As he's the teenage lefty who demolished the AZL this year. And Jason and I agree on his potential, which is unusual - we tend to look for different things in prospects. If I like Romero or Catricala or Franklin at lower levels, he's pretty much guaranteed to hate them. When we agree on low-level guys, either the guy must really be a consensus can't-miss or somebody's wires are crossed...
Pike has everything except velocity at this point, and as a teen with a good motion I expect his velo to climb. It's not a huge deal as a lefty anyway. He'd be a good choice if we're not throwing Capps in there.
If you wanted a hitter, Ji-Man Choi is still unstoppable when he's on the field (whether at 1B or DH). The catching experiment ended after he broke his back and lost a year and a half...but the kid can hit. Even with no experience, coming from a foreign country where baseball isn't exactly a national religion, and missing so much time due to injury, the kid can hit. He's the 1B version of Chris Snelling - or if you prefer, Shin-soo Choo, his countryman. Choo 2.0 can make my org Top-10, though the health thing is a concern.
Julio Morban is a 20 year old who did very well in the Cal League, though again has had a fragility problem - but as a potential CF with a great swing he's very interesting. We have a couple of teen hitters (Lopes and DeCarlo) who performed well in the early going at (very) low levels. DeCarlo especially is very raw, but if he was a raw million dollar foreign bonus baby at 18 he'd get consideration, so I'm not holding that against him.
Just as I'm not holding it - or his age - against Kivlehan. You don't take 4 years off from baseball, pick up a stick again on a whim, win the Big East Triple Crown and POY awards, then step into pro ball and win the Northwest League POY award, and HR and slugging titles without being some kind of baseball savant. And he did all that while re-tooling his swing, adjusting to wood bats after just getting used to college BBCOR ones, fixing his footwork at third as well as his throwing motion... He had an incredible year back in baseball. He's got that Brian Jordan in him and I can't bet against the guy.
I don't think you can go wrong with the upside of most of the raw hitters, or a couple of pitchers either. The exceedingly scary thing about the Ms minor leagues is that the difference between 1 and 6 in our system isn't large - and and neither is the difference between 7 and 14. Come the middle of next year Lopes might be a top 50 prospect, or Kivlehan might be, or Pike...
Or someone completely different. The next wave doesn't look quite as good as the wave currently cresting toward the bigs in Zunino, Franklin, Paxton, Hultzen etc... but there's still talent in the up-and-comers, and there's another draft in a few months...
~G
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