Travis Snider, Jay Bruce, ETC Update

We take an updated look at a few of baseball’s more interesting–and at times underreported– prospects.

Travis Snider

The Blue Jays first round pick in 2006, Snider is having a strong season in Low A. Currently he’s hitting .333/.379/.505 for a .884 OPS. Stepping inside of the slugging percentage, Travis has hit 18 doubles, four triples and 3 HR. His SO/BB ratio is 50/18, something that I’d like to see improved but it’s hard to argue with a 19 year old hitting .333 in low A ball. One area of concern for me last season was his SO/BB ratios vs left handed pitching. This problem is again creeping up on Travis in 2007. This season his OPS is 1.075 off of lefties, yet he sports only a 19/3 SO/BB ratio. I know, I’m getting picky here. However, this is two seasons in a row and this may begin to affect him in the higher levels. I’d expect a call-up to high A to happen fairly soon.

Shane Youman

About a month ago, I profiled Pittsburgh Pirate prospect Shane Youman. This past week, Shane won the International League’s pitcher of the week award. Here’s the official IL write-up on his strong week;

2-0, 0.59 ERA, 2 G, 2 GS, 15.1 IP, 10 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 16 SO

After winning only one game all season, Shane Youman doubled his win total last week. On June 12, Youman pitched eight innings of shutout ball, allowing four hits and two walks while fanning six. It was the longest scoreless outing of his six-year professional career as the Indians blanked Charlotte, 2-0. The 27-year-old nearly topped that performance on Saturday as Youman had a career-high 10 strikeouts in 7 1/3 innings in a win against the Durham Bulls. The southpaw accounted for Indianapolis’ only two wins last week.

This was a nice turnaround for Youman, as he had been getting beaten up over his previous three or four starts. With the condition of the Pirates rotation (Dukehas been in-effective, Chacon is back in the pen), Youmancould be up to the show before the all-star break.

Greg Golson

A former first round pick, and highly touted toolsy Greg Golson is having his problems in High A Clearwater. In just a shade over 300 official at-bats, Greg has struck out a league leading 91 times! He does have 20 steals. At this point, if Greg doesn’t drastically cut down on his strikeouts, he may have a difficult time even becoming a platoon/pinch runner type at the major league level.

Jay Bruce

Sticking with the Florida State League, Jay Bruce is downright mashing! In 66 games Jay has 41 extra base hits, with 26 doubles, 5 triples and 10 homeruns. His OPS of .953 places him second in the league. His downside has been the SO/BB ratio as well, with a 67/24 ratio. On the flip side, this is much easier to tolerate when considering the huge power output that he’s produced so far.