After far too many setbacks and formatting issues in order to offer the book in both print and downloadable e-book versions, the 2008 Prospect Insider Handbook is finally complete and available. Inside you’ll find full profiles of the top 10 prospects and rankings that extend to the top 40 talents in the Seattle Mariners organization.
Other features include a recap of last year’s Top 10, where you’ll see at least one major blunder in PI’s rankings where I was fooled and then some by a certain left-handed bat, a Review and 20-20 grading of the 2007 Draft, a Preview of the 2008 Draft, the All-time Seattle Mariners Prospects Team, a historical view of the M’s farm system and the Top 20 Prospects in the American League West.
Also included:
Analysis of the club’s International signings, Ranking MLB’s Farm System’s 1-30, Under the Radar prospects to keep an eye on in the depths of the system, a glance at what happened to some of the club’s previous top prospects, a closer look at right-hander Juan Ramirez and 2007 second round draft pick Denny Almonte (with full scouting report), and more.
Perhaps my personal favorite feature is the Top 10 Most Valuable Seattle Mariners, on and off the field. This one was fun researching. And with the help of a former Mariners player and current minor league coach, there’s a feature consisting of the All-time Seattle Mariners team.
No, I didn’t forget Mike’s favorite feature, the Organizational Tool Box, rating the best pitches and skills in the entire farm system.
And thanks to Paul Marsh and Mike Andruski, there are photos of the top prospects, including the somewhat elusive Carlos Triunfel, in action.
Oh, and I almost forgot: The Projected 2011 Seattle Mariners. Pretty exciting lineup in the club’s future.
To get your downloadable copy in PDF form, Click Here.
To order your 118-page, paperback, spiral-bound handbook, Click Here.
Here’s an excerpt from the profiles of one of the Top 10 prospects.
Tuiasosopo is a good athlete with above-average tools across the board, including plus bat speed, solid pitch recognition and the ability to hit the ball the other way. He’s also considered to be the most mature of the M’s prospects due to great makeup and the ability to completely ignore his numbers and continue to work on his game day-in and day-out, never losing confidence or resting on his laurels from recent successes.
The 21-year-old does have adjustments to make at the plate, however, such as shortening his swing and possibly eliminating the leg kick that some believe prevents him from turning on pitches and hitting for more consistent power.
Jason, I downloaded the PDF version and while I have only read a little bit, I am more than pleased! Great work as always!
Does the PDF version have all the pictures and stuff?
Jason, on the topic of pictures, do you have access to Mariner prospect high-resolution portrait/head shots? I try to get my hands on as many good quality ones as I can because I have a hobby of modeling faces for a baseball video game (MVP Baseball 2005).
If there are good quality portraits in the book, I would buy it just for that.. ;)
*whistles*
Yeah, the PDF does indeed have the pictures. I think the photo section pretty much rocks (not that I’m at all biased there ;-) Actually, yeah, Andruski’s shots of Moore are really, really, really good.
Give me a few weeks and I’ll have some head shots of the guys in AAA, thr33nil. You’ll find a few in the book, of course…
I have access to the all of the headshots the teams use for tv and such, but I’m not sure they are high res, really.
Maybe they are.
any particular players you are looking for?
Churchill-
The Handbook was awesome. I just spent a few hours mowing through it. A big thanks to you and the rest of the staff.
Jason,
Just any of better prospects that don’t have MLB pressbox photos. So pretty much guys who didn’t go to picture day with the big club. Probably my top choices would be Triunfel, Saunders and Chen. Haven’t got any really good portraits of those 3 yet. Would be interested in anything I could get though.
I’m going to pick up the PDF version of your handbook right now. Sounds like good stuff.
Thanks for the kind words, Stoiz.
Spent a lot of time on it and it means a lot that you enjoyed it.
Lots of others helped, too. Joe and Emily Kaiser, Paul Marsh, Alex Quante, Dave Clark, Mike Andruski, Jonathan Aircardi and Conor Glassey of stopthewave.com were an enormous part of it.
You’ll find photos of Chen, Triunfel, Saunders and Chen in the handbook, thr33niL, courtesy of Mike Andruski.
E-mail me if you need another few of Triunfel and Chen. Andruski is AWESOME and sent me a few more from Spring Training. High res, too.
Jason,
So, I’ve already read half of the book! I’m glued to it, such great information. I hope you know how much we appreciate your time and effort into the book and the site!
Just thought I’d pass this on.
The Mariners are trying to trade Baek, still.
And the M’s are willing to part with Dickey, but apparently only if they cannot find a trade for Baek that makes sense.
Wouldn’t imagine it would be tough. 16 NL teams could use him.
Seems like an odd stance for the M’s to take. Why part with Dickey if you can’t trade Baek?
It’s not like Baek’s going to bring much of a return… if they like Dickey better (which I personally do) just kick Baek to the curb.
That’s why I think they did the following:
Put Dickey through waivers, which you must do BEFORE you offer that player back anyway, and if he clears, you don’t HAVE to offer him back.
But the timing has to work out, and waivers takes 72 hours.
So maybe they are setting things up to be figured out by tonight or tomorrow.
No deal for Baek? Dickey goes back.
Deal for Baek? Dickey stays.
And it’s not like they CAN’T trade Baek. It’s a matter of finding a decent deal for him. Teams know, however, that he is out of options.
They do have to offer him back if he clears waivers.Then the Twins say we will take him back and give the Mariners 25k are they say you keep him and the Twins keep the 50k.
Actually I checked the CBA on this.
If Dickey clears, and the M’s want to do anything else with him, they have to offer him back.
Clearing waivers doesn’t mandate.
Can anyone find a reason why the Twins would actually want him back, anyway?
I can see holding out to try and get a trade going with Seattle, but in the end Dickey makes no sense to Minnesota at the big league OR AAA level.
Here’s another thought…
Are the M’s going to get stuck without either pitcher?
Not that either guy is irreplaceable but it seems like they are hellbent on taking one of them north.
If they were to lose Dickey on waivers before they get a chance to work some sorta deal with Minnesota, but have already agreed to a deal for Baek…
Ooops.
Cujo,
I know you’ve seen the Rangers a lot, how many wins you peg them for this year?
I think there’s a chance they become a serious pain the arse of the M’s and Angels.
Thanks for stopping by Bleeding Blue and Teal and adding to the discussion, Jason.
So morrow got sent down to AA. Hopefully they keep im there to work on becoming a starter, and not just to fix his command and bring him back up to the majors. I really want them to keep him in the minors until he gets some other pitches. Hes too valuable to stay in the bullpen.
If he cant throw strikes, he isn’t valuable at all.
But the Mariners made the right move.
Jason,
Is there a chance that if Lowe pitches like he did when he first came up and the rest of the bullpen is performing nicely, that they decide to stretch Morrow’s arm out and get him some experience starting? Command and strength wise, is it better for him to get innings as a reliever or starter in the minors?
There’s a chance, dan. And it’s certainly the best thing for everyone involved right now.
The club can’t contend that they are a better 25-man roster with Morrow on it, so they are 1-for-3 on Morrow so far after blowing it twice last year. (bullpen, big leagues = 0-2)
Whether they start him or not remains to be seen, and whether he starts in West Tenn or not doesn’t mean anything, either.
But the more work he gets, the better, no matter what the future role is for him. His release point is as inconsistent as ever and his delivery altogether needs a little refinement, particularly in his lower body and arm path.
As long as they stretch him out slowly and monitor his health, he’s better off starting in the minors. He has so much to work on, the more, the better.
Minor League Note — Add outfielder Casey Craig and left-hander Steve Uhlmansiek to the growing list of minor leaguers that have been given their outright release.
Both player were apparently given the choice of remaining behind in extended spring training, basically to wait for someone to get hurt, or to be released.
Texas should win about 72 they just dont have enough talent to compete.We play in the worst division in baseball this year and we have a 127 million dollar payrole i should hope we could make the playoffs if we dont does the Brass blowup this thing are do they allow this madness to continue is my question?
We will be in contention, Jason Bay will start playing well, and then they will give up morrow and clement or wlad and clement for him to keep us in contention.
Jason,
I just picked up the PDF version of the handbook and I am very pleased. I live in Jacksonville and will be going to watch West Tenn play the Suns next weekend. Outside of Tui, Sanders, Moore, and Morrow is there anyone I should keep my eyes on. Outside of those guys, the roster seems to be stacked with organizational players.
I’m surprised about all this excitement over the Rangers (even Larry Stone has them finishing 2nd place). How good can a team be with Vincent Padilla as their #2 starter?
Not sure about that bullpen, including C.J. Wilson closing. Is Eddie Guardado suddenly going to be good again? I don’t it. Wes Littlejohn? Pleeeeease.
If Hank Blalock makes a comeback that would help, but that’s a BIG if. And, the loss of Brandon McCarthy hurts big time. Millwood is the worse #1 starter in the league. A solid #3, but he’s wasted at #1. If he even stays healthy. Another big if.
The roster is set. They worked out a trade with the Twins by sending Jair Fernandez for Dickey and he will be sent to AAA. Norton made the team and Baek also made the team.
Switch that, Jimerson made the team and norton was sent to AAA.
I dunno if anyone watched the Cubs game, but Triunfel has an absolute gun. He looks fine at short right now. Is the only reason he’s projected to be a 3B because he’s expected to put on a lot of muscle?
That, dubs, and due to the fact that he’s not smooth with his footwork and his hands need work, too, but there’s no reason to think he can’t handle a middle infield spot.
Like i talk about in the book, I think he’s the M’s starting second baseman in 2011.
Boy Jason, for the crap people give you forever after a source of yours gives you either bad info or info that wasn’t completely 100% dead on, they sure disappear when you nail one on the head like this Dickey thing.
I think it’s about time some of us realize that you are connected and typically do get good information that the rest of don’t.
If I remember correctly this kind of started with the Adam Jones call up thing last summer.
Date you reported he was coming up: July 17
Date call up was announced: August 1
So you were two weeks off. Whoopty.
I know the Jim Slaton/pitching coach thing got a little dicey and I seem to remember you saying that your source was just mass confused and really shouldn’t have been so sure.
You were the first to report the five for one for Bedard, even when Ken Rosenthal at FOX had it as four and had Tui or Chen in the deal.
Just wanted you to know that some of us notice all the times you had the info, not just the few times you were off.
I just saw that Jason as I just finished reading the book, and I thought it was fantastic. From what I can tell it seems like Triunfel could develop into a right handed Chase Utley type 2B. I only wish there was a little more stuff on the 2008 draft preview part. The little you say about potential Seattle first round draftee’s is very itriguing.
It’s so early teams aren’t zeroing in on anyone yet.
I’ll have a much deeper analysis ready for download for the draft in May.
The guys on Fox Sports NM’s TV broadcast of the M’s and Cubbies today could have used a copy of your new prospects book, or at least looked at their 2008 Seattle Mariners Information Guide for some factual information on the minor league players who were in the game for Seattle.
For about four innings all we got was a name of who was in the game. No age, experience in the pros, where they played last year, how they did, or even where they probably will be playing in 2008. It started with Michael Saunders in about the second inning.
There were quite a few highly rated prospects who played in that game. Our TV announcers really were not ready with any meaningful information on them until the later innings when a copy of the information guide must has been found. Unimpressive.
Send the mariners broadcast team an email, waiting… they will listen to ya.
Don,
Other than those you mentioned, not really, no.
But the promotion will happen midway through, if not sooner, and you’ll probably get to see Triunfel this year, too.
psl79,
Yeah, well, that’s kind of the way it goes. Always quick to judge but never around to admit they were wrong about ya.
It’s not easy admitting you were wrong. I don’t like doing it, but that’s one thing I remember int he handbook — being so far off on Bryan LaHair…
I really thought he’d turned a corner with the power and had turned into a league-average first baseman.
Instead, he’s a poor man’s Sean Casey’s bitch.
I also thought Felix would have had a great year by now.
But with people giving credit… I just have to live with that. Sometime the information I get isn’t whole, but usually it’s impossible to tell.
A few of my sources work in front offices, so at the very least I always know there is some truth to it.
With the Dickey thing, I heard it from one Asst GM early in the week, and then another later in the week, so I knew something was up. And the second guy is as unreliable as Ibanez is rangy.
Thanks for noticing, though. At least there’s one.
I’m not really sure what it means, if anything at all, but looking at Triunfel’s batting stance against the Cubs yesterday, it just looked like a guy that could rake and hit for power.