It's hard to tell if we have many serious prospects in the lower minors, but our development staff is just unable to develop them, or that our scouts think they are signing serious prospects and pump them up, but that their talent or character assessments are simply very wrong. We have made a lot of changes to the development staff and same-old, same-old, in terms of performance on the field. To me this suggest that we may not have that many actual prospects. Either that, or we keep hiring inept development staff, regardless of which top management is in place to do the hiring. We earned our bottom 5 ranking in the minors on merit. I think those who speak of all the prospect talent we have may just be completely kidding themselves. I'm anxious to see guys like O'Hoppe, Abel, Painter, and McGarry in the majors, but the cupboard really seems quite bare. Even Yohan Rojas disappoints. I had very high hopes for him coming into this season, after he flashed in limited ABs in Lakewood. He's back in Lakewood, but apart from his SB streak, his stats are distinctly unimpressive and not close to last season (although in line with what he did at CLW last year). The SB numbers suggest he isn't battling a nagging injury. Once again, we have a number of very fast, good fielding CFs who can't hit.
" Currently the lineup is missing Jordan Viars, Jadiel Sanchez, Hao Yu Lee, Yhoswar Garcia, and Alexeis Azuaje to injury"
Hao Yu Lee is a very solid prospect and his loss to injury certainly hurts. Yhoswar was hitting poorly, prior to injury and is 16 months older and much slighter frame than Lee. Viars is on rookie league CLW not low-A CLW -- age appropriate, but not hitting well. Sanchez hitting only okay and a little old for CLW. Azuaje was hitting only okay prior to injury. Apart from Lee, none of these guys showing serious prospect performance.
I feel the need to put down the rose-colored glasses and view our prospects objectively/realistically.