New Britain Prospects

Hmmmm . . . . major oversight on my part, or was I just really busy? I never did a New Britain Rock Cats prospect post when they came to town in April, so I guess I'll do it to commemorate their current visit to town. The Rock Cats are currently 20-32 and mired in last place in the EL North. They also don't have a lot of Minnesota's top prospects on the roster. In fact, there are only two guys who make John Sickels' list.

Francisco Liriano LHP - #8 (B rating). Liriano is a 21-year-old lefty, acquired before last season from the Giants in the A.J. Pierzynski trade. Liriano's pitched pretty well this season, with a 3.43 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, and nearly 4:1 K:BB ratio (80:21) in 65.2 innings this season. Last season he struck out 49 and walked 17 in 7 starts (39.2 IP), while posting an impressive 3.18 ERa and so-so 1.56 WHIP. As he's pretty young for AA, he looks like he's going to be good. If I'm doing the math correctly, he'll pitch the game that I am going to see on Sunday.

Alex Romero - OF - #9 (B) Another 21 year-old, he's batting 232/306/351-4-17 thus far this season, he's not been one of New Britain's top hitters yet. Last season he hit 292/387/405-6-42 in 105 games at Fort Myers. Just looking at the numbers, he's not a power guy, but he's posted decent OBPs and has pretty good control of the strike zone (better than one BB per strikeout in his minor league career. Usually this kind of player steals a lot of bases, but that's not the case with Romero. He doesn't hit a ton of doubles, which would be an indicator of future power development, but he's still young. If he starts showing some gap power, he will make a useful major league outfielder. I'm looking forward to seeing him play (I only have the one chance this weekend, however) to get a better feel for what he can do.

New Britain's offensive leaders this year are OF Doug Deeds (298/363/445-4-21 in 51 games), 1B Danny Matienzo (290/335/523-9-28) and slugging OF/1B Luis Jimenez (268/343/488-7-18 in just 33 games). On the pitching side, Colby Miller (57.2 IP, 2.50 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 38:15 BB/K) has carried the load with Liriano, while Patrick Neshek (26.2 IP, 2.03 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 36 K, 7 saves) and Jason Miller (all these Millers - could be the Red Sox!) (21 IP, 2.14 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, 27 K, 2 Sv) have anchored the bullpen.