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We're at the start of a short but very powerful spike in the quality of shortstops in baseball right now, with several highly gifted shortstops debuting in the majors over the past 12 months and several impact prospects in the minors at that position, as well. That contrasts with this year's draft class, which is weakest in the middle infield and could produce just one every-day shortstop at the big league level.

The hottest name at shortstop right now is Jean Segura, Milwaukee's 23-year-old sophomore who came over in the Zack Greinke trade and is off to a torrid .359/.406/.588 start this year. The power is shocking; he's much more of a line-drive hitter who needs some help from the pitcher, leaving the ball up and over the plate, to drive it out. But the ability to make contact is real and might even improve from here, and although the .380 BABIP is unsustainable, he could very well be a .330-.340 BABIP guy in the long run. My main concern with Segura as a prospect -- I ranked him 44th in MLB heading into 2012 -- was health, as he has played more than 102 games in a season just once.

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The mystery of San Francisco Giants first baseman Brandon Belt, my 17th-rated prospect in baseball going into the 2011 season, only deepened this spring when he had a strong March statistically but seemed to maintain the bad habits at the plate that plagued him in the second half of 2012.

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The Los Angeles Angels have been batting Mike Trout, their best all-around hitter, second for most of this season. The Cincinnati Reds could learn a thing or two from that.

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Chicago Cubs manager Dale Sveum caused a stir the other day by suggesting that first baseman Anthony Rizzo and shortstop Starlin Castro could be sent to the minors if they didn't ... well, I'm not sure what they are supposed to do, because Castro is hitting better than the median National League shortstop and Rizzo has twice as many homers (six) as any other NL first baseman.



Neither guy is lighting the league on fire, but threatening them with a demotion to the minors seems a little draconian, and maybe a sign that the manager's a little in over his head.

But the immodest proposal brings up a better question -- which players around the majors indeed might be better served by a demotion to Triple-A? And which minor leaguers might be in line for an imminent call-up?

Demotion candidates

Anthony Rizzo | 1B, Chicago Cubs

Rizzo's stat line this season is heavy on secondary skills; he's walking, and hitting for power, but not making much contact or hitting for average, with a very low BABIP (.171). For most hitters, I wouldn't be concerned with a lower-than-normal BABIP or contact rate in a small sample. In Rizzo's case, however, the Cubs appear to have altered his swing, getting his hands loaded lower and farther back than last year so that he's swinging more up through the ball, which should generate more power but would absolutely reduce contact and lead to more popups, all of which is true so far.

I've been told this kind of swing reflects Sveum's philosophy of hitting, but in Rizzo's case, I didn't think anything in his swing last season needed fixing. The Cubs should let him revert to his 2012 mechanics, which produced a successful half-year in the majors with a good contact rate and plenty of power for a 22-year-old.

Aaron Hicks | CF, Minnesota Twins

The Twins knew they were taking a risk by promoting Hicks two levels and making him their Opening Day center fielder, especially given his history of slow starts, but he's 3-for-51 so far, all singles, with 21 punchouts, and has cost the team nearly a win -- minus-0.9 WAR per FanGraphs -- with his performance so far.

Hicks is struggling against fastballs and doesn't have a hit yet off an off-speed pitch. He has always been a patient hitter, but pitch recognition has been a constant issue; he's required lengthy adjustment times at each level. He's the Twins' center fielder of the future, but there has to be a point where continuing to run him out there to fail becomes counterproductive -- he's hurting the team but also is unable to make the adjustments he needs to develop as a player.

Right now, he's walking more, but hasn't converted those hitters' counts into hits. I'd give him until early May before pulling the plug on the experiment, but there has to be, if nothing else, more hard contact for them to continue running him out there.

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Durham hosted an 11 a.m. "Education Day" game on Thursday against Charlotte, giving me an opportunity to see a few of Tampa's top prospects, including the two major names they acquired in the James Shields/Wade Davis trade.

• Durham starter Jake Odorizzi showed four pitches, but nothing was plus or even truly above average. His fastball was straight at 89-92, touching 93 in the fourth, and he struggled badly with command throughout his outing. Early in the game, he worked mostly with an 83-85 mph slider, trying to backdoor it to lefties, and an 80-82 mph straight change. Later in the outing, he flipped a few slow curveballs, with good depth but perhaps too slow to be more than a show-me pitch.

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Second base is a funny position in baseball; you rarely see high draft picks spent on true second basemen, or big dollars committed to amateur second basemen in the Dominican Republic or Venezuela.

Second basemen are often converted there from shortstop, and move because they couldn't handle the more difficult position, due to lack of arm strength or trouble ranging far enough in both directions. Among last year's WAR leaders at second base (per Baseball Reference), the top six were all signed or drafted at other positions; among the top 20, only Howie Kendrick, a 10th-round pick, and Jose Altuve, signed for five figures out of Venezuela, were already second basemen when they turned pro.

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CHARLESTON, S.C. -- I caught the low Class A game between the Charleston RiverDogs and Augusta GreenJackets on Saturday night in Charleston, one of my favorite towns to visit for work. Charleston starter Jose Campos was the "other" guy the Yankees acquired in the Michael Pineda-Jesus Montero deal, and like Pineda, Campos went down with an arm injury; his was an elbow injury that didn't require surgery, but forced him to miss most of the 2012 season. He's back, working on limited pitch counts, showing reduced stuff and an arm action that seems destined for further injuries or a role in the bullpen.

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Author's note: Please keep in mind that evaluating off TV footage isn't the same as scouting a player live or off video angles that are geared to allow for evaluation.

Jose Fernandez's major league debut Sunday against the Mets couldn't have gone much better, not just in terms of results -- five innings, eight punchouts, one walk, one run allowed -- but in the stuff that doesn't necessarily show up in the stat line. Fernandez's stuff was as good as ever, his command was fine, he was poised even when things didn't quite go right, and he seemed to pitch with a plan in mind without deviating much from it.

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My last day at minor league spring training came on Friday at the Giants' complex in Scottsdale, Ariz., where the San Francisco Giants' Class A teams were playing the Chicago Cubs', with a pair of solid pitching prospects among the starters.

• The Cubs took right-hander Pierce Johnson in the sandwich round of last year's draft, something made possible by a forearm strain he suffered that spring that took him out of first-round contention. He showed three promising pitches on Friday, working at 89-94 mph, more at the high end of that range starting in the second inning, with a slider that ranged from average to plus in the 70-84 range as well as an average change at 80-82 that he used to left- and right-handed hitters.

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As usual, I've sketched out my win-loss predictions for all 30 teams and winners for the six major postseason awards. I've tried to include at least one thought on each team that explains my predictions, as well as notes on some key players or possible impact call-ups. Awards predictions follow the division picks.

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Some notes from minor league camps the past two days.

• Kyle Zimmer (the No. 27 overall prospect) threw on Monday afternoon in Surprise in a minor league game against Texas, and showed the same assortment of stuff that made him a top-five draft pick last year, but still found himself squared up a little too often.

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Run prevention was a major problem for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2012, as they ranked 13th in the National League in team ERA, ahead only of three teams that averaged more than 100 losses between them, although Milwaukee's issues were more in the bullpen (a league-worst 4.66 reliever ERA) than the rotation.

That said, Kyle Lohse does help them this year, probably by about two wins, on a contract (three years, $33 million) that seems pretty reasonable relative to market values for starters of his caliber.

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Some notes from the weekend on minor league fields in Goodyear and Mesa.

• Robert Stephenson was the Cincinnati Reds' first-round selection in 2011 and ranked as my No. 48 prospect coming into this year, second in the Reds' system behind Billy Hamilton. He threw a superb four innings on Saturday, filling up the strike zone with two pitches, a fastball at 93-98 mph and a slider at 79-81 that was almost unhittable.

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I headed to Goodyear, Ariz., on Friday hoping to see Robert "The Lighthouse" Stephenson, but he's scheduled to pitch Saturday (which I'll see as well). Instead, I got to see a solid collection of prospects from the Cincinnati Reds' and Chicago White Sox's A-ball rosters, which was a pretty good consolation prize.

• The Reds' first pick from the 2012 draft, right-hander Nick Travieso, started and threw two innings for their low-A club, working from 91-94 with a slightly higher arm slot than he showed last summer right after he signed; it's closer to three-quarters now, with a slimmer, better-conditioned body. He threw mostly fastballs, mixing in a changeup at 81-83, and generally looking looser and more starter-like than he did last year.

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