Cheech is still a pretty long way from losing rookie eligibility. Was only on the active roster 22 days (8 in June, the rest in August) before September callups. And I guess a decent bet to return to AAA to start next season.

The pen arms, I honestly have no idea. I haven't been watching minor league games lately, so no special insight. I think I may have seen Bashlor once last year, but don't really even remeber, though I do remember being high on Bashlor for some reason. Picking minor league pen arms based on stats is kind of a fools errand, but I mostly did that here anyway. Callahan is younger than some of the others and had his small sample dominant stretch in AA.

And I decided to give an edit and bump Thompson up a bit, who I did see and like last year. He's a solid all around guy, with probably more potential in the bat than he has shown yet at upper levels. Enough tools to rank alonside Nido, anyway, as far as MLB potential.

Pretty safe bet that there will be a new #1 after the first week in June.

I forgot Cheech he's maybe #5 or 6 on my list. I'd like to squeeze Evans in the top 10 too, maybe bumping a relief pitcher & Molina.

I'm not as high on Oswalt as most, he might be in the 12-13 range among AA/AAA. I wouldn't mind being wrong though.

I actually think this is a better group than generally being given credit for. It's the group below this: A+, A, A- that looks weak at the moment.

A- to A+ has Gimenez, Peterson (my 1/2), Dunn is still in the top 5-6 probably. Lindsay's interesting. Szapucki & Humphreys are fun.

I think they might be less deep than AA/AAA but stronger at the top.

Injuries and sliding performance have decimated this group.

90-95 fastball, change up. Good command, developing curve, Throws downhill, gets ground balls performed well in AA. Sort of reminds me of deGroms scouting report when he was in AA.

This guy ended up a truly awful pick. They reached for him and he flat out stinks

https://www.baseball-reference.com/regi ... urch000and

Is there a single regular in your list? Thats why its being mocked.

The best guy in there is a non-entity in the NL unless we get the DH. The probable only chance at an "impact" guy at his position is the reliever (Bashlor).

Agree that the group below stinks for the most part too. But I just think its a dead system throughout. And I think the consensus top 3 prospects in the system all reside below AA so hard to claim the lower levels are the bigger problem.

That would be great but thats not what Oswalt throws, though. He's 88-91, based on the more honest scouting reports, occassionally touching higher. Think Dillon Gee with a bad body, not Jacob DeGrom.


...plus DeGrom was getting plus velocity reports basically from the time he popped back up in Savannah after TJS.

Yeah Toby Hyde was loving DeGrom way back when. Thought he was likely a late inning reliever but praised the pure stuff.

Yeah, it speaks volumes about the system if our higher levels are better than our lower levels. I don't think it's really arguable that it's pretty bad.