Speaking of Eli Morgan ...

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Scouting report ...

... throws a four-seam fastball with an average velocity of 86-91 MPH ... His best pitch is his changeup, which he throws averaging 76-77 MPH with considerable downward movement.

Lacks ideal size for a pitcher (6-0, 180 pounds). His fastball lacks a little velocity ...

Consistently GREAT strikeout/walk numbers.

... does rely a bit on deception as a pitcher. He doesn't throw hard ... relying on a (usually) excellent change-up as his primary second-offering.

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The thing is, that is not Eli Morgan's scouting report. That is Marco Estrada's scouting report. That is why, while I wouldn't bet the farm on Morgan becoming a very good major league pitcher, I refuse to write him off. He reminds me a lot of Marco Estrada when he was coming up with the Brewers. Small righthander without a lot of velocity but excellent change. Early on teams moved Estrada to bullpen from time to time because his lack of pitches. But as he developed curve and cutter he was moved to starter for good. You could see a similarity in that regard with Morgan too as he moves on. We'll see. I'm going to follow him and hopefully he will keep me excited.

Well, I don't know how hard Morgan's fast ball is. I do know he's a couple inches shorter than Estrada. We'll see how he develops as he ascends the ladder. I'd like to see him in Lynchburg this summer rather than Lake County, since it should be a better test of his talent.

Big club extended invitation to camp to 7 players today. Most notably Bobby Bradley. Cameron Hill too. Richie Shaffer and some others.

the full story:

The Indians will have no shortage of pitching candidates in Spring Training as they try to tinker with their bullpen. The team announced eight non-roster invitees to Major League camp on Thursday, with five of those invitations going to pitchers.

While first-base prospect Bobby Bradley headlines the list of in-house invites, the bulk of the invitations go to relief pitchers. Right-handers Louis Head, Cameron Hill, Josh Martin and Cole Sulser will report to big league camp as the Indians try to sort out their bullpen without Bryan Shaw and Joe Smith. Head, Martin and Sulser spent last season in the bullpen at Triple-A Columbus, while Hill was an Eastern League All-Star closer at Double-A Akron.

First baseman Nellie Rodriguez and corner infielder Richie Shaffer also received invites. In addition, the Indians signed lefty Robert Zarate to a Minor League contract with a non-roster invite as the 30-year-old mounts a comeback from left elbow surgery. The former Blue Jays prospect hasn't pitched in professional baseball the past two seasons due to injuries, but made an impression pitching winter ball this offseason in Venezuela. Left-handed hitters went just 5-for-32 against Zarate this winter, while he posted 33 strikeouts over 36 1/3 innings with 33 hits allowed.

Bradley ranks third on MLB Pipeline's list of Indians prospects and is listed as the fourth overall first-base prospect in the Majors.The 21-year-old left-handed hitter, a former third-round Draft pick, hit .251 with 25 doubles, 23 home runs, 89 RBIs and a .796 OPS at Akron, then batted .230 (17-for-74) in 18 games in the Arizona Fall League. He'll get a glimpse of big league pitching in Spring Training as he tries to make an impression on coaches and evaluators for the future.

N.Rod earned his invite with an impressive first season in AAA, compiling a line of 170/241/372. 181 strikeouts were nearly triple his 64 hits and were just under 60% of his outs. And showed off his slick fielding with 10 errors at first base.

Matt McBride, the Eric Haase of decade past, is still in demand, signed to minor league deal with the Phillies. 32 year old signing with his hometown team, has had 194 major league at bats, with a career average of 201 and OPS of 547, with brief big league stays in 4 of the past 6 seasons.

Some of these guys, regardless of their performance, have written into their contracts, invitations to major league camp. I suspect that's the case with N.Rod.

MLB Pipeline has been releasing their top prospects list the last week or so. Today they did their list of top catching prospects in all of MiLB. Francisco Mejia topped the list, #1.

Last week Triston McKenzie ranked #9 on their right handed pitchers list.

Mejia is No. 20 and McKenzie No. 33 on Baseball America Top 100. Fared better on MLB's rankings but no one puts Bradley on the top 100, which is not exactly a surprise.

Somewhere had a list of "overrated" and "underrated" prospects for each team. Many here would agree that Benson is our "overrated". I'm not so sure, I say give him time -- still is just a kid, the power came out well last year, the walks improved, may or may not work out. I think Bradley may be overrated, since he's pretty much one-dimensional: he's just like Carlos Santana was in AA except for the modest differences that he hit about 100 points lower and he plays the easiest not the hardest position.

for "underrated" I was thinking of Willi Castro but they pick Eric Haase citing, of course, his grand power numbers. But they misrepresent his 2017 as being mostly in AAA and then don't note that he has had a very limited workload behind the plate. IF the Indians thing seriously of him, and since they promoted him to the 40 man roster they must, we should be seeing him also working at the various corner positions; or being left in AA to serve finally as a number one catcher and get 100 games in for the season.

BA's annual organizational talent rankings. I would guess Indians rank around 3/4 of the way down the list, with 2 solid prospects, but none of the best in the game; then a big drop off; a half dozen pretty good candidates follow, but not likely to get many major leaguers out of the 150 or so guys under contract at present.

I hit that one on nail:

22. Cleveland Indians
2017: 18 | 2016: 17 | 2015: 23 | 2014: 17 | 2013: 24


We haven't been ranked very high for a while now, but we've produced some decent talent anyway over the last 5 years: Allen, Salazar, Clevinger, R.Perez, Lindor is pretty good, Ramirez decent too, Zimmer.

I thought McBride was going to be a decent major league catcher.......somewhere.

McBride is still hanging around AAA with occasional major league call ups. Don't think he plays any position well enough although you'd think he could be useful as a DH on a bad American League team.
Haase could well develop into McBride II

CLEVELAND -- Entering his third season in professional baseball, Indians pitching prospect Brady Aiken is about to begin what could be the most important campaign of his young career. The lefty is wrapping up his first completely healthy offseason, and 2018 could serve as a turning point.

The Indians grabbed Aiken with the 17th overall pick in the first round of the 2015 MLB Draft -- a year after he went first overall, but did not sign with the Astros. The left-hander has as good of a pedigree as any pitching prospect, but his path to stardom was put in jeopardy when he underwent Tommy John surgery prior to being selected by Cleveland.

Aiken showed his promise in spurts in 2017, but it was a trying season, as can often be the case for a pitcher working through his first full tour after elbow surgery. He did not feature the 97-mph fastball that he did as a top prospect out of high school -- he now sits in the 87-91 mph range -- but the left-hander has high expectations for himself in '18.

"It's definitely tough just because you know it's in there, the success," Aiken said during the Indians' fall development program in September. "That's not the pitcher I am. It's tough. It's frustrating. This year was frustrating. But at the same time, I learned a lot from the team side, learning about different things that I need to do to get my body in the right state of mind and go out there and compete on every fifth day."

The first two Minor League seasons were not easy for Aiken. Between Rookie ball, Class A Short-Season Mahoning Valley and Class A Lake County, Aiken has registered a 5.05 ERA with 122 walks and 146 strikeouts in 178 1/3 innings.

Aiken has been ranked as high as the No. 64 prospect in baseball before the 2016 season by MLB Pipeline, but the elbow troubles and inconsistency on the mound has caused his stock to slip. The left-hander now ranks as the Indians' No. 24 prospect

But, as frustrating as last season was in terms of numbers, Aiken did achieve his top goal: staying healthy. Aiken led the Midwest League with 27 starts and didn't miss a turn, proving to himself that he isn't fragile.

Without any health complications in 2017, Aiken can finally complete his offseason program at full strength. No need to hold back in throwing drills. No more babying his arm. That should allow Aiken to take a big step forward this year.

"Obviously we want that workload again, but we can focus on pushing him a little bit more when it comes to getting him bigger and stronger and athletic," said Ruben Niebla, the Indians' Minor League pitching coordinator. "This will be his first offseason where he should 100 percent feel like he's healthy, and he's going to be able to go through another full season without any issues and push himself more."

As Aiken grows more agile and athletic, it should become easier for him to repeat his delivery and straighten out his mechanics, which in turn should improve his control. That pinpoint command in the strike zone is usually one of the last things to come back to pitchers as they recover from Tommy John surgery.

That lack of control was particularly frustrating for Aiken, who issued at least three walks in 23 of his 27 starts last season, leading to an oversized 6.88 walks per nine innings. He was throwing quality stuff, but it was not in the strike zone often enough.

Aiken was comforted by the fact that he was eliciting weak contact when opponents were able to put their bats on the ball last season. As an indicator, only 28.4 percent of batted balls against him went for extra bases compared to a 31.7 league average.

Now it comes down to how he can translate those improvements into results on the field. He showed flashes of his potential when he gave up two runs or fewer in four of his last five starts of 2017, and he carries that confidence into the next season.

"It is really, really impressive to see a 20-year-old man -- kid, really -- be able to handle all of the things thrown at him," Carter Hawkins, the Indians' assistant general manager, said. "The fact that he is as resilient as he is is certainly helping a lot of that process, so now it's turning that resiliency, that consistency, into some actual tangible product that hopefully gives him progress over the course of this offseason and really bumps him up to have a really awesome '18 for himself."

The scouting report at MLB.com

Scouting Grades: Fastball: 50 | Curveball: 55 | Changeup: 50 | Control: 40 | Overall: 45
Aiken became just the third No. 1 pick in Draft history not to sign when he spurned the Astros in 2014 after a post-Draft physical raised concerns about his left elbow and caused Houston to cut its original bonus offer of $6.5 million to $5 million. Aiken passed on signing and enrolled in IMG Academy's (Bradenton, Fla.) post-graduate program in 2015, only to leave his first outing with elbow pain that required subsequent Tommy John surgery. Thrilled to find Aiken still on the board halfway into the first round, the Indians selected him 17th overall, and he signed for $2,513,280. He made his highly anticipated pro debut in June 2016, albeit with mixed results, and he has yet to get back on track in 2017 with Class A Lake County.

Aiken's potential for three plus pitches made him an elite prospect as an amateur, but his stuff has played closer to average since making his return to the mound last summer. His fastball, which touched 97 mph in high school, sits mostly between 87-91 mph, while his curveball remains his best offering, a potential above-average pitch. He also has a changeup that he throws with late fade and tumbling action. Evaluators have said that he's lost some athleticism, which has led to problems in repeating his delivery and at times a complete lack of control.

Though the Indians were pleased with their left-hander's progress in 2016, Aiken's progress backed up considerably this season in full-season ball. Though he still has a high ceiling, many scouts now view Aiken as no more than a No. 5 starter, provided he regains his feel for the strike zone.