GatewayRedbirds.com

This year, we are implementing a farm team and I couldn't be more excited.

The rules are simple:

1) we draft 3
2) can keep them up to 5 years until they get called up
3) must be added to roster within two weeks after call-up.

So quick question, can any of our resident minors buff comment on who the best 3B prospect that is almost major league ready?

I'm targeting Moustakas as I'm not sure if he'll crack the major league roster out of spring this year, but will more than likely either come up over the season or be with the team next year.

Also, who else would you target (any position)?

go birds wrote:This year, we are implementing a farm team and I couldn't be more excited.

The rules are simple:

1) we draft 3
2) can keep them up to 5 years until they get called up
3) must be added to roster within two weeks after call-up.

So quick question, can any of our resident minors buff comment on who the best 3B prospect that is almost major league ready?

I'm targeting Moustakas as I'm not sure if he'll crack the major league roster out of spring this year, but will more than likely either come up over the season or be with the team next year.

Also, who else would you target (any position)?

I have Moustakas on my team and I'm pretty thrilled about that. Another guy to keep an eye on is Brett Lawrie. He went to Toronto in that Marcum deal and it looks like the Blue Jays want to turn him into a 3b (he was drafted as a C, requested to be moved to 2b, but in Toronto is blocked by Hill). Grant Green is another guy that might end up at 3b, though I'm thinking he's going to end up at 2b.

If you want a long term 3b option, Moustakas might not be the best fit. It's looking like he'll eventually be moved to 1b since his D at 3b isn't that great.

I'm not sure how big your league is, but if you're only drafting 3, you can probably just follow BA's top 100 list closely, and I'd go ahead and say screw drafting to fill voids and instead draft for value. I mean, if you can get a Bryce Harper or Mike Trout, get them. A lot of leagues that have farm systems greatly value prospects... possibly to a fault, but with solid prospects you can always trade to fill holes with MLB talent. It will get interesting for you in future years when most of the top 100 list has already been drafted in previous years.

Well, the reason why i'm targeting a mlb-ready 3b prospect is because i'm giving up Longoria in a blockbuster, so that's the only pick i'm making to fill a void.

I had planned on taking best available afterwards.

What are the Royals going to do with Hosmer? And Butler. Seems as if there's a bit of a logjam at 1st for them.

Lonnie Chisenhall from Cleveland is another soon to be MLB 3B.

clevername wrote:Lonnie Chisenhall from Cleveland is another soon to be MLB 3B.

Josh Bell in Baltimore is another one, albeit not quite at the level of Moustakas or Chisenhall.

Moose is your guy. I'm pretty confident he won't get moved to 1B with Ka'aihue, Butler and Hosmer all around in KC.

Matt Dominguez (Marlins), Miguel Sano (Twins), Lonnie Chisenhall (Tribe) are all worth a look. Sano is the furthest away--like, it would be shocking if he's up before mid-2014 unless he just crushes--but outside Moustakas is the most likely to be a straight-up middle of the order crusher.

I keep forgetting about Dominguez. Both he and Moustakas have had their stock rise and fall so much it seems like they've been around forever.

There's also this Matt Carpenter kid in St. Louis who has been seeing his stock rise and might be in line for a job if Freese gets hurt again, and Nick Punto gets hurt again, and KC does not DFA Pedro Feliz, and LAD does not DFA Aaron Miles and he (Carpenter) can somehow hit .450 and play Brooks Robinson defense and show some grit and impress his manager.

themiddle54 wrote:There's also this Matt Carpenter kid in St. Louis who has been seeing his stock rise and might be in line for a job if Freese gets hurt again, and Nick Punto gets hurt again, and KC does not DFA Pedro Feliz, and LAD does not DFA Aaron Miles and he (Carpenter) can somehow hit .450 and play Brooks Robinson defense and show some grit and impress his manager.

He doesn't wear batting gloves, so he has that old-school factor going for him.

go birds wrote:
Also, who else would you target (any position)?

You might set your sights on next year if you only have 3 minor league spots. I don't think we're going to have another 2010 with so many high-impact guys coming up. I'd be shocked if there's a Posey, Heyward, Stanton or Strasburg in the crop of kids entering the bigs in 2011.

The real cream of the crop in the minors--Trout, Harper, Teheran, all those Royals, the Yankees Three B's (Betances, Bauelos and to a lesser extent Brackman), Taillon, Machado, etc.--are all a year or more away. Most of the top prospects who will enter MLB this year, like Freddie Freeman and Des Jennings and Dom Brown and Chris Carter and Belt look like they'll be either low- or mid-impact, or struggle for playing time.

I think I'd probably look at Trout, Teheran, Hosmer, Harper and plan on sitting on them until 2012. They'll have a more meaningful fantasy impact than the Des Jenningses of the world who are not as good but are closer to MLB. To me, a fantasy league w/ a minors roster is for a year or two from now, but I'd be surprised if the guys you're playing with will have the same outlook, so that could be a nice little inefficiency to take advantage of.