Collectively, Reds pitchers have been all sorts of terrible this year. Their team ERA (5.45) and FIP (5.62) are both easily the worst in baseball, as injuries to Homer Bailey, Raisel Iglesias and Michael Lorenzen have left their rotation painfully thin. It’s about to get better, though, as top prospect Cody Reed is set to make his big-league debut tomorrow. Since we’ve likely passed the Super Two deadline, he should be up for good.

Reed enjoyed a breakout season in 2015, when he posted an impressive 24% strikeout rate and 2.93 FIP between High-A and Double-A. That was enough to make him a fixture on prospect lists last winter. He placed in the middle third of most top 100 rankings.

Reed built on last year’s success at the Triple-A level this year. Although he’s faced better competition, his strikeout and walk rates have remained on par with last year’s numbers. The end result has been a 3.20 ERA and 3.37 FIP. Not bad at all for a 23-year-old facing borderline big-league hitters.

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Just last week, the Cubs added another productive asset to their already stacked lineup when they called up outfielder Albert Almora. Today, they fortified their juggernaut offense even further by summoning slugging catcher Willson Contreras. Contreras has absolutely destroyed the Pacific Coast League this year. In 55 Triple-A games, he was slashing .353/.442/.593.

Contreras has demonstrated an exceptional combination of contact and power in Triple-A this year. He’s struck out just 13% of the time, yet has also managed to put up a .240 ISO. Some of that has to do with his playing in the PCL, where homers are very common. But a lot of it doesn’t: On a per plate appearance basis, he hit significantly more singles, doubles, triples and home runs than the typical PCL hitter. As if that weren’t enough, he also drew walks and even stole four bases. From a hitting perspective, he did it all. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I published KATOH projections for the players who were drafted out of college in this year’s amateur draft*. As much as I love my projections, they only can only tell you so much about a player. Knowing a player’s projected WAR over a specified period is interesting, but it’s only one number. It simply tells you where a player falls on a spectrum of “good” and “bad.” It tells you nothing about how that player might accumulate those wins, or what he might look like doing it.

*Day one here, day two here, and day three here.

To put some faces to some of the hitters drafted in the first round, I generated some statistical comps using weighted Mahalanobis Distance calculations to college players since 2002. This analysis considers offensive statistics only, so the comps have not been filtered at all by position. The WAR columns refer to that player’s WAR through age 27.

You may notice that Mariners first-round pick Kyle Lewis isn’t included here. Lewis played in a non-elite conference, which has produced very few big leaguers historically. This made generating a KATOH-style projection for him less than straightforward.

*****

2. Nick Senzel, IF, Cincinnati

Proj. WAR thru age-27: 2.0

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On Friday, I published a post projecting the players taken on day one of the draft. On Saturday, I did the same for the players taken on day two. And yesterday, I did the same for those players selected on day three. Over 1,200 players were drafted across 40 rounds in this year’s draft. But KATOH still managed to find a few mildly interesting players who weren’t selected. Below, you’ll find the seven draft-eligible but undrafted players with the best projections. As a reminder, this analysis covers the following conferences: AAC, ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big West, Pac 12 and SEC. I expect a few of these guys will sign as undrafted free agents in the coming weeks.

*****

Anthony Papio, RSr., OF, Maryland

Proj. WAR thru age-27: 1.0

Papio had a solid season as a redshirt senior. I should note that his projection is partly due to a quirk with my model. The Big 10 model includes a variable that makes it slightly less harsh on older players. But since Papio’s the rare 23-year-old college player, it perhaps credits him a bit more than it should. Still, an .800 OPS with some speed in the Big 10 ain’t bad.

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On Friday, I published a post projecting the players taken on day one of the draft. On Saturday, I did the same for the players taken on day two. Let’s see what my math says about the college players taken on day three of draft, which covered rounds 11-40. The vast majority of these players will flame out in the minor leagues over the next couple of years, and you’ll never hear from them again. But at least a few of them will go on to play in the big leagues.

As a reminder, I only have projections for college players who logged at least 100 plate appearances or batters faced in select major NCAA conferences this year, including the: AAC, ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big West, Pac 12 and SEC. I do not have projections for high-school players.

Below, you’ll find thoughts on some players of note from rounds 11-40, followed by a giant, sortable table with projections for all drafted players for whom I have projections. The cumulative WAR projections will probably feel a bit low to you. They feel low to me too. For this reason, I recommend you don’t take the projections themselves literally, but instead use them to compare draftees to other draftees.

*****

337. Chad Donato, RHP, Houston

Proj. WAR thru age-27: 2.1

Donato pitched excellently in West Virginia’s rotation. His strikeout- and walk-rate differential was among the best for starters in major conferences. The Astros have several KATOH darlings in this group. Houston’s front office has either hacked my computer or is doing something similar to what I’m doing.

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Super two deadline season is underway, so expect to see some well-regarded prospects get the call over the next couple of weeks. The most recent player to get the call is White Sox shortstop, Tim Anderson. Anderson hit .304/.325/.409 in Triple-A this season. He has 11 steals to his name this year, but swiped an eye-popping 49 last year.

Anderson oozes tools and has put up fine minor league numbers the past couple of years, but his plate discipline could use some work. He struck out in 23% of his trips to the plate this year at Triple-A, and walked in just 3%. The strikeout and walk numbers were just as bad in the lower levels. Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Julio Urias Day to you and yours!

As you’ve probably heard by now, 19-year-old phenom Julio Urias will make his major-league debut against the Mets. Yesterday, lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen provided an excellent breakdown of Urias from a scouting perspective. Go read that if you haven’t already. Today, I look at Urias through a more statistical lens. Urias looks like an elite prospect from that angle, too.

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The Rangers lost both Drew Stubbs and Shin-Soo Choo to injury over the weekend, leaving them relatively bare in the outfield. To fill the void, they’ve called up top prospect Joey Gallo, who’s perhaps one of the most exciting prospect in baseball due to his exceptional power. We’ve been here before. The Rangers called Gallo up last summer, too, but thanks to a .204/.301/.417 performance in the show, they wisely concluded he needed more seasoning in the minors. Most concerning of all was his 46% strikeout rate, which was literally over twice the league average.

Based on his recent performance, it seems Gallo’s gotten the seasoning he needed. Last year, Gallo hit .240/.342/.520 between Double-A and Triple-A, and struck out in a super-concerning 37% of his trips to the plate. This year, he’s slashed his strikeout rate to a merely mildly-concerning 23% in Triple-A. As a result, he’s hit a gaudy .265/.415/.639.

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Two months ago, the Houston Astros looked like the obvious favorites in the AL West, but things haven’t exactly gone according to plan. Houston’s off to a disappointing 15-24 start, due in part to some terrible performances in the outfield. While George Springer and Colby Rasmus have hit well, Carlos Gomez, Preston Tucker and Jake Marisnick have a combined 252 plate appearances this year, and each has recorded a wOBA below .250. Gomez has been one of the biggest disappointments in baseball this year, and his struggles appear to be more than just bad luck.

To help fortify their struggling outfield, and provide a spark to their under-achieving team, the Astros have called up 24-year-old Tony Kemp from Triple-A. Although he stands at just 5-foot-7, Kemp hit .314/.393/.391 with 38 steals last season between Double-A and Triple-A, and was off to a similarly good start this year, slashing .298/.410/.405 at Fresno. Kemp’s a second baseman by trade, but has played a good deal of center and left field of late. Dan Farnsworth ranked Kemp 11th on his Astros prospect list heading into the year. Kemp appeared 15th among Houston prospects on Baseball America’s list. KATOH, however, is won over by his stellar minor-league track record. My system ranked him #2 in the Astros system and #53 overall.

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With Starling Marte away on paternity leave, the Pittsburgh Pirates have called up prospect Alen Hanson from the minor leagues. Hanson was off to a fine start in Triple-A, slashing .288/.309/.398 with seven steals. He spent all of last season at the Triple-A level, too, and hit similarly well: .263/.313/.387 with 35 steals. Throw in that he’s primarily a middle infielder, and it’s clear Hanson had little left to prove in the minors.

If it feels like Hanson’s been on the prospect radar for ages, it’s because he has. Originally signed out of the Dominican way back in 2009, he began gracing top-100 lists after a .309/.381/.528 showing in Low-A back in 2012. Despite his lengthy minor-league tenure, Hanson still has youth on his side. He’ll will play the entire 2016 season as a 23-year-old. Read the rest of this entry »