Prospect Watch: Carl Black

At a disappointing 18-40, the Iowa City Hawks are struggling at the major league level in owner neonpeon41's first sesason in charge. The team has hit only 57 homers, fifth-fewest in MLB. The remedy may be just a phone call (or rather call-up) away, in the person of prospect Carl Black. The ninth overall pick in the Season 8 Draft, Black is an unassuming looking 5'9" right fielder currently playing Single-A ball. However, the right hander has prodigious power, especially to the opposite field, and several of the hitting records he set at Waller High School (in Texas) may never be broken.

A rookie-league sensation after being drafted by the then-Madison Mosquitos, Black took the short-season league by storm. Ownership and major league scouts salivated over his 13 HR and .774 slugging percentage in 239 at bats in his first season of professional baseball. That may have led the new front office, after surveying the landscape and finding precious little talent to work with, to accelerate the young man a bit too quickly. Only 19, Black struggled out of the gate this season at Triple-A. His hitting coach there, Dario Rogers, observed: "The kid just hasn't seen pitches like this before. High school baseball in Texas was easy stuff; his natural ability just carried him through. Now he needs at bats; he needs to make adjustments."

The organization agreed, sending Black to Double-A ball for 21 games before demoting him to the High-A team. There his stroke has slowly begun to return; he has lowered his strikeout/at bat ratio and hit three HR. However, there is still work to be done before the highly-touted youngster is ready for the Show. Organizational fielding instructor Greg Wolf says: "The kid has raw ability; there's no denying that. He's here to hit the baseball a country mile, and he can do it. But we've got to find a spot for him to play. He's working hard out in right, but his arm isn't scaring anyone, even in the minors. We're gonna work on it..."

The Hawks need Black to work on it; expectations for his future are integral to the club's outlook down the line. Teammate and fellow prospect SS Dan Randall knows what it is like to have that kind of pressure heaped upon young shoulders. Once an anonymous 6th-round pick, Randall has quite simply raked at every level he has visited thus far, literally forcing himself into prospect status. His 19 HR are currently far and away best on the High-A Hawks. "It's just crazy, because you start reading about yourself in all these magazines and whatnot, and they're talking about you playing in the majors and what position and what kind of player you'll be," Randall observed. "But a lot of the time they're projecting two, three, four years down the line, and even then it's kind of a 'best case scenario' thing. What Carl's gotta figure out - what he's starting to figure out already - is that we're all down here for the same reason. We're trying to work it out, trying to learn somethin' or show somebody somethin', but it's about the work here, the at bats and the chances in the field. Ain't nothin' guaranteed just 'cause they call you a prospect."

At age 19, Black seems to have grasped that already. Perhaps he himself put it best: "Hey man, you know," he said in his slow Texas drawl, "I'll get there when I get there." For Iowa City, that day can't get here fast enough.