Minor League Review: State College

Ross Ohlendorf just pitched his first homer, and got a win. Good news for the Pirates. I still think you let him go during the off season, but hey, it is still nice.

State College was not very good this year, and a lot of that was the result of getting only 4 seniors in the draft. But, I am still higher on what was at State College than most. Let's take a look.

Pitchers:
It is true that there were not a lot of break out seasons here except Nick Kingham, but they were not disastrous either.

Nick Kingham:
He had a 1.10 WHIP and a 47:15 K:BB ratio. He threw in the low 90's and looked great after a shaky first start. He could very well be a top 10 prospect.

Stetson Allie:
Disappointing in some ways because of his hype, but we all knew he had command problems. He walked 29 and struck out 28. The command problems were there. Still, the dominance was also there. His fastball sits at 95, and when he is on, he is going to blow away the competition. He has plenty of time to get control of his walk total. So, I think he had a better season than most do. The walks were to be expected. He also seemed to be improving a bit until they moved him to the pen so as not to overload his innings. The adjustment to coming in from the pen was rough. July was 15 strikeouts to 10 walks with 5 starts. No starts in August resulted in 12 walks and only 6 strikeouts. That hurt his numbers a bit, so it is not as bad as it might look.

Ryan Hafner:
I am a little higher on Hafner than others as well. His fastball is still high 80's, and that will never get it done even out of the pen. Still he pulled off a 1.19 WHIP and a 31:20 K:BB. That is too many walks, but an impressive number of strikeouts considering he was not overpowering anyone. Remember he came from high school, so I think power can come with age. It might have been that some of his walks were nibbling at corners. I still think he adds power, and then he can be real good.

As for what we got in the draft, I do like Josh Poythress as a future reliever. A 29:10 K:BB is not a bad start. I am not ready to give up on Matt Benedict either. A 39:15 K:BB is enough to keep me watching and hoping, but he gave up far too many hits.

Hitters:
Alex Dickerson:
He came late to the league, but was as advertised. .313 AVG, .886 OPS with 3 HRs. He has to learn 1B, so his defense is below average, but his bat looks great.

Samuel Gonzalez:
He thrived at this level. He hit over .300 and only struck out 15 times, which is a big thing. Add in 14 walks, and I like his plate presence. Needs more power, and needs to play better defense, but it was a good year for him.

Wes Freeman:
Now I am not as high on Freeman as others. He was repeating this league, so he should have dominated it. Still, he hit 6 homers and hit .303. His defense is good enough for the corner outfield. You have to call this a success.

Now I would not worry about a lot of the others that some are pointing to as disappointing. Dan Gamache hit .231, but he was recovering from a hand injury and only had 20 games to get adjusted. I am also not too worried about Taylor Lewis nor Derek Trent. Trent is not a big time prospect anyway, but it was a major jump in competition for those guys and they had to learn the wooden bat at the same time. They played in lower college conferences as opposed to Dickerson and Gamache. Both showed good plate discipline with Lewis leading the team in walks with 34 and Trent was 4th with 20. Both played good Defense. Lewis also had 7 triples. No kidding. Lewis had 35 hits and 7 of them were triples. 20% of his hits were three baggers. He added on double, and he stole 16 bases (being caught 4 times). His speed should keep him on the prospect radar. Kirk Singer was another draftee who got better as the year went on, so he should not be thrown under the bus.

There were a few huge disappointments. Exicardio Caynoes was awful and thought to be a nice prospect. Junior Sosa should have done better as well. And the Pirates has seen enough of Justin Benscko, as they have him listed as released now. So the team had some disappointments.

My thoughts overall is that this team was weak from the beginning, did not have real good performances from the early signers in the draft, which matched up with disastrous performances from Caynoes and Sosa. They got better, but it was too late to make the team look good. But they showed enough to not be depressed.