Prospect Alert
Fantasy Baseball Sleepers

Jays' McGowan Lost for Season

It’s been a devastating week for the Blue Jays, who learned that top prospect Dustin McGowan would miss the remainder of the season while recovering from Tommy John surgery.

McGowan had been experiencing discomfort recently, after receiving a promotion from Double-A New Hampshire to Triple-A Syracuse. He dominated the lower competition, compiling a quick two wins in four outings. Those starts earned a promotion, at which time he lost control and began to get hit hard. A trip to the infamous Dr. Andrews revealed a torn ulnar collateral ligament, and the rest is history.

McGowan, the top pitching prospect in the Blue Jays’ organization, has dominated early in his career. He’s the most talented pitcher in the organization, including both majors and minors. He throws a mid-90s fastball, power curve, solid slider, and improving changeup. His biggest drawback is a lack of experience, which holds true for any minor leaguer; unfortunately, he’ll have to wait another year to start adding to his track record.

Expect McGowan to return late next season, where he’ll pick up with more of the dominating performances that he showed in New Hampshire. He won't be back in full force until spring training 2006.

Sizzling Stars

We’re going to start a new feature this week, which may or may not run regularly in the future. The general idea is to get readers introduced to some of the productive prospects in the game. So, we’ll pick two hot prospects, one well-known and one not so popular.

Here it goes….

The Popular One

DH Justin Morneau, Minnesota Twins
.360-9-28, 13 doubles, 139 at-bats

Regular readers to this column are likely sick of hearing this name, but Morneau is simply too important to overlook. His status as ready for the majors has fantasy players anxiously awaiting the opportunity to add him to their rosters, particularly in deeper leagues.

His performance thus far has been remarkable, particularly in terms of power potential. He’s averaging a double every ten at-bats, which is quite remarkable. Over the course of an entire season, that projects somewhere in the 50-60 double range, which would be an extremely high total. Factor in the homers and high average, along with the steady plate discipline, and it’s easy to see why Morneau has been the most impressive positional prospect thus far in the minors.

In the future, Morneau projects to hit for a high average with plenty of pop. Don’t expect him to develop into a home run champion, but Morneau should develop above-average over-the-fence power, along with excellent gap power. He will get a call at sometime this season, and that should be sooner rather than later. Morneau is simply too hot to leave in the minors, and represents a tremendous upgrade over the current first base situation.

The Unknown

SP Ubaldo Jimenez, Colorado Rockies
41 IP, 59 K, 11 BB, 25 H

Fine, Jimenez isn’t exactly the most unpopular prospect around, but he certainly doesn’t receive the credit he deserves. One of the better prospects in the Rockies’ system, he is unheralded outside of the organization, and doesn’t appear on many top prospect lists. That could all change over the course of this season.

Jimenez has dominated opposing batters, allowing far fewer walks and hits than strikeouts. His ERA and WHIP are miniscule, despite pitching in front of a shaky defensive unit. Jimenez, 20, is pitching in high-A ball, so there is no age advantage factoring into the equation. He’s simply been dominating hitters of a similar, or oftentimes more experienced, nature.

Jimenez throws a mid- to upper-90s four-seamer, and mixes in a slightly slower two-seamer with amazing movement. His curve is another major plus, and has made opposing hitters look quite foolish so far. Additionally, Jimenez has begun to throw a changeup, which has shown the potential to become another potent pitch. Some are concerned that as Jimenez advances, opposing hitters will have a better understanding of how to adjust to his devastating curve, and that his lack of experience throwing the changeup will compound that problem. However, he has shown the ability to adjust to the opposition, and has made great strides improving his command over the offseason.

Jimenez is still a few years away, but he has the potential to develop into a front-of-the-rotation starter. His hot start and offseason improvements make this kid one to watch for the future.

We’re back on a regular schedule with the start of the regular season, so check back next week for more analysis!

---