Recently, three highly regarded websites came out with their updated prospect rankings. Keith Law from ESPN, Kevin Goldstein from Baseball Prospectus and J.J. Cooper from Baseball America each published their new top 50 prospects in baseball, excluding the slew of prospects called up this year.
Jarred Cosart was a unanimous selection among the three lists, while Jon Singleton cracked the top 50 in two of the three lists.
Keith Law was most optimistic on both players, putting Cosart 17th and Singleton 24th. Before the season, he had them 34th and 27th, respectively.
Baseball America was down on Cosart the most, placing him 43rd, behind Singleton at 41.
Singleton missed out completely in Kevin Goldstein's rankings, but Goldstein did put Cosart 29th. In his review of the Futures All-Star Game, Goldstein was impressed with Cosart's arm, but questions still linger about his consistency.
"Cosart was easily one of the nastiest pitchers on the day, hitting 96-97 mph with his fastball and registering a pair of strikeouts during his one inning of work by getting swings and misses with both his curveball and changeup. Combine that stuff with an ideal pro body and it's easy to see where all the hype has come from, but think more about the regular season than one amped-up inning in a showcase game: Where are the results? This is a talent that should be dominating the Florida State League every five days, yet Cosart has a surprisingly low 68 strikeouts in 92 innings, including just six in his last three outings (18 innings), because his command and ability to repeat his delivery continue to waver. He created as much buzz as anyone on Sunday, but Cosart is still very much a work in progress on days when he needs to throw more than 10 pitches."
This assessment is common with Cosart. If he was much more consistent, he certainly would be a top 15 prospect.
While Cosart's ERA may suggest he's having a better season than last year, he is not. His strikeouts have been down, walks up and is getting fewer grounders, resulting in a much higher 4.03 FIP compared to last year's 2.47.
| Cosart (in games started) | 2010 | 2011 |
Strikeout rate (percentage by plate appearance) | 26.4% | 17.8% |
Walk rate (percentage by plate appearance) | 7.2% | 11.0% |
Ground-ball rate (percentage of batted balls) | 57.7% | 50.6% |
Hopefully, the worse season is because it's his first season at Clearwater, but from recent games, he still struggles. In order to maintain a top 30 ranking, he will need to show more consistency.
Singleton's value was probably hurt because of his move back to first base. There is also a slight stigma that he may just be the product of a super hot streak. I do not buy that assessment just yet.
While he has maintained his ability to draw walks, his power numbers are down quite a bit. His .401 slugging percentage is well down from his .477 last year, as is his isolated slugging at .124 versus .189 last year. It is more alarming not seeing more than seven homers when you consider Clearwater is much more of a home run park compared to Lakewood.
Fortunately these rankings are ever-changing. One hot second half from any player can shoot his stock up 10, 20 or 30 spots. Hopefully, that occurs for at least one of the prospects on the farm.
No comments:
Post a Comment