I saw Baylor earlier this year, but as I saw them again when I watched Illinois, I saw a couple of pitchers I hadn't seen this year and took some notes on them.
I watched Kolt Browder pitch a little bit last year, but thought a new year deserved a new writeup. At 6-0, he is pretty short, but mostly filled out at 205. A Senior now, Browder has pitched exclusively out of the bullpen in his Baylor career, and not racked up many innings doing so, with a 3.00 FIP in 61 innings. Evidently my velocity readings were wrong or I didn't proof-read and made a typo when I wrote about him last year. He was throwing 87-88 MPH, and seemed to get on top of the ball pretty well (especially for his height) and kept it low. He threw a 83-86 MPH change that was without great movement but it did have occasional sink. He moved well off the mound, looking relatively athletic for his size. He is already 23, and without the real fastball, I don't think he is a professional baseball prospect, even with the solid strikeout numbers at a Major college.
Austin Stone started the 2nd game of the doubleheader I saw. The Sophomore was also undrafted out of high school, and is a little short for a right-handed starter at 6-1. As a freshman, he split time between the bullpen and the starting rotation and mostly struggled, with barely more strikeouts than walks. He sort of comes out with his release point, probably a little more than average. He was throwing 90-92 MPH on his fastball, 91 MPH being the most common. He also got down to 89 MPH a few times and even 87-88 MPH in a long inning. It had nice downward movement, but his control was spotty and he threw too many in the dirt. He got pretty consistent whiffs on it, even when it was low. If nothing else, he is going to get quite a bit of groundballs. Stone has a starter's repertoire of breaking and off-speed pitches. He threw a 83-84 MPH off-speed with unimpressive break and no real feel. He didn't throw that one very often. He had another separate off-speed (from my angle, which you can see in the Illinois video, it was often tough to tell difference in break etc.) he threw at 78-80 MPH that broke down. He had nice movement on it and kept it down, and it was better looking than the harder pitch, or at least more effective. Especially if the pitch was harder (or gets harder), you could say he had two MLB pitches. He also threw a couple of 75-77 MPH curveballs. It wasn't good in command, leaving it up and it not breaking down. It is hard to make any judgments on that pitch yet.
I think there is some stuff to like here, and you aren't really evaluating him as a MLB prospect until 2014 anyway, so command isn't a big problem if you believe in his delivery. A bullpen move would allow him to emphasize his better breaking pitches and have his fastball more consistently at 92 MPH and probably hitting 93-94 MPH (just assuming he works about normal in the bullpen versus starting).
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Michael Roth: Future Loogy?
Michael Roth just turned 23 last month, and we also got Pitch F/X data on him for the first time. In the context of college baseball pitchers, Roth goes down as one of the greatest of all time. His outings, including those in huge College World Series games, will go down in history as some of the best performances of all time. College numbers aren't predictive for pitchers, but, he had a 1.91 ERA and 3.05 FIP in his 4 year career at South Carolina. Of course, numbers don't neccessarily make a prospect, and this is the case with Roth.
When talking about Roth, I am reminded of an ESPN segment with Keith Law and Ben Mcdonald, in which they discussed Roth's above average command as a college pitcher, but the fact that, because of his lack of a fastball and big league stuff, he wasn't a big league prospect. He was drafted in the 9th round by the Angels anyway, but I saw him, just from seeing him pitch in college, as more of a left-handed specialist reliever. Pitching in the Pioneer League after the draft, the sample sizes were much to small to speak intelligibly about him at all, much less his splits. He faced 99 hitters, got 34 of them to hit ground-balls, 21 of them to strikeout, walked 11, and gave up two homers.
His 5 fastballs that Pitch F/X tracked averaged 91.45 MPH, respectable, even when we understand it in context. It was a relief outing, but is still a slightly above average fastball from the left side in relief, closest to Dan Meyer, who last pitched in the big leagues in 2010.
Roth's release point is rather low and somewhat out (which supports my initial thesis that he is a left-handed specialist), as you can see here:
However, it isn't as out or as sidearm as a Chris Sale or Randy Choate
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Those two pitchers have extreme platoon splits (even though Sale is a starter who just got an extension), and it seems Roth is more "normal" or standard than them. I compared Roth to Meyer earlier, and as we see with Meyer's release point, the horizontal release is basically the same, perhaps even a little more out, though Meyer clearly releases the ball higher.
Meyer didn't have much success in his MLB career, and his platoon splits were pretty weird. OPS wise, he was better against righties, but his DIPs were borderline acceptable against lefties, and horrible against righties. Meyer was basically a fastball/cutter pitcher, but he also threw a changeup 14 % of the time. Meyer's change was nearly 5 MPH slower than Roth's, and while it got better horizontal movement, the vertical movement Roth gets is much better. Meyer's change was terrible, with a 138 wRC + against. Meyer's 4-seam fastball also moved better than Roth's did in his outing, and Meyer's fastball was even worse than his changeup in the Majors.
The closest comparison I could find in release point to Roth is Craig Breslow. It is also a convenient comparison when it comes to fastball velocity as well (though Breslow's movement is a lot better). At the risk of having too many pictures, here is a release point graph from a recent Breslow outing:
Even though Breslow doesn't throw a great deal of strikes (61.7 %), he has had a relatively successful career, especially if you believe his ability to outperform his FIP with low BABIPs is real (strangely, he had a high BABIP in 2011 in his last year in Oakland, but he had a lower than league average BABIP in 2012 with the Diamondbacks and Red Sox, two relatively hitter friendly parks). For his career, his BABIP and batting average has been virtually the same when it comes to lefties and righties, though his defensive independent metrics are stronger against lefties (but he is still acceptable against righties). So this release point doesn't seem to constrain Roth, even with his fastball, to being a left-handed specialist as a more extreme one might.
Roth's horizontal movement on his fastball is well below average, as is his vertical movement. It is going to take some really special command to make up for this, and even then, big league hitters can still take advantage of below average pitches that are well located. I count 21 relievers in the Pitch F/X era with fastballs of 91-91.99 MPH, and 20 of those pitches have better vertical movement on their fastballs than Roth's.
Roth's changeup is a little more interesting, especially in velocity terms. Averaging nearly 85 MPH, it is a pretty hard changeup, with only 5 relief lefties having a harder change than 85 MPH in the Pitch F/X era. He doesn't get a lot of horizontal movement on it, but it does get vertical dip. His closest comparisons are not that attractive in either grounders or whiffs, but one could picture this being a big league pitch and help him keep his platoon splits down.
Obviously we didn't see a third pitch, which isn't that big of a deal for our purposes, since I don't see him as a starter anyway.
I am not sure what to make of his lack of spin:
Most pitchers' fastballs usually sit around 250 degrees, and spin is usually good on fastballs.
This is obviously a small amount of data, and early spring training data, which is what this is, may be taken with a grain of salt if necessary. However, we can look at the data and allow us to make some conclusions on Roth until more data becomes available. The fastball is underwhelming for different reasons than I initially believed, he can succeed with his release point, and his change may actually be a good pitch. Lack of overall movement hurts Roth's chances, especially as an older prospect who needs to move very quickly. It would seem wise for the Angels to try to fast track him by moving him to the bullpen for 2013, and see if the fastball is good enough to get middle to high level minor leaguers out. If not, then he is probably just a minor league filler player. Just because of the pedigree, you can see why the Angels would take him in the 9th round, but because of his fastball, he comes with a lot of risk.
When talking about Roth, I am reminded of an ESPN segment with Keith Law and Ben Mcdonald, in which they discussed Roth's above average command as a college pitcher, but the fact that, because of his lack of a fastball and big league stuff, he wasn't a big league prospect. He was drafted in the 9th round by the Angels anyway, but I saw him, just from seeing him pitch in college, as more of a left-handed specialist reliever. Pitching in the Pioneer League after the draft, the sample sizes were much to small to speak intelligibly about him at all, much less his splits. He faced 99 hitters, got 34 of them to hit ground-balls, 21 of them to strikeout, walked 11, and gave up two homers.
His 5 fastballs that Pitch F/X tracked averaged 91.45 MPH, respectable, even when we understand it in context. It was a relief outing, but is still a slightly above average fastball from the left side in relief, closest to Dan Meyer, who last pitched in the big leagues in 2010.
Roth's release point is rather low and somewhat out (which supports my initial thesis that he is a left-handed specialist), as you can see here:
However, it isn't as out or as sidearm as a Chris Sale or Randy Choate
.png)
.png)
Those two pitchers have extreme platoon splits (even though Sale is a starter who just got an extension), and it seems Roth is more "normal" or standard than them. I compared Roth to Meyer earlier, and as we see with Meyer's release point, the horizontal release is basically the same, perhaps even a little more out, though Meyer clearly releases the ball higher.
The closest comparison I could find in release point to Roth is Craig Breslow. It is also a convenient comparison when it comes to fastball velocity as well (though Breslow's movement is a lot better). At the risk of having too many pictures, here is a release point graph from a recent Breslow outing:
Even though Breslow doesn't throw a great deal of strikes (61.7 %), he has had a relatively successful career, especially if you believe his ability to outperform his FIP with low BABIPs is real (strangely, he had a high BABIP in 2011 in his last year in Oakland, but he had a lower than league average BABIP in 2012 with the Diamondbacks and Red Sox, two relatively hitter friendly parks). For his career, his BABIP and batting average has been virtually the same when it comes to lefties and righties, though his defensive independent metrics are stronger against lefties (but he is still acceptable against righties). So this release point doesn't seem to constrain Roth, even with his fastball, to being a left-handed specialist as a more extreme one might.
Roth's horizontal movement on his fastball is well below average, as is his vertical movement. It is going to take some really special command to make up for this, and even then, big league hitters can still take advantage of below average pitches that are well located. I count 21 relievers in the Pitch F/X era with fastballs of 91-91.99 MPH, and 20 of those pitches have better vertical movement on their fastballs than Roth's.
Roth's changeup is a little more interesting, especially in velocity terms. Averaging nearly 85 MPH, it is a pretty hard changeup, with only 5 relief lefties having a harder change than 85 MPH in the Pitch F/X era. He doesn't get a lot of horizontal movement on it, but it does get vertical dip. His closest comparisons are not that attractive in either grounders or whiffs, but one could picture this being a big league pitch and help him keep his platoon splits down.
Obviously we didn't see a third pitch, which isn't that big of a deal for our purposes, since I don't see him as a starter anyway.
I am not sure what to make of his lack of spin:
This is obviously a small amount of data, and early spring training data, which is what this is, may be taken with a grain of salt if necessary. However, we can look at the data and allow us to make some conclusions on Roth until more data becomes available. The fastball is underwhelming for different reasons than I initially believed, he can succeed with his release point, and his change may actually be a good pitch. Lack of overall movement hurts Roth's chances, especially as an older prospect who needs to move very quickly. It would seem wise for the Angels to try to fast track him by moving him to the bullpen for 2013, and see if the fastball is good enough to get middle to high level minor leaguers out. If not, then he is probably just a minor league filler player. Just because of the pedigree, you can see why the Angels would take him in the 9th round, but because of his fastball, he comes with a lot of risk.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Complete Hitter KBO WAR for 2012
In December, I broke out my formula for measuring WAR in Korea Baseball Organization (the KBO). For hitters, it didn't contain any kind of defensive metric or positional adjustment, and I didn't have a complete list of players, only looking at a few of them. Thanks to Dan of Mykbo.net, this is the day I fix this flaw. I looked at the top 9 players for each team in hits (I was planning on doing plate appearances, but My KBO's statistics sorts by hits, and I didn't notice that until I was nearly half way done) for this post).
It is called KBO WAR, but we are only actually looking at KBO WAA (wins above average instead of wins above replacement). One of the reasons for this is that, while we created a replacement baserunning method, creating a replacement defensive method just seems a little pointless. Also, when looking at KBO players, at least from an international perspective, we don't really care what a replacement KBO player looks like. While understanding what a MLB replacement player looks like can be helpful (though I have never liked that MLB players' defensive and baserunning components are compared to average while their batting component is compared to replacement), understanding what a KBO replacement player looks like just doesn't have much value if you are trying to see if any are prospects (at least statistically prospects) to move into bigger leagues such as the MLB or NPB. With that said, we may not even care about the average KBO player looks like. A little more on that later.
For positional adjustments, I used the traditional positional adjustments created by Tom Tango.There are some variates out there, such as Baseball Reference uses -10.5 runs for a first baseman instead of -12.5. I just used the -12.5 run value because that is what I have usually used, but I am always open to other arguments I guess. I tweaked the positional values slightly, giving RF a run more than LF. This is because it usually takes a better arm to play RF. I was supported in it being a better position by them having more put outs, but they actually had less assists than left field.
Calculating actual positional value will be a little difficult. I just used percentage of innings, because that makes the most sense to me. Such as, say a theoretical player plays 500 innings, 400 of them at 1st, and 100 in left field. 20 percent of -8 is -1.6, and 80 percent of -12.5 is -10, thus, the player's positional value is -11.6. I think this works because it doesn't artificially award utility, but does take it into account (a problem arises when say a player can play 2nd well, but has to play left field because 2nd is already taken. I can't think of how to get rid of such team biases).
Defensively, I used range factor and a percentage factor instead of a run factor (but will calculate it as runs). I used: Player Range Factor - League Average Range Factor for position, divided by league average range factor times 100. This obviously needs some kind of minimum basis, and that is why we are only looking at starters. It doesn't need to be said that this is a pretty terrible defensive component, especially compared to what we have to work with when it comes to MLB players (and those metrics are pretty flawed as well), but it gives us something to work with.
For catchers, I subtracted the averaged passed ball ratio by the player's passed ball ratio and multiplied it by 100 to move the decimal up 2 and add it to the difference in caught stealing average times 100. For example, if a catcher has a 32.6 CS % and .007 PB ratio, the catcher has a .9 defensive value. Yes, this weighs stolen bases higher than passed balls. This is for several reasons, one being the difference between wild pitches (data we don't have for catchers) and passed balls is somewhat subjective.
I didn't look at pitchers, because I am only doing the positional players here, but adding the defensive component to pitchers would be interesting.
As you will see in the spreadsheet, I put something called WAE, Wins Above Excellence. Because we don't even even care about average players from a international perspective, there should be some kind of cutoff for when we should start caring about them from an international perspective.
Any way we do this will probably be arbitrary (Especially since we don't have a ton data on position players that have played in both American and Korean leagues, and I usually distrust translations). A couple of years ago, using an even more crude method, it seemed that there weren't any internationally interesting Korean position players. Because I didn't know where to set the baseline (I am open to suggestions!), I just left it blank for now.
Of course, WAR, other than FIP WARs for pitchers, doesn't take in account what we might call luck, randomness, or BABIP luck. There have been several attempts to try to neutralize the BABIP out of hitter statistics, and I have tried several of my own. Here, I am using Hitter FIP, which turns into a runs created per 9. Instead of using innings as the baseline, I am using games played. You still add the 3.2. This has obviously problems, such as ignoring doubles and triples, discounting speed, but may be useful in a basic predictive sense. It is unrelated to WAA or WAE, but I am including it for fun.
Remember, most of this stuff only works on full time players, and again, that is fine, because we don't really care about part time KBO players or above replacement but below average bench KBO players.Without further words or explanations (I am sure many of you skipped the method and went straight to the results, which is fine), here is my list of the 72 (9 from all 8 2012 teams) players,sorted by WAA:
Let me know if you find any errors, etc. I have noticed that the speed score is well below 0 combined, which is a problem and skewed the WAA to a negative. I have left it, but just note that players are probably better runners than the metric is giving them credit for and they are probably worth a little more on a whole than the WAA gives them credit for. If anyone wants to fix this component, be my guest. Defensive and offensive value is positive, which it should be since these players are starters, or at least play a lot. You would expect starters to be, on average, better than league average. The positional adjustment, as a whole, is negative, which it should be. In case you were wondering, the average hFIP for the 72 players was 3.93.
This approach is somewhat crude and has plenty of flaws, but hopefully it will help us quantify and rank the talent in the KBO. You will notice that there is a 2nd sheet called "defensive guts", which is just the defensive averages for each position. If you would just like the spreadsheet, feel free to look at it or download it here.
It is called KBO WAR, but we are only actually looking at KBO WAA (wins above average instead of wins above replacement). One of the reasons for this is that, while we created a replacement baserunning method, creating a replacement defensive method just seems a little pointless. Also, when looking at KBO players, at least from an international perspective, we don't really care what a replacement KBO player looks like. While understanding what a MLB replacement player looks like can be helpful (though I have never liked that MLB players' defensive and baserunning components are compared to average while their batting component is compared to replacement), understanding what a KBO replacement player looks like just doesn't have much value if you are trying to see if any are prospects (at least statistically prospects) to move into bigger leagues such as the MLB or NPB. With that said, we may not even care about the average KBO player looks like. A little more on that later.
For positional adjustments, I used the traditional positional adjustments created by Tom Tango.There are some variates out there, such as Baseball Reference uses -10.5 runs for a first baseman instead of -12.5. I just used the -12.5 run value because that is what I have usually used, but I am always open to other arguments I guess. I tweaked the positional values slightly, giving RF a run more than LF. This is because it usually takes a better arm to play RF. I was supported in it being a better position by them having more put outs, but they actually had less assists than left field.
Calculating actual positional value will be a little difficult. I just used percentage of innings, because that makes the most sense to me. Such as, say a theoretical player plays 500 innings, 400 of them at 1st, and 100 in left field. 20 percent of -8 is -1.6, and 80 percent of -12.5 is -10, thus, the player's positional value is -11.6. I think this works because it doesn't artificially award utility, but does take it into account (a problem arises when say a player can play 2nd well, but has to play left field because 2nd is already taken. I can't think of how to get rid of such team biases).
Defensively, I used range factor and a percentage factor instead of a run factor (but will calculate it as runs). I used: Player Range Factor - League Average Range Factor for position, divided by league average range factor times 100. This obviously needs some kind of minimum basis, and that is why we are only looking at starters. It doesn't need to be said that this is a pretty terrible defensive component, especially compared to what we have to work with when it comes to MLB players (and those metrics are pretty flawed as well), but it gives us something to work with.
For catchers, I subtracted the averaged passed ball ratio by the player's passed ball ratio and multiplied it by 100 to move the decimal up 2 and add it to the difference in caught stealing average times 100. For example, if a catcher has a 32.6 CS % and .007 PB ratio, the catcher has a .9 defensive value. Yes, this weighs stolen bases higher than passed balls. This is for several reasons, one being the difference between wild pitches (data we don't have for catchers) and passed balls is somewhat subjective.
I didn't look at pitchers, because I am only doing the positional players here, but adding the defensive component to pitchers would be interesting.
As you will see in the spreadsheet, I put something called WAE, Wins Above Excellence. Because we don't even even care about average players from a international perspective, there should be some kind of cutoff for when we should start caring about them from an international perspective.
Any way we do this will probably be arbitrary (Especially since we don't have a ton data on position players that have played in both American and Korean leagues, and I usually distrust translations). A couple of years ago, using an even more crude method, it seemed that there weren't any internationally interesting Korean position players. Because I didn't know where to set the baseline (I am open to suggestions!), I just left it blank for now.
Of course, WAR, other than FIP WARs for pitchers, doesn't take in account what we might call luck, randomness, or BABIP luck. There have been several attempts to try to neutralize the BABIP out of hitter statistics, and I have tried several of my own. Here, I am using Hitter FIP, which turns into a runs created per 9. Instead of using innings as the baseline, I am using games played. You still add the 3.2. This has obviously problems, such as ignoring doubles and triples, discounting speed, but may be useful in a basic predictive sense. It is unrelated to WAA or WAE, but I am including it for fun.
Remember, most of this stuff only works on full time players, and again, that is fine, because we don't really care about part time KBO players or above replacement but below average bench KBO players.Without further words or explanations (I am sure many of you skipped the method and went straight to the results, which is fine), here is my list of the 72 (9 from all 8 2012 teams) players,sorted by WAA:
Let me know if you find any errors, etc. I have noticed that the speed score is well below 0 combined, which is a problem and skewed the WAA to a negative. I have left it, but just note that players are probably better runners than the metric is giving them credit for and they are probably worth a little more on a whole than the WAA gives them credit for. If anyone wants to fix this component, be my guest. Defensive and offensive value is positive, which it should be since these players are starters, or at least play a lot. You would expect starters to be, on average, better than league average. The positional adjustment, as a whole, is negative, which it should be. In case you were wondering, the average hFIP for the 72 players was 3.93.
This approach is somewhat crude and has plenty of flaws, but hopefully it will help us quantify and rank the talent in the KBO. You will notice that there is a 2nd sheet called "defensive guts", which is just the defensive averages for each position. If you would just like the spreadsheet, feel free to look at it or download it here.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Pacific University Scouting Reports
I saw the University of Pacific take on TCU, and wrote about starting pitcher Michael Hager here.
Nick Viola is a freshman (6-1 195) with a low sidearm delivery, along with a big deceptive leg kick that you usually don't see in sidearm pitchers. It is not a fluid motion. He was throwing 77-80 MPH with downward drop.
The team, on the whole, didn't show a lot of speed or power. However, they were pretty young, playing a lot of freshman, so there may be some potential there for this team.
Brett Sullivan played DH and hit lead-off, obviously a somewhat strange combination. His size (6-0 175) makes lead-off sense but not DH sense (the freshman is listed as a catcher/shortstop). His times to first were 4.31, 4.35, 4.37 as a left-handed hitter. He was not taking a lot of pitches and hit a lot of groundballs.
J.J. Wagner, also pitches, but I saw him play 3rd base. He has tall and lanky size, listed at 6-3 185. He ran about a 4.44 the first time, but was faster later, getting up to about 4.3, then 4.38 when he pulled up on the last couple of steps. There is always a chance I messed up the first time. He has a groundball swing and had some bad swings on breaking balls. He may not have ideal movements or athleticism, but he held his own out in the field. His throwing motion was a little awkward, as he drops down and it didn't provide him with a lot of strength. He is probably not a 3rd baseman long term, and I don't know if the arm is strong enough to play a lot of outfield.
Dustin Torchio is a shortstop, who also has an arm action that is not great or ideal. The senior did show good range though. Short at 5-10 (and providing no real power), was chasing at the plate. He only struck out 15 times last year, but he only walked 14 times. He ran about a 4.28 to first, but it wasn't really a straight path. Not a plus runner, Torchio has somewhat strange looking running strides and stole just 2 bases with 4 caught stealings in 2012.
Erik Lockwood definitely looks like a 1st baseman (listed at 6-3 190), and also pitches from the left side. It seemed like there was a hitch in his swing. It seemed like it was quick in itself but he found himself late on fastballs and was eaten up on breaking balls. He was a solid hitter in 2012, but didn't hit for much power. He ran a 4.57, but seemed a little faster than that, and stole 2 bases last year.
Tyger Peterson ran about a 4.31, and since he is not a big guy (listed at 6-0) and bats left handed, I expected better run. He was solid but not great at 2nd base and hit a hard line drive. The 5th year senior improved last year, but hasn't shown any tools statistically.
Jason Taasaas has a high front leg kick to begin his swing. He sort of has a slap swing, with really bizarre and inconsistent mechanics. The junior struggled at the plate last year. He is not exceptionally big (listed at 6-1 215) as a catcher. He ran a 4.84, but I got 4.59 the next time. He got rid of the ball quick behind the plate but didn't show a plus arm. He is a solid receiver and blocked pitches well.
Gio Brusa is an okay runner, probably below average. The 6-3 freshman has noisy hands with a big uppercut whiff, but he showed the ability to hit low pitches really well. He has good looking build, and the chest area suggests upper body strength.
Taylor Murphy, who was drafted in the 40th round out of high school by the Padres, screamed breaking balls the other way pretty well. He didn't have the power (no homers last year) for his upper cut swing that was a little slow but smooth.
Tyler Sullivan has an other way slap to his swing. I don't necessarily know if it was part of the plan, but the balls ended up the other way. His swing isn't slow, but maybe a little a little long and has a bit of an uppercut. He is maybe a tick under average runner from left side. I got him at 4.35 but he pulled up, and I could see him at a 4.25 really digging, though he didn't show much on the basepaths last year. He would chase low pitches, and while his K/BB was okay, he really was not very good at the plate last year.
Nick Viola is a freshman (6-1 195) with a low sidearm delivery, along with a big deceptive leg kick that you usually don't see in sidearm pitchers. It is not a fluid motion. He was throwing 77-80 MPH with downward drop.
The team, on the whole, didn't show a lot of speed or power. However, they were pretty young, playing a lot of freshman, so there may be some potential there for this team.
Brett Sullivan played DH and hit lead-off, obviously a somewhat strange combination. His size (6-0 175) makes lead-off sense but not DH sense (the freshman is listed as a catcher/shortstop). His times to first were 4.31, 4.35, 4.37 as a left-handed hitter. He was not taking a lot of pitches and hit a lot of groundballs.
J.J. Wagner, also pitches, but I saw him play 3rd base. He has tall and lanky size, listed at 6-3 185. He ran about a 4.44 the first time, but was faster later, getting up to about 4.3, then 4.38 when he pulled up on the last couple of steps. There is always a chance I messed up the first time. He has a groundball swing and had some bad swings on breaking balls. He may not have ideal movements or athleticism, but he held his own out in the field. His throwing motion was a little awkward, as he drops down and it didn't provide him with a lot of strength. He is probably not a 3rd baseman long term, and I don't know if the arm is strong enough to play a lot of outfield.
Dustin Torchio is a shortstop, who also has an arm action that is not great or ideal. The senior did show good range though. Short at 5-10 (and providing no real power), was chasing at the plate. He only struck out 15 times last year, but he only walked 14 times. He ran about a 4.28 to first, but it wasn't really a straight path. Not a plus runner, Torchio has somewhat strange looking running strides and stole just 2 bases with 4 caught stealings in 2012.
Erik Lockwood definitely looks like a 1st baseman (listed at 6-3 190), and also pitches from the left side. It seemed like there was a hitch in his swing. It seemed like it was quick in itself but he found himself late on fastballs and was eaten up on breaking balls. He was a solid hitter in 2012, but didn't hit for much power. He ran a 4.57, but seemed a little faster than that, and stole 2 bases last year.
Tyger Peterson ran about a 4.31, and since he is not a big guy (listed at 6-0) and bats left handed, I expected better run. He was solid but not great at 2nd base and hit a hard line drive. The 5th year senior improved last year, but hasn't shown any tools statistically.
Jason Taasaas has a high front leg kick to begin his swing. He sort of has a slap swing, with really bizarre and inconsistent mechanics. The junior struggled at the plate last year. He is not exceptionally big (listed at 6-1 215) as a catcher. He ran a 4.84, but I got 4.59 the next time. He got rid of the ball quick behind the plate but didn't show a plus arm. He is a solid receiver and blocked pitches well.
Gio Brusa is an okay runner, probably below average. The 6-3 freshman has noisy hands with a big uppercut whiff, but he showed the ability to hit low pitches really well. He has good looking build, and the chest area suggests upper body strength.
Taylor Murphy, who was drafted in the 40th round out of high school by the Padres, screamed breaking balls the other way pretty well. He didn't have the power (no homers last year) for his upper cut swing that was a little slow but smooth.
Tyler Sullivan has an other way slap to his swing. I don't necessarily know if it was part of the plan, but the balls ended up the other way. His swing isn't slow, but maybe a little a little long and has a bit of an uppercut. He is maybe a tick under average runner from left side. I got him at 4.35 but he pulled up, and I could see him at a 4.25 really digging, though he didn't show much on the basepaths last year. He would chase low pitches, and while his K/BB was okay, he really was not very good at the plate last year.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Michael Hager Scouting Report
Michael Hager is a large Righty (6-5 230!) that pitches for Pacific College. As a sophomore, he is not eligible for the MLB Draft until 2014. Hager wasn't drafted out of high school, but was a real control specialist in 2012 as a freshman, not walking hardly anyone but not really striking anyone out either. He is already "filled out" so fastball velocity may not get much harder, which as you will see, is a little disappointing.
He has a pretty standard delivery, the leg gets pretty high, but I doubt he is really going to get deception. Here is some video of his delivery:
I saw him pitch against TCU, which certainly is not as good as the team they had last year, but is still a decent big time baseball program. Here is his pitch data:
It was really hard to differentiate fastballs and the harder off-speed based on velocity late in the game as his fastball regressed so badly. If you just sort the velocity by inning, and don't differentiate pitches, his velocity breaks down like this:
1: 86.8
2: 84.47
3: 84
4: 80.83
5: 81.71
6: 81.76
7: 82.54
As you can see, he dropped each inning for the first 4 innings and his best velocity inning was the first. He then pumped his velocity up a little bit in the 7th before he exited. Of course, this has the bias of penalizing him for throwing more breaking balls late in the game, so let's count the number of pitches under 80 MPH for each inning.
1: 3
2: 2
3: 2
4: 5
5: 5
6: 5
7: 3
This helps explain it somewhat, but let's look at max velocity for each inning:
1: 91
2: 87
3: 87
4: 87
5: 87
6: 87
7: 87
So in the first inning, he was throwing up to MLB average velocity, but didn't throw a pitch over 87 for the rest of the game. Some of the fastballs sank, so I bet if you asked him, he throws a sinker as well, but it is easier to just classify everything as just fastballs, and helps us limit some mistakes.
A lot of the slower ones in the mid 70s broke like a change, but that is a pretty slow change. He spiked a few of them, and they broke more vertically than horizontally (although at least one had good horizontal movement). The harder breaking ball in the low 80s was probably the change
His average pitch thrown was 83.53 MPH, which is closest to Shawn Chacon when looking at right-handed MLB starters in the Pitch F/X era. Chacon was below replacement level in 2007 and 2008 (his only two Pitch F/X seasons). This fits into the bottom third of MLBers.
At the risk of misclassifications, here is how I see his pitch breakdown and their comparisons:
69 fastballs (63.8 %, Phil Hughes) 85-91 MPH range, 86.9 MPH average (2007-2008 Mike Mussina)
12 changeups (11.1 %, Philip Humber) 82-84 MPH range, 83.5 MPH average (Jason Berken)
25 curves (23.1 %, Brett Myers, Philip Humber is actually close) 73-77 MPH range, 74.24 MPH average (Jeremy Guthrie)
Here were his results in 108 pitches:
43 Balls
3 Bunts
3 Fly-ball Outs, 4 Fly-ball hits
16 fouls (2 for outs)
10 GBs (7 for outs)
2 HBP
19 called strikes
8 whiffs
Obviously the whiff percentage is low (7.4 %), but isn't surprising considering what we saw last year. For a control guy, his strike percentage was pretty low (58.33 %). Both HBP came against lefties on soft breaking balls, suggesting he didn't have command of that pitch. This shows something Jason Parks pointed on in an interview, even guys that we consider to have good control in college, don't actually have good control when compared to MLB players.
Hager did get grounders with 10 of his 17 non-bunt batted balls staying on the ground (and 30% of them going through, about what you would expect).
How about results based on splits?:
Lefties:
22 Balls
2 Bunts
1 Fly-ball Out, 1 fly-ball hit
8 fouls
3 GB (all outs)
2 HBP
8 called strikes
4 whiffs
Righties:
21 Balls
1 bunt
8 fouls (2 foul outs)
3 GB hits, 4 GB outs
3 fly-ball hits,2 fly-ball outs
11 called strikes
4 whiffs
He threw strikes to lefties 56.9 % of the time, and he threw strikes to righties 63.2 % of the time, a much more acceptable rate. He was a groundball pitcher to both, and had a slightly better whiff percentage against lefties (the same amount of whiffs in 6 less pitches). Amazingly, TCU bunted twice in play with lefties, more than they did with righties.
When you look at pitch selection, his average pitch was 83.36 MPH against lefties, and 83.68 MPH against righties, not much of a difference, but predictably a little softer against lefties. He threw 13 of the below 80 MPH pitches against righties, and 12 against lefties, suggesting platoon advantage or not doesn't dictate his usage of his slowest pitch. If you look at the 82-84 MPH pitch (which is what looked like his change), he threw 9 against lefties and 3 against righties. This pitch is what was dictated by platoon advantage (like a change normally is).
Here is how he pitched to lefties (as always, no strike/no strike bias, catcher point of view):
Overall when looking at Hager, before even looking at the advanced data, we see a guy who is big but doesn't offer much projection, doesn't miss bats, doesn't throw very hard, and is right-handed. Unfortunately, and he isn't eligible for the draft this year anyway, that isn't much of a prospect. If he throws some more strikes than what I saw him throw, and he keeps not walking many hitters like he did in 2012, than he is draftable, but not very high.
He has a pretty standard delivery, the leg gets pretty high, but I doubt he is really going to get deception. Here is some video of his delivery:
I saw him pitch against TCU, which certainly is not as good as the team they had last year, but is still a decent big time baseball program. Here is his pitch data:
It was really hard to differentiate fastballs and the harder off-speed based on velocity late in the game as his fastball regressed so badly. If you just sort the velocity by inning, and don't differentiate pitches, his velocity breaks down like this:
1: 86.8
2: 84.47
3: 84
4: 80.83
5: 81.71
6: 81.76
7: 82.54
As you can see, he dropped each inning for the first 4 innings and his best velocity inning was the first. He then pumped his velocity up a little bit in the 7th before he exited. Of course, this has the bias of penalizing him for throwing more breaking balls late in the game, so let's count the number of pitches under 80 MPH for each inning.
1: 3
2: 2
3: 2
4: 5
5: 5
6: 5
7: 3
This helps explain it somewhat, but let's look at max velocity for each inning:
1: 91
2: 87
3: 87
4: 87
5: 87
6: 87
7: 87
So in the first inning, he was throwing up to MLB average velocity, but didn't throw a pitch over 87 for the rest of the game. Some of the fastballs sank, so I bet if you asked him, he throws a sinker as well, but it is easier to just classify everything as just fastballs, and helps us limit some mistakes.
A lot of the slower ones in the mid 70s broke like a change, but that is a pretty slow change. He spiked a few of them, and they broke more vertically than horizontally (although at least one had good horizontal movement). The harder breaking ball in the low 80s was probably the change
His average pitch thrown was 83.53 MPH, which is closest to Shawn Chacon when looking at right-handed MLB starters in the Pitch F/X era. Chacon was below replacement level in 2007 and 2008 (his only two Pitch F/X seasons). This fits into the bottom third of MLBers.
At the risk of misclassifications, here is how I see his pitch breakdown and their comparisons:
69 fastballs (63.8 %, Phil Hughes) 85-91 MPH range, 86.9 MPH average (2007-2008 Mike Mussina)
12 changeups (11.1 %, Philip Humber) 82-84 MPH range, 83.5 MPH average (Jason Berken)
25 curves (23.1 %, Brett Myers, Philip Humber is actually close) 73-77 MPH range, 74.24 MPH average (Jeremy Guthrie)
Here were his results in 108 pitches:
43 Balls
3 Bunts
3 Fly-ball Outs, 4 Fly-ball hits
16 fouls (2 for outs)
10 GBs (7 for outs)
2 HBP
19 called strikes
8 whiffs
Obviously the whiff percentage is low (7.4 %), but isn't surprising considering what we saw last year. For a control guy, his strike percentage was pretty low (58.33 %). Both HBP came against lefties on soft breaking balls, suggesting he didn't have command of that pitch. This shows something Jason Parks pointed on in an interview, even guys that we consider to have good control in college, don't actually have good control when compared to MLB players.
Hager did get grounders with 10 of his 17 non-bunt batted balls staying on the ground (and 30% of them going through, about what you would expect).
How about results based on splits?:
Lefties:
22 Balls
2 Bunts
1 Fly-ball Out, 1 fly-ball hit
8 fouls
3 GB (all outs)
2 HBP
8 called strikes
4 whiffs
Righties:
21 Balls
1 bunt
8 fouls (2 foul outs)
3 GB hits, 4 GB outs
3 fly-ball hits,2 fly-ball outs
11 called strikes
4 whiffs
He threw strikes to lefties 56.9 % of the time, and he threw strikes to righties 63.2 % of the time, a much more acceptable rate. He was a groundball pitcher to both, and had a slightly better whiff percentage against lefties (the same amount of whiffs in 6 less pitches). Amazingly, TCU bunted twice in play with lefties, more than they did with righties.
When you look at pitch selection, his average pitch was 83.36 MPH against lefties, and 83.68 MPH against righties, not much of a difference, but predictably a little softer against lefties. He threw 13 of the below 80 MPH pitches against righties, and 12 against lefties, suggesting platoon advantage or not doesn't dictate his usage of his slowest pitch. If you look at the 82-84 MPH pitch (which is what looked like his change), he threw 9 against lefties and 3 against righties. This pitch is what was dictated by platoon advantage (like a change normally is).
Here is how he pitched to lefties (as always, no strike/no strike bias, catcher point of view):
9 5 4 5 2 1 8 12 5
Here is how he pitched to righties:
4 5 3 3 5 2 9 20 6
Surprisingly (to me anyway), he pitched low more to righties and high more to lefties. This could be because he was throwing more sinkers to righties and wasn't exactly executing his changeup location anyway. I think he did a solid job of keeping it out of the middle of the plate, deciding to work high or low. With his velocity/stuff, he needs to keep the ball low.
Overall when looking at Hager, before even looking at the advanced data, we see a guy who is big but doesn't offer much projection, doesn't miss bats, doesn't throw very hard, and is right-handed. Unfortunately, and he isn't eligible for the draft this year anyway, that isn't much of a prospect. If he throws some more strikes than what I saw him throw, and he keeps not walking many hitters like he did in 2012, than he is draftable, but not very high.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Rockwall and Rockwall-Heath Scouting Reports
I saw Rockwall play Rockwall Heath, but since traffic caused me to arrive at the game late, I am combining both teams into one post. Over at Pine Tar Press, I wrote about Rockwall Heath shortstop Bret Boswell, a University of Texas commit.
First, Rockwall:
From a visual standpoint, my favorite player on the team was senior centerfielder Kendall Coleman. He is committed to the University of Iowa, so I am not the only one that likes him evidently. He is tall, lanky (listed at 6-4 200, big league size), and athletic looking (that is, he has a good body, and the few actions I did seem him out in the field and at the plate seemed to point to athleticism, but I didn't really see it tested unfortunately). The arm is okay in center, and with the size, he will probably be a corner outfielder in college. He has the quick wrists and bat speed to hit enough to play out there, but the swing mechanics have issues. He has a drastic uppercut, and it lead to an infield fly.
Dustin Angiel is a shortstop that is a Midland College commit. His arm didn't appear to be particularly strong, and he has a pretty unorthodox throwing motion. He has a big upper cut swing that seemed slow, and he really screwed himself into the ground on a couple of swings. He didn't appear to have real power, but he is an okay runner.
Brad Barnett is a junior left-handed hitter. He is a below average runner, and didn't have much athleticism in the field, playing 3rd.
Nick Lutzel is listed as a first baseman, but the big junior (6-4 200, looked tall and a little lanky to me) played right-field. He keeps his hands low, and has a hitch in his swing. He certainly seems strong, but his mechanics are currently not letting him take advantage of this.
Alec Vice is a senior right-handed pitcher at 6-2 195. This is not great, but solid size, and he appeared to be doing a good job of keeping the ball low. He has really weird mechanics, which you can see here:
He didn't appear to be throwing very hard, and wasn't throwing a lot of strikes. He was throwing a lot of breaking balls and spiked a lot of them. He also had an extremely wild pickoff throw.
I saw Rockwall-Heath last year and wrote about them here. Here are some notes on their team this year:
Ryan Kinney has a strange delivery, in which his head away from the hitter for a second. He showed that he was able to throw 2 different pitches for strikes, a curveball and a straight fastball. As he develops, he should be able to bury the curveball more. He looked short on the mound, and that certainly hurts his ceiling
Kelly Dorsett has a crouched stance, and has a lot to is swing, but the bat itself is pretty quick. With that said, he is probably not a plus runner.
Dillon Brown is an above average runner. At the plate, his front leg was doing something weird that seemed to hurt him in being able to catch up with fastballs. He was a good breaking ball hitter though.
Russell Hughes has a big uppercut swing with not great bat speed. In one sequence, he got burned on a breaking ball, followed by a fastball for big whiffs. When he does get into one, he can scream line drives the other way, but he doesn't really run well.
First, Rockwall:
From a visual standpoint, my favorite player on the team was senior centerfielder Kendall Coleman. He is committed to the University of Iowa, so I am not the only one that likes him evidently. He is tall, lanky (listed at 6-4 200, big league size), and athletic looking (that is, he has a good body, and the few actions I did seem him out in the field and at the plate seemed to point to athleticism, but I didn't really see it tested unfortunately). The arm is okay in center, and with the size, he will probably be a corner outfielder in college. He has the quick wrists and bat speed to hit enough to play out there, but the swing mechanics have issues. He has a drastic uppercut, and it lead to an infield fly.
Dustin Angiel is a shortstop that is a Midland College commit. His arm didn't appear to be particularly strong, and he has a pretty unorthodox throwing motion. He has a big upper cut swing that seemed slow, and he really screwed himself into the ground on a couple of swings. He didn't appear to have real power, but he is an okay runner.
Brad Barnett is a junior left-handed hitter. He is a below average runner, and didn't have much athleticism in the field, playing 3rd.
Nick Lutzel is listed as a first baseman, but the big junior (6-4 200, looked tall and a little lanky to me) played right-field. He keeps his hands low, and has a hitch in his swing. He certainly seems strong, but his mechanics are currently not letting him take advantage of this.
Alec Vice is a senior right-handed pitcher at 6-2 195. This is not great, but solid size, and he appeared to be doing a good job of keeping the ball low. He has really weird mechanics, which you can see here:
He didn't appear to be throwing very hard, and wasn't throwing a lot of strikes. He was throwing a lot of breaking balls and spiked a lot of them. He also had an extremely wild pickoff throw.
I saw Rockwall-Heath last year and wrote about them here. Here are some notes on their team this year:
Ryan Kinney has a strange delivery, in which his head away from the hitter for a second. He showed that he was able to throw 2 different pitches for strikes, a curveball and a straight fastball. As he develops, he should be able to bury the curveball more. He looked short on the mound, and that certainly hurts his ceiling
Kelly Dorsett has a crouched stance, and has a lot to is swing, but the bat itself is pretty quick. With that said, he is probably not a plus runner.
Dillon Brown is an above average runner. At the plate, his front leg was doing something weird that seemed to hurt him in being able to catch up with fastballs. He was a good breaking ball hitter though.
Russell Hughes has a big uppercut swing with not great bat speed. In one sequence, he got burned on a breaking ball, followed by a fastball for big whiffs. When he does get into one, he can scream line drives the other way, but he doesn't really run well.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Eastern Michigan Scouting Reports
Here are my notes on the University of Eastern Michigan, who I saw play in Grand Prairie against Kansas:
Paul Schaak is a junior lefty that is a little short and already built out it seems. He has a 3/4 delivery that made it really easy to see the ball, especially when he was turning his wrist for his breaking ball. He was only throwing 83-84 MPH on his fastball, moving it well, but it stayed up a lot. He gets it to move glove side. He threw two separate breaking balls, that had similar movement but different velcoity. Both broke horizontally and vertically, as did his fastball on occasion. One was 78-80 MPH and the other was 71-72 MPH. He had a lot of problems finishing both pitches. He started off in junior college, but he pitched with Eastern Michigan in 2012 and wasn't too bad with a 3.69 FIP in 28.1 innings.
Taylor Dimmerling has an eccentric delivery that is easier to just record than describe:
He threw 83-86 MPH on his fastball, and it was staying middle to high but later got it down. It has decent 2-seam move. He also threw a 81 MPH change along with a couple of curves. He was one of several Eastern Michigan pitchers that rather drastically underperformed their DIPs in 2012 in small sample sizes. Whether that is because of the nature of small sizes, the not always DIPs friendly college environment, or because Eastern Michigan was/is terrible at defense, is not really clear.
As a group Eastern Michigan seemed really passive and took a lot of strikes. They also didn't have any real athletic looking tool guys.
Daniel Russell is a senior centerfielder who batted lead-off. He didn't seem like a special runner or anything. He hasn't shown great tools offensively, not a lot of power or speed, but has, at least statistically, shown decent plate discipline and hit for a low average, but okay numbers overall.
John Rubino is a little shortstop, that seemed like a solid runner. He doesn't have soft hands, but made solid contact. As a freshman in 2012, he really struggled at the plate.
Lee Longo is a DH that has already built into his frame, which isn't tall (6-1). He has an uppercut swing that isn't quick. He is very concerned about making contact and robs any power he might have by going down and getting balls. He hit just 3 homers last year, which is a low number considering his size.
Adam Sonabend is a short (5-11) catcher with an arm that didn't look great. The junior transferred from community college (after being with Kansas State and not playing) where he hit for a decent average, but no real power.
Jamie Simpson has a slow uppercut hack but showed the ability to reach for outside pitches. He seemed to be a decent runner, but he stole just 1 base in 108 games last year.
Mitchell McGeein is a first baseman that didn't look like a first baseman (6-1 210 is his listed size, but he may have been smaller than that). He chased low pitches but the freshman ripped a homer pull side on a high hanging fastball.
Marquise Gil is a thin looking freshman but not especially tall (I doubt he is really 6-1 200). He doesn't have a smooth or flat swing. He is a below average runner and struggled on defensive, really lacking soft hands.
Sam Ott is a bad body right-fielder that is an awkward runner, running 8.38 on a double. He pulled a ball well, and despite hitting just 2 homers last year, he had a decent OPS and walked more than he struck out.
Paul Schaak is a junior lefty that is a little short and already built out it seems. He has a 3/4 delivery that made it really easy to see the ball, especially when he was turning his wrist for his breaking ball. He was only throwing 83-84 MPH on his fastball, moving it well, but it stayed up a lot. He gets it to move glove side. He threw two separate breaking balls, that had similar movement but different velcoity. Both broke horizontally and vertically, as did his fastball on occasion. One was 78-80 MPH and the other was 71-72 MPH. He had a lot of problems finishing both pitches. He started off in junior college, but he pitched with Eastern Michigan in 2012 and wasn't too bad with a 3.69 FIP in 28.1 innings.
Taylor Dimmerling has an eccentric delivery that is easier to just record than describe:
He threw 83-86 MPH on his fastball, and it was staying middle to high but later got it down. It has decent 2-seam move. He also threw a 81 MPH change along with a couple of curves. He was one of several Eastern Michigan pitchers that rather drastically underperformed their DIPs in 2012 in small sample sizes. Whether that is because of the nature of small sizes, the not always DIPs friendly college environment, or because Eastern Michigan was/is terrible at defense, is not really clear.
As a group Eastern Michigan seemed really passive and took a lot of strikes. They also didn't have any real athletic looking tool guys.
Daniel Russell is a senior centerfielder who batted lead-off. He didn't seem like a special runner or anything. He hasn't shown great tools offensively, not a lot of power or speed, but has, at least statistically, shown decent plate discipline and hit for a low average, but okay numbers overall.
John Rubino is a little shortstop, that seemed like a solid runner. He doesn't have soft hands, but made solid contact. As a freshman in 2012, he really struggled at the plate.
Lee Longo is a DH that has already built into his frame, which isn't tall (6-1). He has an uppercut swing that isn't quick. He is very concerned about making contact and robs any power he might have by going down and getting balls. He hit just 3 homers last year, which is a low number considering his size.
Adam Sonabend is a short (5-11) catcher with an arm that didn't look great. The junior transferred from community college (after being with Kansas State and not playing) where he hit for a decent average, but no real power.
Jamie Simpson has a slow uppercut hack but showed the ability to reach for outside pitches. He seemed to be a decent runner, but he stole just 1 base in 108 games last year.
Mitchell McGeein is a first baseman that didn't look like a first baseman (6-1 210 is his listed size, but he may have been smaller than that). He chased low pitches but the freshman ripped a homer pull side on a high hanging fastball.
Marquise Gil is a thin looking freshman but not especially tall (I doubt he is really 6-1 200). He doesn't have a smooth or flat swing. He is a below average runner and struggled on defensive, really lacking soft hands.
Sam Ott is a bad body right-fielder that is an awkward runner, running 8.38 on a double. He pulled a ball well, and despite hitting just 2 homers last year, he had a decent OPS and walked more than he struck out.
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