.
G, Spec*, are you guys now wavering as to whether you'd have grabbed Zunino with the 1-1? I certainly am. If Houston had had this information on draft day -- 13 homers in 38 games with massive walks, 10/23 CS, etc., they wouldn't have taken Zunino?
Of course, SSI will cheerfully admit that it doesn't know much about the HS hotshots. . But! Usually a high school hitter would have to be pretty close to Hamilton-, Griffey-level talent for modern ML teams to pass on a college hitter who is head-and-shoulders over the crowd. Never heard anything about Correa or Buxton being THAT good.
Zunino parchutes into the high minors, the high minors being AA baseball where pitchers can throw breaking pitches for strikes when behind in the count, and in his first nine games crushes it like a pop can: three HR's, four more doubles, a .406 AVG with an EYE in excess of 1.0 and a .800 SLG. This follows his clear overmatch of the Northwest League, and let us hastily remind you that most pundits were quite dubious about Zunino's promotion.
No, LrKrBoi29, we're not declaring the case closed and declaring that Gary Carter are belong to us. We're asking whether this additional data on Zunino -- that his first six weeks in the minors would produce dominating control of pro pitchers -- would have affected his draft standing. For example, on draft day, you didn't know for sure whether the change in bats would affect Zunino, right?
On draft day, I was moderately bummed at a "forced" choice. Re-rack the draft and it says here that Zunino is a no-brainer at 1-1.
............................
Spectator was asked whether Zunino should now be ranked the #1 prospect in the M's system. Ahead of Taijuan? Ahead of Nick Franklin? ... Well, if there were an expansion draft and you could protect ONE (1) player, which one would it be? Spec comes up with a whale of a read, matching Zunino against each M's uberspect one-by-one.
I'll gingerly protect my fave, James Paxton. But with a queasy feeling, because Taijuan's got more talent, and Franklin's closer and has a magical swing, and Hultzen is a perfect Hamels-like ML template for success, and Zunino is a college hitter with (1) EYE, (2) PWR and (3) Position scarcity. Paxton or Zunino, probably.
Would indeed like to hear you amigos, if you've got the guts that is which I find HIGHLY unlikely, name One of 'em. Think of the added enjoyment when said rube goes nuts in the AL.
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By the way. Do these numbers -- 25 HR, 60 walks, etc -- look something like the profile you'd imagine for Mike Zunino, if things break right for him? Like I said, get Montero out from behind home plate already.
Cheers,
Dr D
* oh you said
So where does our system rank compared to the others? We've got to be a lock for top 10. Top 5? How many other orgs have the starting pitching talent and an amazing catcher, shortstop combo, not to mention great depth at those key positions?
So where does our system rank compared to the others? We've got to be a lock for top 10. Top 5? How many other orgs have the starting pitching talent and an amazing catcher, shortstop combo, not to mention great depth at those key positions?
If I could protect just one MiLB guy in an expansion draft where a team could lose only one, I would protect Zunino. Reason? Some degree of duplication.
Lose Franklin and you say, "Ho Hum! Let's see, we have pretty good 2B prospects in Ackley, Seager, Romero, Miller.....and others." We're kind of loaded there, as a matter of fact....and in case you hadn't noticed. Were Franklin's future at SS, you might reconsider. And Franklin may have split issues. He's a blue chipper, don't get me wrong. But we have guys kinda like him. Heck, it's very possible he isn't the best hitting minor league 2B that we have.
Lose Paxton, or Walker or Hultzen and you still have the other two. You could live with that. And there is some argument which of them is best. Could be any of them. One guy could blow his arm, one could flounder and one could excel....and it would be difficult to pick right now which would be lilely to be which. Well, Hultzen probably won't be the blown arm guy.
But Zunino brings something we're very short of. He brings mash. And he just might be a heck of a catcher to boot. Gary Carter, indeed.
The Kid, BTW, was an everyday catcher at 21. How brave will Wedge and Z be to pull a Posey (who came up at 23?) In fact, Zunino may be our Posey. Basically, Posey spent one full year in the minors (A+/AAA), then 47 games before his '10 call up.
.333-.427-.542 MiLB translates to .308-.375-.492 MLB
Gimme some of that at catcher.
We keep Jaso, we keep Montero. But Zunino is going to foce us to make a positional decision sometime next year. Really.
First dibs? Zunino.
moe
The teens:
Buxton: .240/.335/.445/.780 in rookie ball, 18/40 batting eye
Correa: .260/.305/.400/.705 in rookie ball, 12/44 eye
Dahl: .370/.415/.500/1.015 in rookie ball (told you), 18/37 eye
Almora: .335/.345/.490/.835 in rookie/short season, 2/11 eye
The college guy:
Zunino: .380/.475/.755/.1.230 in short-season and AA, 22/29 eye
Zunino is cheating a bit because Everett was well below his capabilities - the brass just wanted him near Seattle so they could see him in person before bumping him up the ladder and making decisions based on his presence in the org.
Of course, Dahl is cheating some by playing in Grand Junction (though he's killing it on the road too). Regardless, Zunino is making it VERY hard to consider him on the lesser level of highly-drafted catchers.
I've always thought Zunino is better than Tony Sanchez, but Sanchez still rocked short-season A ball (.975 OPS). Zunino is running laps around that right now. I had Zunino pegged as an okay average, good power, decent walk, decent defense catcher. I said at draft time my comp was Charles Johnson or Matt Wieters, and I'm not being convinced off that mark just yet - Wieters demolished the minors to the tune of a 1.055 OPS in A+ and AA, but has just been a 100 OPS+ hitter in the bigs.
But if Zunino wants to continue to show me he's more Posey/Konerko (or yes, Gary Carter) than Johnson/Wieters I would LOVE that. And right now, it's hard to pick one of the teens over him (although I'm proud of the early start for my boy Dahl). Zduriencik looks awfully prescient to be on Zunino as hard as he was, and certainly it wasn't because he was swayed by his old friend, Mike's dad.
Right now Zunino's got the arrow pointing way up, and in a redraft would be the #1 pick. Gotta love it - that's Jack's calling card, getting the #1 or 2 pick in almost every re-draft. Glad it's followed him here.
~G
Take plenty of credit for that.
Do you have a take on Gabriel Guerrero? If you count his Dominican stats (which I usually don't), he's having one of the best seasons of anyone.
Seven guys for whom MLB success does not really involve "wishful thinking."
And that doesn't include Montero, Ackley, Seager, Saunders, Thames, Erasmo ...
And 8-16 (which right now would be roughly Sanchez, Miller, Romero, Morban, Pike, Marder, Landry, Smith, Choi) all look pretty good, too.
And that (except for Pike) doesn't include the teen contingent, which is the best I can remember: Lopes, DeCarlo, Franca, Guerrero, Yates, Castillo, Diaz
And that doesn't includ Rich Poythress, who still looks to me like a long shot at a Youkilis/Jaso "big guy who draws a gazillion walks" out-of-nowhere guy.
Is that, as Vlad the Impaler's nephew, we can hope he may have had some of the insane voodoo of his uncle's game rub off on him. Odds are that not enough of it has, but yes I consider him a prospect. I don't count Dominican stats as accurate barometers of much of anything, but so far he's showing the ability to get his bat on the ball instead of swinging through, which is more than I can say for most of our Latin hitters.
I don't think he'll be in full-season ball next year, but Everett's likely. He's on my watch list, and can shoot up like a rocket as a legit corner OF with power and average. We don't have many of those, so you'd better believe I'm interested.
~G
Just remember that Franklin at 19 years old in 2010 for 1 game in AA batted .667 and then when he was promoted in 2011 to AA, for nine games before getting hit, he batted over .400. Then, in 2012 Franklin was one of the youngest in AA and led the league in BA. For a switch-hitting middle infielder, I think he is the better player.