Harold Uhlman brought up a good point in his comment concerning the Dodgers expecting too much of our prospects. It is an age old concern and one we wrestle with internally. With the advent of the Internet and publications such as Baseball America which are devoted to minor league baseball, prospects get more publicity than ever. Therefore, the fans are more aware of the players’ names and statistics and we get asked about them more often.

We are very proud of our minor league system and our players’ accomplishments. However, it is important that the organization ***** the individual players’ abilities correctly and place them at levels in the system where they have the best chance of succeeding and progressing. The most important thing is that we develop these players to be Major Leaguers, not only to get to the big leagues but to stay. While it helps that the perception of our players is positive, especially with other teams, we as an organization must be blind and deaf to the hype and evaluate our prospects as we see them.      

Towards that end, we signed some veteran Major Leaguers in the off-season not only to improve the team, which is most important, but to give our young minor leaguers time to hone their skills and not be rushed. There will be some failures along the way, no doubt, as player evaluation is an inexact science and injuries always happen. But we feel good about our current crop and have faith in our development staff to get them ready for Dodger Stadium.