Clayton Blackburn continues to pitch well at AA. He won't WOW!! anybody, but he is a very efficient pitcher with what he has and does his job better than some of his more highly touted brethren. Edwin Escobar, who both scouts and the "prospect-razzi" seem to love, continues to struggle at the AAA level. Escobar scares me at this point. He seems to be a bit of a tease in terms of display of talent. The kind of guys who pitches just well enough to not win. He may be destined to be a prospect-razzi heart-breaker.
Baseball America Prospect Report
Compiled by Baseball America April 11, 2014
| SF | AA | Blackburn, Clayton | 4 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 3.00 | L (0-1) | ||||||||||
| SF | AAA | Cordier, Erik | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 9.00 | |||||||||||
| SF | AAA | Escobar, Edwin | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 7 | 7.27 | |||||||||||
| SF | HiA | Gregorio, Joan | 5 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 1.00 | W (1-0) |
We see this divergence throughout the organization as far as the pitchers go. The more highly touted guys, like Kyles Crick and Heath Hembree are flashing the control/command red flag. Martin Agosta and Edwin Escobar seem to give up a bunch of hits, the antithesis of getting guys out, Chris Stratton seems to have a higher propensity for giving up the gopher ball than you would like, plus he's a lower level than you would like to see given his age and experience.
Now if these things are happening to guys at a higher than average level in the minors, you can only imagine what major league hitters will do to them.
In contrast, guys like Ty Blach, the aforementioned Clayton Blackburn, Derek Law, Kendry Flores, Aldaberto Mejia and Santiago's little brother Jose Casilla seem to fly under the radar as far as generating ink and / or making prospect lists. However, these guys have demonstrated, at least from an advanced metric standpoint, an ability to pitch, get guys out and keep the ball in the yard. Three major components of and predictors for guys who have long / productive big league careers.
I like this 2012 write up from scout.com generally and the comp to Derek Lowe specifically.
We see his skillset comparable to an in-his-prime Derek Lowe. While Blackburn is not as big as Lowe, he has a similar style: he is not overpowering, but is able to induce a lot of ground balls while also posting a good strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Lowe has won 176 major league games over his career. He looks somewhat like Rick Reuschel. "Big Daddy" won 214 games, 44 of them with the Giants late in his career. I think we would take either comparison and win total from Mr. Blackburn.
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