I received my hard copy of Baseball America yesterday and there was an interesting Tigers related item on the first page. A reader asked Jim Callis who he thought were the best players under 25 years of age. Callis responded with two sets of lists. First he ranked his top 5 position player and pitching prospects. Cameron Maybin was the 5th best hitting prospect and Andrew Miller the 4th best pitching prospect.
Next, he listed his top 5 hitters and pitchers under 25 who are already in the Majors. There were no Tigers position players. Among the pitchers, Jeremy Bonderman and Justin Verlander were ranked 4th and 5th. I was a bit surprised to see Bonderman ahead of Verlander. From a sabermetric perspective, Bonderman is ahead at this point but I was under the impression that scouts tended to favor Verlander. Bonderman is receiving a lot of support from different sources lately.
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The thing with Bonderman is that he has two plus plus pitches in his 4 seam fastball and slider.
ReplyDeleteI think that you will see some scouts rank Bonderman over Verlander due to postseason success.
Personally I still have them ranked as in terms of pure ceiling:
Verlander
Miller
Bonderman
But that isn't a slight to any one of them as they all have great talent. If they all reach that ceiling then the Tigers will have a top 3 that would stand up well against any team and might be the best top 3 the Tigers have ever had.
That is if they all reach their potential and stay healthy.