Quote:
Originally Posted by KevB
Anyone else concerned with the performance of our minor league prospects? I realize numbers alone don't define development in the minors, but to be perfectly frank, it appears to be a shit show down on the farm. Of duncan's top 15 prospects (excluding Ace), maybe two are meeting expectations. Not one is exceeding expectations, while several are completely in the tank.
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Starling is the main one to be concerned about. He's been absolutely dreadful and likely is not on a top 15 list next year unless he makes a dramatic reversal.
Ventura has performed quite well. Zimmer is a week behind the plan that has been in place for him from the start of the season. If he keeps getting pushed, I think you start worrying.
RA Mondesi must have slumped over the last week to 10 days, because 2 weeks ago he was putting up insane numbers at age 18 in a terrible hitting environment at High A. Scouting reports on him have been glowing, so I don't think he's disappointing at all. He's faster and BETTER at SS than expected. Good combo. He's a bad stretch away from vastly exceeding expectations.
Miguel Almonte has also received glowing in person reports from people outside the organization who think he's more advanced at that age than Yordano Ventura was. He doesn't have the velocity but has a better changeup and breaking pitch at that age. It's kind of hard to believe his ERA is as high as it is... his K/BB rate is great (3:1), he's not giving up a ton of hits (31 in 38 innings), and his HR rate isn't sky high. Might just be a case of some bad luck on balls in play. I'm still very excited about him.
Dozier's in-person reports have been great. I think he's struggling due to Wilmington/Carolina league. Shows good plate discipline at least, which is something this organization tends to lack.
Christian Binford is probably having the best season of any Royals minor leaguer. He has 48k in 40 IP versus just 7 BB, which is pretty great. His stuff isn't overwhelming, but he's tall and has three good pitches, and he misses bats. Kind of similar to Chris Tillman in Baltimore (6-5/6-5, 90-91, extreme downhill plane on pitches, big-breaking slider, changeup). He's exceeding expectations by quite a bit.
Cheslor Cuthbert and Bonifacio are interesting at AA. Boni has scuffled a bit (OPS around .700). He's young for that league, but I'd prefer to see him hitting better.
Cuthbert has kind of made himself interesting again because he has started hitting with some pop and still is showing excellent plate discipline (5 HR, OBP something like .090 points higher than his AVG).
Orlando Calixte has only played in 4 games at AA, but he has 2 HR so far. That's encouraging (would be nice if he continues to hit well, because his glove is good enough to stick at SS. 1) Makes him great trade bait as Mondesi continues to push him; 2) He and Mondesi could be a very good-fielding and cheap and plus offensive MI for a long time)
Elier Hernandez and Samir Duenez haven't done much with the bat yet, but they're so much younger than the average age for their levels (an 18 year old playing against 21-22 year olds and a 19 year old playing against 22-23), it's hard to know much without scouting reports (which I've not seen nor heard).
Adam has been disappointing. Stuff has slid back and I don't think he moves quickly.
Manaea's raw numbers are bad, but he's on a pretty strict pitch count (limited to 75, I believe) and that has hurt him in a few very short, very bad outings. remember, this is a guy who sat out all of the second half of last season due to a hip surgery. Scouting reports have been highly positive, and he has missed a ton of bats (32 K in 22 1/3 IP, 4:1 K:BB) with good control.
Eibner has also fallen off after a torrid start... he's mired in a terrible slump. If he doesn't pull out of it, we're probably talking about him as a reliever next season.