TWiP (8/19/10): Jordan Schafer, Paul Goldschmidt, Shelby Miller, and More!

Welcome to the August 19, 2010 edition of This Week in Prospects!

This week, we’ll look at the minor league leader in homers, two Indians prospects who could make a major league impact fairly soon, some good and bad news for the Mets, and a whole lot more!

Hot Shots

Paul Goldschmidt, 1B, Diamondbacks (High-A)—Yeah, he’s a Cal League first baseman about to turn 23, but when there’s a “32” in the “HR” column in mid-August, you just can’t overlook it, no matter what Jonathan Gaston’s 2009 tells us.

Goldschmidt has managed to hit .301, but he has a whopping 138 strikeouts in 118 games.

It looks like a guarantee, though, that he’ll at least be an unbelievable lefty-masher in the majors. Goldschmidt has hit .397/.436/.838 off of lefties this year, with 15 homers in just 136 ABs. A homer every nine at-bats against lefties, and a double every ten? Yeah, I think that’s going to translate just fine.

The jury’s out as to whether Goldschmidt will hit righties enough to be an everyday player at first, which is the only position he can play—and he doesn’t play it well. He’s the rare prospect who actually might fit better in the AL, where platoon DH/1B arrangements are a bit more common.

It’s worth noting that he’s hit a whopping .303/.401/.670 after the All-Star Break, showing off more plate discipline and power (26 walks and 19 homers in 49 games, as opposed to 21 and 13 in 69 games pre-break). It surprises me that Arizona hasn’t pushed Goldschmidt to Double-A already.

Shelby Miller, RHP, Cardinals (Low-A)—Speaking of guys who deserve promotions, how about a guy with a 2.42 FIP, 11.96 K/9, and 4.32 K/BB?

All that has come as a 19-year-old in Low-A for Miller, the Cardinals’ first-rounder last year. His presence has breathed some life into a system that ranked as one of the worst in baseball, if not the worst, a year ago.

Miller chucks a mid-90’s heater that averages around 93 mph, and his curveball is already a plus pitch, with his changeup already usable as well. His good mechanics allow him to throw plenty of strikes, and he’s the rare pitcher who can have lots of success both up and down in the strike zone.

Right now, Miller projects to be an ace if he stays healthy and develops at a good rate.

Matt Packer, LHP, Indians (AA)—Packer has held the minor league ERA title for much of 2010, which has sent the 32^nd round pick from last year rocketing up prospect lists as he’s reached Double-A less than a year after being drafted so late.

Packer put up a 1.60 ERA in Low-A, and his 2.42 FIP was great. Walking just 13 batters in 95 2/3 innings while striking out 92 and only allowing four homers will do that.

He then strung together two dominant outings in Double-A before having a poor outing his last time out. Eh, that happens to everyone. It’s still an impressive season.

Indians fans may well be concerned that this guy is just another Jeremy Sowers/David Huff/Aaron Laffey type, and maybe he is, but you can’t deny that he’s having a great season.

The key for Packer will be to keep trusting his stuff. He currently takes the Cliff Lee approach to pitching, just filling the zone with strikes and daring opponents to do something with them. If he starts trying to get hitters to chase at the upper levels, it’s not going to end well. His nearly 60% groundball rate this year works in his favor.

Packer’s not just a soft-tosser, as he can get his sinking heater above 90 mph, and he’s also got a slider, changeup, and curveball. I wonder if there’s a bit of Marc Rzepczynski in here. With Justin Masterson and Packer possibly slotting into the future rotation of the Indians, Cleveland would do well to keep a good infield defense up—there are going to be lots of grounders.

Slumping Stars

Jordan Schafer, OF, Braves (AAA)—No, Schafer technically isn’t a “prospect,” since he’s already played in the majors a fair amount, but he’s a 23-year-old currently in the minors, so for the purposes of this column, he qualifies.

I will be the first to admit I’m not always right with my gut reactions on prospects (who is?), and another young Brave, Freddie Freeman, is making my pre-season doubting of him look extremely foolish. But it looks like I was ultimately right about Schafer, who I just never saw as that great of a prospect.

After a .204/.313/.287 showing in the bigs last year, Schafer’s been even worse in Triple-A in 2010, batting .200/.254/.253. There are some pitchers who can top that line.

Demoted to Double-A, he’s hit all of .183/.275/.255. He’s even just 12-for-22 in steals this season.

2007 sure looks far in the rearview mirror, doesn’t it? Schafer needs a major retooling, or he’ll be out of organized baseball in two years.

Clevelan Santeliz, RHP, White Sox (AAA)—I completely failed to understand why people were so worked up about Santeliz entering 2010. Baseball America said he was the White Sox’s ninth-best prospect, and Fangraphs had him seventh.

But the guy was a reliever who posted a 1.49 K/BB in Double-A at age 22 in 2009. What was with the hype? Sure, he throws hard, but so do lots of guys.

Santeliz’s K/BB has stayed pretty static, at 1.44 (39 K, 27 BB in 43 2/3 IP), but Triple-A has seen him develop a homer problem that he seemed to squelch last year, as he’s already allowed eight homers.

So what’s really to like? He throws 93 mph, which isn’t earth-shattering, and Santeliz’s slider is good but not great. He doesn’t throw enough strikes, allows too many homers, and whiffs just an average amount of batters for a reliever. At 23, he’s not a finished product, but he isn’t the youngest guy around either.

Maybe Santeliz suddenly puts it all together and becomes a Juan Cruz type, but the odds he’s going to be much more than a fungible middle relief type look pretty slim.

Brad Holt, RHP, Mets (High-A)—Holt had a 3.18 FIP in High-A last year, but he couldn’t get the hang of Double-A in either 2009 or 2010, so the 23-year-old has been sent back down to St. Lucie, and his K/BB rate at the level has declined from 4.15 last year to 1.09 this year. Yikes.

Holt simply has not been able to throw strikes this year, and while he’ll still get some whiffs, you’d have to be punching out batters at Carlos Marmol levels to make up for the walks and be an above-average pitcher.

Holt may not be as bad as his 3-11, 7.83 traditional numbers suggest, but until he throws strikes, he’s not going to get anywhere near the majors. Without a knockout pitch in the first place—he throws a low-90’s fastball, okay curve, and poor changeup—Holt’s best shot at the majors looks to be as a reliever.

Sleeper Alert!

Lucas Duda, 1B/OF, Mets (AAA)—As terrible as the news is regarding Holt, Met fans can take solace in the fact that Duda has come out of nowhere and torn up Triple-A.

A seventh-rounder out of USC back in 2007, Duda consistently put up nice OBPs with little power, which isn’t particularly thrilling from a defensively limited player. He hit just 24 homers from 2007-09, in 310 games.

An early-season repeat of Double-A saw the 24-year-old crank up some power, hitting .286/.411/503, which prompted a promotion to Triple-A Buffalo.

Since the promotion, Duda’s gone absolutely nuts, crushing 17 homers in 54 games—that’s a near-Goldschmidtian pace, and the International League is not the Cal League—and batting .320/.390/.665.

A .665 slugging percentage in Triple-A from anyone, let alone a 24-year-old? Sign me up.

What separates Duda from Goldschmidt and many other minor league sluggers is that he doesn’t strike out excessively. He’s only whiffed 20.9% of the time in Triple-A, and was down at 16.8% in Double-A. That means he could project to hit in the upper .200s or perhaps even .300 in the bigs, to go with the plus power and plate discipline.

With Ike Davis entrenched at first, Duda needs to become a competent outfielder to break into New York’s lineup. He’s still getting accustomed to the position, but if he keeps hitting like this, he’ll be worth a spot even if his glove is poor.

Cord Phelps, 2B, Indians (AAA)—Phelps gives me something of a Dustin Pedroia vibe, as he’s a max-effort guy with good gap power and a great feel for hitting. The 23-year-old second baseman is batting .332/.403/.530 in Triple-A.

Phelps doesn’t strike out very often, and consistently squares up the ball, so he could be a .300 hitter in the majors. He won’t be a 20-30 HR guy, but his power is average-plus for a middle infielder, comparable to that of Mark Ellis. He’s considered a plus defender with good smarts at second base, but he won’t be a basestealing threat like most middle infielders.

Phelps is an impressive all-around player with the potential to quietly develop into one of baseball’s better second basemen.

Matt Lollis, RHP, Padres (Low-A)—How often do you see 6’9”, 280 lb. 19-year-olds? Maybe occasionally on the gridiron, but not often on a baseball diamond. But that’s exactly what Lollis is, and the 15^th-rounder of the Padres from 2009 pitches with the physicality you’d expect from someone his size.

Lollis’ fastball reaches 95 mph and sits around 92, and with his size, it could wind up coming in even harder once he streamlines his mechanics. He throws a big overhand curveball that just seems to fall out of the sky because of his height. Lollis is also working on his changeup, and he’s got the frame to be a workhorse.

Best of all, the righthander throws tons of strikes, as he’s walked just 14 batters in 64 2/3 innings between short-season ball and Low-A. He’s allowed just two homers and has a 2.52 ERA. His stock is certainly on the rise, he’s young for his level, and if Lollis can survive the Cal League next year, we’ll have to start talking about ace potential.

The Quadruple-A Special

Brad Snyder, OF, Cubs—The 18^th overall pick (by the Indians) in 2003, Snyder had all sorts of injury issues with Cleveland and was largely written off after a 2008 that saw him hit .246/.297/.426 in Triple-A at age 26.

It looks like all he needed was a change of scenery, though, as two years in the Cubs’ system have been nothing but successful for Snyder. He batted .278/.335/.549 in Triple-A last year and improved to .306/.383/.557 there this season, launching 20 homers for the first time since 2005, cutting his strikeouts to a reasonable level (100 in 112 games), and even going 17-for-20 in steals. Snyder is also a nice defensive outfielder who can handle center and excels in right. Snyder even hits lefties well, posting a .960 OPS against them, so he doesn’t even have platoon limitations.

Yes, he’s 28, but the tools that made him drafted so highly seem to have finally showed up. The Cubs or some other rebuilding team should give Snyder a shot—he could be a nice starter for the next few years.

Tags: Brad Holt, Brad Snyder, Clevelan Santeliz, Cord Phelps, Jordan Schafer, Lucas Duda, Matt Lollis, Matt Packer, Paul Goldschmidt, Shelby Miller