Top prospects in National League West – Part 1
With the end of the Major League Baseball regular season, a search has started both by the front offices of the clubs and fans, who are visualising their top minor league players at the big league level. All eyes are set for February 19, when the pitchers
and the catchers will have their fortune in their hands.
The 2012 Major League Baseball season is about one month away and the clubs are in need to not only complete their 40-man roster, but also perfect their rotation to avoid any risks for the upcoming thrilling season. Besides internal reorganisations, each
club now has a hawk eye over their division for the top prospects. Each club has a motive to arrange a roster able to destroy the opposing clubs in the division and then in the league to make it to the World Series level.
National league is considered somewhat more versatile and tough as compared to the American League. Among three divisions of NL, Western division has the toughest competition with some of the strongest teams of the MLB including Arizona Diamondbacks, Los
Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants. However, each club is reshaping their club to pursue a better future and to accomplish it, as they have taken into consideration many prospects. We have assembled a list of top prospects in National League West according
to the current situations of the respective clubs.
We have selected five top prospects one from each club. Among these five, Jarrod Parker of the Arizona Diamondbacks, despite an age of 23, has performed at all levels, from minor to some part at big league in 2011 season. The right-handed energetic young
man displayed a 11-8 record with a 3.79 at double-A level before been promoted to MLB on September 27.
In his debut, Parker did give up a run on four hits and just over five innings. His performance provided Kirk Gibson enough confidence to select him as starter against the Milwaukee Brewers in National League Division Series. With scarce chances in 2011,
Parker now will be putting his efforts on board in Spring Training to convince Gibson for a permanent position in the 2012 regular season. Experts see the 2012 season as the starting point for Parker in MLB.
Although the San Francisco Giants were the defending World Series Champions this past season, but their presentation was not even equal to level they put in 2010 season. Main reasons for their humiliating failure in regular season were strongly associated
with their lack of concentration on both batting and pitching throughout the year. Keeping all these out of mind, the Giants front office will be in search in of perfect players, but few are in list to be considered at a big level. However, the Giants will
have the biggest battle at their fifth rotation in the starting rotation and the 23-year-old Eric Surkamp will be one of the contestants.
Surkamp’s determination and efforts to pitch at the fifth spot, though is best than all candidates, but his high 5.74 ERA in four games this past season, might create little problems for him. Eric was given a chance when Barry Zito went to disabled list
in the last half of the 2011 season. He worked in six games and named two of them to his name, allowing only a single home-run and 18 runs. His under pressure performance however is higher is at the level that might provide him an extra point for the 2012
season.
Continued in Part 2
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