Minor Musings and Link Love for 10-21-09, Ohio Edition

October 21, 2009 BY Alex Eisenberg No Comments Yet

The Red Reporter hands out their awards — they call them the farmies — for the 2009 season. Click here for Part 1 and click here for Part 2…

Red Legs Baseball has a 3-Up, 3-Down look at the Reds farm system in 2009. Can’t disagree with any of it, especially the 3-Down part of Chris Valaika, Neftali Soto, and Daryl Thompson.

I was especially disappointed in Soto as he was one of my breakout players for 2009, but he was just terrible and he was consistently bad. I can’t think of one instance in which Soto got hot for an extended period of play. His poor plate discipline and free swinging ways was definitely a factor and something I should pay more attention to when it comes to evaluating young players…

Doug Gray of Reds Minor Leagues looks at the pitch f/x data of Mike Leake and Brad Boxberger. I’m actually interested in poring over that data when I get the time myself.

Let’s Go Tribe has an extremely detailed analysis what the 2009 season tells us about Luis Valbuena’s and Asdrubal Cabrera’s future.

Cabrera was a little lucky last year with a .361 BABIP, but that could be offset by his natural progression as a player. I’ve liked Valbuena for a while and mentioned him as a guy to watch when he was called up this year. His plate discipline was a bit of a disappointment, but he’s historically posted high OBPs and maintained a decent contact rate. He has to be careful not to sell out for the homerun, but I like his future. Of course, that is dependent on him staying at second base. He UZR wasn’t great and he has a stocky build that might limit his range in the future.

Indians Prospect Insider has a rundown of the past week in the AFL…