Rangers AFL Review

The Surprise Rafters' season ended today, and with it so did the stateside winter play of many of our beloved prospects. As a parting gift, many were active on its last day and most ended with a flourish. Lemon began his 2009 regular season on an amazing run, and appropriately bookended it with a strong stretch of games. He finished his season on a 17-40 run that included four HRs, which is neat until you realize he only hit one all year with Frisco, and then it becomes astonishing even in a hitter friendly environment like AZ. Mitch Moreland, on the other hand, was pretty consistent throughout the regular season, and continued that in the AFL, winning over many scouts and pundits along the way. Taylor Teagarden, part of a cache of young catchers that has failed to click at the big league level, had two solid games to end the season to save his bat from utter embarrassment. Gutcheck (a name I have given Gutierrez given his issues) gave up three runs today in three innings but struck out six and walked zero, so I won't write him off just yet. Scheppers rebounded from his worst professional start and threw a scoreless inning, and Harrison struck out three during three scoreless innings, so he finished with six scoreless and only two baserunners in his final two outings. I think he ends up being a very valuable member of our bullpen next year.

Other things to note: The Nationals are probably okay with their draft haul right now, finishing with the league leader in saves and ERA (Storen) and wins (Strasburg). Those stats are useless, but on the whole both pitchers apparently pitched quite well. Some kid named Robbie Weinhardt, an Okie State alum in the Tigers' system, put himself on my prospect map by striking out 29 hitters in just 18 innings, and Andrew Cashner dominated every start in which he didn't face Surprise...unfortunately three of his six starts came against the Rafters so he posted pretty pedestrian numbers overall.  

If you want to spend some time looking through statistics and perhaps share greater insights than I am capable of, then be my guest...