Bullpen Banter's Top 15

Pat Light at 14 is an interesting ranking. He's really raw for a college pick and while he has solid fastball velocity (and a frame to sustain his velocity as a starter), his secondary stuff needs a lot of improvement. They do mention a changeup that flashed plus and improvement in his slider in Lowell last year, and he'll need to continue to improve those pitches to stick in the rotation.

There is also loads of great tape (although some of it a few years old), including my first looks at De La Cruz, Pat Light, Blake Swihart, and Henry Owens.

Al Skorupa's a friend of the site - was going to post this today. He's definitely always out at games in the New England area as well.

I could see really liking Light if you think he'll develop the secondary stuff. He's uncannily good at repeating his delivery, and the fastball is very good.

When you have a heavy, plus fastball sometimes you don't need more than a "show-me" offering with your secondary stuff in high school and college. There's a good chance that just spending a bit of time working on 1 or 2 secondary pitches for a consistent amount of time will develop them into average pitches.
Just on the fastball alone, I like him. If he can't develop anything more then he should be a ML reliever anyways.

I don't think that draft position means a whole lot when it comes to developing pitches. A lot of guys drafted in the first round or two have big fastballs and potential. Look at Bard for example. His slider really didn't turn into anything more than a change of pace for him.

Is anybody else unimpressed by Xander Bogaerts in the video available at the bottom of the analysis? Terrible takes with his hands moving all over the place; fooled on breaking balls. His lower half does not sequence well, with his back knee just rolling into the swing rather than getting that strong sideways press that all great hitters create. Maybe the power is projectable, but the contact ability does not play out in how he swings the bat. Any thoughts?

Yeah I noticed that too. The video is completely unflattering. So yeah, I think its safe to assume that caught Xander on an off day or two. His stats still speak for themselves and plenty of firsthand scouting reports indicate that these aren't regularly occurring issues. There's still room to grow though I'm sure.

I think we need to pump the breaks a little on Bogaerts. Not so much in the sense that he isn't as good as we think, but more that he isn't as close as we think. I know everyone is very excited about him because he's super young for his level and he hit a bunch of home runs in Portland, but there's also a lot of signs that he's pretty overmatched at the level. You can see it in the video and in his 21 Ks and 1 walk in AA last year. He's still loaded with batspeed and power and he's got all the time in the world to adjust so I'm not too worried, but at the same time it wouldn't surprise me at all if he has some pretty serious struggles in AA this year.

Exactly. All these accolades I think might be setting expectations up beyond a level that is reasonable. I am bracing for a tough start to the year for Xander, and hoping for a strong second half as the sign he is what we all hope he will become. Anything better than that is extremely unlikely, anything less than that at his age would not be shocking and doesn't guarantee he's Lars Part 2.