Who knows what The Good, the Bad, and the Barmes was thinking with this post. I think I'll slowly back away and close the window because that was way too much detail.
RC at RoxHead checks in with some strikeout numbers per plate appearance for our minor leaguers. While I tend to disagree with the premise (didn't Baseball Prospectus do an article a couple of months ago arguing that strikeouts could be a good thing? or am I mistaken?) on the grounds that often the most patient hitters have higher strikeout and walk totals -particularly in the minors as they refine their pitch judgement- with some of these players, the high K totals do imply they aren't picking up the ball as well. Seth Smith is a good example, but he's also getting corrective laser eye surgery in the offseason to improve his vision and I think a correlary will be a vast improvement in these numbers for him. Jim Thome, who has turned out to be a mildly decent professional player for his career, struck out 94 times out of 410 at bats in AAA Charlotte when he was twenty-two. There are a lot of other examples of good to great players like this. Of course, then there's Todd Helton who only struck out 54 times in 530 AB's his first full year in the majors, so RC's points should probably be discussed more thoroughly somewhere, what do my readers think?
Meanwhile, Up in the Rockies has a new article up which goes into more numeric detail of why Luis Gonzalez is such a good thing at second, and also why Cory Sullivan is not such a good thing in center. Also some welcome love is spread to JD Closser, not only at UitR, but also at the Rockies Disaster Report.
Tap the Rox has outfield prospect reviews part 2 and part 3 up as well as a series preview for the D-backs. Besides posting his top 30 prospect list as part of our community project here, Tom's been quite busy this afternoon. A couple of notes on Travis Becktel: one, if you've been reading the Pebble reports you do know that he has made some adjustments to his stance at the suggestion of Jason Van Kooten of all people which he credits for some of his improved bat play, and second, his performance with wood bats in the Alaskan Summer League last year, as well as his stellar defense there, were part of what prompted the Rockies to take him. Of course, Daniel Carte did well with wood at the Cape Summer League too, and look what it's gotten him so far (j/k, Carte seems to be heating up a bit of late).