Archive for Prospects

With Dexter Fowler out of commission after suffering a wrist strain, the Cardinals have promoted top prospect Harrison Bader to take over center-field duties. Bader had been crushing Triple-A pitching to the tune of .297/.354/.517, though those numbers are inflated by the run environment of PCL. In his big-league debut last night, Bader doubled and scored the winning run.

Even after accounting for the effects of the PCL, Bader has hit for a healthy amount of power this year, belting 19 homers in 97 games. There’s more to Bader than his power, however. Eric Longenhagen rated him as a 60 runner, which parlays into good baserunning and center-field defense — Clay Davenport’s numbers consistently have him above average in center.

Bader profile isn’t all roses and sunshine, as his strikeout and walk rates both leave much to be desired. These metrics suggest he may have issues getting on base in the majors. Eric also voiced concerns about the prospect of Baders’ swing working against major-league pitching.

Bader has plus bat speed and some raw power, but it’s hard for him to utilize it in games because his swing is so flat and linear. He has to really adjust his lower half to move his barrel up and down in the hitting zone and, while this worked at Double-A, not everyone thinks it’s sustainable in the big leagues. Additionally, Bader has trouble seeing the ball against right-handed pitching, especially breaking balls, over the top of which he often swings. It’s more of a 40/45 hit/power profile which doesn’t play everyday in a corner, but Bader was an above-average runner for me in the Fall League and plus during the season for some scouts with whom I spoke, so some orgs think he can moonlight in center field.

No outlet has ranked Bader in their top 100, presumably for the reasons Eric laid out in his write-up. But my KATOH system disagrees with this assessment. My system pegs Bader for 5.7 WAR over his first six seasons by the stats-only method and 4.5 WAR by KATOH+, which incorporates his prospect ranking. Those marks place him 61st and 73rd, respectively, among prospects.

To put some faces to Bader’s statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps. I calculated a Mahalanobis distance between Bader’s 2017 performance and every season since 1991. In the table below, you’ll find the 10 most similar seasons, ranked from most to least similar. The WAR totals refer to each player’s first six seasons in the major leagues.

Please note that the Mahalanobis analysis is separate from KATOH. KATOH relies on macro-level trends, rather than comps. The fates of a few statistically similar players shouldn’t be used to draw sweeping conclusions about a prospect’s future. For this reason, I recommend using a player’s KATOH forecast to assess his future potential. The comps give us some interesting names that sometimes feel spot-on, but they’re mostly just there for fun.

Bader his flaws, but he also has a lot going for him. Most notably, he’s a 23-year-old who’s now succeeded at the highest level of the minor leagues. Sure, his numbers were helped by the PCL. But even if this year’s numbers are largely smoke and mirrors, Bader remains a speedy center fielder with power and passable defense. Those can be quite valuable.

With the trade deadline swiftly approaching, it’s time for some updated KATOH rankings. I know you’re not here to read about assumptions and caveats, so I’ll keep the non-list part of this article short and sweet.

• For each player, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for his first six years in the major leagues. There are drawbacks to scouting the stat line, but due to their objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated.
• KATOH+ incorporates Baseball America’s midseason top-100 list and Eric Longenhagen’s preseason FV grades for players excluded from BA’s list. Stats-only KATOH does not consider prospect rankings.
• These projections account only for minor-league stats. While I’ve done work with college players, I have not yet attempted to merge college and minor-league data. These projections also do not account for any major-league performance.
• All players with at least 200 minor-league plate appearances or batters faced in 2016 and/or 2017 were considered.
• This isn’t “Chris Mitchell’s Top 100 List,” and certainly not “FanGraphs’ Top 100 List.” This is simply the output from my far-from-perfect statistical model.

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Thoughtless and bad editor Carson Cistulli overlooked this post when Chris Mitchell submitted it on Friday afternoon. That’s the reason it’s appearing on Tuesday.

The Mariners and Cardinals completed one-to-one swap of outfielder Tyler O’Neill and lefty Marco Gonzales on Friday. As Dave Cameron has pointed out, this represented a case of the Mariners trading away future upside for some much-needed, immediate rotation depth. A move of that type is understandable given the state of the Mariners’ rotation and their position in the Wild Card race, but KATOH thinks the gap in value between these two prospects is quite large.

Below are the projections for the three players whom the White Sox receive. WAR figures account for the player’s first six major-league seasons. KATOH denotes the stats-only version of the projection system, while KATOH+ denotes the methodology that includes a player’s prospect rankings.

*****

Tyler O’Neill, OF (Profile)

KATOH: 7.1 WAR (34th overall)
KATOH+: 6.0 WAR (52nd overall)

O’Neill elevated his prospect stock last season, when he slashed .293/.374/.508 at the Double-A level. But he’s had a tougher time at Triple-A this season, hitting only .244/.328/.479. Part of that, however, has to do with playing in a park that’s tough on right-handed hitters. Eric Longenhagen gave him a 50 FV over the winter and listed him as an honorable mention on his top-100 list.

O’Neil is a three-true-outcomes prospect who’s homered, walked, or struck out in over 43% of his trips to the plate this year. His power is his biggest strength, as he’s belted a remarkable 75 homers since the start of the 2015 season while also kicking in 76 doubles and triples. But all that power comes with a lot of strikeouts, as evidenced by his 27% strikeout rate this year.

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Monday’s six-player swap between San Diego and Kansas City only saw one prospect moved, AZL infielder Esteury Ruiz, but left-hander Matt Strahm had only just exhausted his rookie eligibility before succumbing to a knee injury and is divisive enough in the scouting community to merit some discussion here. A reminder of the players involved:

Padres get

• LHP Travis Wood
• LHP Matt Strahm
• 2B Esteury Ruiz

Royals get

• RHP Travor Cahill
• RHP Brandon Maurer
• RHP Ryan Buchter

Let’s first touch on Strahm, who ranked 72nd overall on my top-100 list entering the season. A misdiagnosis of an injury that ultimately required Tommy John caused Strahm, who was drafted out of a junior college and wielding relatively newfound velocity at the time, to miss two years of pitching. That background caused some (including me) to forgive some of Strahm’s issues — chiefly his inconsistent command — in anticipation of late-coming progress due to a previous lack of reps. Strahm turns 26 in November and has continued to have issues throwing strikes, largely because his mechanics are very inconsistent. Additionally, Strahm’s stuff hasn’t always been crisp this year. At times he’ll touch 96 with his fastball and sit 93-94; he’s been 89-92, touching 94 at others, though. He works with multiple breaking balls — a mid-80s slider and a more vertically oriented curveball that sits 77-81 — generating in excess of 3000 rpms at times, and they’re both lethal when Strahm is locating them.

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A few days after trade conversation between Minnesota and Atlanta regarding Jaime Garcia became public, the two clubs reached a deal that sent Garcia and Catasauqua High School graduate, C Anthony Recker, to the Twins in exchange for 19-year-old Dominican righty, Huascar Ynoa.

Twins get

• LHP Jaime Garcia
• C Anthony Recker
• Cash Considerations

Braves get

• RHP Huascar Ynoa

Ynoa ranked 22nd on the Twins list over the offseason. I saw him last fall during instructional league, during which he sat 89-94 with a sinking fastball while flashing an above-average curveball. This year, Ynoa’s arm slot has been raised a bit and he’s throwing harder, sitting more comfortably in the 90s and touching 95 or 96. A person from an org not involved with the deal told me they had Ynoa averaging close to 94 mph with his fastball during a start with Elizabethton this year.

Ynoa has displayed some feel for creating movement on his changeup, as well, though at times he shows clear arm deceleration. The curveball is much more likely to drive Ynoa’s ascent through the minor leagues, but I like his chances of developing a viable cambio. I also saw what looked like some bad, low-80s sliders last fall, though they might have just been curveballs Ynoa couldn’t get on top of, something pitchers with lower arm slots often struggle to do.

While an inherently risky prospect because of his proximity to the majors (Ynoa had made a half-dozen Appalachian League starts before the trade, and is still a 40 FV for me based on his distance from the majors), he has the makings of two above-average pitches, an average third, and enough strike-throwing ability to remain a starter. He’s not one of the sexier prospects in a loaded Braves farm system but a nice, low-level flier with a chance to max out as a league-average starter.

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Happy Rafael Devers Day!

The highly-touted 20-year-old is slated to make his big-league debut tonight, and will almost certainly provide Boston with a sizable upgrade at the hot corner. Devers slashed .300/.369/.575 at Double-A before hitting a cool .400/.447/.600 in a nine-game stint at Triple-A.

Devers’ biggest strength is his power. After putting up middling power numbers in years past, he smacked 20 homers and 20 doubles in the minors this year. Unlike many power hitters, Devers doesn’t strike out a ton — he’s kept his strikeout rate below 20% throughout his time in the minors.

Devers has quite an exceptional offensive profile, but it’s even more impressive when you consider he’s much more than his hitting. Not only does Devers play one of the more premium defensive positions, but he plays it quite well. He’s been three runs above average at third base this year by Clay Davenport’s numbers, and checked in at +19 (!) runs last year in High-A. Devers’ high-minors performance has been excellent across the board, which is all sorts of encouraging coming from a 20-year-old.

My KATOH system pegs him Devers 11.7 WAR over his first six seasons by the stats-only method and 15.3 WAR by KATOH+, which incorporates his Baseball America ranking. Those marks place him sixth and fourth, respectively, among prospects.

To put some faces to Devers’ statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps. I calculated a Mahalanobis distance between Devers’ 2017 performance and every season since 1991. In the table below, you’ll find the 10 most similar seasons, ranked from most to least similar. The WAR totals refer to each player’s first six seasons in the major leagues. 

Please note that the Mahalanobis analysis is separate from KATOH. KATOH relies on macro-level trends, rather than comps. The fates of a few statistically similar players shouldn’t be used to draw sweeping conclusions about a prospect’s future. For this reason, I recommend using a player’s KATOH forecast to assess his future potential. The comps give us some interesting names that sometimes feel spot-on, but they’re mostly just there for fun.

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

Enyel De Los Santos, RHP, San Diego (Profile)
Level: Double-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 24   Top 100: NR
Line: 7 IP, 3 H, 0 BB, 0 R, 8 K

Notes
The good-bodied De Los Santos, acquired from Seattle for Joaquin Benoit in November of 2015, missed bats with all three of his pitches last night, garnering swings and misses on his 92-95 mph fastball both within the strike zone and above it and with his fading changeup. De Los Santos also has a solid-average curveball that he can bend into the zone for cheap, early-count strikes the third time through the lineup, but he’s becoming more adept at burying it in the dirt when he’s ahead. He generally lives in the strike zone and is a good bet to start; the only knock I’ve heard from scouts is that the stuff plays down due to poor extension, which might explain the modest strikeout rate despite good reports on the stuff.

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After they shipped Todd Frazier to the Yankees in exchange for prospects earlier this week, the White Sox replaced him on their roster with Yoan Moncada. Moncada was hitting a healthy .282/.377/.447 at Triple-A, highlighted by his 12 homers and 17 steals. He hits for average, hits for power, steals bases, and even draws walks. Very few players can hit like Moncada does while also providing value in the field and on the bases. That’s why he was a fixture at the top of midseason prospect lists this summer. Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus both ranked him No. 1, while Keith Law put him at No. 13.

But for all his strengths, Moncada has some weaknesses that we shouldn’t overlook. Most notably, he strikes out a bunch. Moncada’s struck out in over 28% of his trips to the plate this year. Though it’s been somewhat hidden by his high batting averages, Moncada has had a lot of trouble making contact against minor-league pitchers. This suggests he’ll have even more trouble doing so in the big leagues, which is exactly what happened in Boston last September when he struck out 12 times in 20 plate appearances.

There’s also the matter of Moncada’s defense. He’s primarily played second base since emigrating from Cuba, and the prognosis for minor-league second basemen isn’t great. The fact that he’s already been deemed “not a shortstop” is a knock against him in KATOH’s eyes. Furthermore, his defensive metrics at second base aren’t great. He’s been right around average there by Clay Davenport’s fielding data this year and was several ticks worse than average last year. This suggests he may not be a defensive asset in the infield.

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The Yankees plugged holes at first base and in the bullpen last night when they traded for Todd Frazier, David Robertson, and Tommy Kahnle. In exchange, they sent Tyler Clippard to the White Sox, along with prospects Blake Rutherford, Ian Clarkin, and Tito Polo.

Below are the projections for the three players whom the White Sox receive. WAR figures account for the player’s first six major-league seasons. KATOH denotes the stats-only version of the projection system, while KATOH+ denotes the methodology that includes a player’s prospect rankings.

Blake Rutherford, OF (Profile)

KATOH: 1.0 WAR
KATOH+: 2.7 WAR

The Yankees took Rutherford 18th overall in last year’s draft out of high school. He’s spent his first professional season at the Low-A level, hitting .281/.342/.391. Altogether, he’s been a bit underwhelming, especially since his performance has been helped by a .341 BABIP. His 18% strikeout rate isn’t bad, per se, but it’s a little high considering the low level of competition he’s faced, especially given his lack of power. Defensively, Clay Davenport has him as a -7 defender in just 36 games in center this year, although that sample is obviously tiny. Additionally, Rutherford is already 20 years old, making him a year older than most 2016 high-school draftees.

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