danman31

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Apr 12, 2012 -> 06:50 AM) Dempsey to Arsenal rumors are starting to heat up. Would be a good fit for him, but it'd be a shame for him to leave Fulham, think they've both made the other party a lot better as a result of their time together. Yeah and I really don't want to root for Arsenal.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 11, 2012 -> 08:22 PM) Trayce Thompson, whenever he does make contact, gets more than his share of XB hits. So far 6 K in 25 plate appearances. That's getting pretty reasonable.

Exciting races in Europe. EPL could get interesting again, Serie A is separated by a point, Barca might be able to come back in Spain. Good stuff.

Rienzo is back in Winston-Salem this year. He had a nice 5 inning start to start the season.

Miguel is in Winston-Salem this season. He will split time with Mike Blanke at catcher. They both probably belong at that level, but that they will be splitting time says something about their prospect status. If both were still well-rated prospects giving them as much playing time as possible would still be a priority. Gonzalez has only played one game in the Dash's first four.

Playing at BB&T Ballpark could be a big boost to Thompson's power numbers. I'm expecting a really strong season from him.

Danks is back in Charlotte. Hopefully he can have a strong season and crack the Majors this season.

QUOTE (balfanman @ Apr 9, 2012 -> 04:23 PM) He seems to have been somewhat of a doubles machine in a pitchers park. I'm not familiar with the ballpark, but maybe if he ever played at a homer haven like the cell some of those would be home runs. Winston-Salem could be that hitters' park so he could have a big year.

Escobar made the Opening Day roster, which means this gets closed for now. Proud to say I was on him from his Great Falls days.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 10, 2012 -> 09:36 PM) K. Walker might be more hopeless than Mitchell or Thompson. In fact, I'm to point where I would be shocked if he makes it to the majors. Yeah, agree. Although I'd warn against making any judgments until a player reaches 100-150 at-bats. Even then they'd have to be fairly extremely good or bad for it to be meaningful.

Knights @ Durham Stults Huntsville @ Barons Molina Dash @ Frederick Buch rocked Delmarva @ Intimidators Parrent 8 K, 2 BB but also 4 R in 4.1 IP

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 10, 2012 -> 04:44 PM) I'm glad he said this. I'm still annoyed at the fact they called them a "Northern Kentucky Family" in one episode of the Simpsons. I like the confusion. If you want to be pissy about it you could just say imagine in that Behind the Music episode (one of their best) that the actors were from Kentucky, but the family they portrayed didn't live there.

Knights lost 13-5 3 hits for Kuhn, McPherson HR each for Gimenez, Danks Doyle rocked Barons lost 3-2 Mitchell 0-3, BB, K Hernandez 4.2 IP, 3 R, 2 K, 2 BB, 6 H Dash off Kanny lost 7-4 Gave up 5 runs in the 9th to lose, oof Smith 3-5, 2 K Walker 0-4, 2 K Olacio 1.1 IP, 1 UER, K, 3 BB, H

QUOTE (balfanman @ Apr 9, 2012 -> 01:18 PM) Thank you for the info. Is he really considered much of a prospect? He's 24 so no, but he is probably good enough to play 4-5 more years in the minors bouncing around AA if he wants.

QUOTE (balfanman @ Apr 9, 2012 -> 12:51 PM) Anyone know whatever happened to a 1st base draftee we had a few years ago by the name of Dan Black (I think). I seem to remember that he had some pretty good power. If he's still around I'll take him for a sleeper prospect, if for no other reason than that he was from Purdue if I remember correctly. Dan Black is with Winston-Salem. Had a nice year for Kanny last year (18 HR). I think he's pretty likely to put up good numbers in a small park this year.

Lots of ugly starting pitching today.

Norfolk @ Knights Leesman Barons @ Jackson Bayne Dash @ Carolina Arroyo Hickory @ Intimidators Snodgress

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Apr 7, 2012 -> 07:25 PM) I don't know how accurate this B'Ham boxscore can be, but it says Castro has thrown 31 pitches, all of them strikes. I would be inclined to believe they must not track balls and strikes, but the opposing pitcher has been credited with throwing balls, so........ The pitch numbers are too low. Castro had to have more than 40 pitches over 5 innings. Knights lost game 2 4-1 Kanny game 2

Barons @ Jackson Simon Castro debut Dash @ Carolina Rienzo Hickory @ Intimidators Webb

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 7, 2012 -> 01:28 AM) Jeff Soptic, could be another Nathan Jones. Although both of those guys are already on the radar to an extent. Feeling much more confident about Mitchell and Thompson than K. Walker at this point. Although there are grave doubts whether Mitchell can ever be a solution at leadoff hitter. Would like to see progress with walks/OBP, stealing bases and obviously cutting down the K ratio. Is Nate Jones really something to aspire to? Just because the Sox gave him a roster spot doesn't mean he still isn't a mediocre pitcher. I have a hard time seeing Keenyn Walker doing anything, but the only one of the three that I think has any future is Thompson.

I figured it would be cool to see who everyone's sleeper is. For argument's sake let's call a sleeper someone who does far better than expectations. Sure you can take Nestor Molina, but short of him having a strong stint with the big league club it would be pretty hard to call him a sleeper. Hopefully people stick to off the radar or comeback guys instead of picking good prospects to continue to do well. Anyway, my pick is Brandon Parrent. He's a 6-3 lefty that the Sox signed for overslot late in the draft and joined Great Falls late due to Texas A&M making a postseason run last summer. I'm not really all that confident in the pick, but I didn't want to pick a known entity so I'm going big. I think Trayce Thompson blows up in Winston-Salem's ballpark, but he's a top 5 prospect. I like Andy Wilkins based on a strong finish to last year and even home/away splits at W-S, but I think he takes a little while to adjust to Birmingham's big ballpark. Who ya got?

Knights won 6-5 Shirek 5 IP, 4 R, 8 K, BB, 4 H Phegley 3-4, 2B Barons lost 2-1 Quintana 5.2 IP, 2 R, 5 K, BB, 7 H 17 Ks for the offense Dash lost 11-2 Petricka 4 IP, 3 R, 5 K, 4 BB, 5 H Sanchez 0-3, 2 BB, 2 K Thompson 1-4, BB, 2 K Shoemaker 2-4 Intimidators lost 5-1 Webb 4 IP, 3 R, 5 K, BB, 4 H Walker 1-4, 3 K

Gilmore isn't a prospect.

The more I read/hear about Hunger Games the more I find the story to be really contrived and not all that interesting.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Apr 5, 2012 -> 09:17 PM) All of this excites me. I feel like most of our pitching prospects are legit for some reason; ah yes, blind homerism. But that aside, most of them have some serious potential. We may find out this year that our system is absolutely loaded- Thompson, Molina, Castro, Saladino, Petricka, Rienzo, I'm forgetting a bunch of good ones. Sure beats when Juan Silverio was our most interesting prospect at like 15 years old. I don't think Petricka will be any more than an average big league reliever. His secondary pitches are really lacking at the moment and he's 23. Similar goes for Rienzo. The system has a pretty good amount of depth, but there are virtually no exciting prospects with Reed already in the bigs.