Next up are the Mobile BayBears, and it gets a lot better here. Mobile is the home of three top prospects and several other promising players. Gerardo Parra is our best hitting prospect, and he's rated no. 2 by Baseball America. Daniel Schlereth is our 2008 first rounder, rated no. 3 by BA. Middle infielder Mark Hallberg is rated as our no. 4 prospect. Other players of note are OF Evan Frey, who led our system in steals last year, SS Pedro Ciriaco, rated our best infield defender, Rule 5 pick James Skelton, who just missed out on a 25-man roster sport and a plethora of promising young pitchers.

They made a good start to the season and are top of the SOU South with a 12-5 record, thanks mainly to some great pitching.

Batters:

The Good:

• Gerardo Parra has been as good as advertised. Beginning the year in AA after a brief spell at the end of last season, he is on fire, hitting .377/.493/.492 in 75 PA, albeit with a .423 BABIP. And that's playing against older players. The only knock on him is he doesn't have enough power for a corner outfield spot (he's projected as a corner outfielder in the majors), but with an OBP of .500 and a BB:K of 2, that's just nitpicking. He could develop as a .300/.400/.450 guy in the majors.
• 3B Ricardo Sosa has been as good, if not better, so far, with a line of .371/.435/.581 in 69 PA. His BABIP is also at a sky high .428, so expect a good deal of regression, but even a regressed line has him OPS-ing .874. This is his first season in AA, after a couple of disappointing years in A-ball.
• 1B Bryan Byrne is another player with a hot start fueled by a high BABIP, with a line of .333/.484/.479 in 64 PA. However, his walk rate is at 18.8% for the year and 15% for his career, which means what he's a valuable player regardless of batting average. He is also a line drive hitter, which makes his career BABIP just under .350. Certainly a player to keep an eye on.
• RF Chris Rahl, another BABIP beneficiary, is hitting .324/.457/.568 in 46 PA after two terrible years in AA where he OPSed .682 and a Byrnes-post-2007-like .587. He's probably headed for a huge regression.
  

The Not So Bad:

• Evan Frey had a great year last season, batting.314/.400/.411 with 37 steals between South Bend and Visalia, and earning himself a first shot at AA this year at the young age of 22. He isn't exactly setting the world alight, but his .254/.329/.373 line in 70 PA is mostly held back by BABIP. On first glance his .300 BABIP seems normal, but he has a line drive bat that helped him to an incredible .370 BABIP in his career so far. Couple that with a great eye (11.5% BB this season, 10+ for his career) and he's one of our brightest prospects. Like Parra, he has no home run power, but I think some high average + high OBP + low power guys are a welcome change in contrast to our big league guys, who can hit it 500 feet, but also will likely never sniff league average OBP numbers.
• You've all heard of C James Skelton, the OBP machine acquired from Detroit in the Rule 5 draft. He did everything he could to keep a spot on the 25 man roster, but since he's never played above AA, his bat wasn't quite up to the task, even if his eye was. So instead of shipping him back to Detroit, we traded a AA starter for him. After a .294/.425/.399 season in AA last year, his .229/.371/.313 line is held back by a BABIP that's 100 points lower than his career number (another LD bat). However, the 23 year old left hander's BB:K ratio is close to 2.5 and while he has no real power (sensing a theme here? :) when his BABIP gets back to normal, he'll be among the league leaders in OBP. Whether his future is in middle infield or behind the dish, an on base freak in a light hitting position is a real asset.
• The last of the unlucky brigade is No. 4 prospect, 2B - SS Mark Hallberg, who at 23 gets his first shot at AA after two good seasons in A ball. He started the season 0 for 21, but has since started hitting and walking to improve to a line of .188/.322/.271 in 59 PA which is going to look a lot better when an unsustainable BABIP of .225 goes up.

The Bad:

• Our slick fielding SS prospect Pedro Ciriaco also gets his first shot at AA at the age of 23 after hitting .310 for A+ Visalia last year. His line of .196/.222/.294 in 54 PA is held back by a .238 BABIP, however his lack of plate discipline means his offensive value is tied solely to BA and BABIP.
• Speaking of light hitting middle infield hackers, SS Yuniesky Sanchez is repeating AA at the age of 25. His line of .222/.239/.289 in 46 PA is also held back by a .238 BABIP, but no amount of luck on balls in play is going to make up for a 2.2% BB percentage. Apparently Yuniesky swings at strikes, balls, pickoff throws and small bird, making Pablo Sandoval look like Pat Burrell.

Pitchers:

The Good:

• Righty Brian Augenstein is wondering what it takes to get on Baseball America's top 10 prospect list. His work last year between South Bend and Visalia: 22 starts, 131 innings, 99 K, a Maddux-like 14 walks (!!) for a 2.74 ERA. The best part? That was his age 21 season. That earned him a promotion to AA, and boy, did he bring it. So far, 3 starts, 3 wins, 19 IP, 1 ER, 17 K, 2 BB for an ERA of 0.47. That's what you call a good start. Considering our rotation in AAA is terrible, he or one of the other pitchers listed below could be in for a quick promotion.
• Hector Ambriz had a bad start on Sunday, allowing 5 ER on 5 hits and 4 walks in 4.1 IP. The good news? That raised his ERA to 2.86. He's off to a great start as well, with a K:BB of 26:6 in 22 IP, holding opposing hitters under the Mendoza line. After a couple of dissappointing seasons, he seems to be coming into his own at age 25.
• There are no less than 6 relievers with good numbers, so I'll go through them quickly. RHP Dan Stange has an ERA of 2.57 with a K:BB of 8:1 in 7 IP, after an injury plagued season last year.
  
• LHP Scott Maine (1.13 ERA, 7:0 K:BB in 8 IP) is even better in his first taste of AA after postinh 10 K/9 in Visalia last year.
  
• After posting a 3.34 ERA and 72K in 67 innings across three levels last year (he even got a taste of AAA late in the year), Jason Urquidez is yet to allow a run in 9.1 innings in AA this year, striking out 7 and walking only two. To be fair, at 26 he is old for this level, so I'd expect him to prove himself in AAA this year.
  
• The magnificent story of last year was LHP Clay Zavada, who threw 35.1 innings in A ball, allowing 2 earned runs and even more incredibly striking out 54! He was added to our 40 man roster and picked up where he left off last year, punching out 11 in 8 innings, walking only two, and allowing just one run on a solo homer.
  
• Our 2008 first rounder, LHP Dan Schlereth started the season in AA, continuing his steep climb (he only threw 12 innings in Rookie and A ball last year) and his line so far is 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 K, 4 BB. He walked 10 in 18 IP in his pro career so far, so here's hoping it doesn't turn into a problem going forward.
  
• RHP Kyler Newby had another dominant season in A ball last year (2.69 ERA, 11.5 K/9 in 67 IP), and his line to start the season is 8.1 IP, 2 runs on 2 solo homers, 8 K, 1 BB.

The Bad:

• RHP starter Matt Torra had an interesting season last year. He started in AA and was great, with an ERA of 2.85 and a K/BB of 4.17 in 13 starts. He was then promoted to AAA, where he had a more pedestrian 4.71 ERA with a 2.42 K/BB in 13 starts. Back in AA to start this season, his line looks identical to the AAA one from last year (4.71 ERA, 2.4 K/BB). He was also hurt by the long ball, surrendering 4 in only 21 innings.
• The only reliever with a poor line is RHP Vincent Bongiovanni, with an ERA of 6 in 9 innings.

As if all these prospects weren't enough, baseball in Mobile just got better last night with the news that our top prospect, RHP Jarrod Parker was promoted from Visalia, where he destroyed A ball hitters in his first 4 starts. This will mean our top 4 prospects are playing in the AA club.

I'm not sure if this is tied to the move made earlier in the day, when we traded left handed AAA starter Evan MacLane to the Cardinals for a player to be named later. This is just speculation, but we may see one of the aforementioned AA pitchers fill his spot in AAA, and in turn, Parker step into the vacated AA spot.

I hope this, in addition to the game last night, has improved your outlook on this team :)