AFL Pitch F/X Data: Amador and Rua

Eventually what you want to be able to do with Pitch F/X data is to evaluate players. I have been looking at Pitch F/X data in the 2013 Arizona Fall League from several different perspectives, but have yet to look at isolated individual players. In this post, I wanted to look at a couple of notable hitters, not highly rated traditional prospects, but a couple of players I think are interesting, and see what the Pitch F/X data says about their tendencies during the AFL season (and perhaps, their offensive game as a whole).

Japhet Amador is 26 year old former Mexican League slugging 1st baseman signed by the Astros late in the 2013 season. Amador is most known for his weight, but he had some impressive seasons in Mexico. He
saw 160 pitches measured by Pitch F/X in the Arizona Fall League

His 32 swinging strikes is twice as many swinging strikes as you would want (at least compared to MLB league average), and that is going to be a serious problem if he is going to be a MLB player, so let's take a look at the pitches he swung and missed at

Amador is a right-handed batter, but their appear to be plenty of whiffs on both sides of the plate for him. There were also several high inside fastballs that Amador swung and missed at. So perhaps he is struggling with velocity, but let's continue to look at locations and start to focus on the good things he did in the AFL measured by Pitch F/X. Here are his 4 home runs.

 Up and in is also where Amador hit a couple of home runs, as well as missing some pitches. It is worth noting that Amador appeared on the list of hitters that hit a homer in the same at-bat they had a swinging strike. It would seem that pitchers could throw it there effectively at times, but Amador could strike there successfully. How about all of Amador's batted balls?

Amador was able to put balls in play when they were inside, and preferably up. Pitches away, especially low and away, were almost never put in play by Amador. To illustrate the differences, let's look at his average locations.

While his average home run was on pitches that were harder than the average pitch, just as we saw in the home run graph, his average whiff was on pitches harder than the ones he put in play. His whiffs were much lower as well, and he hit balls inside better than outside. He was pitched slightly inside on average, something I have chalked up to inexperience and lack of control in previous AFL posts, and if he played in the Majors, we would expect to see more pitches outside. This could really hurt Amador's chances of hitting, as he doesn't seem to hit these pitches. Checking on whether or not he struggled with velocity, I checked the 4-seam fastballs he saw, all 90 by Pitch F/X, and saw that the average one he swung and missed at averaged 93.98 MPH, while the ones he put in play were 90.67 MPH, making it seem that he was dramatically affected by velocity in fastballs. The four seamers that he fouled off were 92.69 MPH on average, and the called strikes were 91.54 MPH, while the balls were 92.15 MPH on average.

Moving on from Amador, I wanted to take a look at someone who had a home run explosion in the lower minors (32 homers in all in 2013) for the Rangers system, Ryan Rua. Rua saw 228 pitches measured by Pitch F/X in the Arizona Fall League, 28 of them for swinging strikes. Here are were they were located, labelled with MLBAM tags:

Rua is also a right-handed hitter, so the low breaking balls to the right are actually inside, which is strange. While there are some low balls on both sides, and two pitches higher than the strike zone, almost all of these pitches are actually in the strike zone. Like Amador, Rua hit four home runs that were measured by Pitch F/X. This is what they looked like:

All four are obviously in the strike zone, and are roughly middle height, three of them inside, one outside. Let's look at all of Rua's contact plays in context of location and the opposing pitcher's release point.

Rua seems pretty balanced at making contact on pitches both inside and outside, even making contact on a pitch outside of the strike zone, as well as a pitch low and in, not in the zone. He also made contact on pitches in the normal right-handed pitcher cluster. Interestingly, it didn't seem like he made contact with a lot of pitchers with high release points, though the average AFL release point was lower than the average MLB release point in 2013.

Finally, here are his average locations to give us a better idea of his hitting tendencies in the AFL

Obviously the homers are higher on average, but interestingly they were further away on average as well. His contact came on pitches slightly closer to him than the average pitch, while his whiffs generally came low. While his home runs were on harder pitches than average, both his contact and whiffs were on slightly slower pitches, with his whiffs being slower on average. It would seem that he can hit for power if you get the pitch up and over the plate, while you can still throw inside on him, low preferably, and get him to swing and miss.

Juan Morillo in the CPBL

Juan Morillo is the hardest thrower in the Chinese Professional Baseball League, and one of the hardest in the Far East as a whole. In case you don't believe me, here is him hitting 99.4 MPH, which is a CPBL record.

Morillo is a former MLB pitcher, appearing in 9 games over four seasons with two different organizations. Especially since not every outing was even a Pitch F/X outing, we do not enough Pitch F/X data to analyze (not to mention that he has not been in the Majors since 2009, so the data would be dated, not containing any possible changes he has made since that time). However, it appears that Morillo didn't get much movement on his fastball (though the sample size was really small and I distrust a lot of Pitch F/X movement data since it varies so much from park to park). So it may be important to look at whether or not his fastball is "straight" when evaluating Morillo

After his brief MLB career and a somewhat odd minor league career, Morillo, who will turn 30 in the offseason, signed with the Rakuten Eagles for the 2010 season, but he didn't pitch in 2011. He was released in April by Rakuten of that year by his own request and was dealing with some elbow problems. He threw just 6.2 Ichi-gun innings for Rakuten, and 17.2 innings for the Ni-Gun team. In both, he struck out a lot of batters, but had a few walks as well. His fastball averaged under 95 MPH (never really got close to 98 MPH on a "cold" gun)  and he threw almost all sliders (with some "cutters" that were the same velocity) as secondary pitches.

Here is what his slider looks like:

If he could control that pitch, then it would be very effective to both lefties and righties. It works as a really good vertical depth pitch, but just from that one pitch alone, you can see why it would be hard to command.

In 2013, Morillo sruggled in the Mexican League in a small sample size to start the year before going to Taiwan. He has only thrown 18 innings for the Rhinos, and his ERA is a 4.50, walking more guys than he is striking out. The only real positive you can say about his statistical line in the CPBL is that he has over twice as many groundouts as flyouts.

I watched one of his outings with the Rhinos and what I saw pretty much matched the data above. He was 94-99 MPH without great command. However, I thought the pitch had good life, and he threw it both high and low. Despite giving up more than a hit an inning, I don't think the fastball, at least in a vacuum, is easy to hit because it is straight. I thought one of the problems he has mechanically is that it looks like he just slings the ball around. His release point, for the most part, is a mess. He uses a delivery that has a lot of moving parts to it, as he goes up, pauses, and then tilts before coming forward. His arm angle is a little non traditional, as it is more of a 3/4 motion that becomes an over the top motion because he falls hard to his left. This "falling" seems like it would be very difficult to repeat on a consistent basis.

He also went that outing without throwing any breaking balls, which is perhaps why it was a successful outing. His fastball isn't an easy pitch to hit for CPBL hitters. It can be an easy pitch to take because it isn't close to the zone.

At age 30 next year, it is hard to believe that he will even figure out how to command his mechanics and throw strikes, but perhaps one could have said the same about Radhames Liz. He found enough command to start effectively in the KBO without losing any of his fastball. Would it make sense for a MLB team to sign him to a no risk minor league deal, try to tinker with his mechanics, and release him when/if he didn't throw strikes? Perhaps. However, I think it would make more sense for the EDA Rhinos to keep him and try to develop him as their closer. He is the hardest throwing pitcher in league history, and even with his flaws, that has real, tangible value. He has a skillset that no one else in the CPBL came even really come close to, and who knows, perhaps he pitches himself back onto MLB radars.

Mexican League Pitch F/X: Lopez and Lozoya

The Mexican League Diablos Rojos del Mexico played the Texas Rangers' in a game at the Ballpark in Arlington. This means we got Pitch F/X data on some pitchers we wouldn't normally get data on. Later in the week, I plan to write up some notes on some of the position players in the game.

In this post, I am only looking at the data of two of the pitchers. I have already written about David Reyes, and Esteban Loaiza threw a max of 82.6 MPH and has been out of the Majors for years.

Yair Lozoya:

Lozoya is interesting because he is listed at just 5-8. 5-8 is usually blogger height or perhaps middle infielder height. Just 20 years old, Lozoya broke into the Mexican league last year, pitching in 5 innings (in 5 games). Despite the lack of height, he releases the ball about 6 feet high:

When looking at his pitches, ignore the listed cutter as that moved just like his other fastballs, and spun like it as well. The manual tags do this, but they also call one of the curveballs a slider. This makes sense in both movement, and by spin, as you can see below.

Lozoya's fastball is below average for a reliever, especially a right-handed reliever, at 88.76 MPH. In the Majors, it is closest to David Weathers, and in the bottom 4 percent of right-handed relief fastballs since 2007. However, it got really good vertical movement in the game against the Rangers, with a little bit below average horizontal movement. It is sort of impressive that he got that good of vertical movement since he is so short. I have always assumed that their is some correlation between height and vertical movement. This isn't a study by any means, and I would love to see more research on it, but the 10 right-handed relievers with the most vertical movement on all pitch types were 6' 1.6 inches tall, while the 10 with the least amount of vertical movement (taking out the negatives caused by sidearmers etc.) were 6 feet 2.09 inches. So, especially from what we seem from Lozoya, there must not be this correlation.

Lozoya also got very good vertical movement on his changeup, curve, and seemingly his slider as well. One theory could be because he is releasing the ball above his height. However, a quick look at his strike zone doesn't suggest he was "getting on top of the ball" or keeping the ball low.

The lack of velocity of his pitches with the addition of his vertical movement, makes him look like sort of a fringey MLB reliever that could perhaps be above replacement level (though he is hurt by his height, which probably rules out an ability to throw multiple innings consistently, though that is not a huge part of many bullpens in the Majors anyway). His height and body size seem to say that he won't add much more velocity if any. He does have quite a selection of pitches, which can make him interesting as a pitchability guy out of the 'pen, but it is obviously too early to really project his command.


Arturo Lopez got a cup of coffee with the San Diego Padres in 2009, but now the 30 year old is pitching Mexico for the Diablos Rojos. He also pitched for the Padres in spring training this year, but must have been released. In 2009, his fastball averaged 92.41 and he threw a slider and change in the mid 82 MPH range. In his outing against the Rangers, we see where his velocity has dipped, down to 90.75 MPH on his fastball, with the change dipping under 80 MPH and the slider at just 80.16. He really struggled in the Mexican League last year according to ERA (well over 6), but had a decent 3.98 kwERA and a manageable 1.1 HR/9IP in the very hitter friendly league.

It is always interesting to see how release points change over time. The data suggests that he is releasing the ball slightly higher, and much closer to the middle of the plate/his body:

What does this mean? Well at least in the Mexican League over the last two years, he has had basically no platoon splits. You would imagine that the previous release point would lend to big platoon splits. Obviously his short MLB time is way too small of a sample size to look at platoon splits (though interestingly, he had the platoon advantage just 41% of the time in the 17 batters he faced, suggesting that the Padres didn't think he would have platoon splits), and it is hard to find split data for minor league games before 2010. As far as consistency goes, we see that Lopez has had some problems this spring repeating his delivery, but it isn't horrible (but enough to make the large amount of walks believable).

We see that the overall movement on his pitches has also regressed. This isn't surprising considering his age or loss of velocity, but it is notable. It seems that while Lopez has improved because of his release point, he is on the wrong side of the aging curve, and since he wasn't able to establish himself with better velocity and better movement, it seems that he is not a MLB pitcher, and probably in the Mexican League for the remainder of his career, where he should have some success.

David Reyes Scouting Report

David Reyes is a 21 year old (turns 22 in April) Mexican League right-handed pitcher. I watched him pitch for Mexico in the Caribbean Series. Reyes came in to face Miguel Tejada as a right-handed reliever, and got him to fly-out to center. He would then pitch the 6th inning and would get all fly-balls (though one was an infield fly-ball).

Reyes is listed at 190 and 6-0, but looks skinny, and probably has some projection, so just size-wise, he is probably going to remain a reliever long term. 

He's got impressive tilt on slider, with lots of horizontal movement to the glove side, especially late. It is a little soft at 79-81 MPH, but it darts out of the zone pretty well. I could see it being homer prone if left up.

Reyes has a 89-91 MPH fastball, that is pretty straight, but he gets a little bit of glove side movement. He seems to be a very slider/fastball heavy pitcher (but he is clearly not sinker/slider pitcher, as the fastball is thrown up high and works like a 4-seamer). He seemed to miss off the plate on the glove side quite a bit. He also broke out a slow curve at 72 MPH that breaks just up and down like a traditional 12-6 curve.

As far as his delivery goes, Reyes has sort of a high leg kick and pause, and a delivery that clearly looks like a reliever motion. The motion is not fluid, and the glove is in a weird place (away from the body and to the right) when he finishes). His arm angle is a pretty traditional 3/4 delivery.

In 2012, Reyes pitched in 30 games in the Mexican League (57 innings), mainly as a reliever. He had a 3.85 FIP, in a league where the average FIP was 4.29. Since Mexico Diablos Rojas' (Reyes team in 2012) 2 year (raw) park factor is about 113 (so just for ease, we will change average expected FIP to 4.85), this about a 79 FIP -. While his H/9IP (not a predictive statistic thanks to BABIP) was right at league average, he did a better than league average job at limiting homers. Considering he looked like a fly-ball pitcher to me, this surprised me. However, he has been a good ground-ball pitcher in Mexico, getting 45.8 GB% in his two years in the Mexican League, while league average was 43.9 % in 2012. So this is why he has been able to hold opponents to a .130 ISO and 10.4 HR/OFB % (with league average at 12.4 in 2012) in his 82.1 career innings. Of course, since he is a reliever, these numbers need to be regressed some to determine value. He does nothing especially well, that is, he is not an exceptional strikeout pitcher or control pitcher, but he has been above average, even when looking at non-homer DIPs like SIERA and kwERA as a young pitcher (only 8 pitchers 21 or younger threw at least 40 innings in the Mexican League in 2012, and only one, Remberto Romo, was better in terms of FIP).

Obviously the lack of a plus fastball makes Reyes less interesting as a possible MLB prospect (and ignoring the logistical and contract problems that sometimes arise in these situations), but he does have two breaking pitches that may not be plus, but could be MLB pitches. I would like to see more strikeouts from Reyes, but he is a little advanced for his age.

Juan Oramas Released: Scouting Report

Juan Oramas was non tendered by Padres making him a free agent. He is expected to sign back with the Padres, but could sign with anyone. He had Tommy John Surgery during the season and isn't expected to be ready to pitch again until the season starts again. Because the return from Tommy John Surgery seems so high, and the majority of the time pitchers come all the way back velocity wise etc., I will make the assumption in this article that the Oramas we saw before the injury/surgery is the one that you will see once he is healthy again. Without access to a medical license, his medical profile, or even a way to contact him, this is the only way I can do a writeup on him. The 22 year old left-hander has a noticeable lack of height at just 5-10 which does make you question his durability as a starter (he has pitched mostly as a starter in his career and most of his relief appearances were early on in his career).

Oramas was born in Mexico, but spent his first two years in the Padres system (2007-2008) in the Dominican Summer League. Despite being effective, he had to go pitch in the Mexican League (loaned by the Padres) where he had a 2.31 ERA and 3.27 FIP in a league where the average ERA was 4.96. He was back in the Padres organization in 2010. After a solid year mainly spent in the California League (3.71 FIP against the league average ERA of 4.57), Oramas got to pitch in AA in 2011 (and made one awful AAA start in the tough park, 116 park factor in 2012, in Reno). In 18 starts (19 appearances and 104.2 innings) Oramas had a 3.40 FIP and 3.35 SIERA, not showing much home or road splits (and was actually more homer prone in San Antonio's friendly park). This year, he threw 35.1 innings in AA before the surgery and wasn't himself, with a lower strikeout rate and higher walk and home run rates.

I watched a little video of him from a couple of years ago along with one of his outings from this year (on MiLB.TV). He has an extremely violent looking delivery that ends with him coming hard and fast over the top. He has a pretty large leg kick without a long or unrepeatable stride. The arm action is just really tough to watch. I can't see how he can be a starter with that delivery. He is known for a slightly below average fastball, a decent curve, and a mediocre changeup. The change has decent horizontal and vertical fade to his arm-side while the fastball is mostly straight with a little bit of arm-side movement. In the sample I watched, it looked like was throwing mainly medium height, perhaps a little dangerous for a mediocre fastball. He seemed to be really changeup heavy not throwing the curveball hardly at all. Perhaps counter-intuitively, he doesn't throw a slow curve, and instead throws a pretty hard biting curveball. It doesn't have great movement or break, but like his other two pitches, he has good control of it.

The lefty is predictably better against lefties than righties, with similar K/BB rates but more homer prone against righties (though his BABIP is higher against lefties, most likely randomness). He is not a ground-ball guy, instead relying on good strikeout and walk rates along with a lot of infield pop ups. The injury set him back, as Padres Prospects saw him as polished enough that he could have made it to the big leagues by the middle of the season. I think it is pretty obvious that he is a reliever long term, especially since the arm injury. However, his pitch mix should allow him to pitch mostly without splits so he can pitch more on leverage than on the platoon of the opposing batter.

Dodgers Shortstops Scouting Reports: Ynoa and Lemmerman

Since the team was sold to Guggenheim Baseball Management (better known as the group lead by Stan Kasten and Magic Johnson), the Dodgers have been the most aggressive team when it comes to spending money. Despite this, their current shortstop situation is certainly not ideal. They started the season with speedster Dee Gordon at the position, but not only did he not hit, he got injured and really struggled defensively thanks to a bizarre issue when it comes to throwing to first base. The team ended up using  Luis Cruz (who finished 2011 in the Mexican League, but performed valiantly for the Dodgers) at short for 24 games and Hanley Ramirez (whom they traded for despite being moved to 3rd base in the off-season by the Marlins. Ramirez has always been considered athletic, but not a very good defender. His bat has also taken a step back over the last couple of seasons for whatever reason) for 57 games. Cruz repeating his 2012 success in 2013 seems unlikely from just a basic statistical standpoint, and Hanley Ramirez simply does not get to as many balls as a traditional shortstop does. Having a good offensive/bad defensive shortstop has worked for the Yankees (and perhaps to a lesser degree, the Tigers), and it doesn't seem like the Dodgers have a lot of other options. 26 year old Justin Sellers played in just 19 games in the Majors in 2012 thanks to bulging disk surgery. At least an adequate defender according to minor league batted ball data, the former 6th rounder has had some offensive success in the minors and should be an at least okay baserunner. Do you want him as a starter on a contender though? Probably not (even if healthy). 24 year old Osvaldo Martinez (acquired in the middle of the season) has a career .556 AAA OPS (most of it in the PCL), making him not an option at all. So in this post, I will look at the Dodgers two AA shortstops, Jake Lemmerman and Rafael Ynoa, and see if the Dodgers have their next shortstop in either of those players.

Jake Lemmerman was a 5th round pick by the Dodgers out of the University of Duke (where his offensive statistics were very mediocre) who destroyed the Pioneer League after signing and moved into full season ball at the start of 2012. After a decent offensive performance in A + Rancho Cucamonga (105 OPS +, 104 wOBA +), he got his first taste of AA in 2011 and then spent the whole year there in 2012. While he put up the same kind of numbers in AA (104 OPS +, 104 wOBA +), nearly all of his damage was done at home (.206 ISO versus a .078 ISO on the road). The AA Chattanooga park is a pretty hitter friendly park compared to the rest of the Southern League (105 Park Factor in 2012, 109 in 2011), particularly when it comes to doubles (it is basically neutral when it comes to homers). Doubles are Lemmerman's game (just 7 homers, 4 at home, 3 on the road in 2012), as he was tied for 5th in the Southern League. 24 of those doubles came at home, just 5 of them came on the road. He did have a larger GB % on the road, and his K/BB wasn't as good either, but the park accounts for at least as much as the doubles as those variables do.

He is considered a good contact guy, but that didn't exactly play out in 2012 as he struck out 21.8% of the time. He doesn't seem to be a platoon player, as despite the fact that he is better against LHP, he has held his own against RHP, only seeing slight decreases in rates. He has sort of a weird leg kick to begin his swing but still manages to use good bat control to get the bat on the ball most of the time.

Lemmerman played a little 2nd base, but played mainly shortstop. FRAA thinks he played above average there while range factor had him below average.
You see a lot of things like "good instincts" and "knowledge" when it comes to Lemmerman (what you might expect from a major college shortstop drafted relatively high). However, you see a lot of things like "lack of range and speed" and skepticism as to whether or not he will stick at short. This shows in things like steals. Lemmerman had just 8 steals, but was not caught stealing (5.1 speed score). The arm is considered anywhere from average to good in the field.

Rafael Ynoa is a couple years older than Lemmerman at age 25, and he was originally signed out of the Dominican Republic by the Dodgers back in '06, where he would stay through 2007. Evidently unconcerned with the mediocre showing with the bat there, the Dodgers brought him to the states where he would eventually make it to AA to start the 2012 season. His offensive season was just slightly worse than Lemmerman's (106 wRC +, 102 wOBA +, 99 OPS +), but offense has clearly not been Ynoa's strong point, as he was league average in Class A in 2010, pretty bad offensively in A + the next year, and has a career OPS just under .700 (with a SLG under .350). This means he will have to make up for his bat with other tools. While Lemmerman has appeared towards the bottom of almost all of the Dodgers scouting reports, Ynoa has been mostly absent.

He split time almost equally between 2nd and SS, which is probably not good news for Ynoa since it is seen as questionable as to whether Lemmerman will stick there. When Ynoa played in the Arizona Fall League, he played mainly 2nd base. Both range factor and FRAA had Lemmerman as the better defender, but Ynoa has been positive in that category for most of his minor league career. He has also shown some speed as well, with a 6.0 Speed Score in AA and 6.8 in the Arizona Fall League with 30 steals and 12 caught stealings in all.

Ynoa didn't have the splits Lemmerman had, and if you only look at the road statistics for the two, Ynoa was not only better, he was considerably better. Even though he is a switch hitter, he is quite a bit better from the left side, walking less, striking out less, and hitting for more power. It seems he likes to stand in the back of the batters box and goes from leaning on his front foot to leaning back before the ball is pitched. This gets his hips in a strange position, almost like he is batting from a closed stance (even though it doesn't appear that his feet are "agreeing" with his hips). The actual motion of the swing is clean, and the bat seems quick enough, with a pretty large sweeping uppercut. He doesn't have big strikeout rates and has a pretty normal GB/FB/LD/IFB, so it doesn't seem that the uppercut or swing is a problem. It just doesn't generate a lot of power for whatever reason (it is not like he is exceptionally small, listed at 6-0, 180). Plate discipline is not an issue either, as he has posted good walk rates to go with his relatively low strikeout rates through out his career. I would love to get a look at more advanced batted ball data (spray charts/average batted ball distance/etc.), because it seems that he should be a better hitter than he is. The mechanical problems listed above may explain a good deal, and I wonder if they are fixable or whether he has been playing too long to be able to make a large change in his mechanics.

While both of these players have the potential to help the Dodgers, but I don't think either will have a large impact barring a few different injuries to the infield (or more likely, the abandonment of Hanley Ramirez at short, moving him somewhere else and Cruz being unable to repeat his 2012 success). They certainly seem like an organization that isn't going to try to plug holes with minor leaguers, which is why I have been surprised to not hear them linked to the middle infielders on the free agent market. As for long term potential, the two obviously have more value at shortstop than they do at 2nd base. I am not sold on Lemmerman's bat, which really makes me skeptical of him as anything more than an okay utility option (more likely a journeyman type). To me, the big thing for Ynoa will be his defense. Even if he doesn't improve with his bat, a switch hitting middle infielder that can run and field will always be able to find a utility job.

Scouting Reports: Vince Belnome and Leonardo Heras

Vince Belnome in the Padres AAA was a 28th draft pick out of college in 2009 but the 2nd-1st baseman has crushed the ball everywhere he has been in the minors.

The 24 year old left-handed hitter spent almost whole year in AAA and was a slightly better than average hitter. He really did it with OBP skills, as his power didn't translate from AA (from 2011) to AAA. That AA power came almost exclusively against righties. Most of it also came on the road, which isn't that surprising since San Antonio's park has played as a pitcher friendly park over the last couple of years (with park factors of 98 and 92 for the two seasons).

1st base is kind of blocked right now for the San Diego Padres with Yonder Alonzo, and even though the Padres have some good exciting infielders (Alexi Amarista and Logan Forsythe come to mind, and that is even if Headley gets traded), there is always more value if you can play 2nd base rather than just first. With his size and build, it is really difficult to see him playing 2nd base. He has a big frame and fills it out nicely.

The swing seems to be pretty quick, and clearly has an uppercut. He had some bad swings on breaking balls when I watched him. His patience seems to come on fastballs, as he isn't going to swing at low fastballs or ones out of the zone. His plate discipline isn't great, mainly because of his problems with breaking pitches, but statistically he does have a good Pit/PA along with a very good K/BB and not too many swinging strikes.
His swing isn't as pretty on high pitches, which you would expect when it comes to uppercut swings. His LD/GB/FB surprised me somewhat, as he hit more ground-balls in 2012 than I figured he would have. A lot of this seems to be because he is an extreme ground-baller against left-handed pitching. His K/BB is better against lefties, but he hits for virtually no power against them. As a first baseman, this probably limits him to being a platoon player.

His bat is sort of hard to diagnose, because he doesn't look like the no bat speed mistake hitter that you see in the PCL a lot. He also didn't hit for much power in the PCL as well. The real question is whether he can keep walking against better pitchers that throw better breaking pitches, especially if he isn't hitting for power (which would most likely make pitchers attack him more). He seems reasonably easy to pitch to, as you would go fastballs high (but most likely have to keep them in the zone) and breaking balls low. There also isn't room for him on the Padres roster, as stated above. The best bet might be for a team with a need for a left-handed hitting first basemen to make a call and put together some kind of trade for him (I can't possibly see why the asking price would be high) and give him a chance. I am not sold that he has a real big league future, but he may develop into a bench player/pinch hitter. 

Leonardo Heras is someone that has been highlighted thanks to his age (22) and his big numbers in the Mexican League. He also plays mainly center field but has also played in the corners and 2nd base. He is short, at 5-8 to 5-9 but he had a .230 ISO in 2012 (it is pretty apparent his power is developing as the ISO is getting better each year). League average ISO in the Mexican League was .148.
The average pitcher is 28.4 years old and the average hitter is 29.6 years old in the Mexican League, showing just how young Heras is compared to his competition. He may have sacrificed part of his game for power as he struck out more in 2012 and saw his K/BB slip somewhat. He was reportedly looked at by the orioles and evidently (I at least can't find him on a roster) he is not playing in a winter league. Here is a video I found of him hitting:

His swing probably won't lend him a lot of power, especially the other way. Most of it will most likely be pull on pitches on the inside part of the plate. He is not a big stolen base threat but his speed scores have been good. According to other videos on YouTube, it looks like he has plenty of athleticism and takes good routes to the ball defensively. I am not the first to say this, but I do find him interesting and wonder how much money it would take to pry him away from his Mexican League team. 

Some Venezuelan Winter League Scouting Reports (Aguilas de Zulia)

The Venezuelan Winter League season kicked off on Thursday night. Here are reports on 5 players from the team Aguilas de Zulia.

Jose Flores is a switch hitting infielder, with a not very pretty and almost bailout swing from the left side. He will run into a ball and show surprising power if you put it on the inside of the plate and it looks like he can run. He also plays a solid looking 3rd base. Statistically, the 24 year old has been pretty unimpressive, with a flash of success in A - (109 wOBA +), deceptive California League statistics, and a whole lot of mediocrity to bad hitting in between. He hits a ton of grounders (something that isn't surprising considering the swing), and doesn't walk or strikeout a lot. He has a utility/NL bench/AAAA player ceiling.

Justin Henry's swing isn't quick, as he is lefty that you can get inside on. The swing has a little bit of a chop in it too. He has a really tall build and at least had what looked like decent plate discipline. He has always been somewhat of an "empty average guy", with a minor league batting average of nearly .300 (with a decent walk rate) and a slugging percentage under his OBP. He spent the entire 2012 in AAA, where he had a 107 wRC + at age 27. He is not really a prospect, but probably more of an org. guy, as he can move around position wise and could be a utility player for the Tigers next year (there is a good chance he is better than Ryan Raburn, although his AAA numbers aren't as good).

Ender Inciarte is a small 21 year old left handed hitter that plays mainly centerfield. He has a little bit of a bailout swing and seems to have some kind of shoulder drag. It is not quite a hitch, but it works in that way. It was probably not the best platediscipline on display, but he will flick the ball the other way with relative ease. He has already been in the organization for 5 years and has a .714 career OPS and hasn't reached AA (he has played in the Midwest League for at least part of 3 seasons). However, his first shot in the California League was relatively successful, with a 104 wOBA +. He is a good contact guy with a mediocre but not terrible walk rate.His game relies on speed, as he had a 8.8 speed score in the California League, and 84 out of 100 speed rating by the Baseball Cube.

Jose Sanchez has a really effortless and repeatable delivery, but wasn't throwing hard. His release point did seem to suffer on fastballs and they stayed up a few times. Other than that, he had solid command. The former Met farmhand has spent the last two years in the Mexican League (after a terrible 2010 in Independent Ball). He has over 350 AA innings, but was mediocre at best, with a 4.57 ERA/6.4 K/9IP/3.2 BB/9IP. He threw just 17 innings in the Mexican League in 2012. Sanchez has a pretty slow curve along with what looks like a slider. The slider doesn't have exceptionally hard break and drifts to the glove side. Even with platoon advantage, he seems to work to that side.

Deivis Mavarez is right-handed sidearmer. He had a little bit of control problems and his landing point is a little messy. The ball moves like a change like many side-arming/submarine pitchers. He did a decent job of keeping the ball low overall.The 26 year old was originally signed by the Astros in 2005, but struggled in the Venezuala summer league and was released after 2 years. The Rays picked him up and watched him have success in the same league, with a ton of strikeouts and a good ERA. He was brought to the States, and had good numbers throughout, only to be let go after 2011 after never being promoted past A+. He really failed to be dominant against righties in 2011, with a high walk rate and a low strikeout rate. As far as I can tell, he didn't pitch anywhere in 2012.

How our Japanese Projections did

So as the season in Japan and America is about to wrap up, it is time to look back at the projections I used to evaluate players coming from the NPB to the MLB and vise versa. Here is the major pitcher projection I used, and here is the major pitching projection.

As Jeff Sullivan points out, success in Japan to America isn't always linear. These projections basically assumed they were. The off-season was a long time ago, and regular readers will notice that their has been some revolution of thought on this blog. Now, instead of using the projections, I would scout more (video of most players are online) and use NPB Tracker's pitch data to evaluate pitchers. I've done this in other posts when looking at players in the two major leagues in East Asia. I just wanted to see how the projections did for fun and of course, to see if they had any predictive value.

From Japan to U.S:

Tsuyoshi Wada: After a spring where it was apparent he wasn't healthy, he had Tommy John Surgery and he didn't pitch in the regular season.

Yu Darvish:
Projection: 2.42 ERA, .995 WHIP, 192 strikeouts, ~6.5 WAR, worth 20-24 million.
Actual: 3.90 ERA, 3.30 FIP, 1.27 WHIP, 221 strikeouts, 4.9 WAR, 22 War Dollars (according to Fangraphs). I basically projected him to be around Cliff Lee statistically, and in FIP and FIP -, he was right around Cliff Lee.

Norichika Aoki

Projection: .388 OBP, .95 PPG, 2.97 PAPP, ~ 3.64 WAR, worth ~ 5-11 Million

Actual: .355 OBP, 3.2 rWAR, 3.1 fWAR, 13.7 WAR Dollars (according to Fangraphs)

Wei-Yin Chen
Projection:  1.162 WHIP 3.02 ERA, 6.072 K/9IP, ~5 million
Actual: 1.27 WHIP, 4.11 ERA, 4.43 FIP, 7.26 K/9IP, 9.5 WAR Dollars (according to Fangraphs)

Hisashi Iwakuma
Projection: 1.29 WHIP, 3.86 ERA, 77 strikeouts, ~5-10 million
Actual:  1.28 WHIP, 3.32 ERA, 4.51 FIP, 94 strikeouts, 2.1 WAR dollars (according to Fangraphs)


Munenori Kawasaki
Projection: .311 OBP, .61 PPG, 3.5 PAPP, and -1.15 WAR
Actual: .255 OBP, -.4 rWAR

From U.S. to Japan:

John Bowker
Projection: .316 OBP, .06 WAR
Actual: .261 OBP

Lastings Milledge
Projection: .361 OBP, .789 OPS, 1.43 PPG, 2.22 PAPP, 2.13 WAR
Actual: .379 OBP, .865 OPS

Jorge Sosa:
Projection (I didn't do a projection at the time, this is a back dated using the same transfer rate): 4.11 ERA, 1.396 WHIP, 7.69 K/9IP
Actual: 1.91 ERA, 1.174 WHIP, 7.0 K/9IP

Kam Micolio:
Projection (back dated again): 4.22 ERA, 1.525 WHIP, 13.01 K/9IP
Actual: 2.89 ERA, .964 WHIP, 8.7 K/9IP

Esteban German:
Projection (back dated): .392 OBP
Actual: .347 OBP

Wily Mo Pena:
Projection (back dated): .336 OBP
Actual: .333 OBP

(Victor Diaz did horrible in a short stint in Japan this year, but had been in the Mexican League for the past two seasons after stints in the KBO and Independent ball. He hasn't been in the Majors since 2007, so those statistics seem pretty irrelevant. Brad Penny made one bad start before hurting his elbow and coming back to the States where he has been pitching terrible for the Giants.)

I think a big finding is that the projections really underestimated how friendly the league is for pitchers and how devastating it is for hitters (the exception is obviously Lastings Milledge, who outperformed the projection by a lot). This has really changed over the past two seasons, as I understand it, a baseball change has made the league even more pitcher friendly. Any future projection system (not that I will design one), has to take this into serious account. However, this only applies to runs, as the projections overestimated how prevelant strikeouts are in the NPB, as the ones that came to America usually had more strikeouts and the ones that went to Japan had less strikeouts than the projections said they would. Of course, none of this adjusts for parks and that makes it at least somewhat inadequate. My metric on the relation between WAR and salary is much different than Fangraphs' (it is much more conservative, as mine is about 3 million per win, while Fangrahps is about 5 million per win).

Scouting Report: Angel Castro

Angel Castro is a pitcher that has been pitching in the Dominican winter league. He throws 95-96 MPH (he went up to 97 according to one radar gun in the Dominican Republic). In the Dominican he had a 1.86 GB/FB rate with a 2.53 ERA. Overall, he has a pretty impressive -2.73 PE with a .253 OBP against. This projects to a .287 OBP against in the Majors, which is pretty dominant. 

He spent 2011 in the Mexican League and gave up an ERA of 5.45 despite having a 3.00 GB/FB and 7.7 K/9IP. He gave up an amazingly bad 12 H/9IP and a WHIP over 1.8. He suffered from a .389 BABIP that one can deduce is from a bad defense, since he gave up 6 unearned runs as well, and his FIP was 3.88. He did keep the ball in the ballpark with a .5 HR/9IP rate.

AA is where Castro had problems, as he had a 4.48 ERA in 64.1 innings, with a 1.477 WHIP and 6.2 K/9IP. Most of the problems stemmed from his 18 inning stint with the Phillies organization, where he had a 49.7 LOB% and .369 BABIP. His stint with the Tigers in AA wasn't that bad with a 3.96 FIP. This still isn't very good and projects to a ERA of around 5.40.

After watching Castro throw a few times in the Dominican this off-season, I don't have much doubt that he can pitch in the big leagues. It would be a real shame if he has to go back to the Mexican League to pitch.

Projecting Gerardo Concepcion

18 year old Cuban pitcher Gerardo Concepcion has moved to Mexico and will become a free agent. So I found Cuban pitchers who pitched both professionally in Cuba and the MLB. I could find just 3 with reliable statistics.

Aroldis Chapman
Cuba: 10.04 K/9IP, 3.75 ERA
MLB: 12.8 K/9IP  ,3.27 ERA

Yuneisky Maya
Cuba:  7.6 K/9IP, 2.45 ERA
MLB: 4.14 K/9IP, 5.52 ERA

Jose Contreras
Cuba: 14.97 K/9IP, 4 ERA
MLB: 6.8 K/9IP, 4.54 ERA

Contreras and Maya saw significant decline in the Majors, while Chapman saw improvement. The biggest difference between Chapman and Contreras/Maya is that Chapman throws an average 99 MPH fastball, hitting 100 frequently, and neither Contreras or Maya hit 95. As I had shown in a previous article, pitchers that threw 95 MPH were much more likely to have success than pitchers that didn't. According to reports I have seen, Concepcion can barely hit 90 MPH, which is about what Maya throws. So here we will look at Concepcion's statistics through Contreras and Maya's difference in the two countries.

Gerardo Concepcion
Cuba: 4.7 K/9IP, 3.36 ERA
MLB Projection: (negative strikeouts somehow), 5.165 ERA

Just for fun, a projection including Chapman:  1.74 K/9IP, 4.4 ERA

As you can see, the strikeout projections are particularly unhelpful, but a 4.7 K/9IP at any level is terrible. His ERA is also very pedestrian and unimpressive. He is only 18, and could develop more (I would be surprised if he didn't), but throwing 90ish with no apparent strikeout abilities isn't exactly something teams should be clamoring over.

Free Agent Watch: Seth Etherton

As the Taiwan Series wrapped up, former major league pitcher Seth Etherton found himself in a key role, pitching in the final game. Etherton threw major league innings for the A's, Angels, Reds, and Royals. However, he hasn't pitched in the big leagues since 06, and has been in the minors since. In his career, he posted a -.7 WAR, an incredibly bad 5.815 PE, and a pitiful Throwing Rating of 3.60. He actually spent 2011 in Mexico, and in 10 starts posted a very solid -1.063. However, there is no way without creating a metric for the Mexican league and the United States to measure the difference in competition. In 2010, he pitched in AAA for the Dodgers, and posted a pretty mediocre 1.25 PE. In those 2 levels of baseball, he had a great K/BB ratio (5.1 in Mexico, and 4.13 in AAA). The ability to miss bats and throw strikes is basically the essence of pitching that any franchise wants. However, he still struggles with the longball, giving up over 1 every 9 innings in both leagues. I think it would be wise to bring Etherton in as a minor league free agent or a non roster invitation to spring training. Some of the numbers look promising, and if there is no risk then why not?