MVN - Most Valuable Network

2007 End of the Year Reds Top 40 Prospects 36-40

Today is the day where I will start my year end prospect rankings for the entire Reds system. Last year I made my first Top 40 prospect list when I ran my site off of blogger.com (oh how far the site has come) almost a year to the day. I am going to run the list in installments and it will go like this:

Sunday: 36-40

Monday: 31-35

Tuesday: 26-30

Wednesday: 21-25

Thursday: 16-20

Friday: 11-15

Saturday: 1-10

That way if there is any discussion, we can hopefully contain it a little bit by limiting the guys on each part of the list. There was a lot of movement from guys, and a bunch of new comers as well. If there are any questions, comments, anything, feel free to ask them. *All ages are listed as of 9/5/2007, which was the end of the regular season*

36. Michael Griffin - IF/OF - Chattanooga (23 yrs)

A lot of Griffin’s offense comes directly from his batting average, as he doesn’t hit for much power and he doesn’t walk a whole lot either. He does however hit for a very solid average, which as you can see was well over .300 when split between two levels. As he moved out of the FSL (pitchers paradise) he saw his average and power numbers both go up significantly. He projects as a solid utility player, as he can move around in the infield and the outfield.

37. Rafael Gonzalez - RHP - Dayton (21 yrs)

Gonzalez finally had a good season in Dayton after several tries. He won 13 games and had a solid ERA, but his walk/strikeout rate is very poor and he allowed quite a fair share of home runs. He has some of the better stuff in the system, but he is still very raw with it.

38. Paul Janish - SS - Louisville (24 yrs)

Paul Janish came into the season highly rated after a solid season in Dayton and Sarasota where he hit over .300 with 14 HR and solid defense. The jump to AA and AAA seemed to be a bit much for him however, as he struggled at the plate the entire season. He has the glove to play 3B, SS and 2B in the majors, but his bat needs a lot of work.

39. Joshua Ravin - RHP - Billings (19 yrs)

Ravin had a very good debut last season as a 5th round pick posting a sub 4 ERA with 40 strikeouts in 36.1 innings. This year though, he seemingly went from rough control to almost no control at all. He has a fastball that was clocked at 98 this summer, and coming out of high school he was said to have control of three pitches. Maybe the lack of his progress is something that led to the firing of most of the staff in Billings. I would expect him back in Billings next year, hopefully with improved command.

40. Keltavious Jones - OF - Dayton (21 yrs)

Jones hit very well in Billings in his first stint there, and improved dramatically over his 2006 season in the GCL. He showed mediocre plate discipline, but didn’t strike out much and hit the ball solid (21% LD rate in Billings). Once he got the promotion to Dayton though, he kind of fell apart, albeit in just a short period of time. Expect him back in Dayton next season.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 21st, 2007 at 9:35 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.