"Let's Talk Prospects" - Hunter Morris

Jeffrey Hunter Morris

Profile:

• Born 10/7/1988 (age 24)

• Hometown: Huntsville, AL

• Height: 6'2

• Weight: 200

• College: Auburn University

• Selected by the Brewers in the 4th round (129 overall) of the 2010 Amateur Draft

• Finished last year: AA Huntsville Stars

Bio:

After an impressive career at Grissom High School where he hit .470 with 46 homers, Morris was selected in the second round of the 2007 Amateur Draft by the Boston Red Sox. Morris didn't sign with the Sox and decided to attend college at Auburn instead, where he continued to put up impressive numbers, winning SEC Freshman of the Year in 2008 and SEC Player of the Year in 2010. After being drafted by the Brewers, Morris has improved every year in the system and had his best year in 2012 for his hometown Hunstsville Stars, hitting .303 with 28 home runs and flirting with the Triple Crown on his way to winning Brewers Minor League Player of the Year and Southern League Player of the Year awards.

Scouting report:

As a hitter, Morris has a pretty smooth lefty swing with some uppercut motion that can get a little long at times. He has good raw power and his hit tool has improved significantly since joining the Brewers organization, but his approach at the plate is best described as aggressive and he'll need to improve his plate discipline to be any more than an average regular. Despite good bat speed, he had struggled against lefty pitching in the minors and it's difficult to see that changing at the major-league level.

As a defender, Morris is a good athlete that moves well laterally and possesses an adequate throwing arm. An outfielder in high school, he had a tough time making the transition to first base and was error-prone early on in his minor league career, but cleaned up his mechanics in 2012 and now appears that he can be at least average at the position. 

At this point, Morris' potential as a major leaguer isn't particularly high due to his approach and platoon issues, the most likely outcome being that he should able to carve out a role as a platoon player in the mold of Brandon Moss or Mitch Moreland. However, Morris has worked exceptionally hard to reach his current prospect status after being viewed as more of an organizational player early on, so if he continues to improve his game it's certainly possible that he could become an above-average regular.

What's ahead:

Morris was likely going to begin the 2013 season with AAA Nashville, but the injury to backup first baseman Mat Gamel has thrown a wrench in that plan. With Gamel out for the season and starting first baseman Corey Hart set to miss the first month or two while recovering from knee surgery, Morris is now in the mix to be the starting first baseman on opening day, and assistant GM Gord Ash has already given Morris a vote of confidence. Considering his competition will likely be Bobby Corsby (who sucks), Taylor Green (who's not very good) and Alex Gonzalez (who's never played the position in a major-league game), Morris' chances are probably pretty good. 

FANTASY BASEBALL

With Spring Training all up ons, it's not only time for real baseball but pretend baseball. Thus, we at The Book of Gorman bring you the first annual Book of Gorman fantasy baseball league(s). So if you like fantasy baseball and you want to attempt to school some third-rate bloggers, now's your chance! If you're interested, either email me at jerryheldred@gmail.com or DM me your email on twitter. Don't worry about getting in, we'll create as many leagues as are necessary to get everyone in, and the drafts won't start until the week before the start of the regular season (March 31st). If only certain days work for you as far as drafting, let me know in the email/message, and I'll try and set you up in a league that will draft those days. I chose ESPN as the provider, because Yahoo sucks and is bad. As for the leagues themselves, here are the rules:

• Please play out the season, even if your team sucks. A league with dead teams is no fun.
• Your team name must be clever. "Team Johnson" is lame (unless you mean it as a double entendre) 
• Trash talk is fine, but don't get personal. This is for fun, not creating enemies.
• Have fun.

And here's the scoring

• Live draft, snake fashion
• Head-to-head (because rotisserie is bland)
• Ten-team leagues, depending on number of responses (if we get 48 entrants, we'll just go with four 12-team leagues, etc.)
• Waiver system for free agents
• Daily transactions (10 moves per week limit)
• 29 roster spots. They are as follows:  

Catcher

First Base

Second Base

Shortstop

Third Base

Corner Infielder (1B/3B)

Middle Infielder (2B/SS)

Outfield (5 slots)

Utility (2 slots)

Starting Pitcher (5 spots)

Relief Pitcher (4 spots)

Pitcher (2 spots)

Bench (4 spots)

DL (2 spots)

• There are ten scoring categories (five offense, five pitching) They are:

Home runs

Slugging percentage

Runs created (runs + RBI)

Net stolen bases

On-base percentage

ERA

WHIP

Saves + holds

Strikeouts

Quality starts

The scoring categories are not traditional, but I chose those ones because I feel it more reflects what is valuable in actual baseball. While the categories may be different, it shouldn't really change strategy a whole lot; you still just want good players. So if you are interested, let me know. And once again, have fun. 

BASEBALL, YOU GUYS.

"Let's Talk Prospects" - Mitch Haniger

I was hoping to get started on this feature earlier this month, until I realized just how busy my schedule was going to be lately.

From now through Opening Day, The Book of Gorman is going to highlight the best and brightest prospects in the Brewers' system. Our goal is to help you learn a little more about who these players are, where they come from and what role you should expect them to fill on the big league club one day.

So without further ado, here's our first prospect...


Mitchell E. Haniger

Profile:

• Born 12/23/1990

• Hometown: Santa Clara, CA

• Height: 6'2" 

• Weight:180 lbs

• College: Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

• Selected by the Brewers as a supplemental pick in the 1st round (38th overall) of the 2012 Amateur Draft.

• Finished last year with: Low-A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers

Bio:

Hailing from California's Bay Area, Mitch Haniger has grown up with the game of baseball. He comes from a big baseball family with his brother, Jason, and cousin both being drafted by major league teams. Haniger gained some recognition as a senior at Archbishop Mitty High School (CA) when he hit .364 with a school record 12 home runs, and found himself ranked 73rd on Max Preps' Best Senior list in 2009. He was drafted out of high school in the 31st round that year by the New York Mets, but did not sign, choosing instead to play college ball at Cal Poly.

Haniger's success continued at Cal Poly, where he earned many awards throughout his collegiate career. During his first year in 2010, Haniger won the Big West Freshman Player of the Year award, and as a Junior in 2012, he took home Conference Player of the Year honors after leading the Big West in home runs (13), RBI (64) and slugging percentage (.626).

Following his final year at Cal Poly, the Brewers drafted Haniger with the 38th overall pick of the 2012 MLB Draft and assigned him right out to their Low-A affiliate, the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. Haniger appeared in just 14 games for the T-Rats after suffering a season-ending knee injury on July 5th, but still showed promise in his brief-stint by accumulating an .808 OPS with 5 extra-base hits over 49 ABs.


Scouting report:

Haniger has a mature approach to the game at this point, which means he could move quick  through the Brewers' system. He has solid contact ability, good power and average speed, making him a fairly balanced player offensively. On defense, Haniger has above-average arm strength and good enough instincts to handle all three outfield positions.

Haniger profiles as more of a high-floor player with a relatively limited ceiling. None of his offensive tools are really exceptional, and though he has the prowess to handle center field, it's likely that his limited speed will land him in a corner outfield position down the road.

That's not to say Haniger couldn't be a good player, though. The issue mostly lies in that his bat profiles better in center field, but scouts are doubtful he can stick there long term. He has the ability to be a plus defender in right field, and if he can add a little more power to his offensive game, he has a chance to be a solid everyday player.  

Should Haniger fall short of his potential, he could be a versatile 4th outfielder with some pop, which is still a valuable asset on any team. Overall, there's certainly a lot to like about Haniger, and having a good work ethic can take a player with his skillset pretty far.


What's ahead:

Haniger is likely to pick up where he left off last season by starting 2013 with the Timber Rattlers. If he has a good showing in spring camp (especially with his health), though, he could find himself getting assigned right away to the Brevard County Manatees at the Advanced-A level.

As mentioned before, there's a good chance that Haniger moves fast through the system regardless of where he starts, so it's possible we could be seeing him with the big league club as early as 2014. It certainly appears that if all goes well health-wise from here on out, the future could be pretty bright for Haniger.

New and notes: Gonzalez returns, prospect rankings, Corey Hart, Brewers sign a bunch of old guys

Alex Gonzalez strikes back
The Brewers are bringing back veteran shortstop Alex Gonzalez on a one-year, $1.5 million-dollar deal that could be worth $2.5 million with incentives. Gonzalez hit .259/.326/.457 in 2012 and provided solid defense before tearing his ACL on May 5th while stealing a base against the San Francisco Giants. He will likely provide insurance in case youngster Jean Segura struggles while also serving as a righty bat off the bench. Gonzalez has never played any position other than shortstop in his career, so it will be interesting to see how the team uses him.

Prospective prospects
'Tis the season for prospect rankings, and most of the major prospect publications have released at least a top-10 of Brewers prospects. The friendly dudes over at Disciples of Uecker already posted a comprehensive list of the different rankings, and there aren't many surprises other than Fangraphs' fairly bizarre inclusions of Jim Henderson and Mark Rogers, both of whom are well past prospect status. The other major takeaway is that the Brewers have a much deeper system than in years past, though they lack high-end upside. We here at The Book of Gorman will do our own set of rankings at some point, just in case you were laying awake at night worried that there just wasn't enough prospect talk on the internet.

Corey Hart :(
Brewers first baseman/awesome sauce Corey Hart underwent knee surgery last Friday, forcing him to miss the first two months of the season. While Hart has had a few DL stints in his career, this is the first time he's had to miss a significant amount of time, and it comes at a bad time for the Brewers, who need all the help they can get to contend. Mat Gamel will likely fill in, and the team has been looking at other veteran options, including former fan favorite Lyle Overbay. I personally still believe that Gamel can hit at the major-league level, but it's unlikely that he can replicate Hart's production offensively and defensively for the first couple months.

Brewers bring a couple of guys out of retirement, plan sequel to "Space Cowboys"
Since the last time I posted on the Brewers' offseason moves, the team has brought in infielder Bobby Crosby and pitcher Kelvim Escobar on minor-league deals, neither of whom have appeared in a major-league game since 2010. Crosby is a former Rookie of the Year winner who's only good season was his ROY campaign in 2004, while Escobar had a solid career as a starter but has one appearance since 2007. The team also signed 34-year old LOOGY Mike Gonzalez to a major-league deal (yay?), and brought in a bunch of other guys in on minor-league deals (RP Jim Hoey, OF Cole Garner, SS Ozzie Smith Newsome, Rene Tosoni, Alfredo Figaro [sort of], and C Robinson Diaz).

New logo/Facebook

After months of being too lazy to come up with an actual logo for the sight, I sprang into action.....and had someone else design the logo. If you're reading this then chances are you've already seen it, but in case you have terrible tunnel vision, here it is in all it's mustached glory;

Many thanks to Jess Lemont (follow on twitter here, tumblr here), who helped (read: did everything) create the logo and put in a lot of hard work to make my vision a reality.

Also, I created a Facebook page for The Book of Gorman, where you can find links to new posts and discuss Brewers/baseball-related topics. And don't forget to vote Braun for the cover of MLB13 The Show. It's what the founding fathers would want.

Fun with WAR

I decided to have some fun today. Set aside any hang-ups you might have with the WAR statistic and just take a ride into hypothetical land with me. (For those unfamiliar with WAR, it stands for Wins Above Replacement. In short, it breaks down a player's overall value in wins.) I wanted to see how bad a team could be by putting out a lineup and pitching staff made up of the league's worst full-time players. Roughly, a team made up of replacement-level players (minor-league veterans or waiver-wire fodder) would win around 45 games, give or take. However, some active MLB players are worth negative WAR. To put together this team, I set up some ground rules.

They are:

 - The player had to have accumulated at least 500 plate appearances, which is close to the minimum requirement to qualify for the batting title.

 - The player had to have some kind of name recognition. The idea being that such a lineup wouldn't sound crazy to the casual fan, or have seemed ridiculous coming into the 2012 season.

 - For pitchers, starters had to pitch at least 170 innings. Relievers, 50 innings. 

 - Ryan Howard had to be mentioned at some point. Because he's fucking awful. 

 - Both the Fangraphs (fWAR) and Baseball Reference (bWAR) versions of WAR are to be used. 

Here we go. 

Catcher - Jesus Montero, Mariners (-0.2 fWAR, -0.3 bWAR)

Everyone one knows Montero should be a DH, but the Mariners are going to try him at catcher for as long as they can. Most of Montero's negative value comes from his terrible defense and baserunning, and his offense wasn't enough to overcome it. The ballpark he plays in hurts his offense quite a bit, but that doesn't excuse him from allowing more balls past him than a doorway of a Thai brothel.

Honorable mention: Ryan Doumit was the next worst among qualifiers, but he was worth 1.6 WAR. Not nearly terrible enough.

First base - Michael Young, Rangers (-1.4 fWAR, -2.4 bWAR)

There are plenty of Michael Young jokes out there, but frankly, there aren't enough. It's hard to fathom how bad he was last year. Aside from the terrible glove and sub par baserunning, he provides little power at power-heavy positions and doesn't get on base enough to be tolerable at any position. And the Phillies actually traded for him this offseason. 

Honorable mention: Casey Kotchman, Eric Hosmer (Homsar?), Justin Smoak, Ryan Howard. All of those guys were bad, but Young had the most name value (Kotchman actually was worse). Howard didn't qualify, but warrants mention because he was worth around -1.0 WAR in less than 300 PA's and people still think he's an elite first baseman. Stop thinking he's an elite first baseman.

Second base - Jemile Weeks, Athletics (0.0 fWAR, -1.0 bWAR)

Aside from the fact he plays defense like a drunk person, has no power, and couldn't hit a lick last year, he was awesome. Grade 80 hair. 

Honorable mention: no one. Like Montero, Weeks pretty much stood alone in his awfulness.

Shortstop - Rafael Furcal, Cardinals (1.2 fWAR, 1.2 bWAR)

Furcal is the first player in this exercise that managed to be the worst qualifier at his position yet still be a fairly valuable player. He had a weak year defensively and his hitting ability vanished towards the end, but injuries were a factor. 

Honorable mention: Cliff Pennington. Pennington was worth just a little bit more than Furcal, but all of his value came from defense. Pennington was an absolute disaster offensively. Clint Barmes and Brendan Ryan also fall under that category. 

Third base - Jordan Pacheco, Rockies (0.2 fWAR, -0.7 bWAR)

Pacheco has always fascinated me, partially because of his awesome-sounding name, his versatility, and the fact he looks like a prohibition-era gangster. But he's not a good player. He can hit a little, but can't walk, has almost no power, and can't really field at any of the positions he plays. It's worth noting that he'd rate much worse if he played somewhere other than Coors Field. 

Honorable mention: Ryan Roberts, because he's not very good and his tattoos are silly. If there's a criticism of WAR, it's that it fails to account for bad tattoos. 

Right Field - Jeff Francoeur, Royals (-1.2 fWAR, -2.7 bWAR)

Francoeur gets the nod over Brennan Boesch, who was just as bad but isn't as well known as Francoeur. The fact that Frenchy has a nice year every now and then (like he did in 2011) almost makes it worse, because then teams like the Royals pay him a lot of money to be terrible. He still flashes some power and has a tremendous throwing arm, but does everything else so bad that it drains his value. And he blocked Wil Myers from reaching our pleasure centers last year.

Honorable mention: Boesch, Lucas Duda. Boesch was pretty bad all around, Duda has some potential in that bat but was almost historically bad defensively. He shouldn't even own an outfielder's glove. 

Center Field - Drew Stubbs, Reds (1.3 fWAR, -0.2 bWAR)

Fangraphs and Baseball Reference value him differently, but no matter how you slice it Stubbs was not a good baseball player last season. He's a good defender, and has power and speed, but skills like actually hitting the baseball and recognizing a pitch escape him. He makes Rickie Weeks look like a hitting savant. 

Honorable mention: Colby Rasmus. Rasmus was pretty terrible in his own right, but had a couple hot stretches and generally hit better. 

Left field - Dayan Viciedo, White Sox (0.5 fWAR, 0.6 bWAR)

I started typing Delmon Young's name in without even looking at the "leaderboards", but turns out he didn't play enough outfield to qualify. Oh well. Viciedo has a bunch of power but provides little defensive value and didn't walk or hit enough. 

Honorable mention: Jason Kubel. Kubel had a nice year offensively for the D-Backs, but was hilarious on defense. 

Designated hitter - Delmon Young, Tigers (-1.4 fWAR, -1.2 bWAR)

Michael Young (Delmon's spirit brother) actually fared worse (dwell on that for a second), but he's already locked in at first base on this crap team. And the thing is, at least Michael played a position now and then. Delmon accumulated all this negative value while barely playing on defense. He swings at everything, makes contact with not enough of that everything, and when he does don a glove, we get a little closer to the apocalypse. I mean, seriously. 

Kittens die when he steps into the outfield. And to think the Rays had him play some center field in 2008. Young's had postseason moments and drove in 112 runs once, so there are some people out there that think he's useful. He's not. He's also a terrible human being. As I'm writing this, he's still a free agent. I sincerely hope no MLB team backs up the Brinks truck for him. 

Honorable mention: Montero and Michael Young.

Starting pitchers

Ervin Santana, Angels (-0.9 fWAR, -1.6 bWAR)

It's hard to give up 39 home runs in Angels Stadium, but Santana did it. He also didn't strike out as many as he should have and walked more than he should have. Not a good recipe, it turns out.

Ubaldo Jiminez, Indians (0.2 fWAR, -1.0 bWAR)

I don't know what exactly happened to Ubaldo, but he's basically become a mess of walks and home runs. Easily one of the most difficult pitchers to watch, and the numbers more than back that up.

Henderson Alvarez, Blue Jays (0.5 fWAR, 0.1 bWAR)

Alvarez is one of those pitchers that get a ton of ground balls yet manage to also give up too many homers. Combined with the fact he couldn't strike out Wilford Brimley and you've got a pitcher who's not very good.

Ricky Romero, Blue Jays (0.5 fWAR, -1.7 bWAR)

See Jiminez, Ubaldo. 

Barry Zito, Giants (0.8 fWAR, -0.3 bWAR)

Despite the postseason heroics, Zito barely edges out Kevin Correia for me because of his contract and the fact he pitches in one of the league's best pitcher's parks. Zito embodies everything worth loathing about soft-tossing lefties, and is one of the go-to examples of why you should not give free agent pitchers a lot of money.

Honorable mention: Correia, Clayton Richard. Both guys favor a lot of contact and a lot of baseballs leaving the ballpark.

Relief pitchers

Josh Lindblom, Dodgers/Phillies (-1.1 fWAR, -0.5 bWAR)

Jeff Gray, Twins (-0.8 fWAR, -0.7 bWAR)

Livan Hernandez, Braves/Brewers (-0.7 fWAR, -1.1 bWAR)

Clay Hensley, Giants (-0.5 fWAR, -0.9 bWAR)

Logan Ondrusek, Reds (-0.9 fWAR, 0.6 bWAR)

Rhiner Cruz, Astros (-0.4 fWAR, -0.4 bWAR)

Chad Qualls, Phillies/Yankees (-0.4 fWAR, -0.3 bWAR)

Honorable mention: Joel Hanrahan and Chad Durbin were both awful, but got lucky with batted ball rates and their terribleness didn't show up in their ERA. But all of these guys listed were every kind of awful.

Final tally

-4.7 fWAR, -14.5 bWAR

There a pretty big gap there between the two forms of WAR, but basically a team made up of these players would be expected to win 30-40 games. That's not a lot of wins. If a hack like Jim Tracy or Clint Hurdle were the manager, it could be even worse. Thank God we don't actually have to watch a team like this. 

Joel Hanrahan And The Case For Trading Axford

Another year, another team trades a closer. And once again, it's the Red Sox doing the buying. The Pittsburgh Pirates dealt their closer, Joel Hanrahan, along with infielder Brock Holt to Boston for 1B/OF Jerry Sands, RP Mark Melancon, INF Ivan DeJesus Jr., and P Stolmy Pimentel.

On the surface, this isn't as bad of a trade as their last two, where Boston gave up breakout star Josh Reddick for Andrew Bailey, and a promising, but oft injured asset in Jed Lowrie for Melancon. Still, Pittsburgh probably isn't going to be complaining too much about a return that could potentially provide more upside than what they already had.

Hanrahan was effectively wild this past year, still striking out better than a fourth of the batters he was facing, but gave up walks and homeruns at an alarming rate, with major spikes in his BB/9 and HR/FB% compared to his stellar 2011 campaign. The saving grace for him this past season was a career-low BABIP (.225), which lead to a career-high Left On-Base Percentage (89.7%) that allowed him to come out unscathed on many an occasion. Simply put, Hanrahan was very lucky, just as the Pirates are now to get something of value for him. That's not to say Hanrahan's numbers won't come back down a little, but pitching in a hitter-friendly ballpark like Fenway...against a hitter-heavy division like the AL East...let's just say the forecast is awful cloudy for him this coming season.

So where does Axford fit into all this? After all, coming off of a poor season, his value is definitely lower right now. However, all hope for him is not lost.

Axford suffered from similar ailments that Hanrahan did this past season, seeing both his walk and homerun rates spike, only in his case getting no love from BABIP. To say he was unlucky wouldn't be telling the whole story, as his .307 BABIP was right in line with his .308 BABIP from 2010, and he was producing groundballs at a rate similar to what he had been doing in the past. Much of Axford's struggles came from his command of the strike zone, where he was unable to get ahead in the count as much as he was in the past, which put opposing batters into a lot of hitter's counts and allowed them to square up more easily on his big fastball, as evidenced by his 24% line drive rate this past season (a 10% increase from 2011).

Should Axford find the ability to get his walk rate back down, I think it's sensible to expect him to revert back a little more to form in 2013. Maybe not another consecutive save streak with a 1.95 ERA, but maybe somewhere in between these past two seasons, which would actually reflect his 2010 peripherals quite a bit. Were this to be the case, his value would increase once more, making him an intriguing trade target for other teams in need of bullpen help. Teams right now are not afraid to deal talent for a "proven" closer, especially with pitching becoming an increasingly more prioritized asset. Not that this should be news to anybody, as we all just watched the Giants just win two World Series in the last three years behind an a stellar pitching staff. So in this market, a pitcher who has found a lot of recent success is going to command quite a bit in return.

Talking theoretical success can be a bit transparent, though, so perhaps it's best to look at what sort of value Axford has right now. As it stands, Axford is pre-arb eligible and isn't due to become a free agent until 2017, at the earliest. That would give the team acquiring him four years of control before having to shell out any sort of big payday. That in itself is a valuable asset, especially considering what he was able to accomplish in his two seasons prior to this past one, where he posted a combined 4 WAR, which is pretty darn good for a relief pitcher. However, comparing his up and down seasons should be one of the major motivating factors in trading a high-profile reliever: unpredictability.

Baseball is a tough game to predict without even looking deeper at one specific part of it. That's why there's an entire site devoted to it, appropriately titled "You Can't Predict Baseball". A 10-game slump for an everyday outfielder is a small bump in the road; one that they can easily smooth it out over the next 40 or 50 games. For a reliever though? A 10-game slump can directly affect their use in the long run and limit their opportunities to snap out of that funk, which could really make or break their season because of how large a part of it that stretch is. This is also why it's ill advised for teams to offer long, multi-year deals to relievers, simply because the team may only be getting a couple truly good years out of them. Knowing all this though, why would any team give up something of value then?

It has been less about teams giving up something truly "valuable" as much as they've been giving up "potential". For the Twins in acquiring Matt Capps, they had to surrender a promising catching prospect in Wilson Ramos. The tricky thing about prospects is they're yet unproven at the major league level, and Ramos was in a place where he looked to be blocked for a long time by then reigning AL MVP, Joe Mauer. Ramos, of course, then had himself a good 2011 where he was worth 3.3 WAR, and despite missing most of 2012, he appears to be a solid backstop for the Nationals for years to come. Then there was that one Reddick guy the A's got for Bailey, but it's not like he turned out to be good or anything...

Teams may be wising up on what they want to to give away for a closer, though. This could be evidenced by the recent Hanrahan trade. But there's also the fact that the Red Sox are getting just one season of Hanrahan, whereas the previously mentioned relievers all had more years of control left on them when they were traded. With the returns based on a lot more promise, there's obviously a bit of a gamble involved, but it's not as though there isn't already a gamble in trusting a closer to remain consistently good year in and year out. If the right situation arises, it could be a wise move for the Brewers to strike while the iron is hot. The odds Axford gets traded this offseason seem extremely slim, but should he have himself a very solid bounceback season, this could be a storyline to keep in mind for the near future.