The Royals not surprisingly announced a couple transactions today sending down Kila Ka'aihue and Blake Wood to Omaha and the Braves didn't want Edgar Osuna so KC sent him to Northwest Arkansas.
It says a little about the Royals and their talent evaluation skills when the Braves won't pay $25k to get back a so called minor league prospect. Even a 4A player is worth 25k. Dayton has steadily acquired flunkies from the Braves system that he was involved in drafting or acquiring and I have grown tired of it. I could see it happening a tad in the beginning but we are in year four and it continues to happen. I wonder if these guys were only drafted by the Braves because they were the only players that Dayton and his Braves staff scouted. Dayton's skill and talents are supposed to lie in talent evaluation but I'm starting to move out of that camp. Everything looked extremely positive early when he acquired Cortes, Soria Blake Johnson and Pimintel in his first season. Of that group only Soria looks to be an impact player of any sort and besides Jordan Parraz possibility Dayton has little to show for any of his other trades. His only Braves pickup that actually looks to be worth something since Davies hasn't improved is Brayan Pena and there are rumors that he is on the trading block.
I lose a little more faith in this scouting staff as well everyday as it just seems that they target only old school conventional thinking. All the "scouts" say Kila only has slider bat speed and walks will dwindle once he's in the majors. I for one think that is total bunk. Kila is disciplined he doesn't walk just because; he walks because he knows what his strengths are. As opposed to many major league hitters that don't have a thought process and just go up there being hacktastic "Mike Jacobs" with their fastball bat speed. And even if the walks lowered what are they going to lower to? 65-75? That mark would still have lead the team last season. And as for all of this fastball/slider bat speed what is the number anyway that a guy can handle? I think Kila can handle a high 80 low 90's fastball with regularity as that is what compromises AAA so is it only the mid to upper 90's? There are 16 starters in the majors according to Fangraphs.com that average a 93+ fastball and only 7 of the reside in the American League so even if he had this phantom slider bat speed I think he would fair alright because of those 7 he would only face 6(minus Greinke) and those are the same 6 (Verlander, CC, Beckett, Lester,Scherzer and King Felix) that get everyone else out. I would say Kila can handle the breaking stuff alright or at least read it or he wouldn't be walking 100+ times 2 years in a row. Oh well I guess it'll workout for Scott Thorman.
This is the same scouting group that said Aviles couldn't hit or play shortstop at the major league level and now say he is the best infielder on the team. Hmm nice to jump on the bandwagon I guess. Now onto some other news within the minor league system.
Mike Montgomery dominated a High Class A game the other day pitching 5 innings allowing 2 hits and no walks or runs. Tim Melville was reported by Adam Foster of Project Prospect via Twitter to have poor fastball control throwing 89-92 consistently straight and touching 94. While his curve and change up flashed above average. Hopefully Melville's control will come around as he is still very young and this will only be his second full season. John Lamb was named by JJ Cooper of Baseball America as showing the most in spring training and could be ready to make a big leap forward among the Royals pitching prospects.
Cut down day is coming and the minor league rosters will be formed very soon. I will be heading to Burlington April 10 hopefully to checkout Wil Myers and either Keaton Hayenga or Tyler Sample. I will be posting some video on here and at Royals Prospects.com.
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