First Glance: Jiovanni Mier
by Subber10 on Mar 18, 2010 4:20 PM CDT
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PrintProject Prospect has a short write up on what they thought of a workout of Jiovanni Mier. While early indications have been extremely positive, as with all prospects, especially Astro prospects, some people have their doubts. This article highlights some positives as well some flaws. But, overall, this seems very positive for a kid who is less than a year removed from high school. It covers his defense and his plate approach and swing, although there is nothing regarding his arm since he has been experiencing some shoulder problems that kept him from throwing the day they attended the practice. Here is the link.
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Not high
I didn’t know anything about him but thats something i looked up immediatly after reading the article. Not much i found as far as scouting reports. His offensive stats don’t look promising at all, his only good year was one year in the Venezualin league. Interestingly enough, thebaseballcube.com has his contact rated as an 81 and speed at 63. His stats don’t indicate that but then again he had horrible luck this with babip was a .214 at greenville and .200 at Tri-City. But this article is the best i found about his defense which from this seems to be solid, although with as much time he spent at 1b this year tells me his arm isn’t very good.
Been doing a little Jio-research
I’m a little surprised how high a lot of people are on him. He’s been listed in a number of places as a top 3 shortstop prospect. Here are my general takeaways from a couple hours of intense Googling (no links, just general impressions; I don’t want to go and dig back up all the stuff I found).
- He’s viewed as having a very high floor. Get the impression most prospect analysts would be surprised if he didn’t turn out to be an everyday big league player despite his only having played at rookie ball. The reason for this seems to be that all of his defensive tools and skills are viewed as already being at least major league average (or above), and his hit tools are not much below average right now.
- Mier is one of those guys who has that coveted combination of high floor/high ceiling, which is why he’s already so highly regarded. He’s been talked about as possibly jumping into the nation’s top 20 prospects if he stays the course in 2010. Prospect analysts shy away from making MLB projections about a guy just out of rookie ball, for obvious reasons, so I’ll put my foot in my mouth, read between the lines, and do it for them. Based on scouting grades from different places, it sounds like his ceiling is seen as somewhere around .280/.360/.460, 15-20 HR, 25 SB with average to above average defense. His ceiling, keep in mind, not his floor.
- The one real concern I’ve seen mentioned multiple times is that his speed is just a hair above average right now and projects to be only average or even slightly below once he fills out. This is primarily a concern in that it could hurt his defense, and his ability to stick at shortstop is what makes him so valuable. Still, the general thought seems to be that his elite footwork, good instincts (on both defense and the basepaths), and a good arm should make up for any loss in speed as he fills out.
I haven’t seen anything that has doubted his ability to stick at SS because of his well above average instincts for the position and his excellent jump on the ball which makes his range above average. His arm is well above average and his release is extremely quick and perfect for the position. I have no doubt that even as he does add a few lbs, his workout regimine will include exercises that will prevent him from losing range and speed. With proper training, the kid should actually be able to increase his speed and range, although marginally. I asked Adam Foster at ProjectProspect about his ceiling and he was skeptical to project that just because of the reason you mentioned in that he’s only played rookie ball. I’m very high on him as well and while his ETA is foggy until we see him Lexington this year, i’m not going to put it past him as September call up in 2012
I could even see him making the club at the beginning of 2012 or June/July if he’s really performing really well. That’s probably the low end, but once again, it’s not unheard of for top prospects to jump directly to the big league club out of AA. We’re seeing this right now with the serious consideration of Castro making the club opening day (he probably would make the team, in fact, if not for J.R. Towles).
That would require Mier making it to at least Corpus Christi by sometime in 2011, but I could see it happening if everything goes right for him.
By the way, I did see one article expressing some doubt about him sticking at shortstop, suggesting that if his range declines too much as he fills out he might need to be moved to third base. It did not seem like a significant concern to the author of this post, however, if I remember right, for the reasons you mentioned—he has great instincts, positioning, and footwork.
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