I’ve been inspired to write a poem.

Ode to a Snake

Smack
Smack smack
Smack smack smack
Smack smack smack smack
Smack smack smackitty-smack smack
Smackitty-smack
Smackitty
Smack

In other news, the Pads beat the Diamondbacks yesterday, 12-0. Smack. So sad they had to leave San Diego after such a short stay. Smack. I was beginning to like them.

Okay, that last "smack" was gratuitous and in poor taste. The management apologizes.

Smack.

Khalil Greene

Yep, he made his big-league debut. He flied out to right pinch-hitting for Brian Lawrence (who worked seven scoreless, did ya notice?) in the seventh, then finished up at short.

Ryan Klesko

As Greene arrives, Klesko departs: Shoulder damage ends Klesko’s year (NC Times). He hasn’t been right for much of the year, so hopefully getting this taken care of sooner rather than later will mean he can be up to speed come spring.

Josh Barfield

Like I said, we’re gonna talk about this kid a lot. Now that the Cal League regular season is over, we can take a look at his final numbers:

 AB  OBP  SLG  AVG  ISO BB/K XB/H
549 .389 .530 .337 .193 .410 .368

Bearing in mind that he did that with a bum wrist, let’s try to put Barfield’s season into some kind of context. Here are the numbers of some former prospects who exhibited similar secondary skills to Barfield at a similar stage of development. I’m speaking in purely statistical terms here (although Barfield reminds me a lot of one them physically, too). All but one appeared in John Sickels’ Minor League Scouting Notebook and were a part of a little study I did a while back (datasets are here for those interested).

ID Age Lvl  AB  OBP  SLG  AVG  ISO BB/K XB/H
JB  20  A+ 549 .389 .530 .337 .193 .410 .368
DL  19  A+ 502 .366 .496 .301 .195 .377 .331
JE  19  A  457 .336 .486 .282 .204 .265 .380
RH  19  AA 489 .309 .434 .266 .168 .421 .369
TH  19  A+ 391 .330 .348 .246 .102 .494 .250
DW  21  A+ 464 .373 .435 .291 .144 .740 .319
CS  20  A+ 496 .339 .423 .304 .119 .625 .265

RG  20  A  305 .332 .397 .256 .141 .478 .321

For brevity’s sake, I’ve included only rate stats. They should be more-or-less self-explanatory. ISO is SLG minus AVG. Barfield’s is the stat line in black. The one player not from Sickels’ 1996 book is in the bottom line, apart from the others.

Here’s what that same group did the previous year:

ID Age Lvl  AB  OBP  SLG  AVG  ISO BB/K XB/H
JB  19  A  536 .340 .403 .306 .097 .245 .201
DL  18  A+ 442 .336 .373 .267 .106 .442 .246
JE  18  R  197 .310 .355 .249 .106 .241 .245
RH  18  A  476 .331 .492 .292 .200 .288 .468
TH  18  A  335 .358 .439 .293 .166 .313 .286
DW  20  A  524 .344 .426 .284 .142 .414 .309
CS  19  A  489 .315 .401 .284 .117 .372 .309

RG  19  A  359 .291 .334 .237 .097 .446 .271

And here’s what they did the year following the one represented in our first table:

ID Age Lvl  AB  OBP  SLG  AVG  ISO BB/K XB/H
JB  21             unknown
DL  20  AA 500 .360 .570 .280 .290 .382 .536
JE  20  A+ 499 .290 .401 .240 .161 .231 .400
RH  20  AA 513 .341 .450 .294 .156 .527 .331
TH  20  AA 342 .331 .401 .263 .138 .467 .333
DW  22  AA 422 .398 .524 .329 .195 .676 .317
CS  21  AA 545 .351 .435 .317 .118 .639 .254

RG  21  A+ 512 .372 .529 .277 .252 .918 .472

When compiling this list, I looked for players who had career minor-league numbers similar to those of Barfield (2003 included). From that subset, I then narrowed the focus to players who were at roughly the same level of competition as Barfield at the same age. And I didn’t include guys who haven’t established themselves, on some level, in the big leagues. There’s always the possibility of failure, but most people don’t remember (or particularly care) who Rudy Pemberton was, and we’re really interested in the paths of prospects who made it to see what other similar players have done in the past. The usual disclamer applies: This is merely an instructive exercise and in no way represents what Barfield’s career path will look like. It simply tells us what other guys have done before him and gives us some basis for comparison. There are just way too many factors at work to reduce any given player’s career projection to a set of mathematical formulas (although it still is fun to try).

It’s getting late and I’m told that some folks have a life. We’ll put this aside for now. Just so you get an idea of where we’re headed, I have a pet theory (not supported, or disproved, by any numbers I’ve seen) that across-the-board improvement while moving up a level is a very good sign of things to come.

Oh, and if the suspense is killing you, here are the player names from the above charts:

DL: Derrek Lee
JE: Juan Encarnacion
RH: Richard Hidalgo
TH: Torii Hunter
DW: Daryle Ward
CS: Chris Stynes
RG: Ron Gant

More soon…