[ayaghmour2]

It's draft time! Our Commish accidentally simmed two weeks, which means draft today and no sim tomorrow. It's probably for the best for these writeups, as our prospects haven't been doing much, and most weeks there is very little to mention. This is no exception!

I'm hoping to make some sort of trade, but we're a few picks in and the odds of acquiring a 1st seem unlikely. If no moves are made, we'll be picking three times between 26 and 40, getting the edge picks along with the 36th pick. We then have five picks in the fourth (52 and 55) and fifth (65th, 68th, and 71st) before picking 4th in the 6th through 10th rounds. Our last pick in the Winter portion comes at 156, the pick we acquired for Bob Rogers from the Kings. On the whole, this class seems rather thin, so even with our first round pick (14th), I don't think we had a shot to add an impact player. There is one non first rounder I am really interested in who may be a reach at 26, so there's a legit chance we don't add any top 100 prospects. Still, we'll have plenty of chances to add to an already deep system, and nothing beats the excitement of the draft!

RHP Tommy Seymour (#358 Overall)
Acquired: Via Draft: 1st Round, 13th Overall (1943)
A: 6-1, 150.1 IP, 5.63 ERA (75 ERA+), 1.78 WHIP, 93 BB, 58 K
CWL: 1-0, 28.2 IP, 5.34 ERA (98 ERA+), 1.88 WHIP, 17 BB, 13 K

The Stallions continue to get their heads beat in, so relievers like Tommy Seymour have gotten plenty innings out of the pen. His 28.2 innings are just 4 fewer then Dick Garcia, who guess what? Got his head beat in again! 7 more runs! Off 13 hits! Luckily, just 1 walk, and it was 7 innings, but I would much rather have Seymour getting starts then Garcia. As a former 1st Rounder, Seymour was once one of our more highly touted prospects, but he hasn't gotten much love on or off the field. The conversion to 24 moved him out of the top 200 down to 358, which makes sense after a poor 5.63 ERA (75 ERA+) and 5.09 FIP (120 FIP-) in 24 A ball starts. He's faired a bit better in the Winter, as his 5.34 ERA (98 ERA+) is barely below average, and he's struck out 13 hitters. That comes with 17 walks and a whopping 6 homers, two fewer then he allowed all season in the Heartland League. As a groundballer who doesn't throw very hard, homers are usually a rarity, but the Stallions have an absurd 1.349 and 1.303 home run factor for lefties and righties respectively.

The homers have definitely hurt Seymour in Cuba, but what was supposed to be his best tool, his control, has been very poor since joining our system. His BB% has been double digits at each stop excluding 104 innings with San Jose in 1945, where it was a still elevated 9.2%. For comparison, that's higher then the 9.1% Pap had in his Allen Winning Year, and despite his dominance, we all know he walks too many hitters. And since Seymour doesn't throw triple digits, that's got to shrink. His 13.1% this season was in line with Pap's (13.3%) rough season this year, and he's the guy who led the CA in walks. Another thing working against Seymour is that his best pitch is his change up, and while it's very good, it's effectiveness is weakened by his fastball that tops out at 87. With poor control and velocity, Seymour may be one of the rare 1st Round misses of ours, and other teams seem to agree. Any of the 15 teams could have taken a chance on his upside in the Rule-5 draft, but Seymour was passed on each time. Dixie Marsh and OSA both believe he'll never fill a big league rotation, but I still have some hope. At 22, he could still get a velocity boost, and his change up is a lethal pitch. But without an increase in stuff or control, we he may be nothing more then a depth arm.