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Fringe Five Scoreboards: 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013.

The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a few years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion among the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above who (a) was omitted from the preseason prospect lists produced by Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com, John Sickels*, and (most importantly) lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen and also who (b) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing on a midseason list will also be excluded from eligibility.

*All 200 names!

In the final analysis, the basic idea is this: to recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant.

*****

Beau Burrows, RHP, Detroit (Profile)
Burrows is unusual among the players typically included here. He’s a former first-round selection, for one. And for two, he’s considered one of the top prospects in his organization. These aren’t the sort of qualities shared by residents of this column like Sherman Johnson or Max Schrock. Indeed, including a player here who possesses those qualities would appear to contradict the very mission of this weekly effort.

And yet, Burrows has appeared within zero of the relevant top-100 lists as a professional — was, in fact, omitted from John Sickels’ list of 200 prospects published before the season. A bit of context reveals why that might be. As Eric Longenhagen noted in December, Burrows was “seen as a bit of an overdraft” when he was selected out of a Texas high school in 2015. Moreover, the organization to which he belongs, the Detroit Tigers, has routinely featured fewer high-end prospects than almost every other system. Nor does this year represent an exception to that rule: Detroit placed 25th in Baseball America’s preseason organizational talent rankings, the club’s best ranking since 2012. Being regarded as one of the Tigers’ best prospects, in other words, isn’t equivalent to a similar honor for those minor leaguers employed by Atlanta or the Yankees.

Whatever the reasons for his omission, he’s pitched well this season. After appearing among the Next Five last week, Burrows recorded a 7:0 strikeout-to-walk ratio against 24 batters over 7.0 innings in a start versus St. Louis’s High-A Florida State League affiliate (box).

Here’s video from last year of the three main pitches in his repertoire, a fastball (usually in the mid-90s), a curve, and then probably a changeup:

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Back in March, Jeff wrote a post entitled “Could Aaron Altherr Be Part of the Core?” Let’s start by just lifting a few paragraphs from that piece.

Aaron Altherr has had a good spring. As should always go without saying, it’s a lot easier to have a good spring than to have a good summer. Worse players have posted better numbers, and we can seldom learn that much from these six weeks of semi-baseball. What I like here is that Altherr has put himself back on my own radar. Although he doesn’t have a clear path yet to regular playing time in Philadelphia, he could conceivably force his way. Not that long ago, he already did.

Altherr’s breakout year was 2015. Then, as a 24-year-old, he trimmed his strikeouts in the upper minors, and he graduated all the way to the majors, where he posted a 125 wRC+. That’s an above-average offensive line for a debut player with quick legs and above-average defense. Altherr was going to play, and play often, until in the following spring, he busted his wrist. He missed that starting opportunity, and when he got back, he wasn’t the same.

The Phillies did give him a chance. Altherr played frequently down the stretch, but his wRC+ was half what it had been. The power went away, and this is where you have to think the wrist injury took a devastating toll. Out of 309 players who batted at least 150 times in both 2015 and 2016, Altherr saw the third-largest year-to-year increase in ground-ball rate. The swing consistency wasn’t there. The swing stability wasn’t there. Wrist injuries aren’t always a valid excuse, but you can see how they could be in particular cases.

Jeff used Altherr’s big spring — he hit .303/.395/.591 in the Grapefruit League — to wonder how heavily Altherr’s miserable 2016 performance should factor into our evaluations. ZIPS and Steamer certainly weren’t very high on him, projecting an 83 wRC+ that suggested the Phillies were right to move him to a fourth outfielder role. A 26-year-old with that kind of offense is not a guy you need to make room for, even on a rebuilding team.

But ZIPS and Steamer didn’t know that Altherr might have been playing hurt last year, and as Jeff noted, his 2016 batted ball profile bears little resemblance to the one he put up in 2015 as rookie. If the wrist was a lingering problem, perhaps a healthy version of Altherr shouldn’t have such a pessimistic forecast based mostly on his total lack of power last year, especially after he showed some legitimate thump in Spring Training.

So that’s the back story. In Spring Training, Jeff found Altherr interesting, and thought maybe there was more power there than the projections thought. Fast forward five weeks, and Alther has made Jeff look like a genius.

After launching a pair of home runs yesterday, Altherr now has 15 extra base hits, five more than he had all of last season. Among players with 80+ plate appearances, he ranks fifth in the majors in ISO, and his 202 wRC+ ties him with Freddie Freeman for sixth best in baseball. Or, if you want a fun comparison, here’s his slash line compared with some other guy who we’ve been writing about occasionally around here.

Thames has played everyday, so he has 54 more plate appearances than Altherr does, plus he has the KBO dominance, so don’t take this comparison to mean that Altherr should now be viewed as an elite hitter. But in a little under a month’s worth of playing time, Altherr has effectively matched the production of one of the biggest stories in baseball this year.

So, yeah, Aaron Altherr is interesting, and he’s currently looking a lot more like the 2015 version that made a splash in Philadelphia rather than the guy who played himself out of a job last year. As Jeff noted, his groundball rate spiked last year, but that has corrected itself in 2017, as his GB% is back to 42%, down from the 51% mark he put up last year. And his average launch angle over the last three years (11.6, then 5.6, and now 10.0) mostly confirms Jeff’s suggestion that his swing was off last year.

And speaking of swings, Altherr hasn’t gone all Yonder Alonso on his approach, but he is something of a minor “swing-change” guy. Here’s Pete Mackinin on his changes, in a piece written by David Laurila in March.

A guy who jumps out to me is Aaron Altherr. He’s adjusted his setup and his swing path. He’s gone from a long swing to a shorter swing, and he’s getting good results because of it. [Hitting coach] Matt Stairs changed him. You have to give Aaron credit, too. A lot of guys aren’t really receptive to making a change from how they’ve swung the bat their whole life. He was willing to do it, so I tip my hat to Aaron.

“The key is to go directly to the ball from your launch position. Instead of A to B to C, what you’re looking for is A to C. [Altherr] has his bat on his shoulder now. He had been starting with his hands up high, and it looked uncomfortable. I always felt his swing looked a little too long. He made the correction.

Jeff noticed the hand position change in his post, so there is some mechanical explanation for Altherr hitting the crap out of the ball this year after slapping it around last year. And while anyone running a 202 wRC+ has almost certainly gotten at least a little lucky, Altherr is definitely making better contact than he did last year; his average exit velocity is up from 88 to 91 mph, and more importantly, from 93 to 98 mph on balls in the air. His airball exit velocity puts him in the same area as Ryan Braun, Manny Machado, Cody Bellinger, Yasmany Tomas, Justin Upton, and Matt Holliday.

So, while he’s not a true talent .392 ISO guy, it seems pretty likely that there’s legitimate power here. And as Jeff noted back in March, if he has legitimate power, then he’s a good player, because everything else is already in place. Altherr already showed a decent idea of the strike zone, but he’s also running a career low 22% O-Swing% this year, and his overall swing rates show a relatively patient hitter who isn’t afraid to work counts. His contact rates have hovered around 75%, a little bit below league average, but his in-zone contact rates have been either around or above league average, and this year, is up at 87%.

His swing-and-miss problem is almost entirely related to chasing pitches out of the zone, which is something that he’s doing less this year than he has previously. If you have to have a contact problem, it’s much better to have low contact rates on pitches that you can choose to take than on pitches you have to swing at. Altherr isn’t Joey Gallo or Byron Buxton, where he’s swinging through pitches in the zone, and that he can hit for real power while making above average contact on pitches in the zone is certainly encouraging.

So we have a hitter who will draw some walks, makes enough contact, and has some power. That’s a nice offensive base to build from, and he’s not exactly slow either. Toss in that he looks like he could have some real defensive value in left field, with the ability to cover center occasionally if need be, and the package starts to look pretty similar to the skillset that made Mitch Haniger a popular guy on FanGraphs over the winter.

Like Haniger, Altherr is a little older, and as a guy who might profile as a good-not-great hitter in a corner outfield spot, he probably won’t become an accepted star. But an above-average hitter who can also play defense is a very nice piece, and there’s George Springer upside to this skillset. Springer, of course, has been producing in the big leagues for four years now, and Altherr isn’t even on three good months as a Major Leaguer yet, so there’s a lot of risk here. As the league adjusts, he might not adjust back, and he very well may join a very long list of guys who were good for 100 at-bats and then got exposed.

But as a good athlete who shows some control of the strike zone, all Altherr really needed was enough power to scare pitchers into not pounding the zone in order to be a big league regular. It’s not easy to fake the kind of power Altherr is showing right now, and while there’s inevitable regression coming, he looks like he might have enough power to let everything else play.

While the Phillies pitching staff got most of the hype last year, their organization has done a pretty nifty job of turning a cast of fringe prospects into the start of a pretty interesting core group of hitters. Between Cesar Hernandez, Odubel Herrera, and now Altherr, the team could now have three solid young players who add value on both sides of the ball. There’s still holes to be filled, but right now, Altherr looks like he’s taking one of the corner outfield jobs and running away with it.

PITTSBURGH – Baseball players are often late risers, working second-shift hours. As such, Eric Thames typically began his days in Changwon, South Korea, around 11 a.m. local time. He went through a series of stretching exercises in his apartment and then departed for lunch.

His home was about a mile from the ballpark in Changwon, a southeastern port city positioned on an inlet that flows to the East China Sea. For lunch, there were five of six American-style style restaurants nearby. There was a burger joint, Italian and Mexican restaurants. Web sites created by American expats documented all the options. He would eat alone, reading his Kindle or iPhone, skimming through articles. He would then walk, or travel by Onewheel skateboard, to Massan Stadium, the home of the NC Dinos. He would arrive early, and hit early, alone, for 30 or 40 minutes. Afterward, he would read more in the clubhouse as he tried to fill in the hours before first pitch.

During most of his time with the Dinos — owned by NCSoft, a South Korean video-game developer — Thames had only two American teammates and both had brought their families along with them. After home games, or on the road, Thames would often retire to his apartment or hotel room. For three years of his life, and of his professional career, Thames was often alone.

“I was so bored over there,” Thames told FanGraphs. “The language barrier was really tough. For me, it was a lot of time by myself. I didn’t speak any [Korean]. All the other American [players] had families and stuff, so they are with their kids. So I’m just online reading stuff, and I’m bored, and I’m pissed because I’m 0-for-15. ‘Let’s figure out what’s going on here.’ So I started looking up video.”

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We’re a little early for Dave Cameron’s annual must-read Trade Value series, but I suspect Matt Harvey won’t be appearing in it this year. I feel quite certain about that prognostication — even if Harvey avoids exile to the minor leagues and returns instead to his vintage 2013 form over the next few weeks.

Harvey met with the media Tuesday afternoon at Citi Field and tried to begin taking some accountability for his recent actions.

More from Matt Harvey pic.twitter.com/AgoCgZLdDi

— SNY (@SNYtv) May 9, 2017

While Harvey initially claimed that an innocent headache prevented him from showing up at the ballpark on Saturday, the New York Post later reported that Harvey’s headache was perhaps a product of self-inflicted dehydration.

The “Dark Knight” was celebrating a late Cinco de Mayo at 1Oak until 4 a.m. Saturday — just hours before he failed to show up for a game at Citi Field, reportedly because of a “migraine,” sources said.

If true, it’s remarkable that folks still believe they can escape truth in an era of smart phones and social media.

A day earlier, Jon Heyman reported that Harvey and his agent Scott Boras planned to file a grievance over the suspension. It was suggested that the Harvey camp was displeased with the Mets’ decision to send team officials over to Harvey’s apartment for a check-in. Whatever the case, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of trust here.

The Mets’ 2017 season has become quite the soap opera, and it stars Harvey.

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14 months ago, Jeff wrote a post titled “Welcome Back, Alex Wood“. In the piece, Jeff noted that Wood’s arm slot had been dropping each year, corresponding with decreases in effectiveness since he debuted with the Braves and established himself as one of the game’s best young starters. But during Spring Training of 2016, Wood got his arm slot back up to where it was earlier in his career, and his velocity also was higher than it had been in 2015, when the Braves decided he was about to break down and traded him for Hector Olivera.

With better velocity and a return to his previous release point, Jeff suggested that the Dodgers might get the good version of Alex Wood again, and to some extent, that turned out to be right. His strikeout rate jumped from 17% to 26% while also posting the highest GB% (53%) of his career, so while his 3.73 ERA wasn’t amazing, his FIP and xFIP were both back to his Atlanta levels. But Wood also battled elbow problems that put him on the shelf at the end of May, and when he returned at the end of the year, the team used him as a low-leverage reliever. He showed flashes of promise in his 10 early-season starts, but 2016 wasn’t exactly the hoped-for justification of why the team targeted Wood at the 2015 trade deadline when better pitchers — specifically Cole Hamels — were available.

2017 looked like more it might continue that trend, as Hyun-Jin Ryu‘s return to health pushed Wood back to the bullpen to start the year. And even when he was pressed into starting duty a week into the season due to Rich Hill’s blister problem, the results weren’t that encouraging, as he walked five of the 19 batters he faced and couldn’t make it out of the fourth inning. But despite the wildness, there as one big reason for optimism that came out of that start; Wood showed that his spring training velocity bump wasn’t just preparation for a relief role, but that his fastball might really be back to 2013 levels.

While he sat 94-95 in relief in his first appearance of the year, that could have easily been written off as a normal velo bump that starters get when they move to relief work. But when pressed into a starting role, he still managed to sit 93-94, which is what Wood was throwing back when he was a dominating rookie in Atlanta. The command wasn’t there, but stuff wise, this was as good as Wood had looked in years. And after Hill and Ryu’s DL stints gave Wood the chance to rejoin the rotation for more than just a spot start, Wood has finally looked like the guy the Dodgers hoped they were trading for.

Since April 21st, Wood has made four starts, throwing 20 2/3 innings in the process. And while he hasn’t been asked to pitch deep into those games, he’s dominated opposing hitters over that span.

Wood has struck out 30 of the 84 batters since rejoining the rotation, including 11 strikeouts in his start against Pittsburgh last night. He’s walked just one batter in each of those four starts (one of them intentionally), so his 30/4 K/BB ratio shows how well he’s owned the strike zone. But his dominance goes beyond even that level, as 32 of the 50 batters to put the ball in play against him during that span have hit the ball on the ground. You almost never see a pitcher combine a better than 30% strikeout rate with a 60% ground ball rate, but during these last four starts, Wood’s at a 36% strikeout rate and a 64% groundball rate.

That is Dallas Keuchel‘s groundball ways combined with Chris Sale’s control of the strike zone. Those are good things to have, and insanely good things to have simultaneously. And it’s not like the groundballs Wood is giving up have been rockets; he’s allowed just an average exit velocity of 86 mph during these last four starts, and his .216 expected wOBA based on Statcast data is actually lower than the already-absurd .233 wOBA he’s allowed during this stretch.

Of course, this is all super small sample data. We’re talking about four starts, and only 84 batters faced in those four starts. But it’s worth noting that Wood has never really had a four start stretch this good in his big league career. The closest he came was back at the end of 2014, when he ran a 34/5 K/BB ratio across 28 innings while getting grounders on 54% of his batted balls. Even in the best year of his career, when he ran a 2.78 ERA/3.25 FIP/3.19 xFIP, he didn’t quite dominate over four starts like he has since rejoining the Dodgers’ rotation.

The key for Wood this year really does seem to be the effectiveness of his fastball. For reference, here’s the amount of contact on fastballs in the strike zone against Wood, by year.

In the first couple of years, when Wood was really good in Atlanta, his sinker not only got grounders, but it missed enough bats in the zone to help him get ahead in counts as well, and then he could get hitters to chase his curve and change-up out of the zone. Over his first four years, the pitch became more and more hittable, and Wood lost the ability to miss bats, relying on walk-avoidance and grounders to keep him afloat.

This year, though, the fastball is missing bats again, like it was earlier in his career, and that’s putting him in more advantageous counts, which leads to chases on breaking balls out of the zone. Last year, opposing batters swung at just 33% of his curveballs out of the zone, but this year, that’s up to 46%. Wood’s ability to get early strikes with his fastball has put him in a position to bury his off-speed stuff in the ground and still get hitters to chase.

And so, for the first time in a Dodger uniform, Alex Wood looks like the guy Atlanta had at the beginning of his career. He’s mixing a mid-90s fastball with a mid-80s curve and a high-80s change-up, and getting both whiffs and groundballs with all three pitches. He’s never been a guy who has pounded the strike zone, but by getting ahead in counts and getting chases out of the zone, Wood can keep his walks down and his strikeouts up. And even when he’s giving up contact, it’s been of the weak groundball variety.

For right now, the Dodgers are effectively manufacturing injuries in order to keep Wood in the rotation, pushing back a decision to ship someone else to the bullpen in order to keep Wood starting every five days. But with the way he’s throwing right now, Wood might be the team’s second or third best starter (depending on Rich Hill’s ability to stay on the mound), and it’s hard to see him getting bumped back to the bullpen again any time soon. This version of Alex Wood is a high-quality starting pitcher, and the one the Dodgers have been waiting for since they acquired him.

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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 »

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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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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