Cubs Series Preview: Hendricks, Injuries, and Walks

Kyle Hendricks would be talked about as an ace on many other staffs.

The Cubs may have slowed from their torrid start, but they still have the best record in baseball.  They also have the best projected record over the rest of the season in baseball, and are viewed as a near-lock to make the playoffs--most likely by winning their division.  They have an outstanding offense, they field incredibly well, their rotation has been spectacular, and their bullpen has been at least solid.  They aren't a perfect team, but they're as dominant as you'll find in baseball.  The Reds' goal here is to be as the pesky bad team that delivers a minor setback to a superior team's march to inevitable victory.  It's not a very inspiring, but that's where the Reds are these days.

With the Reds playing at home, one can hope that there will be more Red in the stands than Blue.  But in all honestly, does anyone expect that to happen?  The best thing about this series is that those of us with MLB.tv can tune in to Len Kasper and Jim Deshaies, who are among my favorite broadcasting teams in baseball.

Probable Starters

The Cubs are no doubt pleased with the Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester, but the rise of Kyle Hendricks has to be a pleasant surprise.  He took a nice step forward in 2015, and has proven it was no fluke by continuing to post excellent strikeout-to-walk rates this year.  He doesn't get a lot of press, but he has done nothing but perform since arriving in the major leagues two years ago.  He doesn't throw hard, but has an excellent change-up, gets ground balls, and avoids the walk.  

Cody Reed's results have been uneven thus far, but he's doing something that no other Reds starter can do: he's missing bats regularly.  His delivery isn't a thing of beauty, but that slider is nasty and I love his velocity from the left side.  He's even getting ground balls!  I'm pretty encouraged.

Position Players

Brandon Phillips' production has dropped to such a degree that he is rated as an equivalent hitter to Billy Hamilton based on wRC+.  His contract runs through 2017. Yes, BABIP, maybe.  But still.

Also, the Reds have exactly one player in the starting lineup with an above-average walk rate.  Walking isn't everything, but this is clearly an organizational philosophy.

The Cubs entered spring training with unparalleled depth in the outfield, and they've been tested.  Jason Heyward is still playing (though he has been very disappointing), but they've lost Kyle Schwarber, Jorge Soler, and most recently Dexter Fowler to injuries.  Nevertheless, by shifting Kris Bryant to the outfield to add Javier Baez to the lineup, and then promoting top prospect Albert Almora from AAA, they've largely absorbed those losses and still maintain a respectable lineup.  Almora's scouting report indicates that he'll be a glove-first fielder, but eventually should hit well enough to be a solid-average regular.  He's off to a decent start.

Still, those losses have hurt.  The team still sports three outstanding hitters in Anthony Rizzo, Ben Zobrist, and Kris Bryant.  But the others, at least this year, haven't been particularly special.  What they can all do, however, is field.  Every single starter on the Cubs rates out as above-average thus far based on fielding metrics, and the only player with negative marks is utility guy and part-time starter Chris Coghlan, recently re-acquired from the Athletics.  That excellence in the field can go a long way in making up any shortfalls with the bat.  Rosters like that don't happen by accident, nor does the fact that six of eight starters in the Cubs lineup have above-average walk rates.  It seems a stark contrast to what the Reds are running out there.

Bullpens

I am a big fan of Raisel Iglesias, and seeing him relegated to the bullpen due to injury concerns is saddening.  He should be excellent out there, however, and should do a great deal to stabilize the back end of the bullpen if that is how Price ultimately uses him.  I'm hopeful he can find a way back into the rotation, but it sounds like the Reds don't think his shoulder can handle that workload.

Michael Lorenzen had a rough first appearance, but he was pumping fastballs at 98 mph and threw strikes.  As a starter, he threw in the mid-90's, but was prone to nibbling, with lots of walks and very few strikeouts.  Maybe he will be the kind of pitcher who really does see his stuff play up in relief?  It might be nice to find a good closer.  But if he does end up in the pen, that basically ends the Reds' experiment with converting college closers.  Cingrani?  Bullpen.  Nick Howard?  Bullpen, if he's lucky.  And now Lorenzen.  It was a good idea, but I guess there's a reason that so few players move from the bullpen into the rotation during their careers.

Astros Series Preview: Cody Reed has arrived!

Jose Altuve is excited to face Cody Reed.
Photo Credit: Arturo Pardavila III

Having parted ways with the Braves, the Reds head to Houston to take on the Astros this weekend.  The big news for this series is the expected debut of Cody Reed, who is arguably, given the struggles of Robert Stephenson and Jesse Winker, the Reds' top prospect at this moment.  It's really the most exciting debut of the year thus far, because it could (and should) hopefully be the start of Reed's long tenure with the Reds.  There has been no indication that the Reds intend for his window here to be a short one, like the spot starts they gave to Stephenson earlier in the year.

The Astros have fallen on hard times this year after being the great story of 2015.  Their offense has struggled to put runs on the board, and most significantly, their starting pitching has really struggled this year.  They have had good success with the glove and in the bullpen, but this seems a poor facsimile of the powerhouse team we saw in the playoffs last year.  For all of their struggles, however, the Astros still project pretty well over the rest of the season (0.540 winning percentage), which still gives them a pretty good chance of making the playoffs based on FanGraphs' numbers. 

Position Players

Like a lot of fans, I first heard about Jose Altuve when listening to Kevin Goldstein and Jason Parks' old weekly podcast from Baseball Prospectus.  Altuve was Goldstein's favorite.  He was just starting to raise eyebrows with his hitting, but, given Altuve's size, most were still skeptical of his performance.  Kevin described him as "adorable."  It has just been so fun to see him become a legitimate star player for the Astros over these past two years.  He makes great contact, has good knowledge of the strike zone (assuming pitchers can find his!), and somehow possesses legitimate doubles power despite his size.

The guy who was supposed to be the other star for the 'Stros was Altuve's double play partner, Carlos Correa.  The hype on Correa was ridiculous this spring, and it's hard to say the guy hadn't earned it.  His performance has cooled a bit from last year's heights, although he has still turned in an excellent offensive season.  I'm raising my eyebrow a bit at his UZR number; Correa is known as a good-not-great defensive shortstop, and it'll be interesting to see where that number ultimately stabilizes next year.  If he's a league-average shortstop in the field, Correa is a star.  If he keeps racking up deficits, maybe he'll have to move over to third base a lot sooner than expected.

The other guy I find pretty interesting is George Springer.  Springer is a nice all-around player.  He has good power, good speed, a good glove, and enough contact ability to keep the strikeouts from becoming a serious problem.  I'm surprised to see how often he hits the ball on the ground; he leads his team at 52%.  He has the speed to beat out ground balls, but you have to think he might see an increase in his productivity of he can get a few more balls in the air given his power capacity.

So where do they struggle?  Their bench has been a non-factor.  Evan Gattis is basically pure power, without other skills to provide much value.  They still haven't solved first base.  But the biggest disappointment here has to be Carlos Gomez.  Gomez has been a masterful player for years with the Brewers, but he has been abysmal with the Astros this year.  Some of that, and perhaps much of that, can be attributed to injury, and he has missed time already.  But if you have a healthy Carlos Gomez, you might add 3 wins to this team already by this point in the season.  I really like Gomez, and I hope he snaps out of it.

It's good to see Votto back above-average again and in the midst of one of his patented on-base streaks (16 games and counting!).  He looks so much better at the plate these days; gone are the horrifically awkward swings of April, and now he's an on-base machine.  Hopefully we'll start to see the power we saw in the second-half last season again, but I'm already very comfortable when he comes up to the plate again.

Not much else is new, here.  I love Zack Cozart and Jay Bruce.  Love them.  But the Reds need to be working the phones on those guys.  They should each fetch a nice return, if the Reds play their cards right.  I'm looking forward to seeing them play in the playoffs this fall.

Finally, if you told me that Duvall would hit 19 home runs this year, I'd be fairly content with that total on the season.  The fact that he's already done it is astonishing.  I sure wish he would take a walk, but perhaps that will come as pitchers start to avoid the strike zone when he's at the plate.

Probable Starters

Cody Reed is here!  Reed was the lesser-known quantity in the Johnny Cueto trade last fall, but even then the prospect guys were identifying him as arguably the top guy in that deal.  This year, he hasn't disappointing, posting a 3.20 ERA with supporting peripherals across 11 starts in AAA.  With the super-2 deadline likely behind us, it's his time to show us what he can do.  Reed has been nothing but impressive for the past two seasons, with scouts just as impressed as the stat guys.  I can't wait to see what he does.

I haven't analyzed the Astros starters in detail; you can find lots of discussion of that elsewhere.  But I will just note that Lance McCullers and Dallas Keuchel both have pretty big ERA-xFIP differentials.  Keuchel isn't posting the crazy peripherals that he did last year, but he's still allowing a steady diet of ground balls, striking guys out at a good clip, and at least not bleeding walks.  McCullers is pretty much the same guy, just with more strikeouts and more walks.  There's a lot of reason for hope among those two guys.

Bullpens

When Ken Giles was acquired this offseason, the expectation of many was that he would slide into the closer's role.  Instead, he "lost" that race to incumbent Luke Gregerson (currently on Family Emergency list), and at this point is probably not even among the top three on the depth chart.  Giles has shown a precipitous drop in his ground ball rate (and a massive spike in his home run rate), but everything else about him looks virtually identical.  Furthermore, while his April was brutal, his May we much better, and he's been unhittable thus far in June.  I'd expect him to climb back up the depth chart...although man, Will Harris has been nails so far this year.  Even without Gregerson, this is a really scary bullpen. 

Prospecting Reds Pitchers with Steamer

Continuing our look at the Reds' prospects for the 2016 season season, tonight we'll turn our attention to the pitchers.  As with hitters, I'm using Steamer projections, grouping by age, and am including players who were on the active roster last year in these age groups but who no longer have rookie eligibility.

Age-25 Pitchers

The wrap on John Lamb when the Reds acquired him last summer was that he was a former elite prospect who never saw his velocity return following Tommy John surgery.  The thing was, when the Reds got him, his velocity was back up to the 92-93 mph range where it had been pre-surgery.  That ultimately did fade a bit, but he still finished with an average mlb fastball velocity of 91 mph (the bad velocity wrap started when he was maxing out in the high-80's the year before).  On top of that, he struck out well over a batter per inning, while keeping his walk rates acceptable.  The main criticism one can have of his peripherals, at least, is that he has thus far been a fairly severe fly ball pitcher with just a 37% ground ball rate.  Yeah, I know, 5.80 ERA.  But .376 BABIP.

Steamer believes.  And other analysts are taking note as well.  Most interesting was this note by Eno Sarris:

But when it comes to movement, he's set up for success. A nice riding four-seam, a decent cutter, and then that change. That change. With a 15 mph difference between it and the four-seam, Lamb owns the biggest velocity differential in baseball. Plus movement and velocity difference led to whiffs almost a quarter of the time he threw it, so it has real potential to be an elite pitch. In fact, his curve, cutter, and change all had plus whiff rates. Not above-average. Plus.

Biggest velocity differential in baseball.  Assuming that's a good thing (Chris Dial doesn't think so), it provides some extra support for those fantastic strikeout numbers.  I'm probably irrationally, wildly, sky high on John Lamb.  He's exactly the sort of guy I will flock to: a peripherals darling, overlooked by the casual fan, with pitchf/x things to point to indicating it is real.  I know I'll have to wait a little bit while he ramps up following back surgery (just hopin' that's ok), but I'm really excited to see what he does this year.


Age-24 Pitchers

Big group, and a lot of these guys look to play a role on the club in the near future.

Zack Weiss is a rising relief prospect.  Relief prospects are the worst kind of prospect, but Weiss's projection indicates that he's ready to contribute to the bullpen right now.  The Reds surely need some help in that regard.

Amir Garrett was a big riser in the Reds' prospect rankings this season, climbing all the way to #4 after giving up basketball and focusing exclusively on pitching.  Everything about him sounds good...except that he's entering his age-24 season and hasn't played above high-A.  Granted, he's fairly new to pitching, so it's not surprising that he's behind.  I'm sure he'll start in AA this year (he was just optioned there!).  If he can advance to AAA by the season's end, he'll be poised to crack the Cincinnati rotation by 2017, if all goes as well.

Michael Lorenzen rode a friendly luck dragon for the first month or so of his big league debut last season, but the fates predictably turned on him as time went on.  He didn't show the ability to avoid walks or miss bats throughout much of his stint with the Reds.  Nevertheless, at the same time, perhaps he was rushed a bit last season.  He advanced through the minors so quickly that 2015 was the first time he really failed.  It's far too soon to give up on the guy.  Here's hoping his elbow issue isn't serious.

Jonathon Crawford is a fascinating case of how quickly one's stock can fall.  He was a first-round selection in 2013, and turned in solidish performances in '13 and '14 (albeit with weak strikeout rates).  Last year, he was injured and missed most of the season.  He's getting older, but don't count out former top draft picks.  He's put up decent numbers before.  If his first half in AA (which is where I'd put him) doesn't go well this season, maybe you consider putting him in the pen and hoping he can rise quickly?

Finally, Jon Moscot is hoping for a shot to be a #5 starter.  Maybe he can be a #4 if things break right for him?  Maybe?  He won't strike guys out, but if he can avoid walks and get some ground balls then maybe can be a passable rotation cog.  My guess, unfortunately, is that he's destined for middle relief.

Age-23 Pitchers

And now here is an even bigger group!

Steamer approves heartily of the Reds' pickup of Rookie Davis, although it is worth noting that this is (for whatever reason) a projection for him as a reliever.  Brandon Finnegan also looks ready to roll as a reliever, though I'm keen to see him get a full season of starting before the Reds toss him back into relief.

Somewhat disappointing, perhaps, is the projection on Robert Stephenson, the Reds #1 prospect on most lists.  The key for Stephenson will be his ability to avoid the walk while staying effective.  His walk rates have been in excess of 4 bb/9 at both AA and AAA, so I'm very inclined to let him start the year in AAA despite the clamors we're hearing to promote him as soon as possible on the basis of his hype and spring training performance.  The prospect guys love his stuff, and we've certainly seen talented pitchers figure things out in the major leagues.  I remember trading Matt Harvey in my fantasy league back in 2012 when he was sporting a 4+ bb/9 rate, only to see him take a huge step forward and become Matt Effin' Harvey the next season.  But we've also seen guys who never figure it out and become nothing.  I'd wager there are more in the latter category than the former, but I'm rooting for him.

Cody Reed is a guy I'm pleasantly surprised to see rate so well.  Reed was another big riser year in prospect rankings as he took a significant step forward.  He was already rising when the Reds got him mid-season, and then he went on a crazy tear in the second half.  Steamer is giving him a reliever projection here, but what I'm taking from it is that not all of his rising expectation is just recency bias.

Nick Howard.  Sigh.  When I see Howard, I can't help but think that he's a case where the Reds just got too cute.  They had been having some success with the closer-to-starter thing with Cingrani and Lorenzen, so they followed suit by taking Howard.  He's been a catastrophe.  As I said with Crawford above, never count out a top pick entirely, but I think in his case, at least, the experiment with starting is over.  Now it's time to see if they can salvage a relief arm with him.

Age-22 Pitchers

I'm surprised to see that Sal Romano still is just 22 years old.  He was drafted back in 2012, and has been steadily showing improvement as he works his way through the system.  He got shelled at AA late last season, but seems likely to begin there as a 22-year old this season.  He hasn't shown particularly exciting peripherals, but he's always been young for his level.  Another good year, and he's suddenly banging on the door in Cinci.

Keury Mella was the main return for Mike Leake last summer.  He slots in with Nick Travieso as the top talents in this younger tier of prospects.  I'm been pretty tickled to see Travieso rising over the past few years, because for a while he looked like he'd been a lost selection.  He was so darn young when drafted, though, and the Reds patience and instruction is seemingly now paying off.  AA could be a big test for him.


Age-21 Pitchers and Below

Somewhat surprisingly, there aren't a lot of Reds pitching prospects entering their age-21 or below season. Tyler Mahle had a great season for Dayton last year and seems ready for his next step.  The other two didn't even get a projection in Steamer's database.  Both Antonio Santillan and Ian Kahaloa have appeared at the bottom of some of the various top-10 Reds lists, even if sometimes just listed below the top-10 as a guy to keep an eye on.

2016 Reds Composite Prospect Ranking

This is my annual summary of some selected prospect rankings (2015 rankings here).  The short of the methods: players earn "points" for being ranked on top prospect lists from around the internets, and earn more points based on their ranking.  The longest list this year was FanGraphs' Top-34, and so a #1 ranking on any list is worth 34 points.  Input the lists, total up each player's points, and you get a composite ranking!  Tiebreaker is the number of lists as player was ranked on.

The lists I used were:

• Baseball America's J.J. Cooper (top 10)
• Baseball Prospectus (top 10)
• Doug Gray of Redsminorleagues.com (top 25)
• FanGraphs' Dan Farnsworth (top 34)
• John Sickels (top 20)
• MLB.com Pipeline (top 30)

MLB.com's pipeline list is a new addition.  I'm not particularly enamored with it, but MLB seems to be putting more and more into its prospect coverage, so it seems appropriate to include them.  Notably absent is Keith Law, but I only found his top 10, while his top-20 is behind the paywall.  I just decided to skip it.

Now, on to the rankings!

Rank	Player	Total Pts	# Lists	Avg Rank	Change
1	Robert Stephenson	202	6	1.3	0
2	Jesse Winker	196	6	2.3	0
3	Cody Reed	191	6	3.2	Trade
4	Amir Garrett	186	6	4.0	+6
5	Tyler Stephenson	168	6	7.0	1st Rnd
6	Nick Travieso	165	6	7.5	-1
6	Alex Blandino	165	6	7.5	+2
8	Keury Mella	161	6	8.2	Trade
9	Jose Peraza	149	5	5.2	Trade
10	Tyler Mahle	115	5	12.0	+12
11	Sal Romano	102	5	14.6	+3
12	Phillip Ervin	91	4	12.3	-1
13	Rookie Davis	85	4	13.8	Trade
14	Scott Schebler	82	4	14.5	Trade
14	John Lamb	82	4	14.5	Trade
16	Antonio Santillan	79	5	19.2	2nd Rnd
17	Eric Jagielo	78	4	15.5	Trade
18	Yorman Rodriguez	64	3	13.7	-11
19	Blake Trahan	62	3	14.3	3rd Rnd
20	Taylor Sparks	41	3	21.3	-2
21	Zack Weiss	40	3	21.7	---
22	Gavin LaValley	36	3	23.0	-7
23	Kyle Waldrop	35	3	23.3	-10
24	Aristides Aquino	33	3	24.0	-13
25	Jon Moscot	32	3	24.3	-5
26	Wyatt Strahan	31	2	19.5	-3
27	Nick Howard	29	2	20.5	-23
28	Ian Kahaloa	26	2	22.0	5th Rnd
29	Jake Cave	23	2	23.5	Rule 5
30	Tanner Rainey	16	2	27.0	2nd Rnd
31	Jose Lopez	16	1	19.0	---
32	Jonathon Crawford	11	2	29.5	-15
33	Calten Daal	9	2	30.5	-5
34	Jackson Stephens	6	1	29.0	-3
35	Brandon Dixon	3	1	32.0	Trade

Not surprisingly, Robert Stephenson (who makes me nervous) and Jesse Winker (who I want to love) remain at the top of the leaderboard.  Newcomer Cody Reed clocks in at #3, which is a nice showing for a guy who only starting to raise eyebrows when he was arguably the big prize in last summer's Johnny Cueto trade.  

Big Risers include Amir Garrett, who is coming off an outstanding season after finally committing to baseball, and Tyler Mahle, who was quietly brilliant for Dayton last year.  Fallers include perpetual underachiever Yorman Rodriguez, who seems low on the Reds' depth chart despite being out of options; Aristides Aquino, who struggled with injuries and underperformance in his first year at A-ball; and, most notably, the plummeting, flaming, catastrophic career of former 1st-round selection Nick Howard, who has yet to show any indication that he knows where the strike zone is.  

The Reds have added a lot of talent over the past calendar year.  I really like a lot of the guys who came over at the deadline last summer, and that shows up on this list (with Brandon Finnegan missing out because he has lost rookie eligibility).  I'm not particularly excited about a lot of the talent they've added this offseason, but they certainly have added some depth.  If at least a few of those go on to be useful pieces, then the offseason has to be seen as a passable success.

Quickly, here are those players who appeared last season, but are no longer on this year's list:

• #3 Michael Lorezen (graduated)
• #6 Raisel Iglesias (graduated)
• #8 Anthony DeSclafani (graduated)
• #16 Seth Mejias-Brean (not sure why...ok season, but getting old)
• #19 Tucker Barnhart (graduated)
• #20 Junior Arias (minor league free agent, left for Giants - TY to Doug Gray)
• #24 Daniel Corcino (claimed off waivers)
• #25 Chad Wallach (still around, rough season)
• #26 Ismael Guillon (DFA'd, did not play)
• #27 David Holmberg (graduated)
• #29 Jose Ortiz (released)
• #30 Jeremy Kivel (still around, awful control in 2015)
• #31 Daniel Wright (still around, good peripherals last year)
• #33 Sebastian Elizalde (still around, did not take a step forward)

Southpaw Surprise: Reds Exchange Cueto for Three Pitching Prospects

Steve Mancuso at Redleg Nation kindly asked me to write a post about the Johnny Cueto trade, which just went live this afternoon.  In it, I compare the return the Reds received for Johnny Cueto to other deadline deals for quality starting pitchers, 2012-2015.  Here's the money bit:

It seems clear that the return for Johnny Cueto was pretty fair, given what the market has been paying for rental starters over the past several years.  If I had the choice, I would have preferred the return that the Brewers got for Greinke, based on what we knew at the time of the deal.  But given that Brandon Finnegan and Jean Segura were ranked at exactly the same spot in BA’s prospect rankings, someone who was really sold on Finnegan’s stuff could probably argue otherwise.  Furthermore, Cueto brought with him some degree of injury risk that was less of a concern with Greinke.  And, frankly, there has been discussion among journalists (whether or not they’re correct) that the market for rental players is getting weaker every year.  Therefore, for the Reds to fall within a few breaths of the Greinke return seems reasonable.  I’d expect that the Reds went with this deal because it was the best offer they received, based on their evaluations of the players. 

The Cueto return does look better than every other trade deadline return for a rental starting pitcher from the past four years.  While it’s not the most likely scenario, there’s a legitimate chance that each of the three starters the Reds acquired could be a valuable member of the Reds’ rotation by 2017.  None of them is likely to ever be the kind of pitcher Cueto was, but this is a substantial infusion of talent at a position where the Reds have been looking pretty weak.

While writing the article, I also whipped up quick profiles on each of the players involved.  I felt they made the article too long, however, and were kind of redundant with work already published by Redleg Nation authors this week.  So, here is what got cut:

Johnny Cueto, RHP, 29 years old

We all know he’s amazing.  How amazing he is depends on how you evaluate him.  By pure FIP-WAR (FanGraphs’ default, which is based strictly on his FIP), Cueto ranks 21st in baseball over the past calendar year at 4.2 WAR.  However, Cueto has consistently posted numbers better than his ERA estimators thanks to a consistent skill to induce low average on balls in play (career BABIP against = 0.271, and it’s been in the .230’s the past three seasons) and an exceptional pickoff move that shuts down the running game.  As a result, by RA9-WAR, he ranks 5th in baseball over the past calendar year with 6.1 WAR, behind only Greinke, Keuchel, Scherzer, and Kershaw.  His true talent probably lies somewhere in between, but I’d peg Cueto as among the top 10 or 15 pitchers in baseball.

Brandon Finnegan, LHP, 22 years old

The 2014 draftee has outstanding stuff: he throws hard, especially for a left-hander, has a plus slider, and his change-up is usable.  The main questions surrounding him are his height and build; at 5’11, 185 lbs, he’s not a big guy, so there are concerns about his ability to hold up to a starter’s workload.  He also has suffered from lapses in control.  That all said, the 22-year old has been in professional baseball for one year, has major league experience, has been constantly jerked across the minor and major leagues since signing.  He has yet to throw more than 25 innings with any one club, and was frustrated with how he was being handled.  He ranked as the #55 prospect in baseball according to Baseball America entering the season, and Kiley McDaniel recently reaffirmed his preseason 55 Future Value scouting rating on Finnegan.

Cody Reed, LHP, 22 years old

Reed has been a rising star in the Kansas city Royals system this year.  Like Finnegan, he also throws hard, hitting the upper 90’s regularly, and has a plus slider to go with a developing change-up.  Unlike Finnegan, he has a more traditional power-pitcher body that scouts like to see at 6’5”, 220 lbs.  The knock on Reed has been his control, which has ranged from bad to horrific.  This year, however, he seems to have taken a major step forward, showing much better control and command across A+ and AA levels.  McDaniel rated him as a 50 FV prospect this week, and he made Baseball America’s midseason Royals list as their #9 prospect.  His strikeouts have taken a hit with his promotion to AA, but it's early and he's young.  I'm pretty bullish on him.

John Lamb, LHP, 25 years old

Lamb is a former top prospect with the Royals, reaching #18 in all of baseball on Baseball America’s 2011 prospect list.  That was the same list that featured five Royals in the top-20; he was one of those guys.  It was that year, however, that his ulnar collateral ligament gave out, and he submitted to Tommy John surgery.  Lamb’s recovery did not go very well.  He missed most of 2012 in recovery, lost a lot of velocity, and had lackluster results in 2013 and 2014 between high-A and AAA.  This year, however, reports have it that his velocity is back up in the low 90’s, almost where it was at his best.  His results have improved as well: his strikeouts are up over the past few years, and his walks are WAY down.  Having already spent a year and a half in AAA, he is thought to be almost ready for his big league debut.  I expect we'll see him this year, and probably before the other two pitchers.