Every year BA writes its famous Prospect Handbook. And every year, there are a few players who don’t make the cut. This year there were two Cardinals were narrow misses from the book, most likely due to a few recent transactions.
D’Marcus Ingram
…Ingram shows gap power in batting practice and has above-average bat speed, but he was more of a singles hitter in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League. He used his plus speed to steal 17 bases in 22 games and walked more (19) than he struck out (15). He impresses scouts with a hard-charging approach—no batting gloves and tire-spinning hustle. Ingram should be able to stay in center field and even has an above-average arm, which is unusual at that position.
Daryl Jones
…Jones gets overaggressive at the plate, and pitchers can easily get him off balance and chasing bad pitches. He has power potential, though he needs to focus on getting on base before trying to drive the ball. He has the speed to be a huge basestealing threat, but only if he can get to first base. Jones covers ground in center field and has improved his instincts in the field. His arm is fringe average but good enough for center.
Jones was rated the Cardinals # 10 prospect by BA last year, now his stock has taken a precipitous drop after another poor year at the plate. Ingram on the other hand may not have the pure tools Jones has, but at least he has an idea what he’s doing with the tools that he has.
Filed under: D'Marcus Ingram, Daryl Jones | Tagged: D'Marcus Ingram, Daryl Jones
erik
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theredbaaron
“Ingram should be able to stay in center field and even has an above-average arm, which is unusual at that position.
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This just strikes me as odd. Obviously you would put a person that can cover ground in CF, but I would think somewhere around 70% of CF have above average arms. That intrigues me a lot actually, has there been any articles about that for prospects? I’ve seen it for players in the majors, but nothing, even scouting reports, on a comparative analysis on prospects.
really, i don’t think there are many centerfielders with great arms. there aren’t many outfielders at all with great arms anymore, and if they do have a great arm it seems like they play right most of the time.
Ingram is on the top of my watch closely list for 2008. He quietly put together a great year, showing good plate discipline and got on BA’s GCL Prospect List. Then in instructs, he was one of the most impressive and displayed good power. High OBP, speedy, with a little pop, and good OF defense. Sounds like a good leadoff man to me. I wonder where he’ll start the year in 2008. Is Quad Cities a stretch?
Old school baseball thinking is:
best athlete - CF
best arm - RF
good hitter with no place to play - LF
You don’t need that good of range to play left and there aren’t many hard throws. You need a guy in CF that can go and get the ball and cover some ground. I think this supersedes arm strength, and maybe that’s why that was said. Andruw Jones, Jim Edmonds, Hunter…most of the guys considered really good defensive CFs have pretty good arms. Then there are guys like Juan Pierre, David DeJesus, Johnny Damon, etc. that profile quite a bit differently.
J.Damon and J.Pierre are perfect examples of non-arms in CF.
All you really need in terms of an in CF is accuracy and carry….b/c your hitting a variety of cut-off men anyway.
But you gotta remember, this scouts grade pretty harsh and what we might consider a decent arm..is below avg for them.
I bet they had Edmonds arm rated as avg or slightly above…but we saw with him a quick release, very good feet and setup and unreal accuracy..b/c in the end Edmonds arm wasnt elite…but he used it as a weapon.
i agree on edmonds. he didn’t have a whole lot of arm strength, but he did have ability to put his throw right on the money and that is what made his arm look good. andruw jones is the same way. neither of those guys will ever be confused with a vlad or an ichiro.
Johnny Damon is a great example and is still responsible for in my opinion one of the best bumper sticker I have ever seen (normally I can’t stand bumper stickers) it read
Johnny Damon throws like a girl