by Myron Logan
Adam Foster and the guys at Project Prospect rank the top NL West prospects, and the Padres have eight prospects in the top 25. James Darnell and Jaff Decker rank third and fourth, and are joined in the top 25 by Kellen Kulbacki, Drew Cumberland, Simon Castro, Donovan Tate, Matt Antonelli, and Eric Sogard.
Speaking of prospects, John Sickels posted his top 20 Padres prospects at Minor League Ball. His top five consists of Tate, Castro, Darnell, Decker, and Wynn Pelzer. Talking about the system in general, Sickels likes what he sees:
I felt this system was underrated entering 2009, and things are really looking up here. They’ve got a good mixture of polished bats and upside arms, and adding additional athletic upside in the ’09 draft just makes things even better. Although they went with more athleticism at the top (Tate, Williams, Sampson) this year, they continued to draft polished college guys in the latter rounds, and I think this strategy will help them. It should also be noted that even the “skill” drafts before 2009 included good athletes like Darnell, Forsythe, Cumberland, Pelzer, and Zawadski. This was never a “tools don’t matter” organization, no matter what people said.
There is some good discussion in the comments too, largely surrounding Jaff Decker’s body type and his future potential.
It was released a few weeks ago, so you’ve probably seen it by now, but for the sake of completeness here is Baseball America’s Padres top 10.
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While the Padres did get a deal done with Kevin Corriea and most of their other arbitration-eligible players, they decided to non-tender relief pitchers Jackson Quezada and Mark Worrell. Worrell, you may remember, came over from St. Louis in the Khalil Greene trade. He posted some promising numbers in the minors, but did not pitch in the Pads organization due to injuries
If you have any links (or anything you’d like to talk about), feel free to add them in the comments.
Really can’t see the justification for Antonelli on that list. His ISO seems like it may be artificially inflated by a horrific batting average and good speed, which helps him collect XBH without hitting the ball all that hard. He may be the kind of hitter who has trouble drawing walks at the major league level once pitchers discover the holes in his swing and his passivity. He’s also the kind of player who could rebound in a huge way because of his athleticism. Unfortunately, right now he’s reminiscent of Jake Gautreu and he’s a feather in the cap of Keith Law, who warned us all not to read too much into his monster 2007.
Don’t know who I’d put above him without combing through all 5 orgs, but Zawadzki’s passed him among Padres.
Tom, Adam still likes Antonelli based on the fact that he’s battled through injuries over the last couple of years.
Glad you linked to it, Myron. I was semi in on the creation of this list and I really pushed for James Darnell to be higher, which he was.
Also, the Pads don’t have many “wow” prospects in their system, but the number of safe bats they have coming (and coming soon) is unreal.
P.S. I have 2007-09 college data for 13 conferences thus far. finished that up a couple weeks ago. Probably will be looking at the Padres 2009 college bats sometime soon, but I have a lot going on at the moment.
Antonelli was hurt more seriously last year, but he played 149 games in 2008. Nicked sometimes, but not seriously enough to explain a season-long disaster.
I wouldn’t call 08 a season-long disaster for Antonelli, just a four month long one.
In August 08, Antonelli posted an OPS of .864. It was the only month that his BABIP wasn’t under .270. He wasn’t hitting the ball well at the beginning of the year, but turned it on in July, though the balls didn’t start to fall for a month. And I’m discounting his time in the majors.
Based on the way he struggled to start 2009, it seems safer to view August 2008 as a fluke. I’m sure he felt better with those numbers, and his line drive rate was up, but when you spend 80% of the season hovering around the Mendoza line with almost no power, does a good month — and that’s what it was, good not great — mean all that much?
Antonelli could end up being the best major leaguer of anyone on that list, but his value has nosedived. Being hurt this year explains some, maybe a lot, of his struggles, but being hurt shouldn’t act as a preservative. Being injured is never a good sign.
I agree with Tom in that I was very surprised to see Antonelli ranked as one of the top 25 prospects in the NL West. Sure he has had injuries, but he has not produced in 2 years.
That said, I am quite excited about the state of the Padres minor league system. As Mike mentioned, it seems to be ridiculously deep. Hopefully one or two of the guys who currently look like average major leaguers turn out to be a bit more than that. But if all the Padres are able to do is churn out a bunch of average major leaguers, I won’t complain too much. That’s a lot of cheap, playable talent.
The padres system seems okay. I don’t know who you can really get excited about. Last years draft looks promising but lets see how Williams, Tate, and Sampson perform in professional baseball. If you aren’t going to be involved in free agency then you need to develop impact players like the Brewers have done. Guys like Leblanc, Venable, and Hundley aren’t going to put you over the top. Hopefully the Padres can develop some impact players with Hoyer and Mcleod in charge.
Good discussion, guys.
Mike/#2, look forward to the college data!
Kevin-I am not excited about guys like LeBlanc, Venable, and Hundley. Rather, players like Latos, Decker, Darnell, Castro, Pelzer, Forsyth, etc seem to be somewhat promising prospects.
Although several of our top prospects look like average or role players, there are a few potential impact guys too.
My list of Excitables is only 3 players long: Darnell and Decker on the offensive side (at his age, Kulbacki has to do something at AA before he gets this grade), Castro as a pitcher. I left off anyone from the 2009 draft because we don’t know enough about them yet, but both Tate and Williams have more potential than any other position prospect. There are other arms, like Portillo, who can certainly make the cut once they acclimate to pro ball, but at this point Portillo’s not all that different from a lot of young Latin American arms in a lot of farm systems.
Anybody who is more likely to end up as a reliever or back-end starter doesn’t make that cut (Pelzer, Luebke), as do likely league-average bats at premium positions (Forsythe). Lots could change as they move up, although the law of averages says that most of it will be negative. If Forsythe moves to 2b or C, his bat is a lot more valuable. Cliff Lee didn’t have sterling minor league numbers or outrageous stuff, but expecting Luebke to repeat his success or even come close isn’t smart. Still, it could happen.