You were not too tough on Adams. His defense was awful and he must improve his defense before he can be considered a legitimate prospect.

Didn't Eider get dropped from the 40 man roster recently? If correct, he may not even be in the system next year.

While I agree that defense is important in evaluating any player, number of errors and fielding percentage tell us little of a player's defensive value. Especially with young players. More important is range factor, how many balls does he get to? Errors are misleading, especially in the minors, given the often less than ideal field conditions. Also, young players with range tend to make a lot of mental errors, ie trying to make the great play when he should have just eaten the ball. These kind of errors will diminish as he gains experience. As a case in point, look at Ozzie Smith's early career, he make a lot of errors, mostly on throws after he got to a ball no one else could have sniffed. As he grew,he learned when to make the throw and when not to, and became the "wizard of Oz".
That being said, I have no idea whether Adams is a budding Smith, or the re-incarnation of Hector Lopez. If you could tell us his range factor, or if that info is not kept for minor leaguers, at least his total chances (an imperfect proxy, but one we used before the development of rf), we would have a lot better idea of Adams', or any others' defensive skills.

Thank you, and I am really enjoying your blog and the insight it provides.

LJ's defense will improve. He was an outfielder/pitcher until the Os drafted him.

no, you didn't penalize adams too much for his lack of defense. the middle infielders must make the plays regardless of their offensive numbers. in fact, i would move hoes up on the list and begin speculating as to what position adams might be better suited for.
i'd like to ask that you include 'inherited runs scored' in your ranking of pitchers. a reliever's e.r.a. can be very misleading when that stat is not considered.
i think that your blog is a great idea, especially since we have more minor leaguers with big league potential than we have had in a long, long time. it's fun to track them on their way up.

I played against LJ in HS. He never even played infield at st. johns, so I'd give him a pass for the summer and let him develop his skills over the winter months and see how he settles in. He's one heck of a hitter

If anything, you weren't tough enough on Adams. Defensively speaking, that is one awful season.

Hoes indeed sounds intriguing for a guy of high school age. What are his height and weight? If he's adjusted well to pro ball and life away from home, he's probably pretty mature for his age.

I thought Adam's glove improved over the second half as did his bat?? Didn't he just turn 20? Check out Bruce's first year at low A (not impressive), then a year and half later in the bigs. The young guys need a break, remember when Synder was considered a big disappointment?

Jeter had over 50 errors one year in the minors

John Galt -

Range factor is a useless stat which has much less to do with the player's ability to get to a lot of balls than the groundball/flyball tendencies of his pitching staff, park factors, number of runners his catchers catch stealing (in the case of a middle infielder) and any number of other external factors that do not reflect a player's ability to cover ground.

No defensive statistic can really serve as a stand-alone measure of a player's defensive value, but Zone Rating/Revised ZR is a much better way to go if you really want to know a player's range, as is the Fielding Bible's plus/minus stat (although that's highly subjective). The only way I draw any conclusions from defensive stats is if I have already seen the player enough to have some idea of his defensive ability and all of the imperfect stats seem to point in one direction. The exception is errors when they are extremely high. Few errors might just mean a guy's range is limited or he isn't aggressive, and 10 errors isn't necessarily worse than 5 if the guy with 10 makes more great plays, but when a guy has 50 in 90 games and it's not just a one year thing and his neither his range or arm are above average for a low minors second baseman, you have a serious problem. If Ryan Adams can't hit enough to be left fielder, and I'm pretty sure he can't, he will never be a Major League player.

Probably the minor leaguer most likely to play 2nd for the O's, if there is a need, would be would be Blake Davis. If he hits above .270 at Norfolk, I understand he has a glove, he is the one.
There must be a very good reason that Torres got dropped from the 40 man roster!

Maybe you were being too tough on Adams. Was he wearing a glove ?

At St. john's L.J. played the outfield, centerfield. His freshmen year when he hit 4th in the order he played third base. That year st. john's won the WCAC leauge. (the leauge st. john's is in)
L. J. need time to get use to second base. Also his senior year St. John's was ranked 2nd in the nation with 9 divsion 1 players. Also had LHP Scott Silverstien who threw 95 and was 6'7" but didn't pitch because of an injury and was drafted in the 32 round by the nationals.