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Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Roger on Alexi Casilla
And updated HOF Information
BERT BLYLEVEN IN THE HALL? OK, I don't think that is will happen for Bert this year. However, I think that if Bert can get up to about 52% of the vote this year, that there is a good chance he will be voted into the Hall of Fame before his 15 years are up. If you listen to MLB.com Radio, you will be able to hear and see the live announcement of the Hall of Fame results at 12:00 today! Good luck Bert!
HALL OF FAME UPDATE - Just watched the Hall of Fame announcement by Baseball Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey live on MLB.com radio. The lone new inductee is reliever Bruce Sutter. It is too bad because I would probably rank him about 6th on my list of eligible players. :
Bert Blyleven finished with 277 votes, for 53.3% of the vote. He is still 21.7% short of election. Here is how his vote total has increased each year:
1998 83 17.55%
1999 70 14.08%
2000 87 17.43%
2001 121 23.50%
2002 124 26.27%
2003 145 29.23%
2004 179 35.38%
2005 211 40.89%
2006 277 53.3%
That is very exciting to me!! Look at that jump! Bert and all those who voted for him and cheered for him should be incredibly excited!
Bruce Sutter received 400 votes (76.9%), Jim Rice got 337 votes (64.8%), Goose Gossage got 336 votes (64.6%) and Andre Dawson got 317 votes (61.0%). Blyleven came in fifth. Jack Morris jumped up to just over 40% By the way, I would vote for Will Clark before I vote for Bruce Sutter, and he did not even get the necessary 5% of the vote to remain on the ballot.
Any thoughts, be sure to add comments, or feel free to e-mail me.
Good Morning everyone! I have to be honest. There is not much going on in the world of baseball. The big news yesterday was either Rich Aurilia re-signing with the Cincinnati Reds or the Cubs trading Corey Patterson to the Orioles for a couple of minor leaguers. Oh wait! The Twins also signed veteran left-hander Darrell May to a minor league contract. Add him to Dennys Reyes and Gabe White as veteran lefties brought in on minor league deals with an opportunity to make the Twins roster.
So again, to reiterate... there is little going on in baseball other than a few minor league signings. Still waiting for the likes of Bengie Molina (Blue Jays?), Frank Thomas and Mike Piazza to land somewhere. So today, I am only going to add a short little essay from our friend Roger. It is a brief discussion on the 'prospectedness' (? is that a word?) of newly acquired Alexi Casilla, the middle infield prospect acquired from the Angels for JC Romero. I had noticed that he seemed to have good numbers in Low Class A ball. However, after looking at Roger's information, I am now much more excited about his possibilities! Here it is:
How does Alexi Casilla compare to other top Twins prospects?
Casilla played nearly the entire season with the Cedar Rapids club of the Midwest League. Had he played with Beloit and performed with the same numbers he had for Cedar Rapids, he would have accumulated 79.067 points after the discount applied to all players in Low-A ball. By comparison, one of the Twins top prospects who led their system with 101 rbi, David Winfree, accumulated 80.985 net points. Winfree was the 7th ranked prospect in the system based on my formula which evaluates prospect performance during the 2005 season. Casilla would have ranked as the 11th best prospect between Luis Maza (#10, 79.588pts) and Luis Rodriguez (#11, 78.516pts).
The player at Beloit with the top batting average was Jeremy Pickrel (#16 prospect), .277Average. By comparison, Casilla had an average of .325. The highest OBP of any player at Beloit was also Pickrel (.370OBP)…Casilla had an OBP of .392. The highest number of net stolen bases (stolen bases less times thrown out stealing) of any player on the 2005 Beloit Snappers was Tarrence Patterson’s 14. Casilla had 47 stolen bases in 59 attempts for a net of 35 steals. In addition, Casilla has excellent plate discipline as evidenced by his 29 walks compared with 31 strikeouts in 308 at bats. Casilla is not known as a power hitter and will not hit a lot of home runs or extra base hits other than those achieved due to his excellent speed and base running ability. He should however, become an excellent hitter in the leadoff or second spot of the order.
Will Alexi Casilla become a future Twin star? Although the answer to that question is unknown, he clearly is one of the systems top prospects and could become a player very similar to Luis Castillo. It will be exciting to see where he begins the 2006 season, whether or not he is promoted and if he will be selected to represent the Twins in the 2006 Arizona Fall League. Although many Twins fans expected a more recognizable name than Casilla for J.C. Romero, Casilla is an excellent prospect who could turn out to be another “find” by the Twins Organization
Do you have any thoughts? If so, send me an e-mail, or post some Comments. I am sure Roger would love to hear your thoughts. On that note, I am going to get some sleep. I promise that I will be back tomorrow with what I believe is a very fun Q&A. You'll want to check back.