Q1. It is almost the end of this season, can you talk about what was your original goal this year and do you think you achieve that?

Special thanks to Mr.Eric Marinbach for sharing photos and thoughts

[Part I Link]

Q: As a MiLB affiliate, what kind of MLB team you always want to work with?
  
We want to find a major league team who wants to be a partner with a minor league team and work with us to help us be successful on and off the field. So the major league team would be do things kind of above and beyond the normal affiliate relation to help us be the winning team on the field; help us with attendance and promotions off the field.

It was a great pleasure to talk to Brent Miles about Minor League Baseball franchises! Miles, 35, is currently the President of the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, the advanced-A affiliate of Los Angeles Dodgers owned by Hall of Famer George Brett, and one of the Principal Owners of the Tri-City Dust Devils, the Short Season A affiliate of Colorado Rockies. He was also the former General Manager of the Tr-City Dust Devils and the former President of the High Desert Mavericks in the California League when Sheng-An Kuo and Kuo-Hui Lo were with the teams

About MiLB Leadership Positions 
Q: What are your educational background and work experience?

Offensive Player of the Week: Chih-Hsien Chiang: Chiang hit .400 with 2 home runs this week. Chiang has managed to improve every month of the season like clockwork. Check out his OPS each month from April to August: .398, .598, .725, .877, .933. What's important here is that Chiang is improving at the plate, which means he is learning and correcting his weaknesses. Although Chiang will probably start at AA again next season, if manages to start the season off stronger and show continual improvement he may have a bright future.

Offensive Player of the Week: Chun-Hsiu Chen. Chen with .444 for the week with two doubles and a home run. One of the interesting things about Chen's offensive breakthrough this season is his continually improving plate discipline. In low-A he walked 17 times in 240 plate appearances while in high-A he's walked 29 times in 169 plate appearances. Recent scouting reports have also cited his average defense indicating that he will stay at catcher.

Offensive Player of the Week: Che-Hsuan Lin. Lin hit a robust .435 as well as displaying his patient eye by taking 6 walks. He's now hiting .279 on the season with an outstanding .388 OBP. His lack of power is still somewhat troubling since he has only 2 HRs this season but power is often the last tool to develop and Lin is still young at 21. Scouting reports still rate his CF defense as top notch. He's still on track for a late 2011 or 2012 call up in Boston and if his power develops he can become a dynamic player.

Offensive Player of the Week: Chun-Hsiu Chen hit for .444 for the week. After a hot start to the season he's cooled off a bit, but he earned a promotion to high-A a couple weeks ago and has high average and decent power throughout the season. It should be noted his path to the majors might be blocked by Carlos Santana. If Chen is forced to move to 1B or 3B, his bat may not be enough to allow him to make the majors.

Pitcher of the Week:Chen-Chang Lee had another good week with 3 SO in 3 IP of work. That this was actually below his average strikeout rate shows the kind of dominating season he's having so far.

Offensive Player of the Week: Chih-Hsien Chiang hit .391 this week to boost his season average up to .244. However, .244 is still pretty dismal combined his below average plate discipline and power. He'll need to keep up the high batting average in order to earn a promotion next year.

Arsenal

One of the most important things that separates a future starter and reliever is the number of pitches the pitcher can throw. A reliever only needs one or two dominating pitches because it's unlikely he'll see the same batter in a game more than once. A starter doesn't have that luxury and needs to have several pitches in order to keep the hitters off balance. A sharply thrown slider might strikeout a hitter the first time, but major league hitters learn quickly and the next time they see that slider they may hit it for a home run. Thus future starters usually command around 4 pitches. Rarely do you see a pitcher like Chien-Ming Wang who more or less gets by with only two pitches simply because his sinker was so dominant.

Level of competition

It's important not to evaluate the statistics of a pitching prospects in a vacuum. Who the pitcher is pitching against is important to gain some context for his statistics. For example, a 22 year old pitcher out of college has a good deal of experience against sound hitters. Place him on a low-A team against high school aged players who have probably never seen a good breaking ball or even thought about game theory and you would expect the pitcher to dominate. Conversely, if a young pitcher is getting rocked and a high level that is not always cause for alarm since he might be in over his head. Chen-Chang Lee and Chia-Jen Lo both came to the states with college and international experience and, as expected, did very well when they started in high-A.

Pitching prospects are notoriously difficult to evaluate since they are prone to large variations in performance as well as serious injuries. Nevertheless we can outline some major traits that can help us to identify the best pitching prospects. We will also examine which statistics obscure our evaluation of pitching prospects and how they can often hurt more than help.

Player of the week: Che-Hsuan Lin. Lin hit .320 this week bringing his season total up to .261. He's still displaying a very good eye, but he needs to find some power. Without it he will be merely a average to good prospect instead of an elite one.

Player of the week: Ching-Lung Lo. Lo struck out 5 in 6.2 innings of relief work. He has a solid 2.91 ERA so far this season. His strikeout total had been low, however, his strong showing this week in that department is a welcome sight.

Hung-Wen Chen seems to have posted a very strong season thus far with a tiny 2.27 ERA on the season. Players who can post those types of ERAs in AA tend to quickly be classified as top prospects. However, let's take a closer look at his season and determine whether or not he deserves to be called a top prospect.