Monday, April 16, 2012

BRASSball Amateur Scouting - Lake Elsinore Storm at Lancaster Jethawks - April 15, 2012

Lake Elsinore Storm vs. Lancaster Jethawks
The family and I decided to catch some local Minor League Baseball action on Sunday, April 15, 2012. The Class A Advanced California League Jethawks (Houston Astros) play in our backyard, one valley over in Lancaster, California. The Lake Elsinore Storm (San Diego Padres) were the opponent as the Jethawks were looking to complete a sweep of the Storm, but fell short 7-5.

Cook County's Rymer Liriano
Three BRASSball amateurs were on display on Sunday: Rymer Liriano (Cook County) and Cory Spangenberg (Hessville) of Lake Elsinore, and George Springer (Plaza) of Lancaster.

Liriano went one-for-three with a walk and was caught stealing once.

Hessville's Cory Spangenberg

Spangenberg (pronounced "SPAN-JEN-BURG," not "SPANK-EN-BERG" like I thought) went one-for-five with a stolen base and strikeout.

Plaza's George Springer

The home crowd favorite Springer managed to only go one-for-four with a walk.

The biggest draw for the kids is the Jethawk mascot "KA-BOOM." He's walking around and mingling with the crowd frequently. If you want a kid-friendly, casual atmosphere, and a place with decent prices on food and parking, don't forget about your minor league clubs around the country. Go out and support the future of BRASSball!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

BFSR 2012: Post-Draft Edition

Cook County's Danny Hultzen
The 2012 BRASSball season is well underway, so it's time to take a look back at how the 2012 draft impacted the BFSR standings.

The rosters, prospect rankings, and farm system standings were last updated on January 17, 2012. Since that time, there have been a handful of trades that impacted the scores of several teams. The Jacob Turner trade to Cook County, Jesus Montero being dealt to Myrtle Beach, and Santa Barbara acquiring Randall Delgado all influenced the scores of teams on both sides of the deal.

The completion of the annual 2012 BRASSball draft had the greatest impact on the scores. For those not familiar with what the score means, it is, in general, a way to quantify the BRASS amateur/minor league system in terms of player progression. In short, if you have an uncarded player that moves up the minor league ranking systems or even makes it to the majors at some point, your team is awarded "progression points." The total team score should forecast how a BRASSball team will perform in the future as the future stars become legitimate major leaguers.

Three Up
Cook County took over the number one overall position in the rankings after a successful 2012 draft. Not only did the Maulers seem to have two or three picks in every round, they snatched Jacob Turner (22.07) away from Tinley during the off-season. Their first two picks in the draft, Danny Hultzen (18.02) and Brad Peacock (14.17), combined with Turner, yielded an upgrade of 54.26 points to the team. The Maulers earned a league-high 267.87 point gain since January.

Myrtle Beach tumbled all the way down to the second spot in the standings. The Mermen amassed an additional 154.91 BFSR points due largely in part to the Jesus Montero (24.43) trade. Montero was the fourth overall prospect in BFSR behind Julio Teheran (25.38), Matt Moore (25.26), and Trevor Bauer (24.70). Their first-round pick, Addison Reed (19.13) and second-round pick, Andrelton Simmons (13.66) helped keep the Mermen near the top of he heap.

Simi Valley leaped nine spots from 20th overall to 11th overall. The Vikings used the draft to restock their minor league system and did so in a hurry. Wisely finding prospects in the middle of the draft that were ready to make the jump, they picked up Taylor Guerrieri (13.78) in the bonus round (between rounds three and four), Brian Goodwin (13.10) in round four, and Joe Wieland (12.98) in round eight. Those three, along with second-round pick Nathan Eovaldi (12.91), put the Vikings in the top half of the BFSR standings entering the 2012 season.

Three Down
Metropolis fell mightily from the third overall spot to fourteenth. The Avengers were the only club to actually lose points in the standings, trimming 12.03 points from their total. This was mainly due to the Jesus Montero trade that benefited Myrtle Beach. They spent their first-round pick on Cuban defector Yoenis Cespedes who was not ranked as a "prospect" and more of a free-agent-type. Metropolis, however, has positioned themselves for a run at the title in 2012 and are in full-on championship contender mode. Why bother rebuilding when you can try and win it all right now.

Tinley is caught in a tough position in terms of rebuilding and playing for the here and now. The Redbirds fell one spot to the cellar of the BFSR standings after dealing Jacob Turner to Cook County. They did improve, however, especially with the addition of Jemile Weeks (8.60) with their first pick (second, overall). However, the progressive prospects were few and far between with Louis Coleman (3.00) the only other mildly significant contributor. Although they finished with only 57 wins in 2011, the Redbirds hope to rebound and make a playoff run. If they start slow, look for them to start rebuilding in mid-season and begin to climb the BFSR standings quickly.

Florence gained the second fewest amount of BFSR points with 35.34 and fell seven spots in the standings. Their first-round selection of veteran Joe Mauer hurt their overall score even though the addition of Mauer clearly makes the River Bats better in 2012. The team of extreme drafting then selected college star Mark Appel in round two. Although Appel has no current BFSR value, he could be the first overall player taken in this year's MLB draft, which would put Florence right back on the map for player progression. Daniel Norris (13.30) and Todd Frazier (8.45) were solid pick-ups for the River Bats in the draft.

Current Standings
Here are the current BFSR standings as of April 1, 2012.


RANKTEAMBFSR POINTS
1Cook County469.94
2Myrtle Beach422.94
3California404.10
4Parkland338.21
5Santa Barbara325.54
6Boston302.61
7Fremont293.83
8Plaza293.73
9North Georgia250.56
10Fleetwood250.34
13Springfield244.00
11Simi Valley241.63
12Brew City236.29
14Metropolis219.61
15Superior213.90
16Glen Allen192.38
17Hessville189.31
18Brooklyn168.43
19Lancaster165.60
20Latrobe154.12
21Florence152.71
22Schaumburg147.42
23SoCal143.46
24Tinley100.22