The Tigers representatives in the Arizona Fall League now have a week under their belts. Since the opener most have handled the challenge quite well so far with your likely 2010 second baseman Scott Sizemore leading the way.
Scott Sizemore
All he’s done is homer 3 times, double twice, and walk twice in 18 plate appearances. That’s good enough for a 375/400/1.063 slash line and prompting Kevin Goldstein to say “there isn’t really a glaring weakness in his game.”
Casper Wells
Mark Anderson of TigsTown thinks that a big fall could put Wells in the mix for the outfield rotation in 2010. So far he has a 444/450/889 line in 19 plate appearances. He has fanned 8 times though so it appears he’s either hitting the ball hard or not at all.
Cale Iorg
So far Iorg seems to be picking up his AFL season where his Erie season ended, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. He has a 182/182/250 line so far but I guess the good news would be that he’s only fanned 4 times. In Kevin Goldstein’s BP 10 Pack he listed this scout’s comment on Iorg:
I like the tools and what he does with the glove… but he just can’t hit.
Andrew Oliver
After getting knocked around a little bit in his first outing he bounced back nicely fanning 3 and walking 1 in his next outing which lasted 2 innings. He followed that up with a 1 inning stint that saw him allow 2 hits, but no damage while notching another strikeout.
Robbie Weinhardt
Weinhardt also improved with his second outing, but that was really the only way for him to go. But he still allowed 2 runs in 1.1 innings. Weinhardt has allowed 7 runs in 3 AFL innings on 9 hits and 3 walks. For someone who allowed just 8 earned runs in 30 AA innings this year this is certainly uncharacteristic.
Scot Drucker
Drucker isn’t really viewed as a prospect, but he has done well with this opportunity so far. He’s allowed just 1 run on 2 hits in 5 innings despite just striking out 2.
I don’t see Wells as starting with the team at the beginning of the season, but being a guy that could impress Leyland and get called up later like happened with Clevlen, Clete and Joyce.
How’s his defensive rep? I know he has the speed, but I don’t really know much about his routes/arm. If he’s a plus defender in all three outfield spots, I really wouldn’t be surprised to see him at least get a long look next to Clete for the fourth/fifth OF spot (depending on what you want to call Raburn) .
Unless The Tigers fall on their face early (think ’09 Indians), Sizemore is the only one with a shot with the big club next year. This of course is dependent on what happens with Polanco and I guess we’ll know soon enough on that. Wells needs more work in the minors and since the Tigers are heavily laden with outfielders right now, unless some deals are made (Guillen, Granderson, Ordonez and Raburn probably stay unless there is a collapse before mid season), there really isn’t much point in bringing him up to be a bench player. I’m not convinced of the usefulness of the swining door policy with Erie/Toledo in regards to younger players. If you have a couple of career AAAA players with some ML experience, that makes some sense, but I think they should be very reluctant to remove the kids from a stable environment where they can get every day playing time. Iorg is definitely not ready and the pitchers listed aren’t even on the radar yet.
Why wouldn’t you think that Weinhardt is on the radar yet? He’s got 2 pro seasons in and he was a college reliever who had success last year at AA.
Drucker isn’t a prospect but he could be organizational filler/spot starter at some point.
Given the current iffy state of the bullpen, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to at least take a look at Weinhardt even as his AFL showing is off to a poor start. Maybe they could do a Ryan Perry kind of a thing and revolve him back and forth as needs be. My guess is that they would rather develop him more though and the emphasis over the winter will be on upgrading the bullpen through trade or FA – especially if both Lyon (possibly) and Rodney (likely) go away. As far as Drucker being used as organizational fodder (oops, I mean filler), that would be similar to the Figaro promotion of this season and hopefully we won’t need to go that route again. However, if they crash and burn early, then why not. But if they are in the race late it will most likely be due to the pitching holding up, in which case there would be no need. By this I mean that, barring some blockbuster trade, the pitching staff is probably going to have to carry the bulk of the load next year for them to compete. Emphasizing vets over rookies seems the more likely scenario. On the other hand, if there is another ’06 version of Zumaya waiting in the wings, by all means, bring them on.
I guess I am kind of conservative when it comes to bringing young players up. It just seems that it frequently turns out badly (especially with the pitchers) when they are rushed (my term). Zumaya is the prime recent example, although how much of his troubles are due purely to Zumaya could be debated. In the other hand Verlander seems to have survived. Porcello did well this year, but I guess we should wait and see how he responds to the increased work load.
I guess I don’t view Zumaya as a matter of rushing. He was young, but he also had 420 minor league innings under his belt and as a 20 year old he fanned 11 batters per 9 at AA. Injuries from a violent delivery are a problem. I don’t know that those happen any less at the minor league level than the major league level.
I do think Andrew Miller was rushed and he hasn’t recovered. Maybin was a desperation move but his cup of coffee I don’t think caused his problems.
Lynn Henning says Joel Zumaya is key to Tigers’ 2010 hopes.
Zumaya has pitched 87 innings in the past three years.
Let’s quantify that.
According to the Tigers senior beat reporter, Our 2010 hopes rest on a guy who did NOT participate in 4,098 of the last 4,174 innings.
That’s like the Democrats saying the key to a successful 2010 election is Roland Burris.
Simile of the year?
Perhaps! Or worst mathematical error of the year. It should read he did not participate in 4,087 of the last 4,174 innings.
Lucky for me (?), I don’t speak “math”.
“Lynn Henning says…”, a lot of, ummmm…..stuff.
It may be sad, but it’s basically accurate. Given the finances, our organizational talent isn’t likely to improve this off-season. Unless we get some significant production from some combination of Bondo, Nate, Zoom, and Dontrelle, you can go ahead and pencil us in for another 75-85 win season.
billfer,
I guess part of what I was getting at when speaking of “rushing” has to do with the maturity level of the player. That’s hard to quantify I know, but it seems to be something the scouts and coaches take into consideration when evaluating talent, but the only time we pay attention is when someone like Porcello (“mature beyond his years”) shows up. Then it’s a big deal, something to get excited about. Off the top of my head, as a counter-example I am thinking of Matt Anderson. There was a guy with loads of natural talent (100MPH heater), but whose mental accuity was clearly lagging behind his physical develpment (million dollar arm/ten cent brain kind of thing). I am not calling him stupid, but I don’t think he was particularly mature, and I wonder what effect a longer time in the minors under some more careful guidance wouldn’t have been beneficial. We’ll never know of course. He could as easily blown his arm out in Erie or Toledo. There are more than a few similarities between Anderson and Zumaya, I think. However, I certainly can’t claim to be close enough to these kinds of subtleties to the game to call these thoughts any more than idle speculation. But it is the off-season and it’s kind of fun to talk about something besides Leyland and his silly lineups, etc. (thank you very much Carlos Guillen – I will refrain from commenting in that thread).
I have known Scott Sizemore since he was at Hickory High School, which is the same high school that David Wright attended. Scott is the same class act that David Wright is.