Looking for Detailed Prospect Reports in 2004, become a member today.

2003 Prospect Central: Volume Nine - By Aaron Gleeman

Prospect Central: Volume Nine

By Aaron Gleeman

Hello and welcome to Prospect Central.  With about one-third of the minor league season now in the books, the stats players are accumulating are starting to really mean something.  So, this week I will look at six lesser-known players that are off to blazing starts in Triple-A this year.

JOHNNY ESTRADA – C

Organization: Atlanta Braves

Acquired: Philadelphia’s 17th round pick in 1997 draft; traded to Atlanta last off-season.

Bats: Switch

DOB: 6-27-1976

Johnny Estrada is probably best known for being the guy the Braves got when they dumped Kevin Millwood’s salary on the Philadelphia Phillies during the off-season.  The deal was immediately mocked, because the Braves essentially dealt a top-of-the-rotation starter for a potential backup catcher, and they did so with a team in their own division.

I still think it was a horrible trade for the Braves and Millwood has been great thus far for the Phillies (7-1, 2.84 ERA), but the Braves have the best record in baseball right now, so it’s not as if they’ve missed him that much.  And, while Estrada is still probably headed for a career as a backup catcher, his performance in Triple-A so far has certainly been very encouraging.  Through 35 games he is hitting .374 with four homers and 11 doubles.  He also has a 10/10 K/BB ratio, which is much better than his plate discipline has ever been.

Estrada has always been praised for his defense behind the plate, but it is his gradual power development that could eventually make him more than just a backup.  While his home run power has stayed relatively stable, his doubles power has been on the rise:

AB/Double:

1999 – 23.1

2000 – 19.8

2001 – 15.3

2002 – 12.9

2003 – 10.4

Estrada turns 27 in June, so he isn’t particularly young.  That said, if he can maintain his doubles power from the last couple of seasons, he projects as a 25-35 double a year catcher in the major leagues, if given starter’s playing time.  Combine that with 5-10 homers and good defense behind the dish and he is potentially more than a backup catcher.

Estrada got a quick call-up with the Braves earlier this year and hit .267 in 15 at bats, before being sent back down to Triple-A Richmond.  Javy Lopez (the Braves’ current starting catcher) is off to an incredible start this season, but he has been very injury-prone and unproductive for several years.  Lopez’s contract is up after this year and, with the Braves recent cost-cutting (which included dealing Millwood), he doesn’t seem to be a likely candidate for re-signing.  If Lopez leaves after this year, Estrada could see a lot of playing time in Atlanta.  They don’t have any other real catching prospects in the minors and their other MLB catcher, Henry Blanco, is definitely not a starter.

Gleeman long-term grade: C+

BUBBA CROSBY – OF

Organization: Los Angeles Dodgers

Acquired: Los Angeles’ 1st round pick (23rd overall) in 1998 draft.

Bats: Left

DOB: 8-11-1976

If you didn’t have his career stats in front of you and you just knew that Bubba Crosby was the Dodgers’ first round pick in the 1998 draft after an outstanding college career at Rice, it probably wouldn’t shock you to hear that he was tearing up Triple-A this year.  One look at his previous performances in the minors though, and you’d be plenty surprised.

Bubba Crosby was once considered one of the best amateur hitters in baseball.  Way back in 1998, Crosby hit .394/.504/.828 with 25 homers, 15 doubles, five triples and 91 RBIs in just 58 games for Rice University.  Those are the type of jaw-dropping numbers that make someone a first round pick and the Dodgers took Crosby 23rd overall in the 1998 draft that saw Pat Burrell, Mark Mulder, Corey Patterson, J.D. Drew, Austin Kearns, Felipe Lopez, Carlos Pena and Sean Burroughs all go in the top 10.  Crosby was a “can’t miss” prospect - a pure-hitter with monster power, good plate discipline and the ability lace extra-base hits all over the field.

Now, it’s five years later and the sight of his name atop the Triple-A leader board is a complete shock.  That’s how far his stock has dropped.  Crosby struggled from the very beginning.  He debuted at Single-A and hit .216 with zero homers in 199 at bats.  He repeated the level the next season and upped his batting average all the way to .296, yet he hit only one home run in 371 at bats.  Since then, Crosby has slowly made his way up the Los Angeles minor league system, occasionally hitting for a nice batting average, but never showing any of the great power he flashed in college.  In fact, prior to this season, Crosby had 26 career minor league home runs in 1,711 at bats.  He had 25 homers in 221 at bats during his last year at Rice.

So what does his performance so far in 2003 mean?  Is it him finally breaking out, finally fulfilling his promise?  It’s possible, but I find it highly unlikely.  There just aren’t many instances of players completely lacking any sort of power for 1,700 or so odd at bats and then suddenly having something “click” inside them, making them a great hitter.  That said, Crosby is still “only” 26 years old, so he has not reached “Crash Davis minor league veteran” status yet.  He’s still got time to make a move and give himself an opportunity to become a major leaguer and he is certainly off to a good start this year.  He’s worth watching and it would be a fun story, but I just doubt it’s going to happen.

Gleeman long-term grade: C-

ROB STRATTON – OF

Organization: Florida Marlins

Acquired: New York’s 1st round pick (13th overall) in 1996 draft; traded to Florida in 1998; traded back to New York in 1998; traded to Colorado in 2002; signed by Florida as a free agent in 2002.

Bats: Right

DOB: 10-7-1977

Yes, that transaction history is correct.  Robert Stratton was originally drafted by the Mets in the first-round of the 1996 draft.  They then traded him (along with A.J. Burnett) to the Marlins for Al Leiter in 1998.  Then, a few months later, the Marlins traded him back to the Mets in a much smaller deal.  The Mets kept him until last year, when they included him in the deal that netted them John Thomson and Steve Reed from Colorado.  The Rockies let him go after last season and the Marlins, whom he was with four years earlier, signed him as a free agent and assigned him to Triple-A.

Whew!  I’m out of breathe.

All he’s done at Triple-A is blast 15 homers in only 146 at bats, good for a tasty .603 slugging percentage.  Of course, Stratton has always hit for a ton of power.  He hit 27 homers in only 96 games last year, 30 in 135 games in 2001, 29 in 108 games in 2000, and 21 in 95 games in 1999.  That’s a lot of power! 

Add that all up and you get 122 homers in 474 games since 1999.  That works out to about 40 homers for a full season’s worth of playing time.  With that power, why isn’t he in the majors?  Well, he has a little trouble hitting the baseball.

Along with those 122 homers over the past five years comes a .247 batting average and 688 strikeouts.  The 688 strikeouts works out to a strikeout in 41.2% of his total at bats – an amazing rate.  No matter how much raw power a player has, when you strike out in 40% of your minor league at bats, you are going to have a hard time being a valuable player in the major leagues.

The one major leaguer that I think is a good comparison for Stratton is Russell Branyan.  Like Stratton, Branyan struck out a ton and hit a ton of homers in the minors.

In his minor league career, Branyan hit 170 homers in 601 games, or about 45 per full-season.  He also racked up 838 strikeouts in 2,151 at bats – a K in 39.0% of his total ABs.  Branyan has had a reasonably successful career in the majors so far, hitting .230/.317/.478 with 61 homers in 326 games with the Indians and Reds.  He brought more to a team than Stratton though, because of his ability to play third base, along with first base and the corner outfield spots.

Stratton will get a shot if he keeps hitting long balls, but he better take advantage of it right away, because it’s tough to get teams to overlook all those Ks unless you are doing some serious raking.

Gleeman long-term grade: C

JUSTIN DUCHSCHERER - SP

Organization: Oakland A’s

Acquired: Boston’s 8th round pick in 1996 draft; traded to Texas in 2001; traded to Oakland in 2002.

Throws: Right

DOB: 11-19-1977

Justin Duchscherer had an excellent 2001 season between Double-A and Triple-A while in the Rangers’ organization and earned himself a call-up to the big leagues, where he promptly blew up and posted a 12.27 ERA in 15 innings.  You’d think a team like the Rangers, who haven’t had a decent pitching staff since the first Bush administration, might be somewhat patient with a young pitcher that posts a 2.30 ERA and a 176/34 K/BB ratio, but they weren’t.  After his brief MLB trial, the Rangers dealt Duchscherer to the A’s.  If he couldn’t get a shot with the pitching-starved Rangers, there was no way he was going to get a look with the A’s – and he hasn’t.

Duchscherer spent last year at Triple-A and pitched poorly and with injuries.  He posted a 5.57 ERA and only managed a total of 63 innings, although his K/BB ratio of 52/17 was still very solid.  So far this year, Duchscherer has been amazing.  He has a 1.77 ERA in 46 innings pitched, with an un-real 38/3 K/BB ratio and has allowed only one homer.  He’s still with the A’s and, last time I checked, they still have a pretty decent starting rotation and some very good pitching prospects, so that shot at a major league job may not be there yet for Duchscherer.

Nonetheless, if he keeps pitching like this, he’s going to get a chance to prove himself for more than 15 innings at a time somewhere.  He’s a good guy to grab up and stash away in a deep keeper league and a good guy to keep an eye on for everyone else.  He’s got good stuff and he knows how to pitch, he just needs a chance to prove it.

Gleeman long-term grade: C

ESIX SNEAD – OF

Organization: New York Mets

Acquired: St. Louis’ 18th round pick in 1998 draft; claimed on waivers by New York in 2001.

Bats: Switch

DOB: 6-7-1976

Esix Snead has been talked about as a “leadoff man” for years now, despite the fact that he only has one even remotely useful skill on a baseball field.  He can’t hit at all, he’s not particularly good on defense, he doesn’t take walks, he strikes out a lot – but man is he fast! 

I saw him in the Arizona Fall League a couple years ago (when he was in the Cardinals’ organization) and, at 5’10” and about 150 pounds, he looked more like a batboy than a player.  In his first at bat, he hit a little dribbler about four feet from home plate and was standing on first base before a throw was even made.  Then, of course, he stole second base on the next pitch.

Snead is not really off to a great start offensively, but he is 20/23 on steal attempts and including him in this volume of Prospect Central gives me a chance to talk about him, which I’ve been wanting to do.  Snead is the type of player that can be infinitely more valuable to a fantasy team than he is to a real team.

He doesn’t deserve a starting job in the major leagues, but if he ever got one he would immediately become a very valuable player in every fantasy league that counts steals as a category.  Snead has 355 career steals in 574 minor league games, which works out to .62 steals per game or about 100 for a full-season.  The amazing thing about his incredible stolen base totals is that he has done all that stealing despite hardly ever being on base.  Snead had a .336 on-base percentage at Triple-A last year and still managed to steal 66 bases.  The year before, he OBP’d at only .307 and stole 64 bags.  Snead had a .341 on-base percentage in 2000 and stole 109 bases in only 132 games.  And, perhaps most-amazingly, he has 20 steals already this year, despite getting on base only 27.3% of the time.

Snead is basically running every single time he gets on first base, which makes his success rate (76% over the last three years and 87% this year) quite incredible.

Esix Snead is a guy that would make, at best, a good backup outfielder.  He is also a guy that just might get himself a starting job somewhere if he can catch the attention of a GM or manager and amaze them with his speed.  If he does, he will become one of the least valuable players in baseball history to be a good player in fantasy baseball.

Think Vince Coleman, but without the fire-crackers.

Gleeman long-term grade: C

CHONE FIGGINS – IF

Organization: Anaheim Angels

Acquired: Colorado’s 4th round pick in 1997 draft; traded to Anaheim in 2001.

Bats: Switch

DOB: 1-22-1978

Chone Figgins has been a favorite of mine for a while now.  He is one of the fastest players in all of baseball and has recently become a good hitter, which makes him a very intriguing player.

Figgins’ speed is abundantly clear from the moment you lay eyes on him.  The Angels used him as a pinch-runner throughout last year’s post-season, he has stolen 87 bases in the last 2+ seasons and he roped 18 triples at Triple-A last year.  Oh, and this year, he already has nine triples in 136 at bats.  If you project that out to a full-season’s worth of playing time, it comes out to about 40 triples, which would be a major league record.

Defensively, Figgins is rough around the edges, although he has played both shortstop and second base in the minors.  When Anaheim second baseman Adam Kennedy went on the DL with a hamstring injury earlier this year, Figgins was called up and played everyday at second base for about two weeks.  He hit .294 in 34 at bats, but did not have a single extra-base hit and only walked twice in 11 games, giving him a batting line of .294/.324/.294.

There isn’t a lot of opportunity for playing time in the middle infield for Anaheim, but Figgins could definitely make a nifty bench player and, in my opinion, could be a solid everyday second baseman if given the chance.  As an everyday player, he would be a very nice player in fantasy leagues, because most of his value comes from his batting average and stolen bases – both things that are counted in fantasy leagues.

His Major League Equivalency for last year at Triple-A is .278/.342/.402, which would make him an above-average second baseman offensively.

Gleeman long-term grade: C+

Looking for Detailed Prospect Reports in 2004, become a member today.

Archives: 

Volume 1  JERIOME ROBERTSON – SP COLBY LEWIS – SP KURT AINSWORTH – SP GARY KNOTTS – SP JOSH STEWART – SP  OSCAR VILLARREAL – SP MARK TEIXEIRA – 3B/1B

Volume 2  ERICK ALMONTE – SS  ROCCO BALDELLI – OF JEREMY BONDERMAN – SP  RICH HARDEN – SP AARON HEILMAN – SP JESSE FOPPERT – SP

Volume  3  COCO CRISP – OF ALEXIS GOMEZ – OF JOHN-FORD GRIFFIN – OF GRADY SIZEMORE – OF B.J. UPTON – SS HANLEY RAMIREZ – SS

Volume  4  JASON GRABOWSKI – OF/C/3B/1B AARON TAYLOR – RP LEW FORD – OF  JASON LANE – OF  FREDDY SANCHEZ – 2B/SS ROBB QUINLAN – OF

Volume  5  JEROME WILLIAMS – SP CLAUDIO VARGAS – SP CHASE UTLEY – 2B/3B JODY GERUT – OF JASON BAY – OF

Volume  6 GERALD LAIRD – C ANDREW GOOD – SP KIRK SAARLOOS – SP TODD SEARS – 1B WILLIE HARRIS – OF/2B JOSE REYES – SS

Volume  7 Top Ten Hitting Prospects

Volume  8 Top Ten Pitching Prospects

Volume  9 JOHNNY ESTRADA  – C BUBBA CROSBY – OF ROB STRATTON – OF JUSTIN DUCHSCHERER - SP ESIX SNEAD – OF CHONE FIGGINS – IF

Volume  10  DONTRELLE WILLIS - SP ANTONIO PEREZ – SS/2B JASON PHILLIPS – C/1B JASON YOUNG - SP PAT STRANGE - SP

Volume  11 NICK SWISHER – OF/1B ANDY MARTE – 3B PRINCE FIELDER – 1B BRAD NELSON – 1B/OF JUSTIN HUBER – C

Volume  12 DAVID KELTON 3B/1B/OF JHONNY PERALTA – SS/3B  ZACH SORENSEN – IF  MIKE NAKAMURA – RP  EDGAR GONZALEZ – SP

Volume  13  MATT KATA – 2B  FRANCISCO SANTOS – 1B/OF JOSE VALVERDE – RP  MARIO RAMOS – SP BO HART – 2B

Volume  14 DAVE MATRANGA – IF  RODRIGO ROSARIO – SP  BRANDON CLAUSSEN – SP  CARLOS VALDERRAMA – OF  CARLOS RIVERA – 1B

Volume  15 CODY ROSS – OF DAN HAREN – SP JIMMY JOURNELL – SP MIKE GALLO – RP NATE BUMP – SP

Volume  16 LAYNCE NIX – OF LUIS TERRERO – OF  EDWIN ALMONTE – RP  JASON STANFORD – SP CHRIS MEARS – RP

Volume  17 ALEJANDRO MACHADO – IF VICTOR DIAZ – IF RYAN SNARE – SP WILL SMITH – OF ADRIAN GONZALEZ – 1B

Volume  18 RICH HARDEN – SP RENE REYES – OF RYAN WAGNER – RP MARK MALASKA – RP CHIN-HUI TSAO – SP

Volume  19 RYAN HANNAMAN – SP JOE VALENTINE – RP KENNY KELLY – OF PHIL DUMATRAIT – SP

Volume  20  GARRETT ATKINS – 3B  JIMMY GOBBLE – SP JON SWITZER – SP JOSH HALL – SP AARON LOOPER – RP

Volume  21 DERNELL STENSON – 1B/OF NEAL COTTS – SP J.J. PUTZ – RP JON ADKINS – SP

Volume  22  JOSE LOPEZ – SS  JASON STOKES – 1B   MIGUEL CABRERA – 3B  JEFF MATHIS – C  CASEY KOTCHMAN – 1B

Volume  23 JUSTIN MORNEAU – 1B JOSE REYES – SS  VICTOR MARTINEZ – C JOE MAUER – C  MARK TEIXEIRA – 1B/3B

Volume  24  JEROME WILLIAMS - SP  JEREMY BONDERMAN - SP JASON ARNOLD - SP CLINT NAGEOTTE - SP ADAM WAINWRIGHT - SP

Volume  25 GAVIN FLOYD - SP SCOTT KAZMIR - SP  FRANCISCO RODRIGUEZ - RP RICH HARDEN - SP  JESSE FOPPERT - SP

Volume  26 RICKIE WEEKS – 2B  BOBBY CROSBY – SS KHALIL GREENE – SS EDWIN JACKSON - SP MATT RILEY - SP

http://www.InsiderBaseball.com

Click here for details of our 2004 Member access package

Aaron Gleeman analyzes minor league prospects exclusively in the Fantistics Insiderbaseball.com member area.

Please feel free to inquire about any of our products: info@fantistics.com