The Angels’ Disabled List is thinning out. Nomar’s back for the Red Sox. Paul Abbott slides into the fifth starter’s role with the Phillies. And the Practically Perfect Backup Catcher earns his stripes as a starter for the Blue Jays. These and other happenings in today’s Transaction Analysis.
The Angels could find a new sheriff at third base soon, while the Cubs have exceeded all offensive expectations, and Lyle Overbay has been the driving force in the Brewers surprising success. All this and more news from Anaheim, Chicago and Milwaukee in your Wednesday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
Halfway through the month of June, three months are in the books since spring training opened. While nothing has been decided on the field yet, we were supposed to see significant changes off the field, with the switch from survey drug testing to actual drug testing. Not only are we yet to see the first positive test, there’s been no decrease in injuries, power, or any of the expected indications that steroids have been rooted out. Worse, with the callup of Derek Turnbow by the Angels, both players with publicly known positive steroid tests are in the major leagues. While those tests were outside the purview of MLB, it still shows that the public relations around this issue are beyond the people in charge. MLB is sitting on a timebomb with the BALCO trial leaking out the list of positive tests, so I’d like to see something more being done. I can only hope that the negotiations on increased testing are the next step.
Despite some happy reports from the Bronx, the Yankees made the decision to give Kevin Brown more time to heal. With Mike Mussina also likely to miss a start, the team decided that they would need another pitcher, so Alex Graman is likely to be called up. Brown’s back didn’t get worse, but the Yanks are erring on the side of caution, hoping that the rest will keep Brown more effective down the stretch. While Brown will miss two starts, there’s no indication that this will go longer than the fifteen days.
It’s hard to beat minor league baseball for a low-cost, low-hassle evening at the ballpark. I’ve been spending quite a few of my evenings lately in California League parks, mostly checking out teams in that league’s Northern division. Today and Friday I’ll run down some of the prospects on the five teams in that division, covering the High-A affiliates for the Giants, Rangers, A’s, Rockies, and Devil Rays.
There’s no rigorous method for choosing prospects listed here. In particular, the omission of certain players (like Vince Sinisi and John Hudgins in today’s piece) shouldn’t be read as a dismissal of them as prospects.
You’ll recall that last week I took a gander at the top five most underrated hitting prospects in the game. This time, it’s the pitchers. I believe I amply qualified myself last week, but I’ll say again that calling anything “overrated” or “underrated” is horribly, terribly, awfully subjective and assumes I have some sort of internal, ruthlessly accurate method of reading the hype tea leaves. I don’t, but I can juggle.
Once again, the criteria are that a player didn’t appear anywhere on BP’s Top 50 Prospect List and has reached at least the High-A level this season. If nothing else, you can dance to it…