From Baseball Prospectus' Monday Morning Ten Pack
Jeremy Hellickson, RHP, High-A Vero Beach (Rays)
Hellickson’s full-season debut last year produced outstanding numbers, but many classified him as a good-not-great prospect because of his smallish stature and the sense that his command and pitchability allowed his admittedly above-average stuff to play that much better against less advanced hitters. The command and pitchability remains, but the stuff has improved this year, as the Iowa native is consistently touching the mid-90s with his fastball these days, including on Sunday, when he whiffed 11 over six innings but allowed one run, which raised his ERA to 0.93 in five starts. In 29 innings for the affiliate that still has the guts to put the ‘Devil’ in front of Rays, Hellickson has 41 strikeouts and two, count 'em two walks, and just like that, the Rays organization has another great prospect.
Montgomery is going to have a nice 1-2-3 punch in less-than-a-month, hopefully(sure seems that way)
Want more, click for the "jump"
The Dunn Scenario
Before today, I was working on a piece about how the Rays should be licking their chops at the firing of Wayne Krivsky and the hiring of Walt Jocketty as the GM.
Why is that?
Well, Walt has always been known for doing things his own way and dealing old contracts to get players of his liking. He basically purged the Cardinals farm system, while GM of St. Louis, to nothingness just to get veterans. It may work the opposite, with Jocketty looking for prospects instead of vets but nothing is for sure just yet, but we call can say that we seen it coming once Jocketty slumps comfortabley into his chair and gets down to business.
Don't believe me?
DRays Bay's pal and Roto Junkie's own, Jason Collette reports that Buck Martinez and Ken Robo, er, Rosenthal were mentioning a nice scenario in which the Rays acquired the services of Adam Dunn.
Just think, a line-up with Pena-Longoria-Dunn batting back-to-back-to-back...
If people thought Longoria was a decent hitter with Hinske hitting after him, just think when you've got a masher with 100+ walk seasons and consistently putting up .400-ish OBPs waiting in the on-deck circle when Evan is hitting.
Must...change...pants...now.....
I just gotta wonder, what would it take to acquire Dunn? McGee? Davis? Brignac? Joel Guzman(I kid, I kid)? We've got prospects, if Jocketty inexplicabley reversed in philosophy, to withstand a trade for a big name player and survive with our top farm system mantle intact.
My only worry is, if we pursued any trade like this....how would we guarantee that he wouldn't nix his option and become a Free Agent once the season ends?
Tough Choices...but nice to be thinking that we could do more damage than what we've already surprisingly done.
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Crystal Ball Time
What does Jake see?
-Well, he sees one of his draft-day favorites Emeel Salem already with over 20 swipes for the season and hitting over .300. Time to move him up to Vero Beach, please.
-Jeremy Hellickson will be moved to Montgomery within the next 2 weeks, replacing him in the Vero Beach rotation will be David Price. Not much of a difference coming from that spot in the rotation, stats-wise.
-Reid Brignac will awaken from his early season hibernation and he will bring his stat line to .270/.356/.407 by midseason.
-Gabe Gross will get at least 2 hits against the Orioles in the next series and one of them will be "big"
-Jake will make a post, with a little help from his friends, which will involve some statistical analysis.
Bzzzzzt, This Concludes Your Reading for Today