Baylor Baseball Scouting Report (2013)

I saw Baylor last year and wrote about them here.

Max Garner is a right-handed senior pitcher with solid size and an arm angle that is over the top but does come out as well (I guess you could call it a 3/4 delivery, though it didn't really seem like one). He was 87-90, mostly 88-89 MPH, with some sink, with a 81-83 MPH arm side change, and a 73-77 MPH breaking pitch that got down to 72 MPH. He had to face a lot of lefties, and was pretty hittable. Either his pitches broke arm side (it was a little tough to tell break from my angle) or he was consciously trying to pitch arm side, that is, away from lefties. He can get some good low break on his fastball/sinker, but his arm speed seemed to slow down a little bit on his off-speed pitches.

Starting is actually relatively new to Garner, as he didn't make any starts in his first 2 seasons at Baylor, and made just 6 in 2012, working mostly out of the bullpen.

Josh Michaelec is a right-handed pitcher with a true over the top delivery that seemed to help him get on top of the ball. He threw 88-91 MPH, but got down to 86 MPH and really lost velocity with runners on. He threw a 82-84 MPH breaking ball that he could bury, and got down to 77. He threw just 3 innings last season.

Crayton Bare is a small looking (5-11 185) senior lefty that was throwing just 81-83 MPH. There was nothing really deceptive about his delivery, so it is hard to see how he lives with that velocity. He also throws a 73-76 MPH curve that has some horizontal break along with some good downward break.The very below average stuff has worked out for Bare, as even though the first two years of his career was pretty nondescript, he was quite good in a small sample size last season.

Logan Brown played centerfield, and some had good reads to go along with athleticism. At the plate, he is a slash/dash and speed player. He didn't play a whole lot last year, but stole a few bases and hit for no power and didn't hardly walk.

Jake Miller is a shortstop that has good contact skills but will he chase. A tall, skinny player, he may grow out of the position, but he is good there now and has a good arm. He was a starter last year and had a disastrous 58/10 K/BB. He hit just one homer and stole just 3 bases as well. Especially if he moves off shortstop, I don't really see a skill set that will play at any higher level. 

Nate Goodwin is a junior catcher that has a hitch in his swing with bat speed that doesn't appear to be particularly quick. Thanks to Josh Ludy and Nathan Orf, he didn't play very much in 2012.

DH Mitch Price is a big guy that was able to spoil pitches, showed good plate discipline, but has a slow swing. Duncan Wendel made a nice play at first and seemed to have some athleticism for the position. The sophomore played in just 5 games with 3 plate appearances as a freshman. Lawton Langsford holds his hands really low when he begins his swing and just kinda leans in and slaps. He's is a 2nd baseman that displayed nice range, but his arm didn't appear particularly strong.

McLennan Community College Scouting Report

Here are the scouting reports for McLennan Community College:

Blake Zieren is RHP with a little bit of a hip turn. Since I took some decent video of him, I'll let that do the talking:

Trey Wall is a skinny right-handed pitcher with a pretty violent over the top delivery. He had some serious release point problems and didn't have much as far as control goes. He showed off a decent breaking nall in both break and speed differential

Connor Comacho is a short and skinny right-handed pitcher with some deception that makes his fastball look like it gets in there quick. The breaking ball needs work as it doesn't have sharp break or command.

Kody Hessemer is not a big RHP (the roster doesn't have listed height or weight) and doesn't throw real hard. He hides the ball with a leg kick and his curveball does a better job of changing eye level and speed than it does of actually creating swing and miss movement. He was hit pretty hard but threw a couple of good fastballs.

Andrew Sanchez is a short RHP that really gets some length in his stride and releases the ball from a low position (though not a low arm angle). He doesn't have a lot of feel for his breaking ball and his fastball was hit pretty hard.

Since McLennan has one of the shorter scouting reports out of the teams in the tournament, I will include notes on 2 Cisco College players. Their roster was not updated online and the one that they handed out at the stadium didn't have numbers on it. When I emailed the coach, he didn't seem to have much interest in giving me the names of a couple of guys I was interested in.

I did know who two players were, Jesus Villalobos and Cameron Massengill. Massengill is a pretty big catcher (listed at 6-1 190, I'm not buying that) with a slow long swing. Jesus is not a good runner and actually looked like he was having hamstring problems. He has a good athletic build and when he hit the ball (he seems to have some contact problems), he hit it hard. He has a big hack where he takes his head (and most importantly, his eye) off the ball. Breaking balls are going to cause Jesus some problems.

Clay Deen is a little infielder who is also listed as a pitcher (which is surprising considering his size). His swing looked pretty long. Tyler Floyd did a nice job behind the plate and is a short stocky guy that is not much of a runner. He has somewhat of an arch in his swing. Trevor Podsednik showed some patience but is a below average runner. Kyle Thornwell had some of the worst swings of the entire weekend. Reid Coover is not particularly fast as a first baseman, but he has good reactions defensively. Offensively, he doesn't have a pretty swing.

Cole Calder has good running ability and showed a little pop with an uppercut swing. He is not going to swing at high pitches, but was late on some fastballs because his bat looked a little slow. He was also fooled on breaking balls. He played centerfield and had a weak arm. Enrique Oquendo didn't seem to be getting the power that his frame should produce. He is a below average runner, but played a good RF despite some bad routes.

Zach Gonzalez has sort of a short compact swing and is looking to go the other way. He isn't going to produce power, but he has good mechanics.

Scouting Reports on Rockwall-Heath and Lake Highlands

On Wednesday, March 14th I went and saw Rockwall-Heath play Lake Highlands at the Ballpark in Arlington.

Jake Baxter started for Rockwall-Heath (who I will refer to as Heath from now on). Baxter is relatively tall and lanky, and there seemed to be some effort in his delivery. For the most part, he was throwing really soft, and away to righties (although most of it was for strikes), with a high unimpressive heat. He changed speeds with breaking balls, really fooling hitters at this level. He hung the breaking ball for a ground-ball hit, but when he located it, which was most of the time, it was a pretty good pitch. He got a lot of grounders through out the game, with some weak contact. At first I thought it might have just been because of a weak line-up (they didn't seem to have a good eye or bat speed) , but they got some hard contact off the other Heath a pitcher (who I will profile in a moment). He was getting swings and misses off both pitches, he did have the ball hit hard in the 4th I believe (there was no scoreboard and I wasn't keeping close track of the score or innings or anything because it didn't matter for this post).

Heath's other pitcher was Christian Sanders, who wasn't real tall, but was big. He did have some velocity on his fastball, with a hard breaking ball. He got two quick strikes to the first hitter and then hit him with a pitch. He gave up hard contact, with a walk then 2 ground-balls (on consecutive pitches, one being hard and one being soft). He then gave up a hard line drive on a long at-bat.

Lake Highland's starter was Salvador Sanchez, who possessed a weird arm action and was extremely wild in warm-ups. However, he was throwing strikes early and keeping everything low. Overall, he didn't have a good idea where the ball was going and lost control, and ended up hanging some in the strike zone. He was basically all deception and breaking stuff with no real velocity. He had some plate to plate movement and there were a lot of balls in the dirt. He occasionally zipped a fastball that was not fast but worked as a reverse change-up, and I really would like to see him throw that pitch more so hitters can't just focus on his breaking stuff. He wasn't hitting the corners like he wanted to and seemed to be tipping his pitches with his arm action.

The first reliever Lake Highland used was Jeris Medina, who was very large. He had a kind of low arm action and was basically all off speed pitches. He was pretty wild but got decent movement. He hit a batter with the first pitch he threw. He later played first, and he looked awful out there in warm-ups before the game, but had a decent pick during the game. With the bat, he swung at a low pitch but he ended up driving it pretty well (below is video of him pitching to Jake Bledsoe)

Gregg Calvin came in with a high leg kick and his arm cocked way back. He seemed somewhat deceptive as hitters couldn't pull the trigger. He faced a lot of backups it seemed, and gave up a lot of fly-balls. He was very curveball heavy, it seems like this team has a lot of junk ballers. He had control problems, and when he faced some regulars a few batters in, his pitches started getting hit hard.

Brandon Cook was skipping pitches well short in warm-ups, but during actual game time he was keeping the ball low and it translated to ground-balls. He was throwing mostly fastballs, and while it wasn't real hard, it wasn't soft either. With his breaking ball, he had nice speed differential, but he was staying in the middle of the plate. He isn't real tall, and he had some control issues where he was just missing with pitches, getting a walk and a HBP.

Now for the lineups:

For Heath, the pitcher Jake Baxter got a walk, but doesn't have an impressive swing and it doesn't look like he has power. He did run decent though. Jovan Hernandez has a short stout frame, but was fooled on the breaking ball. He did have power potential and drew a walk. Jake Thompson played 1st Base, and is a TCU commit and the top prospect in the game. He has good size, and the ball just jumps off his bat. However, he had some swings and misses and he is not a good base runner. He doesn't seem to have the greatest eye or patience at the plate, but did draw a walk and smoked a line drive in the gap. Bret Boswell played shortstop, and hit a ball to the left field wall and showed nice range defensively. Jake Bledsoe was the bulky catcher that showed off a decent arm. He also crushed a ball to the wall and walked and showed that he was pretty decent behind the plate. Grayson Lewis played in left field, and is small but made some decent contact and had a walk. Blake Brown played 2nd and is also small. He chased some pitches and looked totally fooled at the plate. Cade Flory made some good contact on a low pitch.

For Lake Highlands, the first two hitters, Alex Irion and Sean Guion showed good eyes at the plate. Irion had a short ground-ball type swing and simaltonously had some big whiffs. Both Irion and Guion were short in stature. Bo Vaughn played shortstop, and was also short but hit a ball hard. Michael Ketchmark had solid to okay contact, while Colton Bradley was the right fielder who was slightly bigger than many of his teammates. Richie Laurin was the catcher, and he had all kinds of problems with the wild breaking pitches. He had an ugly swing with no real eye or pitch recognition. Hayden Huey played in the outfield and didn't show any kind of bat. Trevor Curtis started at first and had an ugly drop. Hudson Taylor took over at first later on, and while he was little for a first baseman, he hit a ground-ball single on a hanging breaking pitch. Alan Boss had a nice swing and contact, even with a weird stance. He didn't have much speed though. Chris Dyer, who is a sophomore, had a nice line drive.

20/20 hindsight on Carl Crawford

Carl Crawford had an awful year in his first year of his huge contract with Boston. He played like a replacement player, with a 0 WAR and .289 OBP. Before the season he signed a 7 year 142 million dollar contract. Now it is quite obvious that his 2011 season was not deserving of that, that doesn't even merit an article. Because I wasn't blogging at the time the contract was signed, I want to look at his stats before 2011, and see if they merited the contract. 2010 was his best career season at a 6.1 WAR, worth 18.3 million according to the Halladay Standard (Crawford will get an average of 20 million a year with this contract). So even with his best year, it doesn't seem he is quite worth the contract. Another thing that should be mentioned is that in 2010, he tied his career high for BABIP, affecting his season for the positive, but making the season not very predictive. That is why we usually look at WAR average over the last 3 years. From 2008-2010, Crawford had a 12.6 WAR, or 4.2 WAR a year. This is worth 12.6 million according to the Halladay Standard. So certainly Crawford was worth big money, but not the big money the Red Sox paid him. However, when one starts looking at his offensive numbers, we start to realize just how profoundly average Crawford is. His OBP is just .333, matched with a very pedestrian Secondary Average of .266, and an Isolated Slugging of .148. Sure his OPS is + is 105, but his O4S is average at 1.773. These are hardly numbers that warrant a huge contract. It is quite clear that a good portion of his recent WAR is due to defense (for example, he had a 1.8 D-WAR in 2008). However, in 2011, even his defense wasn't very good, as he had a -.3 D-WAR. 2011's poor offensive season can hardly been blamed on BABIP, as it was .299 (that is a drop from his career average of .328, but .300 is league average). So what are the statistical explanations for his down year? He was never much of a walker (just 5.3% in his career), but he walked just 4.3% of the time in 2011 (compared to 7% of the time in 2010). As far as he swinging percentage breakdown, not much really stands out. He did swing at the first pitch just 25% of the time, compared to normal 36% of the time. There could be a couple of explanations for this, but I don't think this is really that big of a deal. He was actually more patient in 2011, earning an average 90.02 PPS compared to his very poor career number of 84.94. As far as his groundball/flyball breakdowns, the only thing that really stands out is that 15% of his flyballs stayed in the infield in 2011, way too many. Other than that, there isn't one thing you can point to and say "this is why he was bad". But in the end, the Red Sox gave way too much money to a player that wasn't all that good offensively to start with, and so far it has blown up in their face.

Should the Mets trade David Wright?

2007 was David Wright's best year, when he registered a 7.8 WAR. Since then, he has fallen with a (144 games) 2.5 WAR in 2009, a (157 games) 3.9 WAR in 2010, and a (102 games) 1.4 WAR in 2011. He made 14.25 million in 2011, putting his WASP at 10179 WASP, which is horrible. He is a horrible defender, with a -5.6 D-WAR for his career, and a -1.2 D-WAR in 2011. He has a below average fielding percentage and an about average Range Factor. In his career, he has a .380 OBP, .887 OPS, 2.31 PAPP, and 1.59 PPG. He sees 3.99 Pit/PA, has a .668 Offensive Winning Percentage, and 7.1 Runs Created Per Game. He does this by getting a .340 BABIP, .222 ISO and .362 Secondary Average. He has been an above average power hitter, above average slugger, as well as an above average walker. In 2007, he had a .356 BABIP that helped him get a .416 OBP, .963 OPS, 2.04 PAPP, and 1.775 PPG. He had an ISO of .208, a .425 Secondary Average, and saw 3.98 Pit/PA. All this got him a mind boggling 9 Runs Created Per a Game Metric, and a .742 Offensive Winning Percentage. In 2011, the numbers were less impressive. He had a .345 OBP, .172 ISO, .334 Secondary Average and .602 Offensive Winning Percentage. These numbers are all good, as well as his 2.54 PAPP, and 1.45 PPG. His BABIP fell to .302, as did his Runs Created per Game at 5.6. David Wright is still a good offensive player. Every team would love to have 2011 David Wright in their lineup. However, not with his salary and not with his defense. This would certainly point to the obvious choice of the Mets trading Wright. There is something to consider though. Wright could return to his 2007, or even career self. If this happens, even with his gigantic salary, he would be worth it. So are the injuries Wright has suffered hampered his future performance so he will never be the same? Or are the injuries going to be something that continues? Or will he return to his old form? This is the question the Mets will have to think long and hard about. It would be hard to critique them going either way.

So the Yankees are going to start relying on Eduardo Nunez?

It has been suggested by some baseball pundits that the Yankees believe that Eduardo Nunez will start playing a bigger role in the 2012 season. I have no way of knowing if this is true, so I just want to look at Nunez himself and look at how he might fare in the bigger role. He only sees 3.61 pitches per plate appearance in his major league career, and 3.67 in 2011. The league average is 3.82. He is a contact hitter, putting the ball in play 82% of the time. Contact hitting tends to be overrated, baseball history shows that you can strikeout a lot and still be very productive, and you can make a lot of contact, but still not get on base. His batting average on balls in play was only .286. For comparison, Corey Hart's was .333, and Mike Carp's was .343. He waked in only 6.5% of his plate appearances, well below the league average of 8.3%. His extra-base hits percentage is also below average (his is 6.9, the league average is 7.5), and only homers once every 60 at-bats. He was a big time groundball hitter in 2010, at 1.82 GB/FB ratio, but was down around league average in his 338 2011 plate appearances. His OBP is .314, well below league average, and in the minors, his OBP was never above .365, and that was in A-ball. In AAA, his OBP was just .340. His slugging and OPS are also well below league averages. He never even reached a OPS of .800 in the minors. He only had 38 runs created in 2011, and has a career .85 PPG (which is terrible) and 2.68 PAPP (not too bad, but not good). His stolen base percentage is also below 80%. This all adds up to a .4 Offensive War in 2011. His defense was even worse, at -1.1 D-WAR, adding up to a -.7 WAR. There is really nothing statistically that shows Nunez would have a breakout, or even decent, season if given more playing time. In fact, it looks like Nunez is set up to be a total disaster, both offensively and defensively.