Harrisburg Senators Prospects

Harrisburg is 8-6 on the young season, but if you were to go by John Sickels' list, you wouldn't attribute that to a lot of great young talent on the team. Sickels begins his review with, "There is not much you can say about this farm system; it is obviously quite weak." Only five guys rate better than a "C" rating in the entire Nationals system, and none of those five are in Harrisburg.

The top (Harrisburg) guy on Sickels' list is RHP Darrell Rasner, coming in at #7 for the system. "Darrell Rasner has a good sinker, but his numbers even in the low minors are not that impressive, and it remains to be seen (at least for me) if he will develop into a useful pitcher. " So far on the young season, Rasner is 1-2 with a 5.02 ERA, 7/3 K/BB ratio, and nearly 2.00 WHIP in 14.1 IP. It looks like he's on tap to pitch on Saturday, so I'll get a chance to see him pitch (weather and health permitting). BaseballCube.com has his full stats prior to this year, and he seems to have decent K/BB ratios, although the ERA and WHIP don't really jump out at you. He hasn't given up a lot of homers either, as you would expect to be the case for a sinkerballer. (As an aside - did you notice the ad on this page? Pretty subtle, IMO).

Danny Rueckel (#12) is returning to Harrisburg for the second season, though he did have a cuppa with Edmonton last season. He's a relief pitcher who has worked only six innings this year, allowing two unearned runs and striking out 5. His K rate wasn't that impressive in Harrisburg, but it has been in other stops and maybe it will come around this year. Relievers don't typically make great "prospects" unless they really show the power strikeout numbers. I'm guessing that I'll see him this weekend, too, as I'm supposed to go to all of the games (though I am bagging tonight's game due to my illness).

Brandon Watson (#18: 267/323/283-0-1 in 14 games) rounds out the list. He looks to be a speed guy. He has very little power and steals 20+ bases/year (with a so-so success rate). The walk rates look a little low (IsoD ~ .040 throughout his minor league career), which is anoher red flag - he's not doing you any good if he's not getting on base, and he's depending solely on batting average to get there. Watson is returning to AA after spending last season at AAA Edmonton, where he played full time and hit 293/332/348-2-41 with 22 steals in 139 games.

And that's it. The lineup has been led by old-for-this league guys like Edgar Gonzalez and Melvin Nieves, while the pitching staff features journeymen like Rich Rundles (former Red Sox farmhand) and Kip Bouknight. Maybe their early season success is related to a weak schedule rather than great play on their part. I'll have more to report over the next few days.