Guzman has a great bat with excellent speed. He reads pitches well. He's been striking out more this year with 117 Ks to date, which busts through his 2004 record of 78 in Vero. Still for 2005 he is .289/.493, which is nothing to sneeze at.
Joel bats to most parts of the field with ease. He's not a home run hitter, distributing his contact well and bringing in runners in the upper norm.
We would have expected to see Joel make his way to the Dodgers Triple-A Pacific Coast League team in Las Vegas this year, in preparation for his movement into the major league club. That would seem reasonable, given how he's performed, his financial package, and the stock that we hear the organization places on him.
Guzman will be retooled into an outfielder, which may account for a bit of his most recent holding pattern. Andy LaRoche is a more agile shortstop, who has just cruised into Jacksonville, and Guzman, in both size and speed, will class out better as a corner outfielder.
Joel may jump from Double-A ball to the majors. We've seen no sign of it yet. If he gets a preview taste of the big leagues towards the end of the 2005 season, there is a chance that he might just skip Las Vegas altogether. Otherwise, he remains on the slow boat to LA.
The Dodgers have been acting like an apprehensive Kindergarden mother who doesn't want to see their child go off to school and grow up. We weren't able to get anyone to tell us why someone of Joel's talent is spending so much time at rookie , A, and Double-A ball other than shrugging it off to maturity issues.
He would have gone within the top ten if we saw clear movement on him within the organization. His progress is so hazy, though, that virtually every other FAB50 candidate had a better accession line to the majors than he did.
We hope to see better and clearer directions in the organization for Joel in 2006.
