The one good thing about the stilted start of the Cubs schedule is today’s off day works perfectly around the home opener for my hometown Cougars. I’ve got a comp ticket for today’s game (I think – part of my ticket plan, though they may have it in the wrong name), but that’s sorta provided a game happens today. A rainstorm is headed this way, and I just felt the slightest of drizzles outside.
The analysts are down on the Oakland A’s system (parent of the Cougars) this year, more so because they’ve been drained to fill major league needs than anything, and I think the A’s agree that the bottom tier of the system is a little bit dry of propsects. I don’t think that neccesarly means this’ll be a bad year; the roster does seem to have a lot of guys older than you’d expect for A ball, and while that likely indicates many of them aren’t good enough to move up the system, they still may be better the those just entering this level.
The only prospect of note on the team to start the year is 19 year old Craig Italiano. Baseball America ranks him 7th in the system and says he’s got the best of the minor A’s. Baseball Prospectus says Italiano did some good work in the AFL last year, but he’s basically just a kid not even a year out of high school.
The real prospects tend to turn up in after the June draft. Travis Buck, who I thought was awesome and BPro thinks is good, was drafted last year, started here and now has already moved up. Same thing with Cliff Pennington, who Baseball America is high on (and I kinda wasn’t.) The first half of the Cougars season, at least from a orginizational standpoint, is about seeing if there’s any surprises from guys they aren’t expecting big things from.
It’s also baseball in my backyard, and that’s truly all I want.