I saw Charlotte the last 2 nights

Charlotte came to town for a 2 game set as well as a 3 inning completion of an earlier suspended game.  I've seen most of these guys on other occassions, but here are a few things I noticed...

Sean Tracey gave Ozzie a big FU by firing a 6-hit 109-pitch shutout with one walk and 8 K's last night.  He's now thrown 13+ innings here this year and only allowed 6 hits and no runs.  I think he could hack it as a back end of the rotation guy, but we don't need that, and trading him might not be a bad idea.

The other pitchers I saw were not noteworthy...Tim Redding, Jeff Farnsworth and Paulino Reynoso won't and shouldn't be going up anytime soon.  However, I did get to see 2 perfect innings of Boone Logan, who has been horrible in AAA so far.  He was good, somehow, so maybe this sort of invalidates any good pitching from Tracey.

Josh Fields is the primary prospect and once again, he looked miserable with me in attendance.  I believe I have seen him in 5 games in his career and he has to be about 0-20 with 10 K's.  He struck out on 3 pitches in the suspended game, sat out the follow-up game, and went 0-4 last night with 2 K's and a GIDP.  I want to believe in the numbers he is putting up, but he swings and misses so often that I just can't see him continuing to succeed against big league pitching.  Locking up Crede and trading Fields for a true talent within the next year while his value is still high would be very, very wise.

Ryan Sweeney continues to look like a great player, but not play like a great player.  He played CF in one game and looked ok.  He's no Rowand or BA out there though and never will be.  He went 1-9 with a single to right.  He truly looks like someone to fear at the plate, but the results just aren't coming.  He's young enough to provide some hope, but he'll need to spend another year in AAA for sure.

Jerry Owens looked miserable on the first day, going 0-5 with all of the power of a young Mike Caruso.  He looked better last night, going 2-4 with a hard double and one solid shot that was caught.  His swing still looks too weak for my likings, and he shouldn't be expected to do much more than a guy like StL Cardinal superstar Timo Perez.

One guy who did catch my attention was Andy/Angel Gonzalez.  His prospect status has waned over the past 2 years and Phil Rogers hasn't ranked him in the BA Top 30 since 2003, but he still looks to me like a guy who could be a starting infielder for an average team.  He physically reminds me of Edgar Renteria.  He hit a towering bomb of a homer and holds an OBP near .400 right now.  His power is not great overall, but he has to bring more to the table than a Pedro Lopez.  Maybe he's a total hack on defense, but he looked fine at 2B to me.

Others, like Casey Rogowski and Chris Stewart, are probably topping off at this level.  Guys who were not MLB caliber like Jeff Liefer jacked 35 homers as prospects in Charlotte, Rogowski is on pace for 10.  Stewart could catch on as a backup catcher in a perfect world, so maybe he has a chance, but there are dozens of guys just like him.

Other interesting and old names on the Knights are big bad Ernie Young, glove stealer Ruben Rivera, Bobby Smith, Andrew Lorraine, Valerio de los Santos and Vladimir Nunez.

Also, no matter what you hear, Delmon Young is a monsterous arrogant prick, worse than his brother, and deserves nothing but scorn throughout his career.  Everything you hear non-Sox say about AJP is really true with Delmon.  However, B.J. Upton is actually a decent kid, his recent DWI notwithstanding, and shouldn't be lumped in with Delmon and the common criminal that is Elijah Dukes.