Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Jake Jewell, RHP, Anaheim (Profile)
Level: Double-A   Age: 23   Org Rank: 12   Top 100: NR
Line: 6 IP, 2 H, 0 BB, 2 HBP, 0 ER, 6 K

Notes
Jewell was promoted to Double-A after walking three total hitters in three Cal League starts. He was throwing very hard this spring, 93-96 with natural cut and a bevy of average secondaries (sinker, slider/cutter, sweeping low-80s curveball), all of which are hard. Scouts generally have him projected to the bullpen but Jewell’s repertoire is deep enough to start if he can improve his command. He threw 51 of 73 pitches for strikes on Sunday.

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Yesterday, Yonder Alonso hit a home run. Used to be, that would be notable because Yonder Alonso home runs didn’t happen very often. This year, that home run was notable because it was ninth of the year, matching his career high for home runs in a season. Alonso matched his career-best home run total on May 7th, in his 29th game of the 2017 season.

You can only do something like that if you haven’t hit many home runs previously, and there are few regular corner players who have hit fewer home runs and kept their jobs than Alonso. From 2012 through 2016, when Alonso racked up over 2,200 plate appearances, he managed to launch all of 34 home runs, one fewer than Andrelton Simmons hit during that same time period. James Loney hit seven more home runs than Alonso did during that stretch, and Loney was the probably the most Alonso-like first baseman in baseball; James Loney also just got released from his minor league contract over the weekend, if you’re curious about league-wide interest in low-power first baseman on the wrong side of 30.

But low-power first baseman apparently doesn’t describe Alonso anymore, as he’s currently tied (with Bryce Harper, among others) for ninth on the 2017 home run leaderboard. His .356 ISO ranks even better, putting him fifth overall, one spot ahead of Harper. Yeah, it’s early, but Alonso is showing every characteristic of a guy who revamped his approach and might have salvaged his career.

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The fact that Parker Berberet has a 0.77 ERA and has struck out 10.8 batters per nine innings isn’t particularly meaningful. Not only has he thrown just 11-and-two-thirds frames, he is 27 years old and pitching in low-A. He’s a long shot to reach Milwaukee, or any other big-league city.

That doesn’t mean he hasn’t come a long way. The Oregon State product spent his first six professional seasons behind the plate, and while he’s been a fringe prospect, he’d reached Double-A and played a smattering of games in Triple-A. But the writing was on the wall, and Barberet could see it. The view is plain as day from a perch at the end of the bench.

“I went to the Brewers last year, at the All-Star break, and asked if I could do it,” Berberet said of his position switch. “I was on the phantom DL at the time, and I wasn’t getting into many games when I (was active), so I was like, ‘Let’s see if I can strengthen my arm and convert to the mound.’”

The Brewers decided to let him try. Berberet began by throwing bullpens, and he showed enough promise to be invited to instructional league, and then back to spring training. Had he not requested the move, he isn’t sure he’d be wearing a uniform.

“I was definitely close (to getting released),” opined Berberet. “I was barely getting to play, so who knows if I’d have gotten an opportunity this year?” Read the rest of this entry »

This a companion piece to what I wrote earlier today on Trevor Story, in which I wondered if a hitter can become too extreme with regard to a certain approach. In Story’s case, the specific approach is one designed to lift the ball into the air.

This is also a status update on a comment made by Eno Sarris regarding Ryan Schimpf back in early March, after Schimpf had just produced the most fly-ball-oriented season on record. Wrote Sarris:

And maybe that’s the lesson in the end: Ryan Schimpf is so extreme that two things are true. On the one hand, he won’t be as extreme next year, because only one person has ever been as extreme as Schimpf was last year, and that player also didn’t play a full season. But it’s also true to say that Schimpf will probably a hit a ton of fly balls next year, even with regression.

Schimpf was not a qualified hitter last year, recording just 330 plate appearances, but among single seasons of 100 plate appearances or more, no hitter on record had produced a higher fly-ball rate or a more extreme ratio of fly balls to ground ball.

Schimpf is always going to be a fly-ball hitter, because he’s always been a fly-ball hitter. Schimpf routinely posted sub-0.60 GB/FB ratios throughout his lengthy, winding minor-league career. But he’d never produced a ratio like the 0.30 mark he produced last season in a half-season’s worth of work. Surely he was going to regress nearer his minor-league career average this season, nearer normal MLB batted-ball distribution, right?

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Obviously you should use “who” rather than “what” when dealing with human beings — and I’m not suggesting that Andrew Triggs is some sort of robot — but when we try to understand pitchers, we often classify them in different buckets. And those buckets are things. So the question is, in which bucket does Triggs belong? How should we sum him up?

Let’s try three different labels and see if any of them make sense, beginning with…

A Slider/Cutter Guyer
It’s right there on his player page. Brooks Baseball has it the same. Andrew Triggs throws a slider or a cutter more than half the time.

That would make you suspicious, maybe, of his hot start. His pitching-independent numbers are fine, but there isn’t really a great road map for this type of pitcher. It didn’t quite work for Shane Greene as a starter, for one. For another, there isn’t a single qualified starter this year who throws only a cutter and slider as his secondary pitches.

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When Xander Bogaerts was climbing the prospect rankings back in 2013, he was billed as an offense-first shortstop, a guy who would probably end up growing out of the position early in his career, but would have the power to become a top flight third baseman. In summarizing their write-up as the Red Sox top prospect after the 2013 season, Baseball America wrote that Bogaerts should develop into “a likely peak of 25-plus homers a year in the middle of the lineup.” In other write-ups, they noted his “plus plus raw power”, and the questions about his value were almost always tied to his defensive abilities.

Bogaerts, now 24, is coming off back to back +4 WAR seasons, and as a 24-year-old, he’s established himself as one of the best young players in baseball. But he’s also turned himself into something like the complete opposite of what he was billed to be as a prospect.

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On Wednesday night, Brandon Belt came to the plate six times. He drew four walks, struck out once, and put one ball in play, a single in the 11th that drove in a run. Of course, the combination of all those walks and the relative lack of homers sometimes leads to spurious criticisms not unlike those leveled at Joey Votto. While most understand that Votto is a great hitter and many understand that what Belt does is good, Belt’s reputation likely suffers more than Votto’s for a few reasons.

1. He’s not as good as Joey Votto.
2. He hits relatively few homers for a first baseman.

As to that first point, there’s no shame in failing to rival Joey Votto. As to the second, it really is hard to overstate the effects of Belt’s home park. Despite what Barry Bonds might have led everyone to believe, it’s incredibly difficult to hit homers in San Francisco. Despite what Barry Bonds might have led everyone to believe, it’s even more incredibly difficult for lefties to homer there.

Brandon Belt isn’t without power. He has posted ISOs well above league average throughout his career. Since the beginning of 2015, his .226 ISO on the road is 23rd best in baseball among the 160 players who’ve recorded at least 500 away plate appearances. He’s within 10 points of Joey Votto; he’s right behind Josh Donaldson, Brian Dozier, and Daniel Murphy; and he’s just ahead of Miguel Cabrera and Jose Bautista. In 580 away plate appearances since the beginning of 2015 — roughly a season’s worth of playing time- – Belt has 28 home runs, having hit them at a greater rate than Kris Bryant and Paul Goldschmidt. His numbers are good in high-leverage and low-leverage situations. He’s good with runners on and the bases empty. He’s consistent, too, as the chart showing his 100-game rolling ISO shows.

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One is tempted, after learning that a player has tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, to discount whatever value that player has provided on the field before positive test. There’s an asterisk applied. An unspoken caveat. A bit of a good old-fashioned “well, actually.”

Facing Kyle Kendrick isn’t exactly the same thing as using PEDs. Kendrick certainly has a habit of enhancing the performances of opposition batters, but the players who hit against Kyle Kendrick aren’t technically cheating. They’re not doing anything insidious, not violating some sort of rule, written or unwritten. They’ve simply had their names penciled into the lineup on the same day that Kendrick has been asked to start for his club. No need for an asterisk. A mental note, perhaps. But bad pitching is a part of the game. In some form, there will always be a Kyle Kendrick.

Seth Smith happened to be in the lineup when Kendrick started against Baltimore on Thursday. Perhaps it’s not accurate to say that he “happened” to be in the lineup. He’s the team’s usual leadoff man against right-handed pitchers, and Kendrick does indeed throw with his right hand. So there Smith was, doing the job that the Orioles have asked him to do. He’s not a typical leadoff man, in that he’s not a speedster. But he gets on base, and that’s what matters in the quest to set up Adam Jones and Manny Machado.

Suffice to say, Smith did his job on Thursday night.

Smith went 4-for-4 with a walk and scored two runs as Baltimore walloped Boston 8-3. Kendrick went just four innings. He allowed six runs, including a moonshot by Machado. He was, in essence, Kyle Kendrick. But that simple fact, that very essential and intrinsic fact of baseball, helped Smith morph into a fearsome, exasperating monster of a player for the duration of the game. Smith entered the game hitting .222. He exited hitting .286.

There was no big, ringing hit from Smith. The closest thing to it was an opposite-field double that brought two runs home. But it was how his hits happened that made this night special. Because the things did on Thursday made him appear awfully similar to Mike Trout, who just so happens to be the best player in the game.

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Trevor Story was one of the great surprises of 2016. He continues to be of interest early in 2017.

Story has always been a fly-ball hitter, which is an attractive trait for a player who calls Coors Field home. In his eight minor-league stops, Story hit more fly balls than ground balls six times. As a rookie last season, he posted a 0.62 GB/FB ratio and a 47.1 FB%.

This season?

Story has gone full Schimpf on us. He ranks second only to Schimpf in GB/FB ratio and second in GB/FB ratio (minimum 100 plate appearances) since batted-ball ratios have been recorded.

Story was already an extreme fly-ball hitter. Now he’s even more extreme — nearly the most extreme on record.

Story’s proclivity for fly balls doesn’t appear to be the result of fluky, early-season sample size. Consider: his average launch angle is 32 degrees, nearly double his 2016 average (16.7 degrees). A number of batted-ball metrics are near stabilization points. In the majors, Story ranks second only to Schimpf (33.1 degrees) in average launch angle. I haven’t seen any reports on Story’s apparent swing alterations or changes to philosophy early this season, but it appears as though he’s up to something.

We’ve written quite a bit about the uppercut philosophy this spring, and more and more MLB hitters appear to be buying in. The league’s average launch angle has inched up from 10.0 degrees in 2015, to 10.6 degrees in 2016, to 10.9 in 2017.

The question is, when does a hitter become too extreme in approach?

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Since the start of the 2015 season, the Diamondbacks have been easily baseball’s best baserunning team. They’ve been baseball’s best baserunning team in terms of stolen bases, and they’ve been baseball’s best baserunning team in terms of other kinds of advances. Baserunning isn’t one of those components that makes or breaks a roster, given that it’s more peripheral or secondary than anything else, but the longer something like this goes on, the easier it is to recognize.

In this very season, the Diamondbacks are at it again. That’s the second-place Diamondbacks, the wild-card-spot-occupying Diamondbacks. A few years ago, by our numbers, as a team they were 13 runs better than average on the bases. Last season, they were 18 runs better than average. This season, they’ve already been about 12 runs better than average. They didn’t do anything noteworthy on this particular afternoon, but that’s what a team gets for facing Max Scherzer. The team’s still been elite, and they’ve played only 30 games.

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