This article from Project Prospect is almost a month old, but it ranks pitchers in the minor leagues by a metric they call a “Dominance Factor”. Not surprisingly Tim Alderson and Madison Bumgarner are high on their respective lists (I imagine Bumgarner would be first now after his hot August) and Clayton Tanner makes an appearance. Former Giants prospect Shairon Martis is also doing well.
It’s time for the end of the season awards and two Giants pitchers nabbed themselves some hardware. Kevin Pucetas was named the California League’s Pitcher of the Year and Madison Bumgarner was named the Sally League’s Most Outstanding pitcher. Matt Downs and Tim Alderson also made the Cal League All-Star team.
According the BallparkDigest (the article is a couple of days old so you may have to scroll down) the Defenders may be moving to Bowie next year. This would mean the Defenders would be 4 hours closer to me (but still 10 hours away), which would actually make me consider taking a weekend trip. That is if the Giants decide to re-up with the Defenders. Joe Perez, however, says its all just a rumor. Thanks to Greg for the original link to the news. Also in a personal note, a team in the Sally League is moving to Bowling Green, KY which means the Greenjackets could be only 4 hours away from. That’s a drive I might make.
Not minor related, but Chris from Bay City Ball has a nice article analyzing the Giants’ propensity to walk batters. It’s a question that has plagued me, that’s for sure.
This week’s BA’s prospect hot sheet chat features a discussion on The Giants’ catching situation, and an update on Bumgarner’s stuff (still great fastball, still questionable breaking stuff). One comment by Ben Badler that made me raise my eyebrows was that he considered Bumgarner the fifth best prospect in the system. I don’t know about that. I have him in the running for #1 with Posey.
Also Matt Palmer is down and Osiris Matos is up. They might call Pat Misch up for the next spot start.
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Yep Badler isn’t that high on Bumgarner, compared to others (Callis, Sickels, and many more). His position is in the minority, overall. Ironically, he’s extremely high on Alderson, whereas others are less so.
“Ironically, he’s extremely high on Alderson, whereas others are less so”
That’s because it’s all a gigantic guessing game when you evaluate players of that age, playing at those levels of the minor leagues.
For every “can’t miss” prospect at Class A who lives up to those projections, there are probably 4 or more who end up failing.
This just isn’t a science; it’s an art, and a moving, shifting art at that. Evaluations have to take into account current talent level and l”ikelihood”of future improvement. How in the world do you measure “likelihood” of a future event in the life of a player you know barely, if at all?
Even a wonderfully accurate evaluation is only as good as the circumstances that existed when it was made. The evaluation can be rendered useless by future chance events, including changes in the player’s psyche due to experiences in the future, physical injury, mishandling by the parent team, and many, many more factors.
Enjoy the speculation about the future of your team, but never take it to be anything more than speculation based on, if you’re lucky, an educated guess.
While I agree that there are no certainties when it comes to prospect evaluations, I do think you may be overstating it a bit. I think it depends on what you expect from “can’t miss” prospects. If you expect all of them to end up like Tim Lincecum or Matt Cain, then you’ll be quite disappointed. For me, anytime a prospect becomes a regular in the major leagues, I count it as a success.
A San Francisco Giants Minor League Blog 
Yep Badler isn’t that high on Bumgarner, compared to others (Callis, Sickels, and many more). His position is in the minority, overall. Ironically, he’s extremely high on Alderson, whereas others are less so.
“Ironically, he’s extremely high on Alderson, whereas others are less so”
That’s because it’s all a gigantic guessing game when you evaluate players of that age, playing at those levels of the minor leagues.
For every “can’t miss” prospect at Class A who lives up to those projections, there are probably 4 or more who end up failing.
This just isn’t a science; it’s an art, and a moving, shifting art at that. Evaluations have to take into account current talent level and l”ikelihood”of future improvement. How in the world do you measure “likelihood” of a future event in the life of a player you know barely, if at all?
Even a wonderfully accurate evaluation is only as good as the circumstances that existed when it was made. The evaluation can be rendered useless by future chance events, including changes in the player’s psyche due to experiences in the future, physical injury, mishandling by the parent team, and many, many more factors.
Enjoy the speculation about the future of your team, but never take it to be anything more than speculation based on, if you’re lucky, an educated guess.
While I agree that there are no certainties when it comes to prospect evaluations, I do think you may be overstating it a bit. I think it depends on what you expect from “can’t miss” prospects. If you expect all of them to end up like Tim Lincecum or Matt Cain, then you’ll be quite disappointed. For me, anytime a prospect becomes a regular in the major leagues, I count it as a success.