Nick Castellanos' Plate Discipline

Nick Castellanos was ranked as the 21st best prospect in baseball before the start of the 2013 season by Baseball America and for the last three seasons has been ranked as the best hitter for average in the Tigers' system. However, my odds system didn't like him very much, ranking him at 272nd (just above Cale Iorg, who the Tigers would release in spring training) overall, and 51st when looking just at the odds (just the offensive component). For his career, he has walked just 7.48 % of the time, striking out nearly three times as much as he has walked, with just 21 career homers (1.52%). To get a better look at his plate discipline, I watched his at-bats in his series in Durham on April 23-26th (as the feed has a broadcast radar gun and good quality in general). The game on the 24th didn't have the quality broadcast though, and the archived version cut off his first at-bat on the 23rd, so I only ended up with 52 pitches, which really isn't enough to make any real judgments about. So I will just show you the data below, sorted from first pitch logged until his last at-bat in the series, and then make a couple of observations (the formatting doesn't even up well, sorry about that):

Velo    Location    In Strike Zone    Class    Result
87    Low and Away    Yes    Fastball     Flyball
76    Low and Away    Yes    Breaking    Called Strike
76    Up and In    No    Breaking    Ball
84    Low and In    No    Offspeed    Flyball
87    Up and In    No    Fastball     Flyball (Homer)
93    Low and Away    Yes    Fastball     Called Strike
93    Middle Up    Yes    Fastball     Foul
93    Up and Away    No    Fastball     Ball
93    Low and Away    Yes    Fastball     Called Strike
94    Middle In    Yes    Fastball    Foul
98    Middle Middle    Yes    Fastball    Called Strike
97    Low and Away    No    Fastball    Ball
97    Low and Away    No    Fastball    Ball
95    Middle In    No    Fastball    Groundball
81    Low and In     No    Offspeed    Whiff
95    Middle Up    No    Fastball    Whiff
95    Middle Up    No    Fastball    Ball
84    Low and In    Yes    Offspeed    Foul
86    Low and Away    No    Breaking    Whiff
95    Middle In    No    Fastball    Ball
83    Middle Low    No    Offspeed    Ball
95    Middle In    No    Fastball    Foul
87    Middle Low    No    Breaking    Whiff
86    Low and In    No    Offspeed    Ball
86    Middle Middle    Yes    Breaking    Foul
95    Low and In    No    Fastball    Ball
83    Low and Away    No    Breaking    Whiff
83    Low and Away    No    Breaking    Ball
92    Low and Away    No    Fastball    Ball
82    Low Middle    No    Breaking    Ball
80    Low and Away    Yes    Offspeed    Strike
90    Low Middle    No    Fastball    Ball
81    Up and In    Yes    Breaking    Groundball
81    Middle Middle    Yes    Offspeed    Groundball
92    Middle In    No    Fastball    Ball
93    Middle Up    No    Fastball    Whiff
92    Middle Middle    Yes    Fastball    Whiff
84    Middle Middle     Yes    Offspeed    Flyball
92    Low and In    Yes    Fastball    Foul
88    High and Away    No    Fastball    Foul
92    Low and In    No    Fastball    Ball
92    High and In    No    Fastball    Whiff
89    Middle Up    Yes    Fastball    Groundball
95    Middle Middle    Yes    Fastball    Foul
96    High and In    No    Fastball    Ball
97    Middle In    No    Fastball    Ball
97    Middle Up    No    Fastball    Flyball (Homer)
95    Middle In    Yes    Fastball    Called Strike
96    Middle In    No    Fastball    Ball
82    Low and Away    No    Breaking    Whiff (check swing)
82    Low and Away    No    Breaking    Ball
96    Low and Away    No    Fastball    Whiff

Castellanos has hit 4 homers all year, and 3 of them were in that series (only 2 of them in at-bats charted though). Both of them were fastballs up (one at 87 and one at 97 MPH). There was no one spot where he consistently whiffed, but all but one of them were on pitches outside of the strike zone.

We also get some help from Minor League Central, who break down some plate discipline numbers pulled from MiLB's Gameday. So far this season, he is seeing just 3.56 pitches per plate appearance, well below the International League average of 3.84. He is seeing strikes over 2 percent more than average, showing that pitchers don't seem to be scared of his power, but he is at least making them throw strikes. His swing percentage is way above average and his contact percentage well below average. Trusting zone/outside zone swings is a little tricky because they are done by human stringers (just like me judging if a pitch was or wasn't in the strike zone), but according to that data, he is swinging at more pitches in the zone than average, and less out of the zone than average. His power numbers, both on percentage by contact and by fly-ball, are well below league average.

It should be noted of course, that Castellanos is the 2nd youngest hitter in the International League. He is even younger than Wil Myers and has a similar OPS. According to Baseball Reference, Castellanos has not yet faced a pitcher that is younger than him, so the very fact that he is holding his own so far probably means something. The problem is, I am not sure what it means. Throughout the minors, Castellanos' offensive value has mainly been through high averages driven by high BABIPs. He doesn't have great speed, and while he is large, he doesn't have good power, so it is unlikely he is just hitting the ball too hard for minor league fielders to field. To me, he doesn't have a diverse enough set of skills to be considered a great prospect. He doesn't field exceptionally well or have great positional value, he doesn't run hardly at all, and he doesn't walk or hit for power. If you think he is going to succeed as a Major League player, you have to believe that he is going to continue to hit for high averages with high BABIPs (or develop power with his size, which I think is actually more likely).