Is it Wood's time?

After placing pitcher Kevin Jepsen on the 15 day DL, the Angels have called up longtime super prospect Brandon Wood. Wood has seen major league action in each of the past 2 seasons with little success, but long has be considered a future power hitting SS.

Wood, 24, was ranked the #1 prospect in the Angels system from 06-08 by Baseball America and may have been this year as well if he didn't lose prospect eligibility last year by picking up 157 plate appearances at the major league level. Wood of course had one of the great minor league seasons of all time for a shortstop in 2005 blasting 43 homers to go along with 51 doubles and 4 triples, totaling 98 extra base hits while putting up a 321/383/672 line. Since then his star has faded a bit as he has failed to put up the same type of video game numbers in the minors and has compiled just a 191/212/317 line in 190 plate appearances at the big league level. He's off to a great start at AAA this year hitting 346/433/923 with 4 homers through seven games. So what should we expect from him this time out?

Despite the overall suckiness of his major league line there are two main reasons for hope. The first is sample size, 190 plate appearances spread across two seasons is not a convincing data set. The second is that while he did not produce with the bat at the majors last year, there was improvement from 07. Although his IsoP stayed almost exactly the same, his OBP rose 72 points and his K rate dropped from 36.4% to 28.7%. Add this to the fact that he has maintained a walk rate of just north of 10% in the minors and it starts to look like his talent might be peeking through just the tiniest bit. Although the K rate is still high, it does fall within his 26.3% K rate at AAA last season. Additionally, he was able to raise his LD% from 9.5 to 14% while reducing his groundball rate. More line drives means more extra base hits and more patience equals swinging at better pitches. Wood's overall numbers at AAA were significantly improved over 07 as well as he gained 135 points of OPS and 75 points of IsoP.

The overall picture of Wood is one of improvement from 07-08, both at the minor and major league level suggesting he's as ready as he's going to get. At this point he needs to play every day in the majors to prove whether he can make the jump. Vlad's DL trip will open up an OF/DH spot and the Angels would be wise to use this time to give Wood a legit chance at earning a full time spot on their roster. Maicer Izturis and Erik Aybar are nice little players, but Wood has the very real chance of becoming a 35 homer monster with solid on base skills. For an Angels team lacking offense even with a healthy Vlad, this should be a no brainer but we have seen teams do stranger things than favor the light hitting scrappy player over the strikeout prone slugger. Here's hoping he gets his shot.

***UPDATE 4/27/09***
It appears as though Mike Sciossa continues to hate on Brandon Wood as he's gotten just one start and 5 total plate appearances since being called up. He's gone 1-5 and is rapidly losing all trade values as the Angels seem to be practically screaming "WE DON'T BELIEVE IN YOU!". I mean at this point they may as well trade him for Russ Ohlendorf or Shawn Hill.
It might be time to start up a free Brandon Wood website.