All the talk is what the big league team is going to do with some kind of a major splash via Rolen or Reyes and the acquisition of Brian Barton. I just want to pimp (can I use that word?) one of my pet minor leaguers from earlier this year. Colby Lewis was released by the Royals Wednesday after being claimed off waivers from the A’s. Take a moment to look at his minor league numbers — they’re eye-popping.
8.59 K/9, 2.75 BB/9, 0.69 HR/9
He’s a former first round draft pick who seems to have a case of the Reyes/Tankersly — his numbers and performance in the minors aren’t translating to the majors. While I’m certainly no pitch f/x expert, his velocity and stuff seems to be fine. He’s more of a high heat pitcher than the sinkerballer that typifies our organization but I’d still like to see the club offer him a minor league deal. They went and signed Dewon Brazelton. . .why not Colby Lewis?
Erik took a stab at the 2008 minor league rotations. Given Hawksworth injury history, would it hurt to have a 6th starter available and have someone work out of the pen until there’s an injury either at the big league level or AAA? Maybe he’s at least worth a look. I dropped a question in Christina Kharl’s chat over at Baseball Prospectus, as she’s someone who seems to have some excellent baseball memory given the allusions to older players she always makes in her Transaction Analysis articles.
azruavatar (STL, MO): Christina, I’ve got a question that I think only your encyclopedic mind can recall. What went wrong with Colby Lewis? He was released by the Royals yesterday but his velocity still sits in the low 90s and his minor league numbers were always spectacular. Why didn’t his success translate to the majors?
Christina Kahrl: Have I mentioned how much I love stadium speed guns? It’s like my love of Hemingway’s novels–short, entertaining, and only loosely associated with reality.
I like BP; I like what Christina writes over there; I’m not usually perterbed by snark but it bothers me when someone responds with incorrect snark for the sole attempt of being clever. The low-90s measurement is from the pitch f/x data that I’ve linked to above. So unless she wants to debate the validity of MLBAM’s new system, that answer is basically lazy bullshit. The real part that isn’t addressed is how fantastic his minor league numbers are on a consistent basis. If there had been some mention of him being able to outthink the minor leaguers, but his stuff not being good enough for the majors than I could accept that. There are better ways to handle questions in chats — or at least more truthful ways.
Jack Cust was written off as a hitter despite minor league success until last year when the A’s snagged him. Given the right coaches, what’s to say Lewis couldn’t do the same?
Filed under: Freely available talent
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
his minor league numbers are impressive.
I don’t understand how the Royals could expose Lubinski (even if he wasn’t taken) to the rule 5 and then a few days later release a player. It makes no sense to me.
chris kahrl is the queen of snark. and that non answer gets under my skin too.
I don’t feel like having velocity in the low 90s makes you anything special in the big leagues, though, does it? Don’t most big league pitchers throw fastballs in the low 90s?
It’s not anything special no. But he’s averaging 92 meaning he probably still touches 94. Velocity doesn’t appear to be the problem in essence.
I have an unrelated question. What do you guys think of Bernie M’s opinion that the only valuable pieces in our system are Anderson, Rasmus, and Perez?
He sorta took a shot at the blogger community for what he sees as overvaluing our prospects in this thread -> http://www.stltoday.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=507173&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=16 at Bernie’s Pressbox.
Do we overvalue guys like Garcia, Herron, Mortenson, Ottavino, Maiques, etc..? Are they nothing more than future relievers and utility men like we have now? After visiting this site for several months now I was under the impression that our farm was getting better and we were gonna be getting some good home grown talent up within the next few years, but his comments kind of got me down since I assume he knows what he is talking about.
I think Bernie was saying value as other teams see our minor league guys. He specifically said a bunch of times that other teams weren’t inquiring about our guys besides Rasmus, Anderson, and Perez.
yes he did say that. but honestly, how many times are other teams clamoring for another orginization’s #5-15 prospects? he’s making a non-point. the way i see it, it doesn’t happen unless somone is swapping out spare parts.
Not related but it looks like an old Cardinal in Narveson has signed up with the Brewers.
I saw that answer from Kahrl during the chat also was a little underwhelmed by the answer. I also recalled thinking that perhaps she’d had web interactions with Azru in the past that left her, shall we say, annoyed.
The website with the pitch speeds also looks to say Anthony Reyes touched 94-95 quite a few times last year. He may have touched it a couple of times but not as much as that site suggests.
Great move - I would love to pick up Colby Lewis. The cost is a AAA rotation spot. From my perspective, I would go with a 4 man rotations and a piggy back of Lewis and Brazelton in the 5 spot? How could it hurt? We lose our lowest MRP slot while adding a potential filler type SP? Again, not sure why you wouldn’t do that?
By the way, I read those BP chats and would say that the non-answers bug me as well. If you aren’t going to answer the question, maybe you should post a response?
Disappointed to hear the news above about Chris Narveson.
This article says that he was sold to a Japanese team to make room for Yabuta, in the same way that the Rockies sold Luis Gonzalez last off-season.
I honestly don’t know how the rules for this sort of transaction work, whether it’s a DFA situation where he passes through waivers or a trade situation that the commissioner’s office has veto authority over, but it sounds like he’s signed for next season already.
I’m not sure he was sold there, I think he is just going there on his free will. Probably can make more money in Japan. Poor AZ, his favorite player ever won’t even be playing on the same continent next year.