Baseball America gets a lotta crap in these parts (including from myself), but one feature I've always enjoyed is when they poll each of the managers in a particular league to come up with a best tools list. BA has just published said list for the South Atlantic League, and current and former Lex players pretty much dominate:
Best Batting Prospect: Hunter Pence
Best Power Prospect: Pence
Best Strike-Zone Judgment: Ben Zobrist
Best Pitching Prospect: Troy Patton
Best Breaking Pitch: Jimmy Barthmaier
Best Manager Prospect: Tim Bogar
And from what BA does good to what they do bad, this observation from the
Daily Dish :
"After dominating the low Class A South Atlantic League, Astros outfielder Hunter Pence has struggled in his first taste of the Carolina League, collecting just two hits in his first 16 at-bats at Salem before a 2-for-4 performance Sunday. The righthanded-hitting Pence is still looking for his first hit against lefthanded pitching in nine high Class A at-bats. Even while he blistered Sally League pitching at a .338-25-60 clip prior to his promotion, Pence batted 46 points lower against southpaws and hit just five home runs against them."
Some quick observations on this nugget:
1) Pretty quick on the trigger aren't we, to judge a player in the first 5 games after moving to a higher level?
2) 9 ABs are too fucking small a sample size.
3) As far as hitting 5 HRs vs. lefties and 20 HRs vs. righties while at Lex, how much ya wanna bet that 20%/80% split mirrors pretty closely the number of LHPs and RHPs he faced in the SAL?
4) A 46-point differential in batting average ain't that huge, and at this relatively early stage of his career why worry about it? If the disparity were a lot greater and if it were righthanders he was struggling with, only (perhaps) then would it be worth commenting on.