Some quick Saturday morning thoughts as I watch it drizzle here in New York. It's cold and it's wet but we you have to press on, weather be damned.

So Salt Lake City lost Friday night for the second time this week. That's the same amount of losses that they had in the first month of the season. I wouldn't worry. They seem like a good bunch and even though Brandon Wood, Nick Adenhart and Matt Brown have been summoned to Los Angeles, this is still a good team that likely won't squander the huge lead it has built. Plus, any or all of those three players could be back in the Pacific Coast League as quickly as they were called up.

We're going to jump around a little here, so bear with me. The coffee is still brewing and my head is still a little fuzzy. I spoke with Kurt Kemp, Atlanta's top Minor League honcho on Thursday, and he said despite his sizzling start, Tommy Hanson will be staying in Myrtle Beach. There are no plans to bump him up to Mississippi despite the fact he's 3-1 with 0.79 ERA in six starts. He's struck out 42 and walked 10 in 34 innings and has yet to allow a homer. If he keeps it up, it's going to be difficult to keep him in the Carolina League.

One pitcher who made his way out of A-ball was Brett Cecil, Toronto's highly touted prospect who began the season in Dunedin after experiencing some shoulder problems this spring. He had a 1.74 ERA in 10 1/3 innings while throwing on a limited pitch count in the Florida State League. The Jays decided it was time to move him up and he got his first start this week for New Hampshire and was hit hard, allowing four runs [three earned] in three innings against Reading. He allowed four hits and walked three.

Lakeland's Rick Porcello finally got away without suffering a loss this week in his start against Dunedin. The Tigers top pick had lost four consecutive games after winning his professional debut but didn't figure in the decision against Dunedin. He allowed two earned runs in five innings as his ERA climbed to 2.37. He didn't strike out a batter and walked a season-high three.

Clearwater's Joe Savery, the Phillies top pick, also pitched this week, losing at Fort Myers. He had his roughest outing of the season in the five-inning stint, allowing season highs in runs [four] and hits [eight]. He's 1-2 with a 2.92 ERA. More importantly, though, he's kept his walk total in check [14 in 37 innings].

That's a wrap for this morning. See you soon.

Time for a little Thursday afternoon blogging. I've been so wrapped up with other things this week that I haven't had much time. But I was able to talk to one of my "sets of eyes" in the West today and he gave me a bit of a rundown on what's happening in the California League.

Stockton's Trevor Cahill, whom the A's chose in the second round in 2006, has looked very good. He's 3-0 with a 1.80 ERA in five starts and has had only one bad outing. He's got 39 strikeouts and allowed only five walks. "He's throwing 90-94 with a heavy sinker and a good slider," according to my tipster. His Stockton teammate Brett Anderson also received high marks as did Modesto's Esmil Rogers, who was 3-2 with a 3.31 ERA through six starts.

Then there's Stockton's Chris Carter, whom the A's acquired from the Diamondbacks this winter. He's got a big, booming bat as he demonstrated last year in Kannapolis (25 homers, 93 RBIs). He's off to a decent start this year with eight homers and 21 RBIs in April. If he keeps hitting at that clip and the front office decides to keep him in Stockton, he could challenge Bud Heslet's league record of 51 homers.

"He's on a tear," said my friend. "His swing is smooth. He's going to be good. It amazes me that he's been traded a couple of times. He's so good. He's a good-looking kid with easy actions. He and [teammate] Sean Doolittle have looked very good. Doolittle is a very good defensive first baseman. A Gold Glove type. He has good hands and good feet and he fields the ball with way more confidence than anyone I've seen in the Minor Leagues."

Good stuff from this baseball insider. One other quick note before I bid you adieu. I took a quick glance at some Texas League numbers and I was amazed to see that San Antonio's Kyle Blanks already has 18 walks. He's averaged only 35 walks per in three Minor League seasons, not nearly enough for a guy of his power. But he's showing a much better eye this season and apparently is getting more respect. He's only fanned seven times, too, which on average is a ton less than the 98 Ks he threw up on the board last year in Lake Elsinore. After hitting 24 homers last year in the Cal League - doesn't everyone do that - he had only one with the Missions through 80 at-bats. It will be interesting to see if that will change.

Okay, so I've gotten several e-mails over the last few days about right-hander Casey Fien (pronounced Feen), a relief pitcher with the Erie SeaWolves. The California native was Detroit's 20^th-round pick in 2006 and has done a pretty good job coming out of the pen ever since.

Fien was 1-1 with a save and a 0.71 ERA through nine games (12 2/3 innings) as of Monday morning. He has held the opposition to a .239 batting average but has otherwise been nondescript, not walking many (three) or striking out many (five). It would appear that he simply gets the job done. Overall, he's 8-3 with a 2.49 ERA in 68 career appearances.

Detroit manager Jim Leyland noticed Fien during Spring Training and perhaps, as a result, when the Tigers need some help in the pen this summer, the Cal Poly product will get the call.

"He's not going to be on the team, right now," Leyland told The Detroit News last month. "But I want that memory of what I saw on my mind, so if he's doing well, and I don't care where he pitches, I can say, 'Send me that guy.' He could be a candidate at some point. That's how we found Randy Tomlin with the Pirates one year. Then he went 8-0 (actually 9-0 in his career) against the Mets."

So to all you Fien backers out there who keep sending me updates, here's his 15 minutes. Let's hope he has a whole lot more.

Let's stay in the Eastern League for just a moment. Anyone who knows me or has read any of my stuff over the last few seasons knows that I've killed the Mets over what I believe is a farm system they have let deteriorate to the point of being one of the worst in baseball. I'm not alone in that opinion, several front office, player development and scouting types have shared that sentiment with me.

But I will give them credit on Jon Niese, the high school hurler from Ohio they grabbed in the seventh round in 2005.The 21-year-old southpaw is making a slow and steady climb through New York's system and is currently off to a nice start at Binghamton, going 2-1 with a 0.71 ERA for Binghamton. He's struck out 22 in 25 1/3 innings for the B-Mets and shouldn't be there much longer if he keeps this up.

I have one close friend who is a Mets fan and hates the fact that I look at them objectively rather than with the passion he does. That's cool, it makes for some lively debates. The bottom line is that New York's farm system isn't very good but I will give them credit when they deserve it.

By the way, Binghamton's .400 club is coming back down to earth. Mike Carp, Nick Evans and Dan Murphy have all seen their averages settle back down. Carp is hitting .256 over his last 10 games and is now at .376 for the season. That's still spectacular but not nearly as eye-popping as being over .400. Murphy is hitting .244 over his last 10 games (.358 overall) while Evans is hitting .205 over that stretch (.326 overall).

One player up in Bingo that's beginning to heat up is Fernando Martinez. The player that many consider to be New York's only legit prospect is hitting .326 over his last 10 games and after a rough start has his average up to .269 but is looking more comfortable. Let's hope the Mets don't do anything dumb and call him up to New York to fill in for an injured Moises Alou. That would retard the kid's development and probably kill his confidence.

Out West, how can you not like what's going on in Salt Lake City. The Bees have won 13 in a row, are 21-1 and are clearly the class of the Minor Leagues. They lead the Pacific Coast League in hitting (.317) and team ERA (3.21). Nick Adenhart has been a terror on the mound, going 4-0 with a 0.87 ERA. He hasn't allowed a homer in 31 innings and has held the opposition to a .170 average and is emphatically proving that he has nothing left to prove in the Minor Leagues.

Third baseman Matthew Brown continues to remain unconscious at the plate. He's second in the league in hitting at .429 (Can you believe Terry Tiffee is hitting .483 for Vegas?) Brown is tied for second in the league with 21 RBIs, is second with 42 hits, is first with 25 runs scored and second with a .776 slugging percentage.

One last pitching note this morning. Lakeland's Rick Porcello has lost four consecutive starts and is 1-4 in the Florida State League. But, he has a 2.13 ERA and has held the opposition to a .181 average. Those numbers are clearly more important than his won-loss record and certainly more indicative of why this kid will at least be in Erie before the end of the year.

A quick look at the Midwest League and the most glaring thing I see is the fact that Mike Moustakas, Kansas City's top pick, is still struggling. He was hitting .193 through 15 games. He didn't have a homer and had driven in only one run. It's got to be frustrating for the kid who was a high school run producer in California. He had one stretch last week where he was five-for-11 and it appeared as if he were ready to break out. But he's gone one-for-17 since.

I don't have any inside info but I wouldn't be surprised if they send him back to a short-season league once June rolls around if he's still struggling. There's no shame in that and if he can fatten up against some high school pitchers; it might do a world of good for his confidence.

Here's a leftover item from the Harrisburg trip from which I recently returned. I spoke to Erie's Jeff Frazier - there will be a feature on him in Friday's Farm's Almanac - but I had a little item that didn't fit into the story. Frazier, it seems, is quite the ping pong player, a fact he is waiting to spring on his teammates.

"I'm a crazy ping-pong player," he said. "We had a table at home and my brothers and I were super competitive. No one can come close to beating me. I love to play and I'm pretty darn good at it. Whenever there's a table around, the game is on. My teammates don't know yet but we're going to go at it for sure."

In other Harrisburg news, scuttlebutt around the Senators is that they should have a new pitcher on staff within the next few days. Washington is going to bump Jordan Zimmerman up from Potomac after he's completely dominated the Carolina League. Zimmerman, a Division-III star at Wisconsin-Stevens Point before the Nats chose him in the second round last year, is 2-0 with a save and a 0.61 ERA in three games (two starts) for Potomac. He's fanned 18 and held the opposition to a .128 batting average. He was 5-2 with a 2.38 ERA in 13 games (11 starts) last year for Vermont in the New York-Penn League.

Zimmerman is hot stuff and should be able to make the move to the Eastern League with relative ease. Don't be surprised if he is just using Harrisburg as a stopover to Columbus. The Nats aren't shy about pushing their prospects and Zimmerman has the stuff to handle being force-fed.

One last note, my Ecuadorian friend, Diego Arcos, tells me that Tommy Hanson, the Atlanta stud that's tearing up the Carolina League at Myrtle Beach, played a season in Ecuador. That's his info, not mine, but if it's true, it's cool. The subject came up when Arcos noted that Seattle has Alfredo Venegas in its system, making him the first player from Ecuador to ever sign a contract with a Major League franchise.

Well, I'm in Harrisburg today (no jokes please, the ballpark was funny enough) and I had the chance to talk with several folks, including Andrew Lefave, the first baseman whom the Nationals acquired last September from Milwaukee in the Ray King deal. It was a bit surprising that the Brewers let Lefave go as the player-to-be named later in that deal simply because he had just hit .345 for West Virginia of he South Atlantic League.

In fact, coming into this year, Lefave's career batting was .347, tops among all active Minor Leaguers with at least 500 career at-bats. (Thanks to MLB.com honcho Jason Ratliff for that bit of info).

But maybe the Brewers knew something everyone else didn't because Lefave has gotten off to a rocky start with Harrisburg. He was hitting .195 with seven RBIs and a .292 OBP heading into Tuesday night's action against Erie. Those are miserable numbers by any stretch of the imagination and Lefave knows it.

But let's be fair. He's making the jump from low-A ball to Double-A and the pitching and the pressures are a lot different than they would be had he stopped in either the Florida State or Carolina Leagues, as the seemingly natural order of progression would have taken him. I give Lefave credit, though. He was out there at noon today taking extra batting practice with SS Ian Desmond and hitting coach Troy Gingrich. And it wasn't just a few swings kind of thing. The trio were out there for nearly an hour, some six hours before game time.

"I pretty much have the basis for a fairly decent swing," Lefave said. "I'm not used to a start like this. But we have a great team and hitting is contagious. It really makes it easier to hit when you have a few guys who are hitting.

"It's definitely a big jump in level, though. The pitchers in the lower levels are still establishing their fastball command. Here, they aren't afraid to throw a slider on a full count. Here, the fastballs are established and the pitchers are into their arsenals. I'm not to worried, though, because Troy and I are working on my swing."

Lefave did admit that he was surprised the Nats sent him to Harrisburg rather than Potomac. But, he said the same thing happened last year with Milwaukee.

"I thought they were going to send me to Helena [in the Pioneer League] and they sent me to low-A," said Lefave, who signed with the Brewers as an un-drafted free agent. "The Nationals had confidence enough to put me here. They think I can play here."

The bottom line, however, is that if Lefave doesn't hit, he'll be heading a few miles south to Potomac before long. He seemed like a real nice guy and we talked for about 20 minutes about traveling around the country, seeing different ballparks and different areas. He's from the Pacific Northwest, which is a terrific area between Seattle and the Canadian border.

He said that he liked Harrisburg and that the field here was "a great surface". While that may be the case, I didn't share his sentiments. The park was run down and old and not in a nostalgic, nice to be there way like in Reading. They need a need park here and in a hurry. The Nats have some great prospects coming up through the system and they deserve a better place to play.

One final thought, by the way, there is a constant smell of manure in the air here. I know we're near a lot of farmland but this city stinks.

See you later in the week.

I think Tommy Hanson has proven that he can handle the Carolina League. Now, I'm not sitting in the Braves front office or anything but if this kid has another start or two along the lines of the four he's already had, it will be time to move him up to the Southern League.

Hanson is 2-0 through four starts with Myrtle Beach. He's allowed an unearned run in 22 innings, held the opposition to a 0.71 batting average while striking out 32 and walking only six. The numbers are hard to ignore. He may be the best pitcher in the Minor Leagues at the moment and the folks in Atlanta would probably benefit from pumping him up and making him a poster boy of sorts for doing it the right way after the Jordan Schafer debacle earlier this month.

San Antonio's Will Inman had his start pushed up a day in the Texas League and didn't figure in the decision in a victory over Midland. He did, however, allow his first earned runs of the season, giving up three in 6 1/3. His ERA through four starts is 1.35. He's looked much better this season than he did after coming over from Milwaukee and some of the people with whom I spoke in San Diego are much more impressed with him now then they were seven months ago.

Staying in Double-A, Binghamton's Mike Carp continues to destroy Eastern League pitching and you have to wonder when will the Mets bump him up to Triple-A New Orleans. He's hitting .446. He's riding a 13-game hitting streak and has clearly made all the requisite adjustments in his second season at Double-A. Considering how thread bare New York's system is, it might be nice to see if he can handle Pacific Coast League pitching. The Mets are going to need a first baseman soon enough, the rapidly declining Carlos Delgado isn't going to be around forever, and Carp may be the answer.

Whether he can turn into another Mike Jacobs, a New York product that has done well in Miami, is another question. He struggled last year in Double-A after an impressive Spring Training with the parent club but that was due mostly to an injury and over compensation when he returned. He worked out a few things by using video during the Arizona Fall League and that seems to have carried over into this season.

I'm down on the Mets' farm system, it's awful, and that's no secret. But I'd love to see Carp make it and prove me wrong. He's a good guy and deserves the chance.

Believe it or not, Carp isn't leading the Minor Leagues or the Eastern League in hitting. Las Vegas' Terry Tiffee is leading the Minors with a .508 through 17 games, which is simply amazing. The 29-year-old journeyman infielder is off to a blazing start. Maybe it will earn him a spot on the bench in L.A. Portland's Luis Rodriguez is second in the Pacific Coast league and the Minors in hitting at .465 while New Hampshire's Scott Campbell leads the Eastern League with a .460 average.

And one final note this week, I received an e-mail from reader Diego Arcos. He points out that in my Seattle organizational preview, which ran last month, that I failed to mention Alfredo Venegas. The theme of the story was that the Mariners have put together a real international smorgasbord with players from all over the globe dotting their Minor League system. I failed to mention Venegas, who is from Ecuador - Arcos claims he is the first Ecuadorian to ever play affiliated ball - not because I didn't think he was worth mentioning but simply because I didn't know of his existence.

Well, here's to giving Venegas his props. As of Monday morning, he had appeared in one game for High Desert of the Cal League, allowing two earned runs in 3 2/3 innings against Inland Empire on Saturday. He was 4-5 with a 5.12 ERA in 14 games (12 starts) last season in the Arizona, Northwest and Cal Leagues.

Lest anyone think I care more for the lower levels than the upper, here are some Triple-A thoughts as the week winds down. Let's start in Oklahoma City where Jarrod Saltalamacchia is off to a hot start with the RedHawks, apparently showing no signs of brooding after his demotion last month. Salty got another hit Wednesday night in a 3-2 loss to Round Rock and is hitting .325 overall in 11 games with a pair of homers and nine RBIs. He's hit safely in nine of those 11 games and is, at least for the moment, producing the way the Rangers hoped he would when they sent him back to Triple-A. He also hasn't had to break out the first baseman's mitt yet, catching all 11 games.

Salty's teammate Nelson Cruz saw his six-game hitting streak snapped Wednesday night. Still, he's hitting .313 and has just four strikeouts in 32 at-bats. In case you're checking, that's a big improvement from the 121 whiffs he had last year while splitting time between Texas and Oklahoma City.

Let's stay in the Pacific Coast League since that venerable circuit gets so little love in these parts [I live in New York]. Memphis' Colby Rasmus is off to a putrid start after getting a ton of Spring Training hype, from me and just about everyone else. He's hitting .087 [three-for-37] in his last 10 games and is hitting .179 overall. His OBP is .288 and he has only four RBIs. Rasmus was pretty much an all-everything last season at Springfield but doesn't seem to have found a groove yet in the PCL. It's still very early but we're coming up on the end of the first month of the season and it would be nice to see him at The Mendoza Line at the very least.

Right-handed reliever and former catcher Jason Motte is off to a great start for Memphis, picking up right where he left off a year ago. Motte hasn't allowed a run in 6 2/3 innings over six appearances, struck out 10 and limited the opposition to a .130 batting average. He was 4-3 with 11 saves and a 1.98 ERA while splitting time last year between Palm Beach and Springfield so this was expected. I'm curious to see how long it will be before the parent club comes calling.

Sacramento blanked Tucson again Wednesday for its second consecutive shutout. River Cat pitchers have now thrown 23 consecutive shutout innings. Dan Meyer was the big arm this time around, going six innings at Raley Field. Meyer is still working on a pitch count (80) because this was only his second start after having his appendix removed near the end of Spring Training. If he keeps pitching like that, perhaps he'll consider having another organ removed.

There was also a real pitcher's duel last night in Salt Lake City with the Bees squeaking by Las Vegas, 1-0. Shane Loux earned the win and is 3-0 with a 0.46 ERA in three starts. He hasn't allowed a run in 14 innings and has now beaten Vegas twice this season. Loux is a former second-round pick by the Tigers (1997) who hasn't pitched since 2006 when he was with Omaha. He has 14 games of big-league experience with Detroit. He missed all of 2005 after Tommy John surgery and didn't pitch anywhere last year, serving instead as a high school baseball coach after he couldn't come to terms on a contract with the Mariners. He has journeyman written all over him but hey, it could prove to be a nice story and he might be able to help the Angels at some point if he keeps pitching like this. FYI, Salt Lake won its fourth straight.

One last PCL point, Portland's Chase Headley isn't off to a rousing start but things are looking up. He's hitting .245 after Wednesday's game against Colorado Springs, during which he extended his hitting streak to five games. He's hitting .318 [seven-for-22] during the streak. Teammate Max Venable started out hot and has remained that way, hitting .356 with eight RBIs in 12 games.

Catch up with you later in the week.