taylorblakeward

2 minutes ago, Scotty@AW said:

As much as I like the recognition the Angels prospects are getting, there aren't 58 prospects better than Adell.

There aren't even 20.

There's 39 that are better in my book.

26 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

This kid is fast. Really glad we're drafting speed. 

6.17 60-yard dash, only Quentin Holmes is a guy I can find that matched that and he has true 80-grade speed

29 minutes ago, oater said:

Out of curiosity, why Edwards over Turang?  

An hour ago (when the mock came out), Edwards was the name I heard - as of this very moment, I would say it's either Gilbert, Edwards, Turang or Groshans and would lean Turang over Edwards/Groshans right at this very moment. Jordyn Adams is an option too. Things change every few minutes and even into the draft itself.

1 hour ago, Inside Pitch said:

I'm genuinely embarrassed to admit I wasn't aware you had one out.   

Btw... Glad you're posting here, If I haven't said it before I should go on record now as saying that your scouting reports have tended to match up most closely with those of people in the game that I'm still close to.  I remember when you were the only person online talking up Nate Smith when he came out of Furman.... I had seen him pitch .vs  Samford and Georgia Southern and walked away intrigued but nobody online so much as mentioned him before you.  You've consistently been on guys that ended up being guys before the rest of the people online started copying each other's takes and passing them off as their own insights.  

Props to you  

Thanks Inside Pitch, just gotta watch, listen and report. If you see something you like, you should be able to comment on it and ask questions about it. You usually get an answer that is close to what you've seen or believe.

17 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

Have you guys heard that in addition to Jordyn Adams, we've been looking at Xavier Edwards and Brice Turang as position players?

Someone finally read my latest mock

15 hours ago, Chuckster70 said:

@taylorblakeward any info on Tyler Stevens and Oliver Ortega?

I thought Angels Win was the primary source for Angels minor league info...

Stevens is pretty much low/mid 90's with a big breaker and seems to have scrapped his changeup since he's a reliever, good control, I called him a 35/40 FV guy before the season

I haven't seen Ortega and haven't had someone bring him up to me so either a way under-the-radar guy that is creeping into some form past org pitcher, or just bland stuff that works well for the level

4 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

@taylorblakeward do you know if Jose Miguel Fernandez is injured or possibly on his way up to the big league club now that Ward and Thaiss are moving up to Salt Lake?

I would love for JMF to replace Valbuena and Fletcher take Kinsler's spot. 

Nothing right now.

11 minutes ago, Scotty@AW said:

TB-Dubs says rumor has it Adell has been promoted to Inland Empire and Thaiss has been promoted to AAA Salt Lake.

Who?

3 hours ago, Scotty@AW said:

A fair comp for Canning could be who the Angels are facing tonight in Lance McCullers Jr. Similar fastball with a TON of movement, very good curve and slider. Canning's change up is much better, but McCullers has a good sinker to make up for it. 

If Canning has a career like McCullers so far, the Angels would be in very good shape, particularly if Richards comes back. 1-2-3 of Ohtani, Richards and Canning gives us a great playoff rotation.

Right-handed Tyler Anderson

10 hours ago, Dochalo said:

What if we took the best player available with every pick?

....

So outside of the first round, there are about 15-20 players that are going to have a significant major league impact.  

If you can grab 1-2 players per draft that can eventually help you at the major league level for more than a mere cup of coffee, you are doing pretty well.  

The odds overwhelmingly favor the 1st three rounds by far.  




 

THIS GUY GETS IT!

On 3/25/2018 at 5:51 PM, Scotty@AW said:

His face, legs and arms look a lot better than last year, so he has lost some weight. Still has a belly. As for the swing, first thing I did first, his timing is off. It doesn't matter what sort of swing he has, if he doesn't have his timing down he won't hit much. He still has good extension and the reports remain true that the ball comes off his bat different than others.

But he's raw, his timing is off and physically he isn't where he needs to be yet. He was always going to move to third base anyway.

Swing is ugly, very close to an arm bar which is something that can be fixed but takes time to mentally get yourself out of that funk - a lot of work ahead of him

16 hours ago, Dochalo said:

whoa!  95-96?  

I've got to be honest, I was concerned about that pick.  I thought he was 92-93 and touching 95.  Big big difference.  TBW also gave him a 60 grade changeup which isn't even mentioned here.  Three plus and one above avg pitches?  good command?  that's pretty nice.  Lot of effort in the delivery though it seems.  thoughts?  

TBW - dude. you have an intern now?  baller

I saw him 4-5 times at UCLA and never had him sit over 92-94 and had very limited 95's. I spoke with Rahul quite a bit yesterday and his radar gun sources were reliable so if it is 94-96 then it's a new fastball. His change shows 60 and my grades are based on future, but I'd put  it at 50/55 current.

Also, Rahul and I are working on all the details of internship but the plan is to bring him on full time once my new contract comes in to play and we can work a contract for Rahul when/if he's willing. I would take his word (and Brent Maguire's) over just about anyone not coming from a major outlet (FanGraphs, BA, MLB) when it comes to Angels prospects.

3 hours ago, SuperTroopers said:

I’ll have to pay more attention to the international side of things, because your post sounds like a compliment to Ulloa, but then you mention a bunch of guys I haven’t heard of and then Baldoquin. 

Or TBW you could spend more time here giving us updates on these guys.   Oh and before any of you fools say, “if I followed him on Twitter”, I do.  

I'm planning on deleting Twitter 

14 hours ago, Scotty@AW said:

As a 16 year old, Soriano was 6'1'', 150 lbs. and threwin the high-80's. At 17, he was 6'3" 160 lbs. and threw 91-92. At 18 he was 6'4" 170 lbs. and threw 93-95.

Now he's 19 and is throwing 94-97.

Not bad for $70k. Practically nothing as far international scouting budget goes. Soriano at age 16 was seen as someone that would top out around 91-92 without a consistent breaking pitch.

The Angels were extremely limited in their ability to scout and sign these kids because of the restrictions and lack of a foot hold in the area. They liked Soriano but were only lucky enough to sign him when it became clear other teams were floating $10k, which is the price teams offer when they're simply looking for filler.

Just imagine where this kid could be by age 23.

Another product of Alfredo Ulloa signing, who is responsible for Hector Yan, Raider Uceta, Adderlin Santana, Daniel Ozoria, Julio Garcia, Julio De La Cruz, Stiward Aquino...... and Roberto Baldoquin

On 2/24/2018 at 11:07 AM, Scotty@AW said:

Minor League Ball does the best job outside of AW in terms of scouting the depths of our minor league system.

Baseball America does the best job at scouting a selective few.

Baseball Prospectus is basically the same as BA with slightly more statistical analysis.

FanGraphs does a very solid job ranking the prospects, but their scouting reports are pretty terrible. Riddled with errors, obvious ones too. They aren't scouts. But they take other sites into account and create a ranking that's generally accurate. They're the opposite of MLB.com. One gives you no information because they don't want to be wrong, the other throws crap against the wall hoping some of it sticks.

Keith Law isn't a scout, and never actually was. If you read his list as you'd read any other fans, expecting bias, it's solid work. But if you're taking what he writes as "expertise" then you'll be disappointed or misinformed.

MLB.com works off the mantra, "No information is better than misinformation" which is a step in the right direction I guess. Very shallow reports and rankings that leave a lot to be desired. 

Scout.com has outstanding insider information. TBW is a good  reporter. Good writeups. He isn't a natural scout, but he also isn't misinformed either. 

Halos Heaven used to have good scouting and poor reporting, but not anymore. They have improved as a fan site, but you can't trust their rankings or scouting reports.

AngelsWin has a solid ranking system and decent scouting reports. They (we) toe the line between scouting and fandom, which is a unique place to be, but it also opens us (me usually) up for criticism.  It's highly likely other publications read our information, put their spin on it and present it as their own. I think if nothing else, AW's content is forcing others to step up their game if they want to be taken seriously.

oh...

Not sure if it's been touched on or not but Kevin Maitan's development has hit a pretty hard stand still. Scouts are pretty torn about if it's culture shock or if it's a real problem but he's physically tapped out at 17 and his swing has gotten VERY ugly over the last year. It could be a development issue or it could be a mechanical issue adapting to his larger frame but many in the industry do not consider him a "Top 100" prospect anymore but instead, a physical project with projectable tools (i.e. every organization has one of these guys).

Just for those who don't have prior knowledge of it, Maitan's swing was either tweaked or did not adjust properly to his physical growth because it is very bad. I genuinely doubt he's considered a "Top 100" prospect after this season.

Baseball related comment

I watched John Schuknecht play at Poly, and came away with pretty limited notes. Power is 50 raw, 45 in game. Aside from that, I didn't see a whole lot.

There's plenty of thud in his swing, but there's still a lot of swing-and-miss in his game.