At long last, Chris Kline rolls out his rather thorough look at the upcoming rule 5, with lots of scouting blurbage. Call me an addict, but this is a pretty nice holdover until Friday when Goold rolls out his Top 10 at BA. Here’s one name that stuck out to me the most as a possible fit:
Randor Bierd, Detroit Tigers, rhp
Signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2003, Bierd was mediocre for his first two seasons in the States and then needed Tommy John surgery midway through 2005. After pitching at short-season Oneonta in 2006, Bierd took a major step this past season, jumping to Double-A Erie where he finished 3-2, 3.35 with 52 strikeouts in 45 innings. While Bierd has a swing-and-miss 90-93 mph sinking fastball, his solid-average slider also gets a lot of ground balls. And he has the makings of a third pitch with an average changeup.
If he’s back from TJ, he’s a good candidate to bounce back and he’s already headed down that road. He struck out about 30% of the batters he faced between A+ and AA, while being a groundball machine.
There is a SS on the list, Diory Hernandez of the Braves. I’m an advocate of giving Ryan a shot at the job considering the alternatives, but Mo and Co. aren’t as sold, they are looking at the likes of Jack Wilson and Cesar Izturis…yeah. Here’s a video of him taking a pitcher deep er, striking out…(I wasn’t able to watch the whole thing before, he must’ve had that first swing go just foul. )
He hit .307/.366/.418 in 433 at bats in AA last year, with 22 steals. He was also caught 20 times, apparently he needs a kick in the instincts. I can’t see him being better then Ryan, but maybe he’s worth a shot in camp to compete, if all else he could be the 2nd coming of Hector Luna.
Trolling over at the Scout.com forums, one name that has come up over there is James D’Antona. He’s a 6-2, 210 3B with some interesting power potential. He also can play 1st, left field and has been known to catch from time to time. Sounds like a Tony La Russa type of player in those regards, although they already do have Spiezio to fit that role. Going into 2005, he was ranked the #8 prospect in the Diamondbacks system. One of the posters at the Birdhouse dug up an older scouting report of his:
Batting and Power: D’Antona can crush the ball to all fields and hit some of the longest homers this season. During his stint in Lancaster, he was challenging for the California League Triple Crown before getting a promotion to AA El Paso. Though improving, he still has trouble showing patience at the plate, but the Diamondbacks will live with his relatively high strikeout total as long as he continues to drive the ball the way he has (a .531 Slugging Percentage gives an idea). If he can continue to hit with the same power and stay in the general neighborhood of .300 it would be great, but expect a dip in the average and the home run totals to rise dramatically. One scout refers to D’Antona as the guy in the D-Backs system “most likely to hit 50 home runs in a Major League season.”
Base running and Speed: D’Antona runs like a guy who gets to trot a lot, which is to say, not well. He won’t be stealing any bases, but seems to be smart on the bases, though rarely challenges anyone.
Defense: D’Antona is almost the prototypical 3rd baseman. He has a cannon for an arm, and is accurate with it as well. Though his footwork isn’t pretty, and his range suffers for it, one good summer working on the footwork might turn D’Antona into a very tough hot corner guy defensively.
Power does come late, but D’Antona is going to turn 26 this upcoming May. This year for AAA Tucson he had an ISO of .191. That’s good, but considering the park he played in and that he’s 25, that’s not spectacular. His translated EqA was .256; nothing to really write home about, and his peak translation is .259, because after all, he’s not far from his peak. Unless his power peak comes at around 30, and it does for some, I doubt he’ll ever come close to 50 homers. I say pass.
Filed under: Rule 5 Draft
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I think the pitcher took him deep…down to the bench!
Brian Barton -
Would seem like a fine pickup for the Cards if he is truly left unprotected. probably wouldn’t fall to us, though.
Sid, looking through the list I thought Barton looked incredibly appealing. On first glance, we should be all over that if he falls.
Same order as the amateur draft, right?
Is it me, or is that video of Hernandez a strike out?
shane…oh my u are right. i watched only the part of him hitting it hard and starting to trot. the pitfalls of posting at work and being in a hurry.
Haltz, Barton was considered something of a late bloomer, but with tools, and was ranked as the Tribes #5 prospect by Baseball America in their 2007 handbook. I checked him out a lot last year, but not so much this year. The questions about his makeup in that Chris Kline article surprised me - kind of run counter to what I’d heard about him before. He’s apparently both intelligent AND mature, and maybe his behaviors just don’t fit with what people expect to see from young prospects. At a minumum, I’m sure he’s smart enough to not feel he’s “can’t miss” enough to coast, as Kline implies.
I just checked out Barton’s 2007 stats, and he was just fine at AA, then struggled in 87 ABs at AAA. Still very much worth a flyer, but doubt he’d fall to us at 18. He draws walks and has speed and pop, a nice trifecta that would seem to make him a #1 or #2 hitter. Righty, too.
Can we cut in line?
Barton is pretty interesting, I figured there’s no way he’d be on the board when the Cardinals choose so there wasn’t much use in mentioning him. then again i could say the same for Bierd. Deric McKamey was very high on in his book last year, giving him 4/5’s on his power, average, and speed potential. One thing that sticks out to me with his AA stats was that his .406 BABIP. His line drive rate of 13% seems pretty iffy, and he hit a lot of balls on the ground. he must be legging out a lot of hits with his speed.