DODGERS 2018 MINOR LEAGUE/PROSPECTS THREAD

Top Prospect Lists
Baseball America https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/2018-los-angeles-dodgers-top-10-prospects/
1 Buehler RHP
2 Verdugo OF
3 Ruiz C
4 White RHP
5 Alvarez RHP
6 Diaz OF
7 Kendall OF
8 Peters OF
9 Smith C
10 Santana OF

Baseball Prospectus https://www.baseballprospectus.com/...8-walker-buehler-alex-verdugo-yadier-alvarez/
1 Buehler
2 Verdugo
3 Alvarez
4 Ruiz
5 May RHP
6 Diaz
7 White
8 Kendall
9 Lux SS/2B
10 Sheffield RHP

Dodgers Digest http://dodgersdigest.com/2018/04/02/2018-dodgers-top-100-prospects-the-top-10/
1 Buehler
2 Ruiz
3 Verdugo
4 White
5 Alvarez
6 Diaz
7 Smith
8 Kendall
9 Santana
10 Rios 1B/3B/COF/DH

MLB http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2018?list=la
1 Buehler
2 Verdugo
3 Ruiz
4 White
5 Diaz
6 Peters
7 Kendall
8 Alvarez
9 Smith
10 Santana

Minor League Ball https://www.minorleagueball.com/2017/11/16/16652008/los-angeles-dodgers-top-20-prospects-for-2018
1 Buehler
2 Verdugo
3 Ruiz
4 White
5 Alvarez
6 Heredia OF
7 Diaz
8 Kendall
9 May
10 Santana

Prospects 1500 http://prospects1500.com/top-50-lists/los-angeles-dodgers-2018-top-50-prospects/
1 Buehler
2 Verdugo
3 Ruiz
4 Alvarez
5 White
6 Kendall
7 Diaz
8 May
9 Peters
10 Santana

True Blue LA https://www.truebluela.com/dodgers-prospects-2018
7 Alvarez
8 May
9 Smith
10 White

OD MiLB Rosters
LoA GL Loons https://www.milb.com/quakes/news/2018-roster-announced/c-270516370
AA Tulsa Drillers https://www.milb.com/drillers/news/drillers-opening-day-roster-announced/c-270532890
AAA OKC Dodgers http://www.milb.com/roster/index.jsp?sid=t238

 

Thanks! I'm going to need a mod to help me update it over the next couple of days, but the goal was to have an easy to find post with as much initial info as possible.

 

Some notables and their destinations. *Could change upon formal announcements
AAA Buehler, Santana, Peter, Rios, Toles and Verdugo. If this stays true, that Santana placing is sure as hell aggressive.
AA Alvarez, White, Ruiz, Smith, Diaz, Peters
HiA Ferguson, Gonsolin, May, Sheffield, C Santana
LoA Jimenez, Heredia

 

Thanks @ColoradoKidWitGame
A lot of us (me for sure) get in the habit of using the forum to vent during the season
It's nice to have posters like you (and others) who post and pass along great content from different sources
Much needed and appreciated

 

Weird that they would put both Smith and Ruiz at AA.

 

Probably see a 50-50 split early in the season before Smith moves on to AAA. Would guess Smith is going to see considerable time in the infield and Ruiz will probably DH a good bit too.

 

Thanks for those but it's not yet complete the Quakres have 5 position players lol.

 

Yeah, they had not announced their full roster as of that time so I just posted what they had up.

 

Yadier Alvarez had a solid start to his season in AA last night. 4.1 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4K. 66 pitches in that 4.1 while also having to work around an inning extending error. Fingers crossed after that start where he had a solid strike to ball ratio. Reports out of ST were very positive on him doing a better job of finding the strike zone. Both he and Dennis Santana starting the season off on the right foot in AA.

 

Solid 1st 2018 start for Walker Buehler.

Starting pitcher Walker Buehler delivered four solid innings, allowing one run and three hits, with one walk and five strikeouts.

 

Holy shit MiLB.com has been an absolute cluster fuck. They have not been able to link my account to my MLB.com account so it is just one big circlejerk as they keep trying to set everything up to an MLB.com account I apparently had back in 2013. Weird thing is that is for the same fucking email address as the current account. Nobody at their tech support can seem to grasp this and keep trying to get me into the old account and do not understand why my OLD MiLB.TV account is not syncing up with the new MLB.TV account. After an hour across two phone calls, they finally did sync it up my MiLBTV account to the old MLBTV account after countless, "don't do that"'s and after 2 hours of calls with tech support I have my old MiLB.TV account and a 10 day free pass to something I paid for a full season of.... I wanted to kill someone.

Anyway Buehler on the bump tonight

 

Oh wow, former top pitching prospect-turned outfielder-apparently turned back into a pitcher. This is from Wilson Karaman on the 27 year old Dodgers prospect.

“Scouting gallery abuzz with tales of HS glory as Stetson Allie toes the rubber. 96-99 (t100), tight SL at 89-91 wildly unfair for High A hitters. Dont be surprised if you see him in Chavez Ravine later this year #Dodgers”

 

- Connor Wong is off to a mediocre start in HiA with an average of .55 HR’s per game through the first 9. From the sounds of it and not just from box score watching, he’s too good to be in HiA. The club is going to try him out at different positions, but he’s still primarily a catcher for now and the two ahead of him in AA aren’t giving him many opportunities. Dustin Nosler says he’s got the best swing on the club.


It’s still early so one really bad day or one really good one can really change the perspective on a young season, but here’s some other notables from the hitters.

- DJ Peters hit his 3rd home run of the season already. 11 K’s in 45 PA’s, so I’m actually kinda pumped about this start in AA.

- Alex Verdugo hit his second HR in as many nights. Good sign early on as I believe he didn’t hit his 2nd HR last year until fairly late in the season. He is striking out a bit more(still low), but if that gets him to 15-20 HR’s a year it will make him a much more viable OF piece.

 

After the success of Brandon Morrow last season and Joe Blanton the year before that we all tend to look for the next guy to step things up. Here a couple of names down the farm to watch as future bullpen pieces.

• Daniel Hudson- Hasn't been able to live up to the hype that he built for himself early in his career. The former top prospect out of the White Sox/D'Backs org has had multiple TJ surgeries and coming off a down year out of the pen with the Pirates. Upon his release, I saw some baseball people say that he was a great candidate for a Dodgers reclamation and he soon after that signed an MiLB deal with the club. He has thus thrown 2.2 innings with OKC allowing no hits, but a not great 3:2 BB:K ratio. He falls under the category of a guy who could benefit from better sequencing.
• Adam Liberatore- Talk about guys that haven't been able to live up to the early hype. Many forget the dominant start to 2016 that this guy had where he had .55 ERA, .492 OPS against, a nearly 4:1 K:BB ratio and sub 1 WHIP. Since then, injuries have plagued this lefty's career and a significant drop in velocity followed. He is off to a good start in AAA with 4.1 innings without an earned run and a 7:2 K:BB ratio. Doesn't look like the club is using him as a LOOGY right now, but that is likely his destination unless his velocity gets back up to the mid 90's.
• Josh Sborz- I missed this one if it was ever talked about, but this is one of those guys who could move fast if all expectations take hold. This will be part of his 3rd season in AA and seems to be his first as the closer for the Drillers. Results are solid with an early jump in K rate. He is not projected as an elite back end guy, but he could be an above average middle reliever depending if his stuff plays up out of the pen.
• Stetson Allie- I touched on this earlier, but the former top prospect has remade himself into an intriguing bullpen candidate showing a FB that is touching triple digits. Of his 11 outs thus far, 7 have been by way of the K. Reports are that he may be a bit overpowering in HiA, so he could be moved to AA quickly to see how his stuff plays against better competition and in a much more neutral environment.
• Tony Gonsolin- A name that raised a lot of eyebrows after reports of him hitting triple digits by the end of last season. So understandably, the org has transitioned him to the rotation this year. Some belief was that he could move quickly, but now with him being worked into the rotation, his timeline has likely slowed.
• Jordan Sheffield- This will happen someday, but we are now entering year 3 of this little experiment. The goal has been to get Sheffield a more robust repertoire, but many believe he'll settle into a pen spot where his stuff could make for him to be a dangerous back end reliever. Thus far, the stuff has not translated well in a starters spot where command has been a constant issue. Has averaged more than a K per inning all along the way which is good a starter with his well documented woes, but would believe that he could be so much more out of the pen.

 

If a new bullpen piece were to rattle the cages in a negative way, there are way worse things going on with this club besides their early play. None of the guys I mentioned are names I expect to be called up soon unless their is an injury and some probably have a half season of MiLB ball ahead of them at least before getting consideration to get a call up.
- Lib's problem has been injuries and his continued documented attempts to pitch through discomfort, so if he could get healthy he is a much better lottery ticket than Avilan was.
- For Sborz the third straight year is more likely due to this new transition to the pen. He thrives and he'll be gone.
- All I have heard in regards to Allie is that he has that tight slider to go with the FB
- Gonsolin apparently has 4 above average pitches which have seen boosts to go with his velocity spike, which is why they may be trying him out as a starter. Re-read his MLB profile from one of the above links... dude has some seriously intriguing qualities.

 

Buehler(6:05PM MST) and Dennis Santana(3:05PM MST) on the bump today. Both off to good starts and seemingly in the 75 pitch limit range. Alvarez went yesterday and boy did he struggle. Could not get out of the 3rd and struggled badly with the strike zone. These things are going to happen with the kid as he tries to get comfortable with his mechanics, but he is going to have to drastically cut down on starts like this.