It's taken me a little longer than I anticipated, but I wanted to share some thoughts about my time in New York covering the 10th Futures Game. Joe Cronin's already written about it on his blog and I'm sure Lisa Winston will describe here experience in detail over on got milb.

It all started on Friday for us. For the past couple of years, we've brought in a prospect -- usually one from the area -- for a whirlwind tour of the city. In 2006, Neil Walker was the perfect subject, a Pittsburgh kid coming home for the Futures Game at PNC Park while a member of the Pirates organization. Last year, Indians prospect Chuck Lofgren came home to the Bay Area for the game. But this year, there was no New Yorker on the roster, so we had to think a little outside the box. Scott Campbell and Luke Hughes, hailing from New Zealand and Australia, made for the perfect candidates, and not just because they're 1-2 in the Eastern League in hitting.

Having never been to New York before, we decided to take them on a tour of the city via double-decker bus. I grew up in Northern New Jersey and then lived in New York for eight years and had never done this -- I think it's the kind of thing that residents of a city rarely do, but it was a perfect day and we had a great time seeing the sights.  It's basically a quick sweep of stuff, but the Empire State Building, Macy's, Ground Zero, plus driving through many of the city's neighborhoods was all interesting and Hughes and Campbell had a great time doing it.


See, that's them having a great time...a picture is really worth 1,000 words. At any rate, we got off the bus in Battery Park and decided, why not, let's hop on the Staten Island Ferry in a Futures Game version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

The big highlight of that, of course, was floating by the Statue of Liberty, but we also got to see the Staten Island Yankees' ballpark, which I've never been to. Campbell played in the New York-Penn League, but never got the chance to play there, or in Brooklyn, for that matter. We also saw some of the Eliasson New York City Waterfalls. Got to be honest there, I didn't really appreciate them. Maybe going to see all of them, and getting a closer look, would make me  enjoy them more, but they didn't do it for me from our vantage point. Here's hoping, though, that it brings people to NY to see 'em.

Kevin C. did a bang up job breaking down the young players involved in the A's-Cubs trade yesterday. Check out his blog as well: Minor Leagues, Major Thoughts. Great insight from there, too.

I figured Matt LaPorta's gotten enough attention (though you can watch my interview with him in Akron last night on the MiLB.com homepage). What about a guy like Robert Bryson, the low-A RHP included in the deal? How about some love for him?

I'm no stats geek (though I like them to an extent), but I was looking at his performance since he began his pro career and something stuck out: He seemed to have a lot of strikeouts. Seventy in 54 IP for Helena last summer in the Pioneer League, then 73 more in 55 IP in West Virginia prior to the trade. If you're scoring at home, that's 143 K's in 109 IP.

Boy, I thought, that seems like a pretty good rate.  I wonder, I pondered aloud (that was strange because I was working in a coffee shop and people turned and stared. But I digress...), where that ranks among Minor League pitchers over the same time frame. So like I did with the LaPorta power numbers, I asked my good friends in the MLBAM stats department to do some crunching for me. They came back with great abs. When I told them I meant for them to crunch the numbers, they said, "Ohhhhh," punched themselves in the stomach and got the spreadsheet up and running. Lo and behold, this is what they found, using the strikeout per nine inning ratio and using all pitchers from June 22, 2007 (Bryson's debut) and a minimum of 100 IP:

Santo Luis, Astros/White Sox,  12.62 K/9
Victor Garate, Astros/Dodgers, 12.03
Neftali Feliz, Rangers, 11.83
Rob Bryson, Brewers, 11.81
Jeremy Jeffers, Brewers, 11.78

I almost want to discount Luis and Garate since both are older (Luis is 24; Garate 23) and pitching in low-A ball. Not that they can't have careers, but they've been around since signing  in 2001 and 2002 (both by the Astros, who let them go, if that's telling at all). Feliz is legit and is in Double-A now at age 20. Jeffress has ridiculous arm strength, but has had some off-the-field issues and it remains to be seen what he becomes. But he's still very young. And there's Bryson, No. 4 overall in the Minors with his K/9 rate. So while LaPorta is clearly the big fish the Indians wanted to reel in with this trade (C.C. makes for some imposing bait, no?), don't just relegate Bryson as "some random guy" thrown in. Dude can throw and if he can figure some things out, he could be a nice arm, either in the rotation or more likely as a short reliever, down the line.

That's right, it looks like we can just about offically "close the door" on the C.C. Sabathia trade. The biggest part of the trade, as you know by now is Matt LaPorta, whom the Brewers took in the first round of the 2007 draft, No. 7 overall. Young fastballer Robert Bryson and Triple-A lefty Zach Jackson are also part of the deal, with a player-to-be-named to be, well, named later on. Many feel it could be Taylor Green, who's currently in Brevard County.

LaPorta, who should be able to stay in the outfield according to a scout I spoke with today, has put up tremendous power and run production numbers the moment he entered pro ball. Over his first 114 games, LaPorta has homered 32 times in 417 at-bats. He's driven in 97 runs in that span, slugging .609 and posting a 1.002 OPS.

I was curious how his numbers compared to others in the same time span. So my good friends in MLBAM's stats department (thank you, Cory Schwartz) ran them for me. Starting from July 30, 2007 -- the date of LaPorta's pro debut -- and going through yesterday's action, here's where LaPorta stacks up in a number of offensive categories:<p>

Home Runs

Chris Davis, 35
Matt LaPorta, 32
Greg Halman, 32
Mike Hessman, 31
Dallas McPherson, 31

RBIs

Jesus Guzman, 107
John Lindsay, 103
Chris Davis, 98
Matt LaPorta, 97
Darin Holcomb, 94

Total Bases

Mat Gamel, 281
Jesus Guzman, 273
Chris Davis, 266
John Lindsay, 255
Matt LaPorta, 254

Using a minimum of 300 plate appearances, LaPorta also is eighth in SLG (.609) and 15th in OPS (1.009). So much for the tough transition to the pro game. While at first it seemed like he might be headed up to Triple-A Buffalo, he's going to at least start his Indians career in Double-A Akron. He's slated to be a part of the U.S. Team at the Futures Game on Sunday in Yankee Stadium and that shouldn't change. What could is him going to Beijing for the Olympics. If the Indians want to keep him around for a possible callup, they may decide they want him stateside rather than in China for a couple of weeks.

A while back, someone posted a comment asking about a pair of former Cubs farmhands. One was Adam Greenberg and my colleague Lisa Winston was kind enough to point out he's back in organized ball playing for Arkansas (Double-A, Angels) in the Texas League.

The other was J.J. Johnson and as the commenter said, "Last I heard J.J. was with the Phillies and then released," asking where he might be now. Johnson, for the uninformed, is an outfielder taken by the Cubs out of a Georgia high school in the sixth round of the 2000 draft. He made it as high as Daytona (Class A Advanced) in 2004. He didn't play in 2005, but then signed on with the Phillies in 2006, starting in Clearwater and making it up to Double-A Reading for nine games. But then he was out of affiliated baseball.

He signed with the Reno Silver Sox in the independent Golden League (managed now, by the way, by former big leaguer Jeffrey Leonard). But he played in just seven games, suffering an eye injury when a foul ball he hit struck him in the face. The Silver Sox site had the following description of the incident:

Johnson was batting on a 0-1 count and swung on a high fastball. The ball caught the end of Johnson's bat and redirected the ball hitting Johnson in the face. Johnson was escorted off the field by paramedics, but walked off under his own power. Johnson received a broken nose and a broken sinus bone in his face.

He had surgery on the bone under his eye (the injury occurred on June 15, 2007) and he never returned to the lineup. He's no longer on Reno's roster and he doesn't appear to be playing anywhere at the moment. If I find more information, I will pass it along.

I didn't want to leave him out. Big bro Jeremy did make his way into the game, as a defensive replacement at third base in the ninth inning. After Burlington took the lead in the top of the eighth, the P-Rays scored twice in the bottom of the eighth to take a 7-6 lead. That was the final margin, making Tim Beckham a winner in his pro debut.

Remember how I said the Beckham brothers were excited for tonight? Well, they say a picture is worth 1000 words, so I'll let photog Sammi Craig's pic do the talking:

Time: 8:53
Inning: Bottom 7
Situation: One out, no one on. Score tied 5-5.
Outcome: Tapper back to the mound.

Facing a lefty for the first time, John Flanagan, Beckham took a ball before getting fooled on Flanagan's second pitch. He was way out in front, tried to hold up his swing and ended up with a check-swing tapper back to Flanagan. Flanagan's got a real funky delivery and comes from a three-quarters arm slot and the guess here is Beckham didn't see too much of that in high school. Flanagan's tossed three scoreless innings, so it's not just Beckham having trouble picking the ball up.

So Beckham is 1-for-4 tonight. Combined distance of all of his balls in play, I think, would be about 300 feet. But hey, he hasn't struck out yet.

Time: 8:12
Inning: Bottom 4
Situation: .Two outs, none on. Princeton leading, 5-3.
Outcome: Groundout to the shortstop, end of inning.

Getting a third look at Lehman, he took a couple of pitches to run the count to 1-1. He then hit a grounder in the hole to short, fielded by Lifete Jose, who threw out Beckham by a half-step. Beckham's 1-for-3 on the night, but hasn't gotten the ball out of the infield as of yet. He has shown an ability to get down the line in a hurry.

At this rate, he's going to have about 6 ABs...

Time: 7:32
Inning: Bottom 2
Situation: Runner on third, two outs. Princeton leading 3-0.
Outcome: Grounder to second, side retired.

Beckham took the first offering from Lehman in his second at-bat and went the other way with it, right at Franco. It was a routine play and Franco made it. Beckham will have to wait for his first pro RBI.

Time: 7:11
Inning: Bottom 1
Situation: One out, no one on
Outcome: Infield hit.

Had the chance to talk with both Beckahms (Tim and older brother Jeremy, who wasn't in the lineup) prior to the game and both were engaging and intelligent. Both, needless to say, were a bit excited for the game to get going.

As for the first at-bat, Beckham faced Mike Lehman, a Royals right-hander who was taken in the 20th round of the 2007 draft who put up some decent numbers in the rookie-level Arizona League last summer. He got a nice hand from the home crowd, but you get the feeling that most here in Princeton didn't quite get what the big deal was, which is really as it should be. Tim Beckham would like nothing more than to be just "one of the team" for the time being.

After taking a first pitch for ball one, Beckham hit a bounder up the middle. Burlington 2B Angel Franco was able to backhand it, but Beckham easily beat the throw for his first professional hit. Someday, he'll tell his grandkids it was a screaming line drive. So far, he's batting 1.000. He came around to score his first pro run later in the inning.I'll be back later for his next AB.