John Sickels Interview

Saturday, February 11 2006 @ 02:00 PM EST

Contributed by: Pistol

John Sickels is a long time minor league analyst and in his latest book he has rated over 1,000 prospects.

He recently released his Blue Jay Top 20 Prospect Ranking over at his terrific website and agreed to step into Da Box to discuss the Jays prospects further.

A few weeks back Baseball America released their organization rankings with the Blue Jays ranking 25th. Many people felt that was too low, including Jays Director of Pro Personnel Tony LaCava in a recent Batter's Box interview. Sickels seemed to agree with this assessment. "I haven’t done system rankings formally, but 25th seems somewhat low to me. Off the top of my head, I think the Jays probably rank in the middle of the pack, not terrific but not terrible, perhaps somewhere in the 18-20 range. The system looks like it has a good number of decent prospects, C+/B- types, but not many potential impact players right now."

The general consensus is that Dustin McGowan is the cream of the crop among Blue Jay prospects, but Sickels rated him 3rd behind David Purcey and Ricky Romero. "McGowan's stuff is first-class but I still worry about his control. I know that Romero and Purcey ranking ahead of McGowan is controversial, but I think they are both safer picks at this point, while McGowan has the higher upside. You can make the case either way of course, I recognize that."

One player that Sickels is high on is the Jays first round pick in 2005, Ricky Romero, ranking him the Jays top prospect despite not pitching above A ball. While Jim Callis believes that Romero will be number three starter Sickels is more optimistic. "I fell in love with him as a college pitcher. I like his combination of movement and precision. This is something of a projection I suppose, since he hasn’t faced Double-A yet and my general policy is to be reasonably cautious about players until they face that level. So in that sense I am going against my general grain here." Sickels considers Romero to be very polished and feels that he can reach Toronto at some point in 2007 assuming he pitches well in Double-A.

The Jays took two OFs that they had similar ratings on prior to the draft in Brian Pettway and Ryan Patterson. Once they started in Auburn they headed in different directions. Patterson had a terrific year winning the team's MVP while Pettway struggled considerably. What should Bauxites think of this? "I try not to make a big deal out of short-season performance, even advanced college players have problems making the adjustment at times, so it is way too soon to give up on Pettway. His plate discipline was pretty good in college, but went backward on him as a pro. Scouts report that he was too power-conscious, trying too hard to hit home runs. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Patterson hit well at Auburn and Pettway did not. So we have to rank Patterson ahead of Pettway at this point, but in the sense of being happy with Patterson and 'wait and see' with Pettway."

Sticking with the 2005 draft Sickels felt that there were a couple 'sleeper prospects' in the draft class. "I like Robert Ray (7th round, RHP, Texas A&M) a lot and I think he has a good chance to surprise people. He has good stuff but didn’t mix his pitches as well as he should have in college. If he can mix up his arsenal a bit more and continue to throw strikes, he should do well." Sickels also noted that Jacob Butler (8th round, OF, Nevada) has a "good power bat" but needs a position.

Two players that appear to be fairly similar are Shaun Marcum and Josh Banks. However, Sickels rated Banks as a B and Marcum as a C+. The differences Sickels sees between the two are down the road. "I agree they are similar. They both have exceptional command, but Banks is younger, physically larger, and has a better chance to pick up a little more additional velocity."

One player that the Box minor league crew think highly of is Davis Romero who was ranked 11th in the end of the year prospect rankings. This is in contrast to scouts who generally don't think too highly of Davis Romero. Sickels wants to take a 'wait and see' approach. "Statistically, Romero is just awesome. His velocity isn’t terrible, either, and he gets terrific movement on his pitches. But scouts doubt him because he is small and doesn’t burn radar. At this point, he deserves a full shot in Double-A. Will he do well? Frankly I don’t know, it really is something of a 50/50 bet right now. If he does make it to the majors, it will probably be as a short relief type to avoid overexposure."

The Jays picked up Sergio Santos in the Glaus trade. Santos was a former 1st round pick, although he really struggled this year in AAA. Sickels is not optimistic about Santos at this point. "He has problems with plate discipline, and his swing is quite erratic, sometimes short and compact but sometimes too long when he tries too much to hit for power. His glove is OK but he has to hit to play regularly, and at this point I don’t think he’ll be much better than he already is."

A player that didn't make the cut in Sickels' book is Ryan Roberts who posted a solid line in NH in 2005. "I had him rated at Grade C but cut him from the book due to space reasons. Every year there are 1 or 2 guys from each organization that end up getting dropped from the book. Anyhow, Roberts is one of those Grade C guys. He has intriguing power and drew some walks last year, but he also struck out more than once a game in Double-A at age 24."

Often times certain prospects get an undue amount of hype while other players fly under the radar. When looking at players who might be over and under rated Sickels goes back to Romero and McGowan. "Well, I think Romero is underrated. At least he better be underrated or I will end up looking stupid for putting him ahead of McGowan. I don’t really think that McGowan is overrated on other lists, as I said, his stuff is first-class but I just have this nagging doubt about his command. It could be an intuitive thing or maybe just a brain fart on my part. It is also possible that I’m a bit worried about McGowan because of what happened with Brandon League last year. In League’s case, I ignored my nagging intuitive doubts about his command and gave him a lot of positive praise. In his case my intuition was right and I was wrong to ignore it. So perhaps I am overcompensating this year with McGowan. We will see how that pans out."

Sickels mentioned earlier that he thinks Robert Ray is a sleeper who could emerge. Another player that he thinks could make a big jump forward this year is Chip Cannon. "If he retains command of the strike zone, he could really blossom with even more impressive numbers than he posted last year."
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As mentioned earlier Sickels' 2006 prospect book is available. I get the book each year and I've had my copy of the most recent book for a couple weeks now and I recommend it. It's a great resource to have now on minor leaguers, and I find it's also fun to go back and read evaluations from a few years back. Fantasy leaguers can also find it useful.

The book is available through Sickels' site: Canadian orders and US orders

Many thanks to John Sickels for taking the time to share his opinions with Batter's Box.

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