Prospect Previews: RH Starters 1-5
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This group is likely the best group of five right-handed pitching prospects in
any one system in baseball.
It's so good, in fact, that the one who dials up triple-digit numbers on
radar guns isn't even number one. It's so deep that a 19 year old who went
6-2 with a 1.68 ERA after the Midwest League All-Star game ranked at the
bottom of the list.
Why not kill some time this afternoon by making the jump and reading all
about five guys -- all age 20 or under -- who carry the hopes of an
organization and it's fans on their right arms?
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5) Blake Beavan -- 6'7", 210 lbs. (1th round, 2007) -- DOB: 1/17/1989
If you put out of your mind what you might have read or heard about Blake
Beavan since he was drafted in the first round of the 2007 draft and just
look at what the kid actually did in his first year as a professional --
pitching in a full-season league against guys, on average, three years older
than him -- you have to be thoroughly impressed.
But Beavan -- due in no small part to his own boasting -- brought with him
expectations of things that, it turns out, he did not possess. Beavan did not
bring 95 mph heat or wield what he once called "the best slider I''ve ever
seen." His velocity was way off and his strikeout numbers (5.4 K/9) were
notably pedestrian.
And yet, Beavan threw strikes (3.65 K/BB), proved to be very difficult to hit
(.237 opponents' average) won games, and improved significantly as the year
went along, suggesting that he did a better job of adjusting to older, more
mature hitters than they did to him.
In July and August, when you might have expected Beavan to start wearing
down, he picked up the pace. Before the Midwest League All Star game, Beavan
went 4-4 with a 3.47 ERA. Good stuff. After the break? The Irving native went
6-2 with a 1.68 ERA. Dominant stuff. In August Beavan bumped his K/9 up to
7.8. As the season progressed, Beavan began to regain some velocity on his
fastball, he learned that he had to be more consistent in his delivery to
command his slider and he forced himself to trust his changeup.
Ultimately, I was very impressed with Beavan''s season all the way around.
Beavan expected to blow people away. He didn't. And yet he figured out a way
to keep hitters off the bases and win games. The consistent improvement
throughout the season further supports the notion that Beavan learned a lot
this year.
There are a couple of X-factors with young pitchers that I believe tend to be
overlooked far too often, especially by folks who try to evaluate prospects
by the numbers alone. One of which is the ability to learn and adjust and the
other is competitiveness. Beavan proved he had both of those things going for
him in his first season as a pro and that, combined with his natural talent
as well as the excellent instructors in the Rangers system, bode well for his
future.
2009 Projection: Beavan will face the daunting challenge of pitching in the
Cal League where I would expect him to struggle, at least initially. How he
responds as the season moves along will be the key. The Rangers will be
looking to see his mid-90's velocity return before August and for him to take
a step forward with his nascent change.
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4) Wilfredo Boscan -- 6'2", 175 lbs. (Int'l F.A., 2006) -- DOB: 10/26/89
In the Northwest League, where the average age is more than 22 and less than
10% of the players are under 20, the Spokane rotation featured four teenagers
and three of them ranked among the league''s six best prospects according to
Baseball America. As good as his stats were -- and they were incredible --
Boscan was no better than the third of those three.
The reports are all the same: Boscan features three plus pitches right now
and he can locate them at will. He is a fearless strike thrower and it''s
extremely difficult for batters to lift anything he throws.
In 2007, the Venezuelan scorched the Dominican Summer League, posting a 1.75
ERA and fanning 61 while walking just 13 in 56.2 innings of work. Along with
all of that, Boscan put up another stat one rarely sees in a pitcher who
averages better than 10 K's per 9 IP: his 4.00 grounder-to-fly ratio.
He earned an assignment to fall instructionals last year and resurfaced in
Spokane where he went 9-1 in 15 appearances, including a dozen starts. His
70-11 K/BB (6.36) -- even better than his DSL ratio the year before -- was
the second best in the league, behind a polished pitcher three years his
senior. He once again averaged better than a strikeout per inning and
surrendered just four homers and thirteen doubles in 69.1 innings. He had a
positive G/F ratio of 1.50.
Looking at Boscan's peripheral numbers, you find an extremely rare
combination: a high strikeout ratio, extremely low walk ratio, very homer
averse, and lots of ground balls. If you filter through MLB starters, you
can''t find a pitcher with a profile similar to Boscan''s. The most similar
in view of all of those categories is Roy Halladay.
To give you an idea of how exceptional Boscan's peripheral numbers are,
realize that no major league starter with at least 140 innings pitched in
2008 had a K/BB ratio above 6.00. Boscan''s was 6.36. Only six big leaguers
with at least 140 innings in 2008 posted a K/9 north of 9.00, as Boscan did
in the NLW, and among them the best K/BB was Tim Lincecum''s 3.26.
The Rangers see Boscan adding more juice to his lively 90-92 mph fastball as
he fills out. He commands his power curve, which he throws at a couple of
different speeds, well enough to throw it for strikes in any count. Likewise,
his changeup is a refined offering which he commands with confidence and
which was good enough to keep NWL lefties off balance all summer as he held
them to a punchless .237 / .235 / .290 line.
2009 Projection: Boscan will undoubtedly earn an April assignment to Class-A
Hickory and could move up to Advanced-A before the end of the year. Boscan's
biggest developmental hurdle is going to be physical -- will he fill out and
mature physically and can he stand up to the rigors of a full season?
Otherwise, there''s no telling how fast he could come because his stuff is so
refined and his mental maturity is clearly beyond his years.
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3) Neil Ramirez -- 6'3", 190 lbs. (Supp. 1st Rd., 2007) -- DOB: 5/25/1989
One of the things I learned from visiting with Rangers minor league pitching
coordinator Rick Adair over the past couple of years is that the curveball is
an endangered species.
"We'll almost never take a curve away from a player and if we think he has a
chance to develop a plus curve, we'll give him every opportunity to do so.
You see a lot of guys who go fastball, slider, but even in the big leagues,
there aren't a lot of quality curve ball guys anymore. Plus, the change in
velocity between a quality fastball and a curve is much greater than with a
slider, so it helps make the fastball more effective; makes both pitches more
effective, actually."
Clearly, the Rangers have made a concerted effort in the past couple of years
to collect youngsters with the ability to spin plus curve balls (not sliders)
and Ramirez possesses the best of them all.
In the summer of 2006 when Baseball America released a preliminary look at
the 2007 draft class, they ranked Ramirez as the #7 overall high school
prospect after his junior year at Kempsville (Virginia) High where he went
4-3 in 42 innings with 67 strikeouts, 15 walks and a 1.05 ERA.
Ramirez then more than held his own against collegiate competition at the age
of 17 in the Cal Ripken (wood bat) Senior League where he posted a 3.38 ERA
and was regarded as the circuit's top prospect. Inconsistency in his senior
season caused him to fall into the supplemental round where the Rangers
gleefully scooped him up with the 44th pick in the draft.
Ramirez might possess the best pure stuff in the system, but he''s a long way
from harnessing it to achieve his maximum potential. His fastball which sits
at 92 and touches 95 has explosive armside run. His yakker is a 12-6 knee
buckler. Those two offerings kept older, more experienced Northwest League
opponents to a .166 batting average as they fanned 52 times in Ramirez''s 44
innings of work.
Though his change is considered a work in progress, he held lefties to a .134
batting average and a .209 slugging percentage as they tried in vain to get
solid wood on his fastball that ran away from them.
But Ramirez also walked 29. In his first outing of the year, he went three
innings and allowed just one hit. But he also walked four and committed four
balks.
Last year, I suggested that Ramirez -- who did not pitch in a pro game after
being drafted in June because he didn't sign until the August 15 deadline --
was the sort of pitcher who would fly under the radar for a year or two, but
if all goes well in his development, he could leap to the front of the class
in a two or three years because of the quality of his stuff and I stand by
that position.
2009 Projection: Ramirez's development suffered a minor setback when he
missed out on fall instructionals after fracturing his arm in a non-baseball
related incident. I expect that he will join Pimentel, Boscan and Martin
Perez in the Class-A Hickory rotation in April and will probably join Blake
Beavan in Bakersfield before the end of the year if he gains better command
of his plus stuff.
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2) Neftali Feliz -- 6'3", 195 lbs. (Int'l F.A., 2004) -- D.O.B. 5/02/1988
One hundred and two miles per hour.
I was at Frisco for Neftali Feliz's Texas League debut this summer and I saw
him light up the radar in triple digits not once but twice. It was not the
first time I'd seen triple-digits on the scouts' radar guns at Dr. Pepper
Ballpark.
A Rockies prospect named Juan Morillo dialed up a series of triple-digit
heaters and a handful of 90 mph sliders one night a couple of years ago. He
routinely hits 99 mph with his fastball, occasionally punches up
triple-digits.
And he's really not very good.
So it's certainly exciting that Neftali Feliz can light up radar guns like he
does, but it hardly guarantees anything. There have been a fair number of
pitchers come through the Texas League in the past few years who could dial
up 97-98 mph fastballs with some regularity, but what sets Feliz apart from
all of them is that: (a) his heater has a lot more movement than Morillo's
did; and (b) he doesn't elevate the ball when he cranks up the heat like
just about everyone else does.
I'm not terribly confident that Feliz is going to develop much of a breaking
ball, though there is hope. He sometimes drops his arm about four inches
throws it which not only signals that it's coming, but causes it to lack
bite. At other times when he stays on top of it, it has the makings of a
second plus pitch. His change is a little better and has natural movement,
but he's still pretty sloppy with it and it's not too tough to see that it's
coming before he releases the ball as often as not. He has no idea how to
hold runners and struggles with his mechanics when pitching from the stretch.
A year ago, I wrote the following about Feliz: "[He] can probably get away
with dealing almost nothing but cheese and still put up 'sexy' numbers until
he hits Triple-A, but he won't be doing himself any favors if he decides to
go that way. The MWL shouldn't be any kind of a challenge for him and I
expect him to make it to Bakersfield by July."
And that's pretty much what happened, except they skipped Bakersfield and
sent him straight to Frisco. Though Feliz did put some effort into refining
his secondary pitches near the end of his time in Clinton, the guy who showed
up in Frisco was still much more of a thrower than a pitcher and with the
exception of his velocity, needed a lot of work in nearly every aspect of the
craft of pitching.
Ultimately, I think that Feliz is going to be a closer in the big leagues and
he could be one of the best in the business with nothing more than his big
cheese though I am certainly not dismissing the possibility that it all comes
together for him and he becomes a truly dominant starter. He certainly has
the naturaly ability for that to happen.
2009 Projection: I honestly have no idea. I would think that he'll return
to Frisco to begin the season and I hope to see a pitcher with a much better
grasp of the nuances of pitching as well as a consistent arm angle with his
secondary pitches. If so, the sky is the limit. His talent is just so off
the charts. It would not surprise me to find him pitching out of the
Rangers bullpen at some point next year.
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1) Michael Main -- 6'1", 175 lbs. (1st Round, 2007) -- DOB: 12/14/1988
I ranked Main as the top pitcher in the system last year (I also ranked him
among the top-5 outfielders in the system) and I'm even more bullish on him
now than I was then after learning more about him and seeing what he did in
2008.
Of all the young, high-upside, power arms the Rangers have accumulated in the
past two years -- Martin Perez, Blake Beavan, Fabio Castillo, Neftali Feliz,
Wilmer Font, Tim Murphy, Joe Wieland, Carlos Pimentel, Geuris Grullon,
Wilfredo Boscan, Neil Ramirez, Kasey Kiker -- none has the combination of
pure talent, advanced approach, complete repertoire, plus makeup and athletic
ability that Michael Main brings to the table.
Font and Feliz might throw a bit harder, but they lack secondary stuff.
Neil Ramirez might have a more breathtaking curve, but he's not as refined
and doesn't have Main's fastball velocity.
The top power arms in what would be the 2007 draft assembled at a showcase in
Arkansas during the summer of 2006 and scouts had a chance to see them all
lined up, one after another -- Main, Beavan, Rick Porcello, Matt Harvey, etc.
-- "but," according to Baseball America's Alan Matthews, "none was as
impressive as Main. During one sequence he delivered fastballs at 97 mph, 97,
96, 96, 94, 96, 94 and 95. When he showed some feel for his 79 mph changeup
and 74-77 mph breaking ball, there was little question who had claimed the
title as the top rising senior pitching prospect."
This sort of thing follows Main around wherever he goes. People who observe
him -- including those paid to do so -- can't help themselves from heaping on
the praise. Last month, Rangers minor league pitching coordinator Rick
Adair told me in a Q&A session that "mentally he's easily the most polished
guy out of high school I've ever been around. The only comparison I can
think of is [Adam] Wainwright when I had him, and you know where Wainwright
is."
Main signed quickly after being drafted in 2007 and reported to Arizona
where, in 12.2 innings, he fanned 16, held the opposition to a .196 batting
average and surrendered two runs (1.42 ERA) before he was sent packing to the
Northwest League where he pitched just 15.1 innings for Spokane -- not enough
action to qualify for Baseball America's list of the top-20 prospects in the
league -- but if he had qualified, BA's Matthews says that he would have been
the league's #1 prospect, doling out this assessment:
"He's got a quick, clean arm action, and began to make some adjustments in
his approach to pitching. He has a power breaking ball with tight spin and
more than just feel for his changeup. He's been up to 97 mph in the past, and
was checking in with 93s and 94s in the NWL. One scout compared him to Mike
Mussina with a slightly firmer fastball, and don't forget that Mussina could
bring it in his prime, too."
Main's 2008 campaign was delayed by a couple of months as he recovered from a
stress fracture in his ribs, but when he arrived in Clinton after a couple of
outings in the Arizona League, he quickly established himself as one of the
elite pitchers on that circuit, posting a 2.58 ERA in ten starts with a K/9
of 9.93 and a K/BB of 3.85. He also completely manhandled lefties, holding
them to a .206 / .308 / .324 line.
As good as his abbreviated season was, however, Main's stock jumped up a tick
or two after the season ended and he reported for work at fall
instructionals. After a little work on the side with Adair, Main began
throwing "an extremely high percentage of major league quality pitches."
The impression I got from Adair was that Main is not terribly far away from
being physically and mentally ready to pitch in Arlington.
2009 Projection: It seems clear that the Rangers believe that Main is
clearly the best pitching prospect to come into their system in the past
decade with the possible exception of Martin Perez. Main will undoubtedly
start off in Bakersfield, but he'll likely move up to Frisco before the end
of June. At this point, it seems that there is a solid chance that he'll
compete for a spot in the Rangers rotation at some point in 2010.
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