August 22, 2013

What Scouts Are Saying

August 22, 2013

by Baseball Prospectus

Printer-friendly

Many of our authors make a habit of speaking to scouts and other talent evaluators in order to bring you the best baseball information available. Not all of the tidbits gleaned from those conversations make it into our articles, but we don't want them to go to waste. Instead, we'll be collecting them in a regular feature called "What Scouts Are Saying," which will be open to participation from the entire BP staff and include quotes about minor leaguers and major leaguers alike.

Major Leagues

Red Sox SS Xander Bogaerts: "Does just about everything but run above average. I've heard a lot of scouts say that they worry his body will eventually be too big for shortstop, but I think he can stay there. He's long and lean with room enough to add weight and strength on his frame without losing his mobility. And he absolutely destroys pitching with lethal bat speed and hand-eye coordination."

Mariners 3B Kyle Seager: "His brother Corey may end up being better, but Kyle is a really nice player. You don’t think of him as a true profile corner, but he has a short, quick stroke with surprising juice. He has a sound approach and is tough to pitch to. Left-handed pitchers can exploit some holes, but they still have to execute their pitches. He’s improved every year, though I think he’s coming up on his ceiling. Would really be turning heads if he wasn’t playing half of his games in Safeco."

Nationals RHP Stephen Strasburg: “He] may have the best stuff in baseball, but you really start to question the makeup after what happened in Atlanta. Staked to four runs in the first two innings, he let the Braves back in the game and managed to get himself kicked out before the end of the second inning, causing his club to tax their bullpen. The expression he had as he came off the mound is probably similar to that of the Washington front office as they watched it unfold.”

Braves RHP Julio Teheran: “Has well above average stuff, but what struck me about him was the poise he displayed for somebody so young in what was a relatively big situation for him and his club. After a 15-inning, rain-delayed game he battled through adversity, had no clean innings, and came away with six scoreless innings.”

Minor Leagues

Athletics High-A SS Addison Russell: "Interesting physical package of strength and speed, and he wins the eye test every time. There is plenty of swing-and-miss in the swing, but he has enough power and walks to project well. He is a real offensive threat, but has significant questions as to what glove to wear. He plays a little hard for me at SS and his natural rhythm is more strength than twitch. Good player I wish we had in our system, but no slam-dunk SS moving forward."

Tohoku Rakuten RHP Masahiro Tanaka: "Doesn't have Yu Darvish's 6-to-8 pitch arsenal, but he has three quality major league pitches and a true weapon in his splitter, which may be better than any one pitch that Darvish has. He has enough FB velocity now to pitch over here, though I have some concerns about whether or not losing a day of rest will negatively affect his stuff. I don't see him as a front-end starter, but he can definitely fill in the back end of a rotation and rack up the strikeouts."