Baseball's Young Stars Getting Called Up

The past few weeks has already brought baseball fans excitement and also young prospects excitement by being calles up to the majors for the first time. With prospects such as 3B Mat Gamel(Milwaukee) and OF Matt Laporta(Cleveland) being called up, Laporta was sent down earlier this week. This week has brought the biggest week for Oriole fans especially with star prospect C Matt Wieters, a 6-5 switch-hitting catcher, who will be called up on Friday to start against the Tigers. Some young prospects have already made their long-awaited debuts this week. OF Fernando Martinez, the Mets #1 prospect was called up when OF Ryan Church went on the DL and last year's #1 overall pick , P David Price of Tampa Bay made his season debut after taking Scott Kazmir's place in the rotation. Although Price left the game Monday after 3 1/3 innings and 100 pitches and Martinez went 0-for-3 in his debut, the hype around the two is still alive, especially for Price after his performance in the postseason last year. Also, the Chicago Cubs have promoted OF/1B Jake Fox today. Fox leads all the minor leagues with 17 HR and over .400 average.

As for Matt Wieters, I personally saw him play for Double-A Bowie last summer, and he is the real deal. As a 6-5, switch-hitting catcher, he could strike fear into opposing pitchers immediately, at least for the first few weeks until teams have his tendencies down and learn how to pitch him. That will be the real challenge for Wieters, learning how to adjust to pitchers who adjusted to his hitting style.

As for other prospects still in the minors, it is only a matter time before P Tommy Hanson joins the Atlanta rotation because of the problems they are having, first with Jo-Jo Reyes, who got demoted to the bullpen, and now with newly promoted Kris Medlen, who outshined Hanson at Triple-A Gwinnett for the first past of the season. Also, don't be surprised if you see San Francisco's rotation bolstered later in the year with Madison Bumgarner and/or Tim Alderson, who are both in Double-A Connecticut right now. ( I hope I get to see one of them pitch in Trenton in the middle of June). Baltimore's rotation could also be strengthened by Jake Arrieta, who is lighting up the Eastern League at Bowie this season.(I also hope to see him next week at Trenton).

As for more young prospects, I will update this part of the blog as much as I can. And please excuse the bias to the Eastern League, I have a 12-game pack at Trenton and get to see a lot of talent in that league.