Prospect Alert
Fantasy Baseball Sleepers

1. Delmon Young, OF, AAA - Great power, lacks OBP skill.

2. Evan Longoria, 3B, AA - Lots of everything. Wanted to put him number one, but not yet. Great OBP and power potential. 30/30 potential.

3. Elijah Dukes, OF, AAA - Good power, great patience and OBP...he's just too angry.

4. Joel Guzman, 3B/OF, AAA - Lacks defense and has a poor contact rate but shows tremendous power

5. Wes Bankston, CI, AAA - Extremely disciplined and has power potential. (see a trend?) Likely will be shipped out because of the newly crowded IF situation.

6. John Jaso, C/DH, A+ - A shoulder injury may lead him out of catching but he's coping with it this year and has been relatively effective. Great patience and a very good contact hitter. Could hit 20 HR in the bigs.

7. Jason Hammel, RHP, AAA - Has long been overrated because of his ERA which stands in contrast to his other stats (K/9, BB/9, HR/9 etc) but does a great job of stranding runners. This is probably just luck, and he'll probably find himself in middle relief before too long in Tampa.

8. Wade Davis, RHP, A - Dominated NY-Penn League last year and has continued to progress nicely in SW Michigan (A)

9. Andy Sonnanstine, RHP, AA - He has struggled to limit hits against him at times in his career but should be able to overcome that because of his great ability to strikeout batters and limit walks. Should be a middle of the rotation type starter in Tampa.

10. Chad Orvella, RHP, AAA/MLB - Great K/9, BB/9 ratios mean he should be a very good closer.

Flyer: Reid Brignac, SS, AA - He's got no place in their system with Upton, but that's ok as he won't be ML ready for 3 years. Very good power but strikes out too often to be an effective top of the lineup guy. Lacks plate discipline but has decent to good defensive skills.

The Devil Rays certainly have youth on their side. With young players at nearly every position the DRays are going to have to make some choices and some wise trades in the near future.

The Future Lineup (MLB arrival time)

Bullpen
CL: Chad Orvella
Setup: Seth McClung
Setup: Wade Davis
Relief: Chris Mason, Jason Hammel

The Devil Rays are light years behind the Yanks, Sawks and Blue Jays in terms of starting pitching, relief pitching, offense, defense, coaching, managing and ownership. They are, however, ahead in prospects. The pieces are beginning to fall into place, and starting September 1 we'll see what D-Ray fans have been waiting for, if only for a month. They are far from competing now, or next year. They need more pitching (though they have begun to draft more) and a little discipline in Durham (see Elijah Dukes, Delmon Young et al) but they've got the trade bait to get some. They've begun to do so (see JP Howell), but need to continue to garner quality pitchers or quality pitching prospects.

System Grade: A-

Comment on System Audit: Devil Rays

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Comments

[1] by Jim Meyerriecks on 08/22/2006 08:06 am

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This article was actually written by Koby Schellenger, who will be taking over the Prospect Alert Column.

[2] by guru4u on 08/22/2006 08:41 am

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Interesting pick with Wade Davis. He's not looked the same since June 1, and I read one scout compare him to Jeff Suppan. That's enough to keep me away from him. I've also read that his teammates, McGee and Walker, both have higher upside. I would have personally ranked Brignac ahead of any of the 3.

Overall nice job though.

[3] by kschellenger on 08/22/2006 09:15 am

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Thanks guru.
Wade Davis struggled a lot in June and July (in his numbers) because of a lot of struggles the SW Mich DRays had. I've been told all summer long they've struggled and have been shifting players all around the infield and outfield.

My biggest knock on Brignac is that he swings too freely. He strikes out waaaay too often (~23% of the time) and struggles defensively.

[4] by quiksilver on 08/22/2006 09:22 am

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Longoria has been very impressive in his first run in the minors. He's shown solid power at every level and and good plate discipline, until he sort of hit the wall in AA. A few questions you might be able to answer Koby - if I'm reading correctly he had one of the better eyes at the plate to come out of this 2006 draft, would you agree with that? Also, is he still playing 3B?

[5] by kschellenger on 08/22/2006 09:55 am

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Longoria is incredible. That's the best I can describe him. He has an incredible eye at the plate. He hasn't drawn a ton of walks this season, but he's the kind of guy who knows the pitcher by his second PA of the night and waits for that one pitch he knows he can handle and drives it. I don't know about hitting a wall in AA. His AA numbers are very comparable to his A numbers. He's actually slugging better in AA than A+. His naturally ability has propelled him through the system thus far and next year we'll really see what he does when he gets to AAA. He is playing 3B.

[6] by quiksilver on 08/22/2006 10:07 am

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Plate discipline wise so far he has only 1 BB and 11 K in AA, that's what I meant, his power has stayed consistent through all levels. And my question about position stemmed from milb.com having him listed as a SS where I thought he was a natural 3B and hadn't heard about him switching at all. Looks to be a solid gem of the draft offensively.

[7] by kschellenger on 08/22/2006 10:17 am

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quiksilver wrote:

Plate discipline wise so far he has only 1 BB and 11 K in AA, that's what I meant, his power has stayed consistent through all levels. And my question about position stemmed from milb.com having him listed as a SS where I thought he was a natural 3B and hadn't heard about him switching at all. Looks to be a solid gem of the draft offensively.

I don't know what milb is reporting, or where there getting it from, but to my knowledge he hasn't played anything but 3B and DH all year. I'm looking at the daily media release dated June 28th, he only played 3B or DH there. I don't have anything from A+ but I know in AA he's only played 3B or DH.