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Originally Posted by Cannon Shell
I know it isnt much of a sample but Drabek was throwing easy 95mph heat and a nasty curveball on Sunday. He looked awfully good to me.
From baseball prospectus
Kyle Drabek, RHP, Phillies (Pre-season ranking: 92)
It's strange what kind of information can help you, as one of the reasons I ranked Drabek as the third-best prospect in the system entering the year despite his missing most of 2008 while recovering from Tommy John surgery was a conversation I had with his father Doug Drabek at the Winter Meetings in Las Vegas. It was an honest talk about Kyle's old and new mechanics, and what was working and what still needed to be worked on. By the time spring training arrived, Kyle had already tweaked his breaking ball back to plus status with the new delivery, as well as rediscovering his mid-90s velocity, which has led to a breakout year. Many scouts see stardom in his future, but expect less from him in the second half, at least on a workload level, since while his 109 strikeouts currently ranks third in the minors, his 1081/3 innings leads all minor leaguers and will need to be monitored.
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From an ERA perspective it appears he made the jump from High A to AA without much problem (2.48 to 2.70). However, with young pitchers I find K/IP and K/BB ratios to be far more effective indicators of how well they are moving up in level. In Drabek's case his K/IP dropped from a fantastic 1.20 to a very average 0.77 and his K/BB ratio dropped from a very solid 3.89 to a more worrisome 2.11 when making the jump to AA. He still has a long way to go and is a risk with the Tommy John. If Philly could get Halladay for him they should jump on it. I think Drabek is a top 50 prospect in the minors, probably somewhere in the 30-35 range but I think Baseball America was reaching a bit when they named him #24 last week and I think the Phillies are making a mistake if they give up Taylor (underrated by BA at #23) or Brown (BA #17) instead of Drabek to get Halladay.