Corey Dickerson's Cup of Coffee

The Rockies sent Corey Dickerson back to the minors after a short stint with the club. Dickerson was the hottest hitter in the PCL prior to his callup, but struggled in his short stint with the Rockies. Dickerson had always put up good numbers, but was never rated as a high prospect (he didn't even appear in Baseball America's top 30 after 2011, 12th best in the system that seemed somewhat barren after 2012).

What I find fascinating about Dickerson's time in the Majors is how many pitches he saw per plate appearance, 4.59, an absurd number. Even though he struck out in 12 of his 39 plate appearances, it didn't seem to be because of a lack of patience, as he walked 5 times as well and saw that many pitches. However, he did swing through too many pitches and swung at more pitches out of the zone. Clearly there is a lot of small sample size noise, but the past couple of years in the minors he has been mostly a low walk and low strikeout guy. This data made me really interested in his plate discipline, so first I took a look at the pitches Dickerson saw but didn't swing at:

Dickerson is a left-handed hitter, so we saw a congregation of pitches high in the zone, along with the biggest group of pitches outside off the plate. By contrast, here are the pitches Dickerson swung at in the Majors:

Obviously a lot more pitches in the zone, getting some in and low, but most of them coming on the outside of the plate (which, when we look at his average locations below, I think we will see why). It does look like he will chase some high fastballs, especially if you get them in. For a more clear look, here are the average locations of his swings and takes, along with his contact and whiffs (and the average location he has been pitched at on a whole)

Dickerson appears to be one of the more absurd low ball hitters I have ever seen. Perhaps this is why he didn't hit a homer despite playing at Coors, but he had a decent home run rate in the minors (4.7 %, though Colorado's system is flooded with hitter friendly parks), and did hit 4 doubles. His whiffs were a little lower than his average pitch seen, but it, along with all the swings at fastballs high out of the zone, made me wonder if he was having some problems with fastballs or velocity in general.

He has swung and missed at a lot of these pitches (10 out of 64), mainly missing away, low and in, or up and in. He really struggled to put these pitches in play.

The approach does seem good however, as he seems to like the low ball, so he swung at pitches that were generally lower, and made pitchers come inside on him so he could get pitches he could reach.

Here are the pitches Dickerson made contact with, labelled with what position he hit the ball to:

Not a lot of data, but he went up the middle with a lot of pitches low and away. He pulled most of the balls in, but had some problems pulling some of the pitches outside.

Overall, I think he has the approach to succeed in the Majors, but I wonder if he has the bat speed and the talent. The struggles against fastballs are really bothersome. There is probably a reason scouting sites didn't rate him highly despite the good numbers, as perhaps he has a good plan, just not the tools to execute it.

Examining Domonic Brown's 2013

Domonic Brown was one of the best prospects in baseball, in fact, according to Baseball America, he was the 4th best prospect in baseball in 2011, where he would split the year between AAA and the Majors (he debuted in 2010). It was the 3rd straight year that Baseball America considered him one of the top 50 prospects in baseball (starting in 2009, after he spent 2008 in A-ball). However, from 2010-2012 Brown had an 89 OPS+ in the big leagues in 492 plate appearances with a .269 BABIP. Along with defense that rated poorly, Brown looked like he was a high profile bust. However, so far this year, he has a 130 OPS + with a .281 BABIP in 331 plate appearances (all numbers are before Wednesday, where Brown hit another homer, this time on Jason Grilli).

The OBP actually isn't much different (.315 to .320), so we wouldn't expect to see a different swing map:

The difference for Brown is power, and one of the reasons may be that he is swinging at pitches that are higher in the zone, meaning (even though the average velocity is a little lower) he is swinging at less pitches low in the zone.

His whiffs are no different in location so far this year (though they are on slightly slower pitches so far this year), but his contact shows a lot of the changes we have saw with the average swing.

 His plate coverage seems to be a little better, and he is swinging at and having more success on higher pitches. 


When looking at hot starts or good stretches, even if they are over a long period of time and don't appear to be BABIP related, we need to get context when it comes to average pitch location and release points

So really on average he is seeing pitches in the same location, but he is actually seeing slightly slower pitches this year. He is also seeing more pitchers that are either closer to the center of the rubber or left-handed, which we would expect to make him worse. We would also expect slower pitches to make him worse as well since his contact is coming on harder pitches than his whiffs, but apparently it isn't. It is not that he is swinging at less pitches out of the zone or less pitches in general, he is actually swinging at more pitches both in and out of the zone. This explains the real lack of OBP difference, but what about the raw bat speed or ability to hit elite pitches?

On pitches over 95 MPH +:

2013: 6.05 %, 8 swinging strikes, 13 contact plays
Pre-2013: 4.9 %, 13 swinging strikes, 19 contact plays

So he is seeing more high velocity pitches, but his ratio is a little worse so far this year. It doesn't seem that he has all the sudden gained any kind of talent. The data still seems to support the idea that he is directing his swings on pitches that are more up in the zone, an approach change (since he isn't being pitched higher on average).

Since the change has been in power (his average batted ball distance is about 10 feet higher), it is I think important to look at where he is hitting the ball. To do this, here are all the pitches Brown has made contact with (in fair territory) in 2013 in the strike zone, labelled with where the ball went:

Not only does the 2013 graph show that he doesn't like or doesn't make contact with hardly any low pitches, he is also an extreme pull hitter. He is pulling a lot of pitches that are on the outside part of the zone. Here are the balls Brown made contact with before the 2013 season:

This year overall, he is pulling more balls, using the middle of the field the same amount, but going the other way less than he was before 2013. The chart shows that Brown was pulling everything on the inside part of the plate before 2013 as well, and was still pulling a lot of the balls on the outside of the plate. Just looking at the charts, I don't think you can really see a big difference of any kind.

This means that we have, from what I can see, two choices. 1. Brown's half of season is fluky, and his real talent level is closer to his pre-2013 numbers rather than the future star many prospect evaluators had him labelled as. 2. Brown's approach change to just swing at higher pitches on average (or, to just swing at more higher pitches since he doesn't have an improved swing rate) have caused him to bring out his natural strength. I don't think the data gives us much wiggle room beyond the two choices. Perhaps it could be a mixture of the two, as his 24.4 HR/FB % probably isn't real, though he is hitting less grounders (which I think supports option 2), and he will regress some, but the slight approach change has helped him hit for more power.

Jen-Ho Tseng Scouting Report

Jen-Ho Tseng is considered one of the better international prospects in this year's July 2 international signing class. An 18 year old (turns 19 in October) right-handed Taiwanese pitcher, he was on the WBC roster for Taiwan and made an appearance. According to scouting reports, he has a fastball that has gotten up to 95 MPH, an okay slider, and a good curve, that has also been described as a knuckle curve. There seem to be quite a few good videos of him online, and that is where much of my information about Tseng comes from. Many of the hyperlinks in this post are videos on Tseng (as I tried to give credit to the ones I gleaned information from).

From field level, he certainly looks like he has good enough size. It doesn't look like he will fill out much more though (David, @Yankeesource, notes that he is already physically mature and thinks the stuff is big league stuff, but he doesn't really have projection). He's 6-1, which is okay height for a starter, but probably below MLB average.

The Hiroki Kuroda comps are stupid, especially since he doesn't throw a splitter, and Kuroda is one of the best pitchers in baseball (also, Tseng might throw harder). The delivery seems to be somewhat similar, but Tseng's pause seems more dramatic. There seems to be some deception as he turns his back somewhat to the hitter for a split second. A good sideview of his mechanics shows us that he isn't really doing anything we haven't seen before.

His fastball isn't flat or straight, moving somewhat like a two seamer. He evidently has a tendency to yank it quite a bit, but seems to work both sides of the plate with it (two seamers are usually thrown more arm side than 4-seamers). However, in centerfield camera shots, it is pretty clear that it is more of a 4-seamer, just with some movement and an ability to get on top of it well. It does look like he has a separate sinker.

Everywhere you look when it comes to reports on Tseng mentions the same 95 MPH he hit in an event in 2012. While that is impressive and makes him a big league prospect, I am much more interested in where he sits normally than what he hit in one outing. There are reports of him throwing 94 MPH back in 2011 as well and we see him throwing 93 MPH here, so in all likelihood, we are talking about a big league fastball. Ben Badler's report has him throwing 89-92 MPH on average. in 2012, but noting a velocity drop in outings in 2013. In fact, he looked pretty bad in the WBC, both by command and velocity. Whether this is arm problems or just problems with the ball (like we saw with Kenta Maeda) is impossible to tell.

Badler also notes that his best pitch is a changeup, something the Wikipedia pages have him throwing, but something the MLB.com scouting report omits completely (and admittedly, something I didn't see a lot in videos) . You can see why the change is rated highly, as it looks somewhat like the fastball before breaking arm side quite a bit. Control of it seems to be an issue, but it could be a plus pitch.

The curve at times looks like a knucklecurve (as opposed to a more traditional curve or a 12-6 curve), with slow break to the glove side. At other times, it looks more like a big 12-6, clocking in the high 70s according to the radar gun (but it looks slower). From what I saw, this was his best off-speed pitch and he could throw it for strikes. His slider is also in the high 70s and up to the low 80s, and is the more of the baby slider you usually see in the Far East, a slider more focused on going down than sweeping, thrown usually for strikes, and one that is thrown to both lefties and righties.

What his velocity actually is seems to be a question, and makes him hard to judge. If it is the good velocities that we saw in the 2012 videos, he is a good MLB prospect. If it is what we saw in the WBC, he is pretty fringy.
How he has been used in the past is a question that is very important and would be worth researching for interested teams. Amateur baseball across the glove is notorious for high pitch counts, which isn't always good on a young arm. Could a high usage have caught up to him and caused a terrible spring? Could it have lead to a permanent loss in velocity? How the pitcher has been used as far as pitch counts and days of rest goes would be something teams would probably have at least a general idea about, more than I have to go on. I think a physical for Tseng would be very interesting and important for how much money he should get as a bonus.

Making comparisons are difficult, because most Asian pitchers have approaches, deliveries, and pitches (for example, his slider is much different than most sliders you see in the States, and he seems to use his curveball the way you see in the NPB, as a get me over strike pitch to mix in like a regular pitch, while most MLB pitchers use it relatively sparingly and as a put away pitch) you usually don't see in the United States outside of pitchers originally from Asia. This makes most comps impossible or racially lazy (like the Kuroda comparison). While I am not crazy about comps, I like comps when it comes to a pitcher's stuff, but I think for Tseng, it is best to just not make a comp. What his ceiling is depends on fastball velocity. He has other pitches that look like big league pitches and it looks like he can command, so if the fastball velocity is there, he could be a very good prospect.

Behind Sean Nolin's Bad Start

The Toronto Blue Jays turned to 23 year old lefty Sean Nolin to make a spot start for the big league team earlier in the week. A 6th round pick in 2010 out of college, Nolin was ranked as the Jays 19th best prospect by Baseball America to start the year, and 9th in the system by FanGraphs' Marc Hulet. His big league debut didn't go well, to say the least, as he recorded just 4 outs, striking out none, and gave up 6 runs.

Nolin is a large pitcher, listed at 6-5, 235. Here is his release point, along with all the locations of his pitches:

Nolin's average release point is probably closest to Joe Saunders (Mark Hendrickson and Clayton Kershaw are sort of close). He definitely had some problems repeating it in his outing, mainly in a horizontal way, probably meaning he was standing on the rubber slightly different for some of the outing (in the homer we will look at below, we will see that he is standing in the center of the rubber). The height seems fine, so I don't think it is a huge concern. What does seem concerning is how much he threw the ball arm side. When he did go glove side, it was almost always way off the plate. Using the MLBAM tags, here is what his average strike zone looks like:

The slider and cutter were thrown arm side (as they usually are), but everything else is pretty extreme arm side. We are using the MLBAM tags for him in this post, but as his spin and speed chart shows, they are demonstrably wrong on some pitches:

There seems to be some confusion between the slider and the cutter, and whether he has a changeup or a moving fastball (at that velocity difference, especially with it being that demonstrably separated, it almost has to be a change).

Obviously he was hit around in his start, so let's look at his locations on pitches that were hit for hits or run scoring plays (technically the in play, no outs designation and the in play, runs designation):

The two well located curves are interesting and raise some questions. One was a single, which could be luck, while the other one was a home run, which is a little less likely to be the result of randomness or luck. The homer was given up to right-handed hitter J.J. Hardy, who isn't especially good at hitting balls low, but is good at hitting breaking balls low, at least much better than league average. You can see the homer here, it was on an 0-2 count and the pitch was nearly in the dirt, and Hardy somehow manages to pull it for a homer. At 74 MPH (most likely about 72 MPH in Toronto), it isn't especially slow, but maybe slow enough to adjust to.

Mechanically, Nolin uses a pretty high leg kick to try to hide the ball, doesn't have great posture at time of delivery, not really twisting his back, but appearing to be very low and not upright. His arm angle comes up above his body, like this:

One would think that this negates anything the leg kick does (other than just making it a timing device) in providing deception, as it seems like he lets hitters see the ball more than a traditional delivery would. The head tilt is obvious, perhaps why he pulled a few of the balls, but again he threw mainly arm side, suggesting he was having more of a problem finishing his delivery.

The first conclusion is pretty obvious, Nolin wasn't ready for the big leagues and probably shouldn't have started that game. If we adjust for Toronto's apparent velocity friendly radar gun, his fastball seems to be a little below average, with some kind of cutter/slider, a change, and a curve that apparently isn't very effective. It can be tricky to make pronouncements on a player's future based on the data of one bad game, but the stuff looks pretty vanilla overall. Perhaps Nolin can be a back end starter in the somewhat near future, but he doesn't look like a real impact starting pitcher.

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).

A Pitch F/X Look at John Gast

With the injury to Jake Westbrook, the Cardinals brought up John Gast to make a start for the big league team, and over 6 innings he performed reasonably well, with 3 strikeouts and a walk, earning another start in the big leagues. Gast was picked in the 6th round out of college by the Cardinals, and was their 13th best prospect (according to Baseball America) by the end of the year (he had slipped to number 26 by 2012). This was his first Pitch F/X game, so let's look at Gast and see if he is someone who can stick in the big leagues long term as a starter.

First let's look at his release point in graph form:

Gast's average release point was 2.91 horizontally and 6.34 vertically, which compares almost exactly to Andrew Miller as a starter. As you will see, Gast doesn't have really anything else in common with Miller, especially when it comes to stuff and control.

Here is where Gast was throwing the ball, his strike zone with the official results of each pitch:

 It seems that he threw the majority of the pitches inside to righties/away from lefties, what you would call glove side. He mostly avoided the center of the plate, working the corners, and he worked the high part of the plate probably more than he worked in the low part of the plate.

Here is what his stuff looks like via his spin and speed chart:

Obviously he isn't any kind of hard thrower, with just a couple pitches over 91 MPH. I see 4 different kind of pitches here, so this is how I broke down his pitches, along with the average MPH, and the closest comparison out of left-handed starters in the Pitch F/X era.

47 Fastballs: 88.38 MPH, Dallas Braden

3 Cutters: 83.12 MPH, Bruce Chen

5 Curves: 73.46 MPH, James Russell

16 Changeups: 79.4 MPH, Mark Buerhle

As a prospect, Gast was known for his changeup, as it ranked the best in the system after 2011. Braden's cutter was also very close to Gast's in velocity, but Braden's curve is harder and his change much softer. Jason Vargas also hovered close on some of the pitches, which would make some sense, as Vargas is a cutter and changeup heavy pitcher.

So the stuff is obviously below average, but you have to like where his pitch comparisons look like, as he compares to some other successful soft-tossing lefties.

These are the average locations of each one of his pitches, basically where each pitch is usually going to end up:

He goes glove side with his fastball and his cutter, and arm side with his change, throwing his curveball straight down. This is the again what you might call the Jason Vargas approach, throwing fastballs and cutters into righties, trying to jam them even with bad velocity (which is a big reason Vargas is so homer prone, as many get left over the plate at 86-88 MPH), and then throwing the changeup away from them.

The problem with determining whether or not Gast will be a successful starter or not is that we still haven't really seen why some of the well below average fastball lefties are successful and some are not. If it really is the curveball/changeup usage distinction, then we would not expect Gast to be successful. I just don't know how much I buy into that distinction.

How Predictive is "Best Infield Defense"?

Recently, I have been going through old Baseball America organizational top 10s and looking at the predictability for MLB success of the best tool sections. I saw that fastballs and curveballs were the most predictive for pitchers, and that "Best Athletes" was more predictive than "Fastest Baserunner" or minor league speed score. Here, I am looking at infield defense, using the Baseball America's organization top 10s from 2006-2009 (some are missing because site format changes makes it harder to find them all). I looked at both "Best Infield Defense" and "Best Infield Arm". I then looked at their results in the Majors using Baseball Reference's WAA (wins above average) and the major publicly available defensive metrics. The MLB defense section is (MLB career) DRS + UZR +FRAA divided by 3.
For some reason, since Josh Lansford eventually changed to a pitcher, Baseball Prospectus doesn't carry his FRAA data from the minors. The same thing happened with Matt Bush, Sergio Santos, Jerry Gil, Jairo de la Rosa, and Van Pope.
Just like I tried to do (and failed) with Speed Score in the Baserunning post, I wanted to see if we could find a statistical alternative that was more predictive than Baseball America's lists. This is difficult to do, since there isn't leaderboards for these kind of things, but we used to have RTZ data (Total Zone Fielding Runs Above Average, which was calculated by baseballprojection.com), and we still have FRAA and Range Factor.
So I looked at 2008, went through every full season league (A-ball to AAA), found every 2nd baseman and shortstop that played at least 70 games, put in their respective defensive metrics, and then their MLB numbers (if they made it), both their defensive (as done above) and their WAA. You will notice that some don't have FRAAs, especially a few players that didn't make the Majors, that is because of BP errors (the most common one being they were classified as pitchers, and they didn't have their position player stats).

First, the results of the Baseball America players:
51 of the 80 top infield arm players made the Majors. They had an average WAA of .45 and average MLB defense of .33
57 of the top 80 top defensive infielders made the Majors. They had an average WAA of -.23 and average MLB defense of .71
We would certainly expect the defensive players to be better and more certain of making the Majors than the players with strong arms. Strangely, the latter was true, but the stronger arm players were above average in the Majors, while the defensive players were below average (a lot of this probably has to do with Ryan Braun). Comparing them to the speed players, both the arm and defensive infielders made the Majors at a higher percentage, but the speed/athletic players that did make the Majors were better MLB players.
In the minors, the arm players had an average FRAA of 2.16 that season, and the defensive players had a 3.66 average FRAA for their respective seasons. So just as we would expect, FRAA liked the players that Baseball America liked, and as we would expect, it liked the best defensive infielders more than the best infield arm players.
In the "Best Infield Defense" section, the ones with average to above average FRAAs had an average MLB defense of .76 and WAA of -.45. The ones with below average MiLB FRAAs had an average MLB defense of .58 and WAA of .35. Especially considering the fact that the below average FRAA group had a better success rate at making the Majors, there doesn't appear to be much of a correlation. Even if you just looked at the top 20 MiLB FRAAs for the group, they still had a below average WAA and 4 of them didn't make the Majors.
Of course, there could just be a metric bias. That is, maybe the players are not good in reality (whatever that might mean), they just do what the metrics like. At this point, you either trust the metrics or you don't, and make argues for or against based on method and (honestly) authority of the people that created the metrics. Also, FRAA was used in both the MLB and MiLB rankings, so one could argue that there is a FRAA bias, as it is likely to agree with itself on a player, even across leagues and over a period of time.
In the "Best Infield Arm" section, we see a similar result. The above average FRAAs had roughly the same MLB defense as the below average FRAAs, and the below average FRAAs actually had a better WAA.
Out of the 2008 data players, 99 of the 209 players made the Majors (this is irrelevant for the actual study, just a note on how many made it and sort of a jumping of point).
The players that did make the Majors had an average RTZ of 1.94, Range Factor of 4.44, and FRAA of 1.61.
The players that didn't make the Majors had an average RTZ of 1.51, Range Factor of 4.41, and FRAA of -.95.
These results are somewhat expected, the MLB players were better than the non MLB players, but the RTZ and Range Factor data was not significant. The most significant difference was FRAA. How about players that were actually successful in the Majors?
The 21 players that were average or better in the Majors according to WAA had an average RTZ of 5.67, Range Factor of 4.6, and FRAA of 4.79.
The players that did play in the Majors, yet were below average had an average RTZ of .94, Range Factor of 4.4, and FRAA of .74.
So they were much worse in the minors (in 2008) than the average or better MLB players, but they were also worse than the players who haven't made the Majors! This latter result is the main result that is surprising and probably works against the idea that minor league defensive metrics are correlative to MLB success.
Of course, we have only talked about general success, what about when you just look at MLB defensive metrics? 53 of the player that made the Majors were average or above average defensively, while 46 were below average according to the defensive metrics.
The ones that were below average had a (on average) -.17 RTZ, 4.39 Range Factor, and -.92 FRAA in the minors in 2008. The players that turned out to be above average in the Majors had a 3.77 RTZ, 4.48 Range Factor, and 3.85 FRAA. Again, all the metrics seem to have correlation, with FRAA being the strongest (though RTZ not too far behind here).
Of course, the big thing we wanted to test was that if the defensive metrics were better predictors that Baseball America.
Since our 2008 data is just for one season, I took the top 30 players (there may or may not be one representative per team, but it gives a rough estimate of what the top defensive infielder for each team would be like that year. An alternative list to Baseball America) for each set of data.
Top 30 RTZ players (10 runs ended up being the cutoff): 15 made the Majors with an average MLB defense of .53 and WAA of .42
Top 30 Range Factor players (4.84 being the cutoff): 16 made the Majors with an average MLB defense of .31 and WAA of -.5
Top 30 FRAA players (7.9 being the cutoff): 19 made the Majors with an average MLB defense of .31 and WAA of -.06
Mixed results here obviously, but FRAA was the best at picking which players would make the Majors, while RTZ was the best at predicting which players were the best in the Majors. When comparing to Baseball America, we see that "Best Infield Defense" had the best percentage when it came to predicting which players would make the Majors, with FRAA and "Best Infield Arm" virtually tying for 2nd. The "Best Infield Arm" actually was the best predictor of who succeeded in the Majors, though RTZ wasn't far behind. The worst predictor was Range Factor, though "Best Infield Defense" wasn't too far behind.


Comparing the methods to our sample of 209 starting minor league middle infielders, in which less than half of them made the Majors, all 5 methods were relatively successful in picking which players made the Majors, with RTZ being the worst since only half of the elite RTZ players made the Majors. The best at predicting MLB defense (at least according to the defensive metrics) was "Best Infield Defense". The worst was a tie between FRAA and Range Factor, with "Best Infield Arm" not too far behind. Of course, they all had positive ratings.


So we do see that scouting is important for evaluating minor league baseball, something we already knew, and we see that Baseball America does a good job of it, something else we already knew. However, we also see that the defensive metrics we do have for minor league players do a reasonably good job as well. I don't see a lot of prospect writing including defensive metrics, even though they are publicly available and pretty easy to use. It would seem that it can be a helpful tool, at least when evaluating infield defense.

What Kind of Pitching Prospects Work out the Best?

There isn't much need for a real introduction here, but I wanted to continue my look at the correlation between velocity and success. Here, we will look at prospects using Baseball America. I think this gets rid of some of the selection bias that might have happened in my previous post on ZIPs and velocity when it came to prospects, as we do get to look at pitchers that failed to make the Majors.

I looked at pitchers from 2005-2009 (I think there are a few missing from 2007 because of website setup, but it is still 130 pitchers each) Baseball America's organization rankings. Before 2005, Baseball America did their organizational rankings a little differently, so I couldn't really go back further than that (and stopping at 2009 gives the prospects at least some time to make the Majors). I didn't care about the actual rankings for this, I just looked at the pitchers that were identified as having either the best fastball, curveball, slider, changeup, or control. There were obvious repeats, whether yearly or being the best at more than 1, but I decided to keep those in and rate them as the same. If you want to look at my actual spreadsheet, you can here, but the most important part is below where the results of the pitchers MLB FIP - and WAA are grouped:

Best Fastballs: 110 out of 130 made the Majors. They had an average FIP - of 111.39 and average WAA of .99.

Best Curves: 93 out of 130 made the Majors. They had an average FIP - of
105.77 and average WAA of 1.91.

Best Sliders: 101 out of 130 made the Majors. They had an average FIP - of 109.06 and average WAA of .31.

Best Changes: 87 out of 130 made the Majors. They had an average FIP - of 118.61 and average WAA of -.11

Best Control Pitchers: 90 out of 130 made the Majors. They had an average FIP - of 117.96 and average WAA of .42

So out of the players that Baseball America recognized as having the best fastballs or the best control in the organization, the fastball pitchers not only made the Majors more, they were more successful in the Majors. The fastball pitchers made the majors more than any of the other pitchers, with the changeups having the least. The changeup pitchers that did make the Majors were also the worst. However, you notice that the fastball pitchers were not the most successful in the Majors. The curveball pitchers were. One reason for this could be that pitchers with elite fastballs were given chances in the Majors, even though perhaps they didn't deserve it (numbers wise or breaking pitches wise), just because of their fastballs. That is, there could be a selection bias because teams value fastball velocity so much (which is one of the reasons I added two different measures of effectiveness along with just the number of pitchers that made the Majors). We have also seen that pitchers without real curveballs tend to be less successful than pitchers that do have curveballs. It is an old baseball saying that curveballs often separate the sheep from the goats for both pitchers and hitters, and perhaps this data shows that their is certainly something to that. I have looked at curveballs in the past, but perhaps we should be looking at them more when looking at pitching prospects, along with fastball velocity.

Jakub Izold Scouting Report

According to Baseball America, the Reds signed a left-handed pitcher named Jakub Izold. Evidently, Izold is a 19 year old pitcher from Slovakia that has been pitching in the under 21 European Championship for his home country. According to profiles I have seen of him, he stands at 6 foot 3 inches and weighs 205 pounds, so he is not a small pitcher.

It is pretty easy to find some game logs and box scores of him, but considering we (or at least I) have no idea as to the actual level of competition or the predictiveness of such statistics, it doesn't seem to do much good to look at them very closely. From what I can see, Izold has been striking quite a bit of hitters out, but also throwing quite a bit of wild pitches.

If Google is an indication, there are no scouting reports on Izold easily available. Luckily, there are several videos of Izold on YouTube, so I watched those to build this one. The video showed what the profiles said, he is a very large man. This may hurt him from a projectable standpoint, as it is hard to see him growing anymore, especially in weight, so it is hard to envision a velocity jump. With that said, he has the size to be a big league starter. He has quite a large leg kick in his delivery and, especially when in the windup, he has a dramatic turn in his delivery. It is all very fast and sudden, which much provide some deception, but also seems hard to repeat. It seems like the pitchers that do have these kind of complicated deliveries that provide deception do not have long and successful careers, but when they are good, they have have really high ceilings. Again, strikeouts and wild pitches.

I thought his stride and landing was a little odd, especially when he was in the stretch he didn't seem very consistent. It seems like you would expect him to stride a little more, but he cuts it off a little. As far as his actual arm action, he comes basically straight over the top (perhaps it is more of a 3/4 action with a body that comes down like a pitcher that throws over the top).

Obviously, we don't have velocity or pitch data on Izold, so it definitely limits our look at him. I don't think he has the delivery that allows him to take advantage of his good size. He will provide deception, but repeating his delivery throughout the minors will be an interesting task. He is also 19, older than most international imports (Alexander Roy from France that the Mariners signed was 16, as are most Dominican and Venezuelan imports) and high school players, so if he starts in the Reds Arizona affiliate after spending the first half in extended spring training, he will be a little old for the level (playing with the lower drafted college players). This means he should probably start in the Pioneer League when their season starts. This will give everyone (other than the Reds, as I assume they have an idea already) an idea of how advanced Izold is currently.

Keone Kela Scouting Report

Keone Kela was ranked as the 24th best prospect in the Rangers' deep farm system by the Newburg Report. Kela was drafted by the Rangers out of Everett Community College in the 12th round in 2012. The Mariners had drafted him the previous year in the 29th round out of high school, but he didn't sign. He wasn't ranked as a great prospect out of high school (97th in the state of Washington by Max Preps and 6045th in the nation, which is basically undraftable), but matched his good high school numbers with good numbers in Community College. After being drafted and signing with the Rangers, he followed with good numbers in a small sample size in the Arizona Summer League, getting over 60% of hitters that put the ball in play to hit grounders and nearly 34 % of all batters to strikeout. Obviously, we don't have much reason to believe that college or high school pitching statistics mean anything, and the AZL league is such a small sample that it is hard to put any weight into it (and perhaps we shouldn't be looking at short-season statistics anyway, especially complex leagues).

His size,6-1 190, as a right-hander, most likely played a large role in him being underrated by some. While the Rangers are going to try him as a starter in the future according to reports, the height makes it likely he will be a reliever.
As is not usual for pitchers in the low minors/high school/college, velocity reports are somewhat inconsistent and evolving. He has been clocked at 93-97 MPH in the AZL. When he was drafted by the Mariners, it appears that his fastball was 89-91 MPH, and when he was in community college his fastball was 91-95 MPH (or 93 MPH). He then touched 100 MPH in the summer. Baseball America rated his fastball as the best in the Rangers' draft class.

From video I watched of him, his delivery did not seem very fluid and he brought a high leg kick along with a 3/4 delivery. He had the pointed foot thing where his leg and foot wasn't exactly pointed the right direction. Reportedly, his delivery is better now and nothing was overly messy for a 19 year old (will turn 20 in April) anyway. He was also used as a designated hitter in college (when you search his name, once you get past the draft stuff, you will probably see stories about him getting robbed of an homer by a great catch in the 9th inning of a game) and if the school website is correct, he also played some outfield as well. This all means that he is most likely athletic, which is always good to see in pitchers. From what I saw of him, he did seem to be athletic, but I don't really think he will grow out anymore (which most likely means he isn't "projectable", although his fastball has obviously been gaining speed)

There is definitely a lot to like about Keone Kela as a pitching prospect. He has a real fastball that could turn into an elite fastball. This alone could get him in the Majors. With a pitcher that young, especially considering his height, there are always variables that we just can't forecast. To become a starter, his breaking pitches (I hear he throws an 81 MPH slider, but not really much else) will have to develop, but we are far away from seeing Kela in the Majors anyway. For now, he is one to watch, even though he most likely won't be in full season ball until 2014.

Chris Marrero: Adam Laroche Insurance?

The Nationals are reportedly still in talks with Adam Laroche in an attempt to re-sign him. Of course, they don't have a deal yet, so it is not clear whether or not he will be returning. So if we played a little "what if" game and assumed that Laroche wasn't returning, what would be the Nationals options at first base? The most obvious option seems to be platooning Tyler Moore and Chad Tracy.
Another more inventive option, especially if they believe Anthony Rendon is ready, would be to move Ryan Zimmerman and his ugly throwing motion to 1st base. When you look at their minor league options from 2012 (using Baseball Reference's organizational depth chart), most of them weren't pretty. Mark DeRosa's (who was with the big league team in 2012) baseball career is probably over, Mark Teahen wasn't an option and signed elsewhere, Jason Michaels was terrible in AAA, AA first baseman Tim Pahuta is 29 years old, and Justin Bloxom is not ready for the Majors (at least not according to a cursory look at his career path/statistics). Enter an interesting 3rd option, one that the Nationals turned to, unsuccessfully, in 2011 for a short time:

Chris Marrero was a 1st round pick (15th overall) in 2006, and was even ranked as the 27th best prospect in baseball, despite playing mainly 1st base, by Baseball America in 2008. However, he struggled in 2011 (-1.1 WAA in 31 games) when he reached the Majors, and has had major injury issues. This combo caused Marrero to not reach the Majors in 2012. In fact, he played in 5 different minor league levels in 2012. He played just 53 games in all (37 in AAA) in 2012, thanks to a hamstring tear. In 2008, he broke his right fibula.

With that kind of injury history, there is not many empirical reasons to believe he will be healthy in 2013, though he was pretty healthy through 2009-2011. As a first baseman (he played the corner outfield positions before his injury in '08), he obviously lacks speed (2.0 speed score in 2011 in AAA, 2.5 in AAA in 2012), and he doesn't seem to be a good defensive 1st baseman either with bad FRAAs in 2012 and most of his career in the minors. With the bat, his 2012 was a disappointment, as he was terrible in AAA. In 2011, he was solid in AAA (129 wRC +, tied with Matt Hague), but not overwhelming for a first baseman, 6th in the International League. However, he was younger than all of the players above him. In fact, in 2012, no IL player 22 years or younger had a 129 wRC + or better (Starling Marte was 23). Dayan Viciedo was better in 2011, as was Jesus Montero and Freddie Freeman (both 20) in 2010. Obviously there are mixed results in the Majors with those players so far (Dustin Pedroia was the only player 22 years or younger with a 129 wRC + or better in the IL in either 2006 or 2007), but it does at least give the impression that Marrero was some kind of prospect before the 2012 injury. He has always been a guy with elite (or at least nearly elite) power but his reputation is of one that has struggled with breaking balls. The latter certainly played out in the Majors, as he struck out 27 times and walked just 4 times, with 0 homers and 5 doubles. His swing at the plate definitely needs a lot of work, as he keeps his hands low, and it really affects his swing path, which is not one you would expect from a power hitter. According to his swing maps, he was very aggressive (3.58 P/PA, which stabilizes very quickly), and had some serious holes in his swing.

Marrero is not really an option for 2013 for me. He should start in AAA while the Nationals exercise one of the options listed in the above paragraph (and exercise Marrero's 2nd option). In the minors, Marrero has been significantly better against lefties than he has against righties, especially when it comes to K/BB. Unfortunately, when he was in the Majors, he had to face a lot more righties than lefties. He may turn out to be just a platoon 1st baseman/pinch hitter or he could even be a AAAA hitter. He has put up legitimate numbers in the minors despite having serious holes that stop him from being a big league player. This, and the injuries that will continue to keep him off the field/diminish his skill set, really makes it hard to be a big fan of Marrero.

Twins Sign Bryan Augenstein: Scouting Report

The Twins have long been known for their love of contact pitchers, that get a lot of ground-balls, don't walk many batters, and don't strikeout many either. The Twins continued this line of thinking this off-season by passing on bringing the volatile Francisco Liraino back, and signing Mike Pelfrey and Kevin Correia. However, there is a minor league free agent that the club signed, 26 year old right-hander Bryan Augenstein, that doesn't quite fit this mold. Augenstein's background is control pitching, as Baseball America ranked him as the best control pitcher in the Midwest League (A-ball) in 2008 and the best control pitcher in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization in 2009. He was drafted by the Diamondbacks in the 7th round in 2007 and rose high enough that BA ranked him as the 11th best prospect in the system in 2009. He broke into the Majors that year, throwing 17 innings at a replacement level. However, he didn't pitch in the Majors in 2010 and spent most of the year as a starter in Reno, where DIPs really thought he pitched well. He made the Cardinals bullpen in 2011, but was hurt very early in the season and threw more AAA innings than MLB innings (just 5.2) by the end of the year. His 22.2 career innings in the Majors aren't enough to play with numbers, but it does give us some Pitch F/X data.

He has a well below average fastball (much more sinkers than fastballs), averaging under 89 MPH. Classification systems seem to have problems determining whether or not his main breaking pitch is a curve or slider (traditionally, it would be a slider considering his large sinker usage, but Brooks Baseball calls it a curve and it averages just over 77 MPH), but he throws it about a third of the time. He also throws a changeup that is a little harder at almost 80 MPH.

In 2011, he was better than league average as a reliever in the PCL, though his home ballpark played pitcher friendly. He had very large home/road splits as well, struggling across the board on the road with bad strikeout/walk/and homer rates. At home, he was excellent. In 2012, he appeared in 23 games (1 start) with AAA Durham in the International League with the Tampa Bay Rays organization. Even though the Durham park plays about neutral, Augenstein again struggled mightily on the road. Overall, he was very solid, with a FIP over 1 run below league average thanks to a .42 HR/9IP, 8.3 HR/OFB % (10.6 % was league average), and .121 ISO. His GB % was okay, but he relied on his IFFB % more. He has also had massive platoon splits over the last two years, much better against righties than lefties, against whom he has had massive home run problems.

In watching him, he is clearly a deception type pitcher, using a high leg kick while standing straight up before moving his arm-slot down into a traditional sidearm position. He ran the fastball up to 90-92 MPH, but it doesn't have much movement. It did seem to me that he was throwing a separate fastball and sinker (though sometimes it moves more like a 2 seamer). I would definitely call his slider/curve a slider, as it breaks in hard into lefties (and got up to 83 MPH on the Durham Bulls radar gun), more horizontally than vertically (it just doesn't look like anything you would call a curveball). While it is easy to see why he has big platoon splits because of his sidearm delivery, I really thought the hard slider in would help minimize that. His change has a slight late drop, but it is not all that impressive, and was usually sitting at about 78 MPH. Predictably, he is changeup happy to lefties (he threw it a lot against righties too from what I saw), and I just don't think the pitch is as good as the slider.

Of course, I am not saying that this signals any kind of change in the Twins' organization, I was just noting that Augenstein is interesting because he is a little different than the traditional Twins pitcher. While the Twins didn't have much platoon splits in 2012 (equally horrible against both), the bullpen was pretty bad, 21st in fWAR. This will give Augenstein a chance to make the team as a right-handed specialist.

Juan Lagares Scouting Report

With Andres Torres signing with the Giants (for just 2 million dollars after being non-tendered), Kirk Nieuwenhuis playing basically like a replacement player in his first big league season, and AAA CF Matt Den Dekker posting a 75 OPS +, 86 wOBA + in 2012, center field is clearly a need for the Mets in 2012.
One has to look no further than the Mets' minor league depth in the upper levels at both CF and SS to see what the problems the organization is currently facing.

After Den Dekker, Juan Lagares is the next highest level centerfielder (at least, that could be called a prospect) that the Mets have. Lagares was signed out of the Dominican Republic and began in the organization in 2006. In 2007, he came stateside. In 2012, he spent the whole year in AA as a 23 year old and had a 101 OPS + and wOBA +. He was considerably better at home, even though the Mets' AA park had a 95 Park Factor for 2012 (102 Park Factor in 2011). When he was brought up to AA in 2011, and his 170 plate apperances were extremely BABIP driven. His BABIP in 2012 was a more reasonable .342, but still .035 higher than league average. This is especially strange considering his ground-ball percentage hovered around 50%. He didn't hit for much power (.107 ISO), but he did have a career high walk rate of 6.8%. Walks have always been his weakness statistically, as he has hovered around 1-4 % for a lot of his career, absolutely unacceptable. Predictably, the right-handed hitter is better against lefties, but he has been decent against righties and actually has a better walk rate against righties over the past two seasons.

Lagares stands slightly open at the plate, with a pretty noisy bat raised up high (about where you would teach a kid where to keep it). His actual swing is a little messy, as his hips work in a way that make him look like a slap hitter. It seems that he takes a large lunge before he swings, which most likely helps create this unbalance. He does have somewhat of an uppercut swing, which is probably why he occasionally hits for some power. However, it creates a lot of moving parts, which would seem to make his plate discipline wane and contact harder. Despite the low walk rates (and the mediocre at best K/BB that creates), his strikeout rates have been mostly reasonable. It is something to watch though.

Lagares played mostly center in 2012, but also 47 games in right-field as well in 2012. He was previously a shortstop, and batted ball data said he was good there as well (he made a lot of errors though, which may be why there was a positional change).Matt Den Dekker was ranked as the best defensive outfielder in the system by Baseball America on Friday. Den Dekker has only had negative FRAAs, and (while Lagares' sample size is only about half as much in center as Den Dekker) Lagares' Range Factor is much better. While the sample size is somewhat noisy obviously, Lagares would have been the top centerfielder in baseball according to Range Factor. Obviously Range Factor is crude and simple, but he has shown good speed on the bases, with 21 steals in 2012 and 25 steals in 2010 (6.3 speed score in 2012). I got him at 4.27-4.28, which is averagish for a right-handed hitter, but the video I saw of him may not have been him running all out.

There has been some concern that he fits better on a corner, which nearly destroys his value. It all depends on whether you trust what the scouts are evidently doing or the data. Whether the improved (but still not good) walk rate in AA was real has a lot to do with how I view Lageres' future Major League value. At age 23 in a league where the average hitter was 24.5, there is reason for optimism.

The Mets have been linked to the Blue Jays in R.A. Dickey rumors, and it appears that Anthony Gose might be in a possible package for him. I have never been a Gose fan, but he would provide more value in 2012 than I could see Lagares providing. He could provide future value, but the most likely scenario is obviously a 4th or 5th outfielder. If everything comes together though, he could be a starting centerfielder with in the next couple of years. 

Patrick Leonard Scouting Report

The Rays and the Royals made a blockbuster trade on Sunday night. The Rays gave up Wade Davis, James Shields, and a Player to Be Named Later (or cash) for Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi, Mike Montgomery, and Patrick Leonard. Since he is the least known guy in the trade, and I haven't written anything about him, I decided to write a report on Patrick Leonard. According to J.J. Cooper of Baseball America, he was a prospect "on the rise" (and BA had him as the 18th best player in a good system).

Leonard was a 5th round pick by the Royals in 2011 out of high school in Houston Texas. The 20 year old 3rd baseman (also DH'ed 7 times this year) is a monster of a man, listed at 6-4 225. He made his minor league debut in 2012, playing 62 games of Rookie Ball in the Appalachian League with Burlington. He showed off some skills with the bat there, with a 113 wOBA + and 133 OPS + despite being a touch young for the league. Burlingon's park also played slightly pitcher friendly (but it played slightly hitter friendly in 2011, so you can probably chalk up this fact to sample size, and consider it roughly an average park) and it showed up in his splits as well, as he had a .207 ISO at home and .277 ISO on the road. Of course, we are dealing with small statistical sample sizes, so splits may not be very helpful. This is why I would not be concerned with his .043 ISO against lefties. It is just 53 plate appearances, he is a right-handed hitter, and his K/BB is better than against righties. He didn't hit for a very good average, but didn't strikeout a high amount for a power hitter, had a low BABIP, and walked, giving him a good OBP. Going with what I have seen of Leonard as far as video, he stands very upright (which has worked for some hitters like Troy Tulowitzki) without much leg splits. He seems to take an early leg stride, but not much of a kick, as it isn't very high at all. The stance goes from open to normal by the time the ball gets there (which is, if nothing else, what the leg kick does). He seems to possess a flat swing, but it does not look especially quick. It is very controlled, calm, fluid, and smooth. I suspect that he is a better low ball hitter than a high ball hitter considering his swing and his speed (though some have raved about his bat speed). According to John Sickels, there was concern about how he would handle breaking pitches. Perhaps it is too early to say that this has been proven wrong, but he performed well with a decent walk rate against his peers, so it isn't a massive problem as of now.

Obviously 55 games is a very small sample size at 3rd base, but range factor said he was a very good fielder. FRAA told the same story. He was a shortstop for most of his pre-draft prospect career, so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised he is showing good range. Evidently, there is still some thoughts that he may be moved to right-field, but as of right now, that doesn't make a lot of sense. A move may come later, but since he hasn't played a single full season ball game yet, that discussion is most likely premature. He does have good arm, so he would definitely fit out there if needed. He has always been viewed as an athletic player, and he stole 6 bases and had a 5.9 speed score in 2012, so he should either be a good corner outfielder, or at least as of now provide some baserunning value. Considering the power and power potential, that is pretty valuable.

It is obviously early in Leonard's career, but there is a lot to like about Leonard. He could turn into a good three facet player (with a good bat, glove, and running ability) at a non premium position. Of course many things can happen, including probably the likely scenario of his size eventually cutting down on his speed/defense but improving his power. As far as the trade goes, even though I am the least high on Wil Myers than basically anyone I know (the power in AA and AAA are in hitter friendly leagues, a lot of strikeouts, not much, if any, defensive or baserunning value), giving up Odorizzi and Leonard (along with a flier like Montgomery) is too much. As many have pointed out, Shields has scary home/road splits, and Wade Davis has somewhat struggled as a starter (but has been a great reliever).

Mark Sobolewski: Rule 5 Draft Scouting Report

3rd baseman Mark Sobolewski was drafted by the Twins from the Blue Jays in the AAA portion of the Rule 5 draft. Sobolewski was a 4th round pick by the Blue Jays ($243,000 signing bonus) in '08 and was ranked by Baseball America as the 19th best prospect in the organization after the season. However, he was never ranked in the top 30 again.

The 25 year old right-handed hitter showed some power in 2012 in AA, with a .202 ISO (.131 was league average) in 91 games. Even though New Hampshire's park played slightly hitter friendly in 2012, his ISO was better on the road than it was at home. It was a drastic improvement from 2011, when he spent the whole year in AA and had just a .110 ISO. The repeating of the level along with being slightly older than the competition most likely helped Sobolewski. Strangely, he had a slightly higher ground-ball percentage and lower outfield fly-ball percentage in 2012. His HR/OFB% jumped from just 7.9% in 2011 to 22.8 %, which seems really fluky or at least really odd. His career ISO in the minors (obviously the different parks and levels create variables) is .127, suggesting that, unless he has added serious power in the past year, that he is not much of a power hitter. He also has a pretty high strikeout rate in his career at 21.4 % with a pretty low walk rate (6.11 %).

BA did rank him as the best defensive 3rd baseman in the Eastern League in 2012. Early in his career, RTZ ranked him as a below average 3rd baseman, and he has actually lost a little range according to Range Factor since then. According to that measure, he is below average and comparable to Kevin Youkilis and Pedro Alvarez (out of MLB 3rd baseman) in 2012. Just to compare him to a few of his peers, he is better than Cody Asche (who I don't think is very good defensively) and Jefry Marte according to that metric, but he isn't near as good as Kyle Bellows. FRAA also gives him similar results, rating him as below average. In going back and watching him, he definitely has the arm to play 3rd base, but he does seem to suffer when it comes to hands and reaction times.

He also doesn't provide much as far as speed goes, as he has just 11 career steals in the minors, and speed scores of just 1.5 and 3.4 over the last two years in AA. This may have a little correlation to defense, as above average defensive 3rd baseman usually have better speed scores than Sobolewski's, and it is somewhat of a baseball truism that the more athletic you are, the easier it is for you to play good defense (of course there are notable exceptions). In fact, when you watch him at the plate, he looks like he sort of built like a 1st baseman. He takes a long stride at the plate and has a long and slow swing. There is definitely some power potential in the swing, especially on low balls where he can use an uppercut hack. It seems, at least to me, that his lack of power is not because he isn't very strong or doesn't have the build. He appears to be very strong and has a good build. The problem seems to be with his approach and with his overall swing mechanics. An optimist could perhaps say that 2012, at least in AA, was him putting it all together and finally hitting for the power that the Blue Jays thought he was capable of when they drafted him. I still don't like where he holds his hands, and it seems he is really susceptible to the high fastball.

Toward the end of the year (though he was sent back to AA for the last few games of the season), Sobolewski got promoted to AAA, but because of small sample size (23 games) and the nature of Las Vegas, it doesn't even make much sense to look at those statistics. It does give us a little more pitch data than we would see in AA, and the tendencies seem to be (small sample size alert, but these numbers stabilize quicker than most of the rest of the numbers) that he sees less pitches than average, as he swings at more pitches than average and makes more contact than average. He also seems to be a hitter with reverse splits, at least this is the way things have played out over the last couple of years. He has a slightly better K/BB against lefties, but he has hit for more power against righties. The warning is that this could be fluky, as he has a better LD/GB/OFB against lefties, while his HR/FB% and BABIP is much better against righties. The latter usually regresses to the mean, so there is a good chance he is a fairly normal hitter when it comes to platoon splits.

To me, Sobolewski's chances of ever reaching the Majors rely on his 2012 AA power being for real. He will most likely have to transition to first (unless the Twins are just willing to live with the bad 3rd base defense), so he will really have to hit. Without much OBP value or plate discipline, power will have to be Sobolewski's ticket. I don't think there are a lot of good reasons for expecting him to hit for 1st baseman type of power in AAA or the MLB.

Hector Nelo: Rule 5 Draft Scouting Report

Hector Nelo was taken by the Dodgers in the AAA phase of the Rule 5 draft from the Nationals. Nelo spent the whole year in Washington's AA and was originally drafted by the Texas Rangers in the 15th round in 2007. The 26 year old right-hander has been a reliever basically his whole career and made 47 appearances out of the bullpen in 2012. The 6-1 right-hander had a FIP .28 better than league average and SIERA .77 better than league average. He matched a gigantic strikeout rate with a big ground-ball rate and large walk rate.

He was voted by Baseball America as having the best fastball in the Carolina League in 2011 and gets up to 96-100 MPH. When I went back and watched him (via MiLB.TV, I watched his last outing of the season), he was very fastball heavy and moved it both up and down and threw it straight and cut and moved it. His control of it was very poor (perhaps why he was throwing it up and down). He does seem to throw a separate sinker along with a soft unimpressive slider/curveball. He can throw it for strikes but it doesn't seem like a put away pitch. His delivery looks pretty simple and repeatable, so I don't think that is why he is having control problems.

He doesn't have any real platoon splits, nearly equally effective against both lefties and righties. Nelo was actually better at home in 2012 even though the park is slightly hitter friendly (small sample size alerts apply for one year reliever splits especially). That kind of fastball is always interesting and will continue to get Nelo jobs. The Dodgers do not have to use him in the Major Leagues this year (unlike if he was taken in the MLB portion of the Rule 5 draft), but I think he is a guy that could help their bullpen. While one must take his 2012 numbers with a major grain of salt since he was older than the competition, I think the relative skill set is there. Certainly the talent and stuff is, but his command must get better. If he doesn't impress in Spring Training enough to get a MLB roster spot (on a team that isn't afraid to spend and spend on relievers), then AAA Albuquerque will be quite a test for him. As long as he doesn't walk the entire PCL (and the gobs of 30+ year old sluggers), he should do just fine thanks to his ground-ball rate. Eventually, he should get his chance, and I think he would do reasonable well in a MLB bullpen.

Scouting Report on Sugar Ray Marimon

In the WBC qualifiers, Royals right-handed pitcher Sugar Ray Marimon has been pitching for his home country of Columbia. I got to watch one of his outings streamed online.

Marimon was showcasing a 92-93 MPH fastball early that got down to 89-90 (which is somewhat backwards velocity wise as his first inning was his best velo inning). The velocity may be a little low because we are at the end of a long season, and he threw 134 innings in the 2012 regular season. It is said that he can get it up to 95 MPH. It was usually staying high but the slender pitcher (listed at 6-1 168) has a really easy delivery. The off-speed he used was a 77 MPH curve that breaks almost like a soft slider. It has decent break but it isn't sharp break, I just don't know how many people he is going to fool with it. He was extremely fastball heavy and I didn't see a third pitch, but according to Clint Scoles (awesome first name) of Pinetarpress.com: His 3rd pitch, a changeup, is  "79-81 mph. shows fade and tumbling action. Useful pitch against lefties, and he maintains good arm speed. It’s another average offering."

When Baseball America released their top 10 Royals' prospects, Marimon was nowhere to be found and wasn't even mentioned. When Coast2Coast Prospects ranked the prospects in the Royals system, Marimon was all the way at number 36. In 2012, Marimon split the season between A + and AA. He was a bit old for the Carolina League at 23.75 years old (he is now 24) when the average hitter was 22.5 years old and the average pitcher was 22.9 years old. He also pitched in a very friendly home park (90 one year Park Factor) and it showed. In his 6 home starts, he had a 2.98 FIP and 2.91 SIERA with a decent ground-ball rate and microscopic BABIP of .242. In his 8 road starts, he was still mostly above league average but both his ground-ball rate and strikeout rate disappeared, leading to a very pedestrian 4.40 SIERA (3.71 FIP). The strange thing is that his home run rate actually was larger at home. He was promoted to AA and made 12 starts there, really struggling with a 5.45 FIP and 5.49 SIERA. The Royals' AA park is an extreme hitters park, with a one year Park Factor of 110, but weirdly he pitched a little bit better at home (with both his FIP and SIERA being over 6.00 on the road). Since the average age in the Texas League is 24, this is where Marimon was supposed to be, and he pitched poorly (meaning a repeat of the level, with him being a touch old for the level, is in order).

Since joining the Royals system in 2007 (including pitching in the Dominican Summer League that year), Marimon has a 1.97 K/BB, a little under what you would like. While his walk rate is okay, he has never been a guy that has struck out a lot of batters (18.1 % over his last 200 innings). He also doesn't get many ground-balls or a good number of infield fly-balls. According to the AA data (which is always sketchy), he is a strike thrower (63% is solid for the minors, and not bad in the Majors), but having to pitch in Northwest Arkansas and then AAA Omaha (104 one year Park Factor) is nothing short of the Labours of Hercules. If he can figure it out at those levels, then he is a big league pitcher. I don't see him as a starter, or even an impact reliever, but he could be a swing man or low leverage guy to eat up some innings with that easy delivery. Over the last two years, he has actually shown reverse splits, so I don't think it would make any sense to use him as a specialty reliever.

Asia Series: Perth Heat and Lotte Giants

Here are some notes on the Perth Heat of the Australian Baseball League and the Lotte Giants of the Korean Baseball Organization, who played in the Asia Series earlier this week.

Corey Adamson is a 20 year old that was signed out of Australia by the Padres and has been in their system since 2009. He has made it to A-ball, but has really struggled offensively, not putting up good numbers at any level. Here is some video I took of him, and you will notice that he does not have a good swing:

 Adamson was fooled badly on breaking pitches and off-speed, chasing way out of the zone.

Adam Welker another LHB, is listed at just 5-11 looks taller than that. He was picked in the 44th round by the St. Louis Cardinals in 2010. He has good build, but like Adamson, he really struggled with breaking pitches. In the minors, he has had some success, as the 24 year old had a OPS + of over 110 and wOBA + of 104 in AA this year. He hits a lot of ground-balls, but walks some and doesn't strike out a ton. He is not much of a runner, even though he played some centerfield this year.

Michael Ohlman was the catcher in the Orioles organization that was suspended for 50 games for using drugs of abuse (not PEDs). After being suspended, he went on to have his best offensive season of his minor league career. In the game, he had some pretty weak swings on outside pitches (it does make some sense to note that the KBO is a more advanced league than the lower minors). His plate discipline does seem to be an issue, especially on breaking pitches, but he does have good size and we will see if the increase in power was fluky or part of his development. He was picked in the 11th round by the Orioles out of high school in 2009 and has been mostly stuck in A-ball. 

Seung-Jun Song was signed by the Red Sox way back in 1999 for 800,000 dollars and was rated as the 60th best prospect in baseball by Baseball America in 2002. Song would never make it to the Majors though, as his good numbers in the lower levels did not quite translate to AA or AAA (where he was still okay, with ERAs just over 4). Since 2007, he has been pitching in his home country in the KBO for the Lotte Giants. In the game against Perth, Song hit 90.5 MPH and according to his scouting report, he can hit 92.38. You saw him break off the curve in the video above, and he showed he can throw it for strikes. Despite this, he had really spotty control, especially with the fastball. When he was on, he was locating well to the outside corner to lefties. Song has a good 81.22 MPH to 84.32 MPH slider with late break. He also showed off the forkball, which broke like a really nasty changeup. He really dominated the hitters with those three breaking pitches when he controlled them. His heat map kind of gives you that impression as well. He isn't afraid to live in the strike zone, and he also throws low forkballs and sliders:

You can see both why he was a prospect and why he failed as a prospect. The delivery is pretty messy and his landing point seemed inconsistent. It doesn't look like he has average MLB stuff, mainly because the fastball is fringy and he hasn't exactly been overly successful in Korea thanks to his command, which is a shame considering how good his breaking pitches can be when he is on.

I wrote last year that there were no KBO hitters that were MLB prospects, at least not statistically. However, here are a couple of scouting reports as we try to see if that is true scouting wise. 

Min Ho Kang:
Despite being a catcher, Kang was one of Lotte's best hitters this year with a .822 OPS. Here is some video of him hitting (Independent Leaguer Virgil Vasquez is the pitcher.):

That swing doesn't seem to be workable, as it is far too violent, uncontrolled, and long. His spray chart shows that he relies heavily on pulling the ball, and that is where all his power comes from:

Behind the plate, his receiving skills were pretty poor. I can't imagine you would want him back there ideally, probably making him a first baseman.

Sung Heon Hong is an outfielder with Lotte that also had some solid numbers.

 This is a cleaner swing than Kang's, but it is still really long. He has a pretty good eye, but I think there are a lot of offensive flaws to overcome for a guy who doesn't look like he has a lot of tools. His spray chart shows that he uses both sides of the fields pretty well and hits for power to all fields: