On second thought

I’ve had a plane ride home and a nearly sleepless night to think about what I saw in Surprise over the weekend and, predictably,  I find myself second guessing my positional prospect rankings.   

I thought it might be a good time to point out a few things I learned this weekend that would have altered, in some cases radically, the prospect rankings had I known then what I know now.

I ranked Engel Beltre the system’s #1 overall prospect based in large part on the theory that, if he were in the upcoming draft (as he would be had he finished high school in the United States), he’s almost certainly be a top-5 pick.    And while I still believe that is true after having seen him (he’s a phenomenal athlete) that same theory would knock him out of the top spot.

Because there’s really not much doubt in my mind that if Wilmer Font were in the 2008 draft (as he would be had he grown up in the United States instead of Venezuela), he’d be one of two or three candidates to go #1 overall.   

Font, who turns 18 in late May,  is the most outlandishly gifted young pitching prospect I’ve ever seen.   Not only did he show the big, ungodly gas (98 mph), but his breaking ball and changeup are both far more advanced than I’d expected them to be.  Moreover, he’s a guy who seems to be playing the game on his own time. 

What I mean by that is not that he works slow, but that when he’s on the mound, you get the impression that he knows it’s his ballgame to do with as he pleases.   He’s the center attention.  He’s aware of it.  And he seems to like it that way.   Every element of a true ace resides in the Wilmer Font package, and those elements that aren’t yet fully developed aren’t terribly far away from being so.

It’s hard to imagine that he’ll need three more years to flesh everything out.   Really hard.

I think Michael Schlact is a much better prospect than anyone (including me) realized and I think that the Rangers know it.   

After a couple of years of sacrificing numbers to tune up the weaknesses in his game, I believe that Schlact is going to emerge as a complete pitcher with a nice array of pitches (sinker, 4-seamer, slider and change) he can throw for strikes in any count.   Combine that with his durability, temperment and intelligence, and you are looking at a Major League rotation horse. 

He’s not an overwhelming presence like Font or a flamethrower like Neftali Feliz.   He’s not going to be real flashy. I just see him becoming the kind of pitcher Texas has needed for so long, but nobody really ever talks about:  a reliable mid-rotation guy who will go out there and give you 200 solid innings year after year after year.

Sometimes, a young lefty has early success in the low levels by virtue of the fact that he’s pitching to a bunch of guys who haven’t seen many lefties in high school ball.   To some extent, I dismissed Derek Holland’s phenomenal numbers last year on that theory.

Now I’ve seen him and have a different, better informed, opinion.  Holland has good stuff and he seems like a tough kid with some moxie.    I thought he repeated his delivery extremely well and all three of his offerings (fastball, slider, change) looked the same coming out of his hand.  His fastball had excellent late life. 

Tommy Hunter is closer to the big leagues than I realized.  If he began the season in Frisco, I wouldn’t be surprised.

If I had to bet right now, I’d say that Neftali Feliz is a closer rather than a starter.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS:

First off, I want to underscore this point:  The talent level on the minor league fields  is so dramatically different than at any time during my years observing this system I can’t really describe it.  It used to be that you sort of scoured the camp to find someone who really stood out (Ian Kinsler, circa 2004, comes to mind), but now your head just spins as you try to take in all of the ridiculous tools on display.   

One of the things that I enjoy most about spring training on the minor league fields is watching how these kids act, what they do when they don’t think anyone is watching, how they appear to respond to instruction…things like that.  Now, these are just observations made over two days in a kid’s life, so they may or may not mean anything, but here are some thoughts along those lines:

I hate to say this about a young man, because it’s sort of a back-handed compliment, but I predict that Adam Fox, Micah Furtado and Matt Smith will have long careers in baseball,  as coaches, managers or executives.

Engel Beltre is an energetic, charismatic, somewhat cocky kid.   When you see a 17 year old kid like that, you worry that they think they already know everything and might be resistant to coaching and instruction.   Not so with Beltre.   He appeared to be a very hard worker, very receptive to instruction and completely committed to doing what is asked of him.

Kasey Kiker seems to be an extremely intense competitor.  I watched him throw the last half of a side on Friday morning and then participate in fielding drills on Saturday.  I was just struck by how much he seems to put into everything he does.   He comes across of one of those guys who will do anything to make it.

I just like Matt Lawson.   I’m not sure what he can become, but I’m not ruling anything out right now.

Jose Vallejo no longer looks like a little boy.   He’s another one of those guys who is really hard to take your eyes off of because of his energy, and his skill in the infield is really special too.    I’ll go ahead and admit that I’m not going to be terribly objective about him because I want him to make it so badly.

I’m very confident Thomas Diamond has the right mind set to come back better than ever and become the pitcher we’ve always hoped he’d become.

FINAL THOUGHT:

This isn’t farm related, but the last thing I saw before leaving Surprise was a Josh Hamilton BP.   Don’t believe all of the hype you read about Hamilton’s batting practice heroics.

They dramatically undersell the majesty of the thing.