Padres Report - August 11th

Padres’ Minor League Report – August 11, 2006

As loyal reader LynchMob pointed out, David Freese made Baseball America’s Prospect Hot Sheet on August 7th as their “Helium Watch” player and had this to say about the third-sacker:

Scouts liked Freese's mature approach and raw power at South Alabama, but as a 23-year-old fifth-year senior, it was hard to see a high ceiling for him. Hitting .355/.430/.657 with 11 homers in 47 games has a way of getting people's attention, though. Freese doesn't play a pretty third base, but if he keeps mashing like this, it might not matter.

…Which is essentially what I said back on July 27th, “I’ve previously mentioned that [David Freese is] old. Thus he doesn’t have long to get to the big leagues. But Dude is raking!”

Hitters:

AAA – George Kottaras --- 0-4; RBI, SO
AA – Luis Cruz --- 2-4; 4 R, RBI, BB
Lo-A – Will Venable --- 0-5; 3 SO
Lo-A – David Freese --- 2-4; 2 RBI

Pitchers:

AAA – Tim Stauffer --- 5.0 IP, 8 H, 7 R, 6 ER, 2 BB, 2 SO, 2 HR
AA – Sean Thompson --- 5.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 4 BB, 8 SO, 0 HR

Commentary:

Portland (AAA) and Mobile (AA) went off Friday night (celebrating my return no doubt); they scored 11 and 13 runs respectively. Yet only one hitter from each team made my list. Why? Because they’re either too old or simply not prospects… Sad, but true.

Tim Stauffer may officially be done. At the start of the season I opined that his success had less to do with what he threw than what was in his head. If he could regain some confidence he could top out as a 4th starter or so. Now, he’s in danger of being left off the 40 man roster.