Note: catchers not included

1. Jared Mitchell, OF

-5 runs for Jared Mitchell in a small sample size (34 games) doesn’t sound great, but you have to remember that he didn’t play centre field in college and so the adjustment may take some time. The scouting reports are very positive as Mitchell’s speed allows him to cover a lot of ground and get to balls that other centre fielders could only dream of reaching. Kannapolis manager Ernie Young was quoted as saying “He takes control in center field like he’s been playing professionally for a while.”

2. Dayan Viciedo, 3B/1B

Much has been made of Dayan Viciedo’s poor defensive ability, but as you can see, TotalZone likes him and had him pegged as a +4 run fielder over 130 games. It is expected that Viciedo will make the transition to first base this year, likely starting at Charlotte, and he certainly made his fair share of errors last year, but TZ indicates he may have had a future at 3B. The scouts disagree citing his lack of range and concentration as his main flaws.

3. Jordan Danks, OF

Jordan Danks’ defensive performances have been something of a mixed bag going by TotalZone. For the year he was a -2 run defender in centre field and a -1 run defender in left field. Last year he was a +2 run defender in CF, which would make him a fairly neutral defender (+0 runs) career in CF (107 games). The scouting reports are more positive however with Baseball America saying “he the range and instincts to play center field.” He may never be the gold glover that some people seem to expect, but he should prove a very capable defensive outfielder.

4. Brent Morel, 3B

Brent Morel is a case of stats and scouting coming together perfectly to form the same conclusion on a player. Morel’s TotalZone at 3B this year was an impressive +9 runs (128 games). The scouting reports indicate that Morel has good agility and quickness at the position with a plus arm. I’m still not convinced that Morel has the power that you would typically want from your third baseman but his defensive ability should make up for any shortcoming that he may have with the bat.

5. Trayce Thompson, OF

As with Jared Mitchell, there isn’t anywhere near enough data to draw any real conclusions on Trayce Thompson’s defensive ability but to stop people from asking about him, I decided to just include him. Thompson’s TotalZone in 31 games playing centre was +2 (+9.7 per 150). The scouting reports state that Thompson has the range to play centre with the arm to play right. As he fills out I’d expect Trayce to make the gradual shift to RF, but for now he should be a very adequate CF.

6. C.J. Retherford, 2B

Retherford moved from third base to second base last year and he held his own considering it was a new position to him, however, the -2 TZ that Retherford posted at 2B was a lot worse than what he managed at 3B over the previous two years, where he ranked as a +13 run defender. I don’t mind the shift in position though as I see him as a future utility man meaning that defensive flexibility is a must for him, there is even talk that he will see time at catcher during spring training. The scouting reports indicate that Retherford is an average defensive 2B, who doesn’t have the range to play SS, which sounds pretty accurate to me.

7. John Shelby, OF

John Shelby fell out of favour with most message boarders this past year due to his lack of offense, but his defense in the outfield has gotten progressively better since he made the transition in ’07 according to TotalZone. In ’07 Shelby was a -10 run defender, in ’08 a +4 run defender and in ’09 a +15 run defender. The scouting reports aren’t quite as complimentary, however, as they indicate that Shelby is more of a league average defender.

8. Christian Marrero, 1B/OF

Christian, the lesser-hyped Marrero brother, has steadily produced since being drafted in 2005 and is starting to force himself onto the prospect radar. Marrero hasn’t yet found a defensive home as he has split his time between RF, LF and 1B, but if this year is anything to go by, the outfield looks like his better position. In 84 games playing the outfield his TotalZone was an impressive +10 runs as compared to his -7 runs playing 36 games at 1B. There don’t seem to be many scouting reports floating around on Marrero’s defensive ability, but I have heard that he has the arm to play RF and Buddy Bell reportedly likes him a lot.

9. Stefan Gartrell, OF

Prior to this year Gartrell’s TotalZone numbers were pretty good, with him coming in at +17 runs between 06 and 08. This year, however, his TotalZone was a terrible -15 runs in right field (107 games). This poor performance last year is likely due to random fluctuation caused by a small sample size and deferring to his career average should give us a better idea of his defensive ability. The scouting reports paint him as an average defender at best.

10. Eduardo Escobar, SS

Eduardo Escobar has drawn rave reviews for his defensive ability from scouts and it’s just as well because he doesn’t project to be much more than a contact hitter with the bat. Scouts cite Escobar’s good range, excellent hands and a solid arm as his main strengths. TotalZone agrees with the scouts as Escobar scores well by this metric. Last year he was a +7 run defender at short and for his career he is +17 runs above average at SS (194 games). Escobar has drawn comparisons to both Omar Vizquel and Ozzie Guillen. While I wouldn’t expect him to be anywhere near as good defensively as Vizquel, he is that type of player (all glove, no bat).

The Tigers and Twins are clearly ahead of the Sox, Royals and Indians by Baseball America’s reckoning. Some of the more notable White Sox draftees during this period include Gordon Beckham, Dan Hudson, Chris Getz, Clayton Richard and Oakland A’s prospect Chris Carter. The Indians, who failed to sign a draft eligible sophomore by the name of Tim Lincecum in 2005, have had little success to date during this period, with Jensen Lewis being one of their more productive draftees. The Tigers hit big in 2007 with Rick Porcello, who could anchor their staff for years to come, and Casey Crosby, who is amongst the best LHP prospects in baseball. Two of their ‘08 draftees, catcher Alex Avila and reliever Ryan Perry have already logged significant Major League time. The Royals’ most notable pick is ‘05 draftee Alex Gordon, who despite not quite taking off as hoped, has been worth the $4m investment. The Twins’ selection of Matt Garza at 25th overall in 2005 has proven to be one of the better picks in what was a stacked 2005 draft, the Twins also landed Kevin Slowey that year.
Is it fair to judge success merely by the players each team has selected? Possibly, but we know that draft position plays a large part in determining which players a team can get from the top of the draft. The White Sox “earned” their first top 10 pick in 17 years and they respond with an A grade draft in 2008. So the next thing I want to do is list which picks each team had in the first rounds and supplemental first rounds.

Average relates to each team’s first pick only, compensatory picks were not included in the average. The White Sox had the third highest average pick to match their joint third highest GPA but the thing that jumps out is the Royals’ average pick of 2nd overall. When you’re drafting that high every year you have to do better than the Royals have done. Their 2.38 GPA ties for 21st amongst all teams.
It’s tough to say which team has drafted the best from just looking at GPA’s and average draft position. In recent years money has started to play a bigger factor in the draft and the Tigers are one of the teams who have been very willing to spend above and beyond in order to get their guy. So the next thing I want to look at is how much each team has spent in the first round, and how much each team has spent overall. The total amount spent is on the left, then amount in parentheses is how much was spent on first round and supplemental first round picks.

So here we can see that the Sox have spent significantly less than every other team in the division. I guess this means the scouting department should be given extra slack for some of the more disappointing drafts, particularly of ‘05 and ‘06. For a team of this size and in this market, however, I find the budgetary decision to be a very strange one. You can’t simply point at not having high draft picks as a reason for not spending. There are plenty of opportunities to pick high profile, high potential prospects later on in the draft but the Sox have been completely disinterested. Kenny Williams must be aware of the importance of developing from within and given the organization’s resistance to signing top tier free agents, drafting well is essential. Even if you build through trades as Kenny likes to do, you obviously need to have the prospects in the first place in order to trade them.
As for the other teams, it’s no surprise to see the Royals heading the list of money spent. When you pick as high as they do every year you’re having to spend $3.5m+ just to sign your top pick. I was expecting the Tigers to be the big over slot spenders, but actually it was the Indians who spent the most money from rounds 2 and onwards with an average of roughly $3.5m, the Royals were the second highest spenders in this area at $2.8m. Again the White Sox were the most stringent team, spending an average of $1.4m per year in rounds 2 and onwards.
Finally I want to neutralize the draft budgets to see which team got the best bang for their bucks. To find a new, budget neutral, GPA, I’m simply going to divide each teams original GPA by their average spent and then multiply that by a new budget that will be the same for each team. The average spent by all five teams was $5.04m, so this seems like a suitable total to use for the new draft budget.

Well that looks good for the White Sox. They haven’t spent a lot of money, but they have spent well working from the BA rankings. Now these of course are not definitive rankings, there’s still a lot that can change with the draft grades, particularly the ‘07 and ‘08 grades, and even then there’s a lot of subjectivity in them. I thought that all the AL Central teams had good drafts in 2008 and I would not be surprised to see some of those B’s turn into A’s, for example. The continued development of Chris Getz, Clayton Richard and Chris Carter should bump up the Sox grade for 2005 as another example.
The new GPA does make you wonder what the White Sox system might look like right now if they had invested even an average amount of money into the draft. Unfortunately I don’t see the draft budget increasing any time soon, not unless we see a change of management, anyway. Kenny Williams seems to have a great ability of wrangling money out of Jerry Reinsdorf, and if he had really wanted to spend $5m+ on the draft, I’m sure he could have gotten it.
So while the Sox may have had several poor drafts during this four year period, it does not mean that their scouting department is necessarily doing a bad job. Each team has a different draft budget, and therefore it is unfair to judge them all on the same scale. You can’t expect the White Sox to draft as well as teams who are consistently spending $5m, $6m, $7m or more per year on the draft because it just isn’t realistic.

Unfortunately the White Sox did not send many pitchers of interest to the Arizona Fall League, but one player who did catch the eye was Sergio Santos. Santos is a former 1st round pick, he was selected number 27 overall in the 2002 first year payer draft by the Arizona Diamondbacks, but after stalling as an offensive prospect the White Sox signed him and converted him to pitching. In his first season off the mound Santos had some fairly mixed results, including an 8.16 ERA and a 6.38 BB/9 in 28.2 innings over four levels. There were some encouraging points for Santos, namely his 9.57 K/9 and a purported 99 mph fastball. The White Sox recently added Santos to the 40-man roster protecting him from this years Rule 5 Draft, so they obviously see something that they like in Sergio, but let’s see what PITCHf/x has to say.

Velocity Table:

As you can see from this velocity table Santos can dial it up. He didn’t quite manage to hit the triple digits, but he was the second hardest thrower in the AFL, behind, guess who, Stephen Strasburg. The average fastball velocity from a right handed pitcher is around 92 mph, so Santos’ average FB velocity of 95.68 mph gives him legitimate plus velocity. The differential between Santos’ fastball and changeup velocities was just over 10%, which is very good. His fastball/slider differential was also solid.

Raw Data:

First I’ll give a brief explanation of the movement graph. We’re looking at it from the catchers standpoint. You’ll notice that the graph indicates some of the pitches are “rising”, however, due to the laws of gravity we know this is not possible. What the graph is actually showing is how much each pitch moves compared to an otherwise similar pitch thrown withot any spin, so Santos’ fastball is not actually rising by an average of 6.38 vertical inches, but instead it is falling 6.38 inches less than an otherwise similar pitch thrown without any spin. Likewise, negative vertical movement indicates the pitch fell by however many inches more than an otherwise similar pitch thrown without any spin. Negative horizontal movement indicates the pitch moved in on a right handed batter and positive horizontal movement indicates the pitch moved in on a left handed batter, again, compared to the otherwise similar pitch thrown without any spin.

Without context, this data means nothing, as we don’t have any reference points to tell us whether Santos’ movement is above or below average. So what I’m going to do is compare Santos’ movement to the average moment of a right handed pitcher.

Average pitch movement from a RHP:

From looking at this average movement data we can see that Santos’ stuff moves… a lot. He’s getting upwards of 2 inches of sink more than average, and anywhere from 2-5 inches of negative horizontal movement more than average. Now getting a lot of movement isn’t necessarily going to be a good thing and it can lead to control issues, something that Santos has had. But if you can put the ball over the plate on a consistent basis while getting a lot of movement, I’ve got to assume that this will yield good results.

Next up I’m going to look at Santos’ release point graph. This isn’t especially useful from a diagnostic standpoint but it does allow us to see if a pitcher is tipping any of his pitches. You can see from the graph that his changeup is coming from an ever so slightly lower point than the other three pitches, but it’s a negligible amount and Santos should be fine when it comes to tipping pitches.

Now we get onto Sergio’s Achilles heel; control and command. You can see from the location graph that Sergio’s pitches miss, often. You’ll notice that both his fastballs and changeups are missing almost exclusively to the right side of the plate (from the pitchers perspective) and this is exactly what you would expect given what we saw on his movement graph. You’ll also notice that his pitches are missing down often, and again this is to be expected given what we saw in the movement graph; if your pitches get a lot of sink, when you miss, you’ll likely miss down and out of the zone. To this point we’ve seen that Sergio’s velocity and movement have been significantly above average, but his control is certainly well below average. He will need to improve this if he wants to stick with the Sox out of ST.

The last graphs that I want to look at are of Sergio’s flight paths. Flight paths, as you can probably imagine (and see), show the estimated path than an average pitch takes from release point to the catcher. They effectively tell you the same thing as the movement graph but it’s a little more palpable for PITCHf/x newcomers. You can see that Sergio’s slider has some good break to it and I like the pitch quite a lot, it also looks to take a very similar initial path to the fastball, which may make the pitch tough to pick up. Again you can see the extreme movement of the change, another pitch that could prove very valuable to Sergio if he learns to consistently throw it over the plate.

Finally I’m going to try and summarize the effectiveness of each of Santos’ pitches with the help of whiff rates. Whiff rates tell you how often a pitch incurs a swinging strike, or in other words, how difficult a pitch is to hit. The slider is the pitch that really jumps out for me and the 36.36% whiff rate is significantly above the league average whiff rate for a slider of 28.7%. For me, the slider is by far Santos’ best offering, it has good movement, velocity and has been proven difficult to hit even in an extreme hitters environment. Santos’ fastball has the makings of a great pitch with the plus velocity, but it has disappointingly low whiff rate of 5.83%. I think this is case in point of how velocity isn’t everything. You need to have command of a pitch in order to utilize it’s full potential. I think Santos’ fastball at present is average at best, but with the potential to be much more than that. Like his fastball, Santos’ changeup also has a below average whiff rate and the lack of control makes it a below average offering. The movement that Santos gets on the change could make it a neutralizing pitch against left handers but he must get it over the plate more consistently. Up to this point I have been including Santos’ curve for tokens sake and due to the fact that he only threw three of them, I would not feel comfortable making any kind of evaluation of it.

So in conclusion, I see Sergio Santos as currently having a fringe average fastball, a plus slider and a below average change. All of his pitches should improve as (or if) he learns to better command them. Due to being out of options, Sergio will need to stick with the big club out of Spring Training or he will be exposed to waivers. It’s probably too early for him to pitch in the Majors as he needs at least one more year to work on his control, but he could surprise, again in Arizona, and take the last spot on the roster.

References:
All PITCHf/x data was taken from Brooks Baseball
Flight Paths were created using Harry Pavlidis’ template file from BtB
Average pitch movement was taken from Harry Pavlidis at BtB
Average whiff rates by pitch type were taken from Sky at BtB

Notes:
I’m a PITCHf/x newcomer so all constructive criticism is welcomed and encouraged.
PITCHf/x is not 100% accurate, I did not change any pitch classifications and as a result some of them are likely to be wrong.

The DSL White Sox got off to a fast start in 2009 as they won all of their first 11 games, sitting them firmly atop their division. Unfortunately they couldn’t quite maintain this blistering pace and they stuttered to a 7-9 record through the rest of June. They picked up their play in July finishing with a 15-11 record for the month and then rounded out the season with a 9-8 record in August. This resulted in an impressive 42-28 record on the season, but that was only good enough for third place in the division (behind the Yankees’ 2nd team and the Twins) and resulted in the DSL Sox missing out on the playoffs.

Players to watch (ages as on 04/01/10):

Juan Silverio, 18, SS/3B
Silverio was the prized signing of the Sox’ 2007 international free agent class but his first pro season was one to forget as he posted a .586 OPS over 59 games. I don’t place too much blame on Silverio for his lack of production last year though because there’s no way he should have been starting in Bristol as a 17 year old. This year Silverio has rebounded nicely in the DSL, his plate discipline is still lacking as he struck out 47 times against just 16 walks but he did show very good power (.547 SLG, .226 IsoP) and hit for a high average (.321).
At this point Silverio still looks like your typical unrefined, free-swinging latin prospect but he’s still very young and there’s lots of time for him to improve. Assuming no visa issues we may see him back in Bristol next year.

Daurys Mercedes, 20, SS/2B
Daurys took large strides forwards this year after a very weak offensive season in 2008. Mercedes was signed in 2007 along with Juan Silverio, but unlike Silverio, Mercedes showed very good plate discipline as he walked 31 times against 39 strikeouts. This was a vast improvement on his 62 SO/17 BB last year. Mercedes hit for some decent pop this year with a .473 SLG and .154 IsoP as well as a strong average (.319).
Mercedes may be ready for the step up to Bristol next year, and in fact, his plate discipline means that he’s probably more prepared than Silverio is, although Silverio remains the better prospect going forward due to his power potential.

Jaime Del Valle, 20, C
I’m including del Valle more because of the fact that he was named an All-Star at catcher (along with Silverio at SS) than because I see him as having legitimate potential. The plus for del Valle is that he showed good control of the strikezone with 20 BB/24 SO as well as a good average of .291, but his power nonexistent and I don’t expect much from him going forward.

Darwin Matos, 19, RHP
There were several pitchers who put up good numbers for the DSL Sox this year but Matos is the lone guy on my radar. The main thing that jumps out with Matos is his high strikeout rate (10.9 SO/9), which is key for identifying prospects at this level (and I would argue any level), the walk rate was also high at 4.5 BB/9 but that’s to be expected for a pitcher of his age and experience.
Matos will be 19 for the majority of the 2010 season and I expect him to be back in Dominican Summer League.

If there’s anyone you think I missed, let me know in the comment box below and I’ll be sure to shoot your opinion down!

Lance Broadway

Prior to Lance Broadway’s trade to the Mets (in return for Ramon Castro) he actually put up some decent numbers at Charlotte including a 3.75 SO/BB rate and an 8.4 SO/9, by far the best strikeout rate he had posted since his debut season. The ERA was high but there was reason to be encouraged. After the trade, however, Broadway was awful, the strikeouts plummeted, the walks rose as did the ERA and WHIP. Broadway has made several appearances with the Mets but his performances have been weak, he’s giving up an extreme amount of hits, which either says his stuff is very hittable or he has been very unlucky. Time is running out for this former first round pick and he will need to make some significant improvements next year if he wishes to be successful.

Brandon Allen

Brandon Allen’s trade has been spoken about often, by a lot of people including me, here, so I’ll try and keep his review brief. After being traded to Arizona for Tony Pena, Allen went on a 38 game tear at Reno showing great power and strike zone judgement. Soon after, Allen received the call from the D’Backs and thus far has done exactly what I would have expected from him, and that is hit for power and strike out… a lot. I still don’t think Allen will become a star but he is very capable of becoming a solid regular in the Majors and he has had a very good season.

Aaron Poreda

Aaron Poreda’s season prior to his trade was going quite well, his K rate had spiked to 9.1 SO/9 with Birmingham after a somewhat disappointing 6.6 SO/9 in 2008 and his ERA sat at an impressive 2.38. After the trade, however, his control disappeared completely as he walked 37 batters in 32.2 IP, leaving him with a disastrous 0.81 SO/BB and 7.16 ERA. Reports indicate that Poreda’s slider has made significant improvements over the last year and the limited Pitch f/x data we have of him would seem to agree but his control still needs a lot of work, as does his change. Poreda looks like a definite reliever to me at this point.

Clayton Richard

Clayton Richard was traded to the Padres off the back of two straight 8 inning, 1 run performances which led to many people hailing him as a potential frontline starter, I remained unconvinced, and thus far he has performed more of less how I would have expected with an ERA in the mid 4’s. His strikeout rate has been better than expected and his walk rate worse than expected. I think both his K rate and BB rates will fall slightly next year, but overall it should result in his ERA remaining around the 4.50 range. I still see a career as a useful backend starter for Richard as his stuff just isn’t good enough for him to be more than that.

Dexter Carter

I noted Dexter Carter as the wild card of the Peavy trade at the time it happened but so far he his post-trade performances have been disappointing, and like Poreda his control has vanished. An awful 21 inning stretch with Fort Wayne, which included a 6.4 BB/9 and a 12.86 ERA doesn’t sway me from my projection of him as a potential mid rotation starter, but the control and changeup must both improve for this to happen. Carter’s fastball/curve combo could be enough for him to make it in the bullpen if he can’t improve the aforementioned aspects of his game.

Adam Russell

Like Dexter Carter, Adam Russell hasn’t pitched much since being traded and walks have continued to be a problem for Russell in the limited action he has seen. Control has always been a weakness for Russell but he was doing a good job of limiting the free bases prior to his trade, but as with several prospects who were traded to San Diego, his control fell apart and he walked 15 batters in 20.2 IP. Russell is capable of making a name for himself in a Major League bullpen but he still has lots of work to do before that becomes a reality.

Michael Dubee

Michael Dubee was more of an after thought when he was traded to Pittsburgh in return for Andy Phillips all the way back in April, but he has opened eyes since the trade. In 23 appearances with Lynchburg he posted a sparkling ERA (1.05) and SO/BB rate (17.33) with 54 K’s to just 3 BB’s. At 23, he was old for the Carolina League and after his promotion to Double-A the numbers tailed off, but they still remain good as his K/BB rate sat at 2.80 and his ERA at 2.91. Dubee will probably need to spend all of 2010 in the Minors but if continues to pitch like this we’ll be seeing him pitch out of a Major League bullpen sooner rather than later.

Stats accurate as of 9/17

The Birmingham Barons were one of Minor League Baseball’s best teams this year and their 92-47 record was the best in the team’s history. Their roster at the start of the season was stacked with many of the organizations top prospects including Gordon Beckham, Tyler Flowers, Brandon Allen, Dayan Viciedo, Aaron Poreda and John Shelby, and as you would have expected, they made light work of opposing Southern League teams. Promotions, trades and call-ups removed many of their best players from the first couple of months of the season but they were replaced, and replaced well, by players such as Christian Marrero, Jordan Danks and Charlie Shirek, added to that, mainstays such as John Ely and C.J. Retherford ensured that the Barons didn’t skip a beat in the second half. Now ready to make a run for the Southern League crown, the Barons will start their best of 5 series with Jacksonville Suns on Thursday.

The Winston-Salem Dash make their way into the playoff largely thanks to playing in a very weak Carolina League South. You may think that’s a little unfair, saying they’re only in the playoff due to playing in a weak division, but when you have a 4.30 ERA (2nd worst in the CAR) and are just midpack in runs scored, it’s unlikely that you were a good team. The Dash actually allowed more runs (642) than they scored (626). Winston-Salem’s offense has been led by a personal favourite of mine, Seth Loman, and postseason All-Star at 3B, Brent Morel, they also have Carolina League manager of the year Joe McEwing in their corner as well as a rotation led by Justin Edwards and Dylan Axelrod. The Dash will play their first postseason game tomorrow night against the Salem Red Sox, who are expected to start Daisuke Matsuzaka, and while anything can and often does happen in the playoffs, don’t expect the Carolina League crown to be coming the Dash’s way.

The Kannapolis Intimidators’ season has been all about their fantastic second half, in which they have a 45-24 record and a .652 winning percentage. Pitching was this team’s M.O. as they led the whole of the South Atlantic League with 530 runs allowed thanks to a rotation fronted by two of this organizations more intriguing starters, Charlie Leesman and Stephen Sauer (having Dexter Carter and Dan Hudson for a time didn’t hurt either). Even with losing one of it’s better arms, Charlis Burdie to the Dash, the Intimidators have one of the most formidable bullpen’s in the Minors, backed by Dan Remonowsky, ’09 draftee Kyle Bellamy and late season promotion Santos Rodriguez. Other ’09 draftees have played large parts in this team’s second half run, most notably two early round picks Jared Mitchell and Josh Phegley but also one later round pick, Joe Serafin. The Intimidators will play their first postseason game tomorrow against the Lakewood BlueClaws, with Charlie Leesman getting the start.

The final Sox affiliate to make the playoffs are the defending Pioneer League champions Great Falls, who swept their way past the Orem Owlz in the 2008 championship series behind the arms of Dan Hudson and Dexter Carter. This years Voyagers have been led by a steady dose of pitching and offense where the rank 2nd and 3rd respectively in the Pioneer League. The Voyagers have an old team for a rookie ball affiliate and as it stands Trayce Thompson is the only teen on their roster, he’s also roughly 2 ½ years younger than anyone else on the team, and it is partly for this reason that they don’t appear to be brimmed with future Major Leaguers. The Great Falls Voyagers will call upon it’s offensive stars Jose Vargas, Nick Ciolli, Johny Celis and Kyle Colligan to lead the team to victory when they start their playoff run against the Missoula Osprey’s this Saturday the 12th.

Hot Hitter: Lee Cruz. After a great stint in Birmingham to end last season Lee Cruz has had a disappoint year and the power in particular hasn’t been there, but last week was a good one for Cruz. In five games with the Barons Cruz went 9-23 (.391), with two doubles and two home runs (.739 SLG), he didn’t walk at all though, leaving his OPS at 1.130. At 26, Cruz is old for his level and he would have needed to put up great numbers to break his way onto the prospect map, but it hasn’t happened for him. He’s just organizational depth at this point.

Cold Pitcher: Jacob Rasner. One of the more frequent names on the hot and cold list, Rasner finds his way on again and for the wrong reasons. A two start week for Rasner culminated in him giving up 12 ER in 8.1 IP (12.97 ERA), with 15 hits and 3 walks allowed (2.22 WHIP) against 5 strikeouts. Rasner will be pitching in the Arizona Fall League next month, and while he does show some promise as a prospect, I can’t help but think that there are one or two pitchers more deserving of an AFL roster spot than him.

Cold Hitter: Jordan Danks. Mired in a month long slump, Jordan finds his way onto the hot and cold list again as our cold hitter of the week. Jordan gets here by going just 1-16 (.063) with one walk (.118 OBP) and one home run (.250 SLG), good for a measly .368 OPS. Like Rasner, Jordan will also be playing in the AFL next month, but given his recent performances and two stints on the DL, I wonder if he would be better off just going home this winter and making sure that wrist is fully healed and ready to go for next season.

Hudson, a fifth round pick in the 2008 draft out of Old Dominion has compiled a 14-5 record in 26 starts this year with a 2.32 ERA and 0.943 WHIP. He has achieved this level of success with a great strikeout rate (10.14 K/9) and walk rate (2.08 BB/9), pitching off of his low to mid 90’s fastball, biting slider, change-up and occasional curve, all of which he throws from a modified 3/4 arm slot. Hudson’s declining ground ball rate could be viewed as a possible cause for concern, but he should be able to supplant the fly balls somewhat with his strikeout rate.

Hudson came into the season ranked as our 12th best prospect in the White Sox system, he was duly bumped up to 4th in our midseason update, and he would currently rank as a close 2nd behind Tyler Flowers in my personal list if I was making one today. It is currently unknown as to what role Hudson will occupy with the Sox, but due to his innings total it is likely that we will see him out of the bullpen.

With the White Sox season seemingly over, the promotions of Hudson and Flowers will give us some reason to watch the Sox over this last month of the season and hopefully we don’t see either of them in the minor leagues again.

Hot Hitter: Miguel Gonzalez. The 18 year old catcher from Venezuela has been a revelation in his first season of pro ball in the States. Over the last week he is 10-17 (.588), with 2 walks (.632) and 5 doubles (.882) giving him a 1.514 OPS. On the season he is hitting .311 with an .888 OPS in 45 games. He has shown surprising plate discipline for a player of his age and experience with 16 BB/25 SO. It would be foolish to proclaim him as one of the organisation’s top prospects based just on some rookie ball numbers, but Gonzalez has been very impressive and a good season next year, presumably in Kannapolis, would launch him onto the prospect map.

Cold Pitcher: Steven Upchurch. Of all the prospects from the lower minors I was perhaps most excited about Steven Upchurch but his season hasn’t gone to plan, most notably in his last start. On August 30 against the Elizabethton Twins Upchurch gave up 10 earned runs in just 1.2 IP on 7 hits and with 3 walks. His ERA for the night was 54.00 and on the season his ERA is now 6.95. Upchurch is still very young and his numbers are somewhat deceiving, prior to his last start his SO/BB rate was very good at 3:1 and his ground ball rate is excellent, he’s just being hurt by an extremely high hit rate and a declining K/9.

Cold Hitter: Dan Black. One of my favourite picks from the ’09 draft, Black has endured a tough week for the Intimidators picking up just 3 hits in 24 AB’s (.125). His walk rate did remain very good however as took 6 free bases (.300 OBP) with just 1 double (.167), giving him a .467 OPS. Black has been a disappointment in the early goings but I still think his combination of power and plate discipline could make him one to watch in 2010.

Mitchell had made a fine start to his professional career with the Kannapolis Intimidators posting an .852 OPS in 34 games since signing for $1.2m. The concerns that I had with his strikeout rate in college have not subsided as Mitchell has struck out 40 times, but he has supplanted it with a very good walk rate. Power may be the last aspect of Mitchell’s game to develop, as it stands he’s more of a doubles power hitter and he is still waiting for his first professional home run.

Mitchell is eligible to return on September 4th. Kannapolis’ final regular season game is on September 7th but they are likely headed for post season play due to their fantastic second half winning percentage (.683) and 4 game lead over Lakewood in the overall SAL North standings, so there could be some incentive for Mitchell to return.