 30% of his batters. At same time been extremely difficult to hit. Hitters struggle to hit .200 vs him. Bad news is like Hader, if he can not harness his command more, he could end up a back end of the bullpen guy. Woodruff, Burns, and Ortiz (if he gets command back) look like the safest bets to being SP's at the MLB level. Hader and Peralta could either BE top of rotation electric guys or be late inning bullpen arms. You hope for the first option, but can live with the 2nd. I have hard time not seeing Peralta in top 10. He one of those guys I'd have hardest time trading away.

 

Dubon is tough. He actually compares well to Arcia except Arcia has almost always sat around the .10-.14 iso range. Both great fielders, contact hitters who don't walk or k much. Both have good speed that they use effectively. wOBA is similar but skewed towards Dubon and he has always hit a little more than Arcia. However, the power is the biggest difference. Outside of the surge last season Dubon is a career .07 hitter. That drops his slugging and OPS much lower than Arcia. Dubon must learn to tap back into that power. Colorado is helping him a bit but he needs to get up to at least the .10 - ,15 range consistently to be the prospect that is rated so high. My guess is that most of these rankings of him are due to them thinking he will do so. If not, he will not OPS over .700 in his career. He can hit .300 all he wants but he doesn't walk enough or slug enough to break that mark

[82brewcrew82]

Folks are high on Ortiz because he is capable of doing things like he did last night.

[Greenleaf1]

 

The more I look at the numbers, the more Peralta looks like a right handed Hader.

 

I know this isn't what you meant, but I decided to look up Peralta's lefty/righty splits this year just out of curiosity after you mentioned Hader.

 

Surprisingly, Peralta is killing lefites this year. His changeup must've improved a lot from the 50 grade it got from MLB.com preseason.

 

vs RHB .246/.350/.411

vs LHB .109/.237/.176

 

He's definitely benefiting from a really low BAbip against lefties, but wow a .414 OPS against.

 

Also, Peralta's BB/9 is 3.3 at AA, just below his career mark of 3.4, so not sure why he was walking more in Carolina (5.0) but he seems to have settled down from that. He had a 4.9 BB/9 at A+ last year and a 3.6 at A, so that A+ level just seems like it was hard on him.

 

He's also increased his already high K rate this year from his career level, so he seems like he has made some significant improvements to his game this year. Wouldn't surprise me if he could crack the top 10 by the end of the year if he keeps it up at AA.

[igor67]

Count me in on not quite understanding Erceg nudging out many of those other players. Maybe Gatewood if you nudge him down for moving to first base, but between the youth and the better tools I'd figure he'd still have the edge. Harrison for sure now that he is doing it at A+. I'm not going to despair over Erceg's down season, but it is a very competitive list.

[adambr2]

 

The more I look at the numbers, the more Peralta looks like a right handed Hader.

 

I know this isn't what you meant, but I decided to look up Peralta's lefty/righty splits this year just out of curiosity after you mentioned Hader.

 

Surprisingly, Peralta is killing lefites this year. His changeup must've improved a lot from the 50 grade it got from MLB.com preseason.

 

vs RHB .246/.350/.411

vs LHB .109/.237/.176

 

He's definitely benefiting from a really low BAbip against lefties, but wow a .414 OPS against.

 

Also, Peralta's BB/9 is 3.3 at AA, just below his career mark of 3.4, so not sure why he was walking more in Carolina (5.0) but he seems to have settled down from that. He had a 4.9 BB/9 at A+ last year and a 3.6 at A, so that A+ level just seems like it was hard on him.

 

He's also increased his already high K rate this year from his career level, so he seems like he has made some significant improvements to his game this year. Wouldn't surprise me if he could crack the top 10 by the end of the year if he keeps it up at AA.

 

Freddy Peralta is really being overlooked this year, probably because of Burnes. Sub 3 ERA over High A and AA and 13K/9. Very impressive.

[Jenkins5]

With Peralta & Herrera on the rise..... starting to look like another outstanding trade by Stearns!

[brewmann04]

DS needs to keep hold of those Pitchers

[MrTPlush]

With Peralta & Herrera on the rise..... starting to look like another outstanding trade by Stearns!

 

I'd give the scouting department all the credit on that one. They weren't very highly rated prospects at the time so kudos to the scouts for finding a gem in Freddy Peralta. Any GM can trade for top prospects easily. To find legit guys outside a teams Top 30 takes some help from the guys at the bottom.

[WV Brew]

To play the devil's advocate, Lind is producing 0.7 WAR for the Nationals this year for not much above the league minimum salary. So far the Brewers have zero WAR out of the guys they got for him.

[ewitkows]

Not sure where you going with that. All 3 players we got for Lind were lotto tickets who weren't suppose to be in MLB till 2019 at the earliest. Check back in 2022 and compare WAR

[MrTPlush]

To play the devil's advocate, Lind is producing 0.7 WAR for the Nationals this year for not much above the league minimum salary. So far the Brewers have zero WAR out of the guys they got for him.

 

Actually the three guys we got are already worth more than Adam Lind was. Lind had a -0.3 WAR for the Mariners and our guys have been worth 0.0 WAR without throwing a pitch. Lind was a FA and signed with the Nationals.

[82brewcrew82]

To be fair, Peralta is really just a two pitch pitcher and he is walking 5/9 IP. There is a lot to like be he is profiling as a reliever at this point.

[Greenleaf1]

To be fair, Peralta is really just a two pitch pitcher and he is walking 5/9 IP. There is a lot to like be he is profiling as a reliever at this point.

 

Reports I've read say fastball/slider/changeup. Not saying he won't end up a reliever, but I doubt he's just throwing fastball/changeup to righties.

[KeithStone53151]

To be fair, Peralta is really just a two pitch pitcher and he is walking 5/9 IP. There is a lot to like be he is profiling as a reliever at this point.

 

Reports I've read say fastball/slider/changeup. Not saying he won't end up a reliever, but I doubt he's just throwing fastball/changeup to righties.

 

I've read the same 3 pitches. No way is he having that kind of success against lefties without an improved changeup or just throwing FB/slider. That said, I tend to see him as a reliever as well. Shorter guys tend not to make it in the rotation for one reason or another, especially RH.

[And That]

When I've seen him, his slider has been kind of nondescript.

[FVBrewerFan]

FB/Slider is plenty if FB can be located and slider is nasty enough. Agreed it's tough, and not ideal, but plenty of quality SP use that combo. In my perfect world, every pitcher would have an effective change or curve to go along with the heat.