It's time to rank the newest Atlanta Braves prospect, newly signed from the Dominican Republic, 18-year old Edward Salcedo. He just received the largest signing bonus the Braves have ever given an international prospect, and some scouts compare him to Hanley Ramirez and even Alex Rodriguez.
This might be a bit difficult as there are not too many detailed scouting reports on him, and of course he's never played a game in the US, but reports are that he will start out at one of the two A-ball levels, either low-A Rome or high-A Myrtle Beach. Starting out that high as an international prospect is a rare feat -- even Yunel Escobar started out at Danville.
We'll learn more about him in the coming months, but where should he be ranked now? I'm going to make the assumption that he will not rank ahead of Jason Heyward, and I'm also going to assume that he's in the top-10. Vote in the poll below by the end of the weekend, and once we have the result we'll add him into our Talking Chop 2010 Community Top-25 Prospects (and kick poor Andy Otero out -- though probably not for long).
If you need a reference of the top-25, look on the left sidebar on the main page, near the top there is a section that lists our top-25 prospects. (That actually remains there year-round for reference sake, FYI.)
Here is part-2 of the two-part Atlanta Braves prospect Q&A with Baseball America's Bill Ballew. For part-1 click here.
Q: Which young player package will be better in the long run? Which group would you prefer?
(A) Tyler Flowers, Brent Lillibridge, Jon Gilmore and Santos Rodriguez
(B) Charlie Morton, Gorkys Hernandez, and Jeff Locke
(C) Melky Cabrera, Mike Dunn, and Arodys Vizcaino
A: Give me the first group, mainly because of Flowers. Lillibridge is a decent role player, but really a 4A guy. Gilmore is not a prospect in my opinion, and Rodriguez throws hard but has not made much progress along the organizational ladder. Flowers is a big-time bat and a likely first baseman who could fill at catcher. The second group is mainly about Morton, who is a decent starter for a non-championship club. Hernandez will hit his ceiling pretty soon, and Locke has not shown enough consistency to be considered a guy to work around. Cabrera is overrated because he was a Yankee, Dunn is decent but not a long-term answer, and Vizcaino is a potential stud but has a long way to go before he reaches the big leagues.
Q: Despite a safe above-slot pick of Mike Minor, how would you rank the Braves 2009 draft when compared against Braves' drafts of previous years? Did they focus too much on college and JuCo players while abandoning their usual draft sytle of selecting a lot of high school talent?
A: I believe they fell in love with the juco approach in 2008, when they did very well, and went a little overboard last year. I don't see a lot of impact potential with the 2009 class, which proved to be Roy Clark's last with the Braves. Clark did an amazing job as scouting director and had several of the best draft classes in Atlanta history. Unfortunately, 2009 does not appear to be one of them. I believe he was limited because of the budget as well as some other things that were taking place behind closed doors that contributed to his departure. Mycal Jones and a few others could prove to be interesting, but I don't see this class as being a big-time contributor to the organization's depth.
The fourth and final installment of our prospect list Q&A's for 2010 ends with Baseball America's Bill Ballew. Bill covers several teams for BA including the Braves, where he does a terrific job of keeping BA readers informed about the team's prospects during the season. Bill penned this year's Atlanta Braves top prospects for Baseball America, which was released back at the beginning of November. We had a great Q&A with Bill last year and the year before, and this year he was kind enough to once again be very detailed with his answers (hence the two-part Q&A).
Q: Give us your prediction of where Jason Heyward will start the season, and what kind of year he will have. Is Heyward ready to be an everyday major leaguer from opening day 2010?
A: He could handle the job now, but I believe the Braves will do the prudent thing and send him to Gwinnett for a few months before throwing him to the wolves. After all, Tommy Hanson's experience last year definitely topped the first-year performance of Jordan Schafer. I know there were some injury issues there, but I believe the Braves need to look at the big picture over the long haul and let him see Triple-A pitching for two or three months. Only 20, Heyward is a man-child with an incredible feel for the game. He has everything you want in an outfield prospect. On a lesser team, he would be a sure thing to open the season in the big leagues, but the Braves have the wisdom to do the right thing and bring him as the weather warms this summer.
Q: Where would you rank Arodys Vizcaino on the Braves prospect list? How does he compare to Julio Teheran and Randall Delgado, who are your 3rd and 4th ranked Braves' prospects?
A: Vizcaino would rank between Teheran and Delgado on my list at this point. I haven't seen him pitch, but from everything I've been told by some reliable scouts, front-office types and others, he has some impressive all-around ability. I've seen Teheran and Delgado, and I believe both of them have a very bright future. Teheran was pushed initially in 2008 and wasn't physically ready to pitch in the Appalachian League. He lived up to the hype last year and looks ready to start making rapid progress. The light really came on for Delgado during the last half of 2009 at Rome and I wouldn't be surprised to see him split this season between Myrtle Beach and Mississippi. Delgado may be the best of the three. Of course, with pitching, so much depends upon who stays healthy. All three will be fun to watch develop this year.
This is part-2 of the prospect Q&A with Bill Shanks. To view part-1, go here.
Q: Can Cory Rasmus come back and be a valuable major league prospect? How about Erik Cordier?
A: Rasmus has not regained his pre-surgery velocity, but he certainly pitched well in Danville in his return. I hope he can get 125 innings or so this season to see what we have in Rasmus. I really liked him before he got hurt, so he's just got to show us what he can do in a full season. Cordier will go to Double-A, and we'll see how good a prospect he's going to be for the Braves. That's where pitchers get separated a bit, so I'm anxious to see Erik in Mississippi. We will know more about both after this season.
Q: Which reliever has the highest upside and why, Michael Dunn, David Hale, or Cory Gearrin?
A: Well, I think the Braves will put Hale in the Rome rotation. They want to see how his stuff plays out as a starter, much like they did with Blaine Boyer a few years ago. Hale's future may be in the pen, but they'll decide in March if he is to start or relieve in Rome this season. I love what I have read about Dunn. He has his control issues too, but to have a lefty reliever with that type of arm is pretty good. I would say Dunn right now, with Hale in the running after we see him over the course of a full season. I like to see guys at the full season level before having complete projections. Gearrin is a nice prospect, sort of a Brad Clontz-type, with ordinary stuff but he can be hard to hit with his delivery being so unusual. He could get lost in the shuffle behind Dunn, Hyde, and Kimbrel, but Cory has potential and could get to the big leagues.
The third in our series of Braves prospect list Q&A's continues today with part one of my Q&A with Braves prospect guru Bill Shanks. Bill has many ventures, including The Bill Shanks Show on Fox Sports 1670 AM in Macon every weekday from 3-6 pm ET, his website The Braves Show (a part of the Scout.com network), and he is also a columnist for the Macon Telegraph. Bill has been an expert on the Braves farm system for some time, so I am excited to have him share his opinions on our most recent Braves prospects. Part 2 of this Q&A will be posted tomorrow.
Q: Give us your prediction of where Jason Heyward will start the season, and what kind of year he will have. Is Heyward ready to be an everyday major leaguer from opening day 2010?
A: I think Jason Heyward will start the season in Atlanta, barring a catastrophe in March. He's a beast. If any 20-year-old kid can make a jump like that, Heyward can do it. He's a legit five-tool player, and for me, he's another Dave Parker. They want to push him, and I see no reason why Jason can't be ready to go on Opening Day in Atlanta.
Q: Does the depth of pitching at the lower levels of the Braves organization represent the greatest depth the organization has ever had? How good will the rotation at Rome be?
A: The depth is similar to what the Braves had back in the early-to-mid-2000s, when they had Adam Wainwright, Horacio Ramirez, Matt Belisle, Kyle Davies, Blaine Boyer, Macay McBride, Zach Miner, Jose Capellan, Dan Meyer, Chuck James, etc. Those are ten guys who got to the big leagues, and not all farm systems produce like that. But the upside of guys like Mike Minor, Julio Teheran, Randall Delgado, and Arodys Vizcaino make you think this could be a special group. And I think the Braves have a number of pitchers who could be mid-low rotation starters one day, guys like Richard Sullivan, Jacob Thompson, Zeke Spruill, and J.J. Hoover. And I have not given up on Cole Rohrbough. As far as the Rome rotation... good luck in trying to figure out how that will shake out. Don't rule out Teheran popping up to Myrtle to start the season if he has a good March. But Vizcaino should be there, along with Brett DeVall (as long as he shows he's healthy in March, and they believe he is right now), and maybe David Hale. Then you've got all those kids from Danville who did so well last season. They will battle for rotation spots in Rome during spring training.
We continue our series of prospect guru Q&A's with John Sickels of Minor League Ball. I've done a Q&A with John each of the last three years (2007, 2008, and 2009), and every year he has some great insight into the Braves minor league prospects. John publishes his annual Prospect Book every year, and there is still time to grab the 2010 edition if you haven't already pre-ordered it. The book is a great source for learning about the Braves prospects -- there are usually 30 to 40 players per team reviewed -- and it's a great resource to have on hand in case we acquire a prospect from another team.
Q: Give us your prediction of where Jason Heyward will start the season, and what kind of year he will have. Is Heyward ready to be an everyday major leaguer from opening day 2010?
A: I won’t guess what the Braves will do….the most common rumor is that it’s 50/50 on whether Heyward starts opening day or not, so I assume that they don’t know themselves. I imagine we won’t know until spring training gets further down the road. If I was making the decision, I’d send him to Triple-A for another 300 at-bats. He has just 173 at-bats in the high minors, and as advanced a prospect as he is, a little more experience won’t hurt. As Matt Wieters showed last year, even the best prospects often need adjustment time in the majors, and having some Triple-A experience to fall back on can’t hurt. It also saves time on the arbitration clock. So, if it was me, he’d be in Gwinnett through early July and I’d call him up at that point if he’s doing well. But I tend to be pretty conservative about moving prospects.
Q: Where would you rank Arodys Vizcaino on the Braves prospect list? How does he compare to Julio Teheran and Randall Delgado, who are your 3rd and 4th ranked Braves' prospects?
A: I slotted Vizcaino at number five on my revised list, ahead of Kimbrel at six but behind Teheran at three and Delgado at four. I like Vizcaino quite a bit. Of the three, Teheran has the highest ceiling, Vizcaino is probably second and Delgado a close third, but Delgado is a little ahead on the development track so I put him a notch above Vizcaino when revised the list. All three are strong Grade B prospects who could be B+ or A- guys a year from now.
One of the most popular off-season series of posts at Talking Chop is back, starting today with the first Braves Prospect List Q&A for 2010. We'll have at least four of these Q&A's this year, and the series kicks off with Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus.
First, a general note about the Q&A's; I try to ask questions based on the prospect guru's top-Braves-prospect list, but I also try to go beyond that to incorporate some prospects who we may not have seen on the list, but nonetheless care about as a Braves community. I will ask many of the same questions from one person to another, with some variety, but that is by design, as I find it interesting how different analysts answer the same question.
Kevin Goldstein has been doing this Q&A for me since I started this series three years ago. He is one of the more respected names in prospect analysis, and always seems to have surprise prospects on his Braves prospect lists. He is one of the best reasons why everyone should have a subscription to Baseball Prospectus. If you'd like to review the Q&As from previous years, here is 2009, 2008 and 2007. His ranking of Braves prospects this year can be found here.
Q: Give us your prediction of where Jason Heyward will start the season, and what kind of year he will have.
A: The first part of that question is really hard, and I think it's just going to come down to spring training. If he does really well, he's there Opening Day. I'll give you a sneak preview that nobody outside of BP has seen. Our projection system, PECOTA, thinks he'd hit .277/.350/.473 in the big leagues, and that sounds about right to me.
Q: Is Heyward ready to be an everyday major leaguer from opening day 2010?
A: Yes. He's not a great one yet, but I certainly think he will be. If there is a service time concern, you could see a Tommy Hanson-esque year where he's not there until May, but he can produce now.
The second-to-last prospect list of the off-season is here. Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus releases his top-11 Braves prospects for 2010. (Click here for the 2009 list)
Five-Star Prospects
1. Jason Heyward, OF
2. Julio Teheran, RHP
3. Arodys Vizcaino, RHP
Four-Star Prospects
4. Freddie Freeman, 1B
Three-Star Prospects
5. Randall Delgado, RHP
6. Christian Bethancourt, C
7. Mike Minor, LHP
8. Craig Kimbrell, RHP
9. Adam Milligan, OF
10. Robinson Lopez, RHP
Two-Star Prospects
11. Cody Johnson, OFFour More:
12. J.J. Hoover, RHP
13. Zeke Spruill, RHP
14. Tyler Stovall, LHP
15. Mycal Jones, SS
WOW! Three five-star prospects! That's more than I've seen (though I'll have to check what he's given other teams), but Goldstein doesn't give the five stars to just anyone.
I love the inclusion of Robinson Lopez in the top-10, KG always surprises us with someone. About Lopez, KG says: "Yet another talented Latin arm, Lopez signed for just $110,000 in late 2008, but he looked to be worth far more than that in his pro debut."
His sleeper pick is Benino Pruneda. I keep waiting for Pruneda to bust out, maybe this will be the year.
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