A 13th-round pick last year, infielder Max Schrock — received by Oakland today from Washington in exchange for left-handed reliever Marc Rzepczynski — has made something of a name for himself by putting up strong offensive numbers in the lower levels. He’s hitting .333 between two levels of A-ball this season, largely due to an 8% strikeout rate. That’s encouraging coming from a middle infielder with speed and decent power. As a result, he’s become a regular on Carson Cistulli’s Fringe Five column.

Despite his strong performance, KATOH isn’t a huge fan of Schrock. My system pegs him for 2.9 WAR over his first six seasons by the traditional method and 2.8 WAR by the method that integrates Baseball America’s rankings. That puts him in the #150-#200 range in terms of prospects. To help you visualize what his KATOH projection entails, here is a probability density function showing KATOH+’s projected distribution of outcomes for Schrock’s first six seasons in the major leagues.

While Schrock’s hitting has been very good, KATOH dings him for being just 5-foot-8, and also for playing second base rather than shortstop. Second baseman with good numbers in the low minors don’t pan out all that often. There are some obvious exceptions to that statement, but it’s worth pointing out that those exceptions all provide defensive value, while Schrock has been eight runs below average at second base, according to Clay Davenport’s numbers.

To put some faces to Schrock’s statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps for the undersized second baseman. I calculated a weighted Mahalanobis distance between Schrock’s performance this year and every A-ball season since 1991 in which a batter recorded at least 400 plate appearances. 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. A lower “Mah Dist” reading indicates a closer comp.

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.

As Dave Cameron pointed out, Rzepczynski is a mediocre left-handed reliever, and a month of his services probably could have been had for next-to-nothing. Schrock probably won’t win any MVP awards, but there’s a pretty decent chance he’ll be a useful role player in a couple of years. That’s demonstrably more than next-to-nothing.

The time has come for me to start spitting out scouting notes from the summer showcases I’ve been attending for the last several weeks. During that time I’ve seen a few hundred high-school players who are eligible for next year’s MLB draft. While a handful of prospects who did not participate in any of these events will inevitably pop up next spring, the lion’s share of next year’s high-profile prep draftees are already immortalized somewhere in my notes. I’ve sifted through them and will begin to churn out my thoughts on those I found most relevant or interesting, starting today with left-handed pitchers.

Players in the primary section of this article are listed in my current order of preference while those in the “honorable mention” paragraphs below are in alphabetical order. Keep in mind (as I do during my own evaluations) that most of what I saw from these prospects came in abbreviated looks and in an atypical competitive environment.

D.L. Hall, LHP, Houston County High School (GA)

Height: 6’1, Weight: 180, Commitment: Florida State

I think Hall is a lock for the first round if he stays healthy. Lefties who touch 95 mph with this kind of curveball feel are rare and I’m not scared off by Hall’s height. He sat 90-94 in each of my showcase looks and touched 95 (some guns had him at 96 in San Diego). Hall’s arm is quick and the ball jumps on hitters. His curveball has bent in anywhere between 76 and 80 mph for me with sharp, two-plane movement and precocious depth. I have a future 60 on it. He has shown the ability to locate it both on the outer edge of the strike zone and down in the dirt, albeit inconsistently.

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I first saw Jeff Hoffman pitch in February of 2014, when he was a junior at East Carolina, and thought I was seeing the guy who would later go first overall in that June’s draft. Hoffman was electric, sitting 92-96 mph, touching 98 and showing feel for four pitches on a chilly, late-winter’s day in Virginia. Best amateur slider I’ve ever seen aside, Hoffman was better than Carlos Rodon that spring in every way and likely would have demanded consideration for the top overall selection (which eventually became Brady Aiken) in a class full of prospects with question marks up top.

But Hoffman broke. He had Tommy John in May of 2014. It was the second year in a row (Lucas Giolito) that the draft’s most talented right-handed arm was injured. The situation was a precarious one for Hoffman. If the injury torpedoed his stock, it would be hard for him to thumb his nose at the team that drafted him and return to school because, even with an aggressive recovery from TJ, he’d only be able to make a couple of starts as a senior before the 2015 draft and maybe not pitch at all. Alas, the Blue Jays saw the opportunity to grab a top-three talent at pick #9 and signed him for slot value, $3.1 million.

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Last night, Dansby Swanson, 2015’s first overall pick, debuted for the Atlanta Braves. After destroying High-A pitching to the tune of .333/.441/.562 in April, Swanson spent 84 games at the Double-A level. He hit a less exciting, but still respectable .261/.342/.411 at the latter stop.

During his brief stay in the minors, Swanson didn’t stand out in any particular area offensively, but was better than average across the board. He posted a healthy 11% walk rate this season, a .151 ISO, and made enough contact (recording an 18% strikeout rate) for it not to be a concern. Even his 13 steals indicate a guy who’s fast, if not exceptionally fast.

Swanson is a good hitter, but his bat alone doesn’t make him a particularly exciting prospect. What really sets him apart is that he’s a good hitter who also happens to play a mean shortstop. Eric Longenhagen noted yesterday that he thinks Swanson will be a plus defender at short. The data support that observation. In just 105 minor-league games at short this year, he’s been a +19 defender according to Clay Davenport’s model.

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Teoscar Hernandez has always possessed an enticing combination of power and speed. His primary flaw, however, has been his inability to make contact. In 2014, he belted 21 homers and stole 33 bags, but struck out 28% of the time. Last year, he posted 17 homers and 33 steals with a 24% strikeout rate. The end result was a .219/.275/.362 batting line. More often than not, hitters who strike out that frequently don’t carry their success over to the big leagues, and it wasn’t at all clear that Hernandez was ever going to make enough contact to make it work.

But a funny thing started happening this year: Hernandez has seemingly learned how to avoid the strikeout. He opened the year at the Double-A level, where he hit .305/.384/.437 with a 17% strikeout rate. Following a promotion to Triple-A, he slashed .313/.365/.500 with a 16% strikeout clip. Despite the added contact, he still managed 10 homers in just over 100 games — plus one more in Houston on Friday. Read the rest of this entry »

Just hours after Alex Rodriguez walked off the field following his final game (in pinstripes, at least), the Yankees made the following string of transactions.

And just hours after making those transactions, both Aaron Judge and Tyler Austin had already homered in the big leagues. Out with the old, in with the new.

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Earlier this week, the Cardinals called up a promising young arm in Alex Reyes, who’s already enjoyed some success out of St. Louis’ bullpen. Another promising young arm is set to debut for the Cardinals tomorrow, as 22-year-old Luke Weaver will get the start against Cubs. What should we expect from him?

One thing we know for certain is that Weaver was undeniably excellent in the minors this year. In 13 starts this year — most of them at Double-A — he pitched to a sparkling 1.30 ERA and 2.11 FIP. He struck out an impressive 28% of opposing batters, while walking fewer than 4%, which is equally impressive. It wasn’t the first time he tasted success either, as he pitched well last season in High-A, albeit with a more underwhelming 21% strikeout rate.
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St. Louis has added two of their top pitching prospects, Alex Reyes and Luke Weaver, to the big-league club over the last few days. Below are my brief thoughts on both of them as they try to buoy the Cardinals’ shot at a wild-card berth.

The most famous of the two prospects is RHP Alex Reyes. Reyes grew up in New Jersey but moved to the Dominican in December of 2011 in order to reclassify as an international amateur free agent. He signed a year later at the age of 18 for $950,000. In four pro seasons Reyes has dominated every level, from the Appalachian League and above, earning a big-league call-up despite having made just 69 career minor-league starts. He missed the end of last year’s Arizona Fall League and the start of this season due to a suspension for marijuana use.

Reyes sits 94-97 mph during starts but has been up to 101 with movement in short bursts, as he was both during his debut on Tuesday and in the Futures Game. It’ll be a no-doubt 80 fastball as long as he’s pitching in relief which, he told reporters, would be his initial role, and I think it will be an 80 fastball at maturity. Despite his size (Reyes is listed at a laughable 6-foot-3, 175 but is probably closer to 220 and lacks much positive physical projection), we are talking about a player still just shy of his 22nd birthday and short of his physical prime.

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The St. Louis Cardinals recalled top prospect Alex Reyes yesterday and, a few hours later, the hard-throwing right-hander recorded his major-league debut, striking out one in a clean inning of relief work (box).

The book on Reyes is that his stuff is off the charts, but his control and command leave something to be desired. His numbers paint this picture vividly. His top-notch stuff enables him to miss a lot of bats, resulting in nearly unmatched strikeout rates the past couple of years. Meanwhile, his lackluster command has resulted in a concerning number of walks.

All else being equal, you’d prefer to have a pitcher that doesn’t have iffy command and an ugly walk rate. But all else isn’t equal with Reyes. His ability to generate strikeouts, especially at such a young age, is a huge point in his favor. I yanked some of those words from my recent Tyler Glasnow piece, but I’m recycling them here since they’re equally applicable to Reyes.

My KATOH projection system adores Reyes. It projects him for 7.6 WAR over his first six seasons by the traditional method and 12.6 WAR by the method that integrates Baseball America’s rankings. Reyes placed 18th and seventh overall, respectively, on KATOH’s recent top-100 lists. Among pitchers, though, he was third and first. KATOH’s lists tend to be relatively hitter-heavy — likely due to some combination of pitchers’ attrition rates and the fact that KATOH does not directly quantify “stuff.” But in terms of pitching prospects, scouting-infused KATOH thinks Reyes is the best one on the planet.

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Attempts to measure and/or quantify command have proven elusive. It’s a different thing than control, almost certainly, and it likely isn’t fully represented by control-oriented metrics such as walk rate or zone rate or first-pitch strike rate. Command is informed not merely by a pitcher’s capacity to throw strikes but rather by his body’s ability to execute the pitch his mind — and his catcher and maybe his manager — has requested.

Of course, the reader needn’t rely on a loathsome weblogger’s views on the matter. Here’s actual major-league pitcher Ryan Buchter meditating on the same concept in a post published by Eno Sarris just today.

When he’s stuck in a bad count, the lefty digs in. “I just pick out a spot and throw a ball just out of the zone,” he says. “To right-handers, I miss off the plate away. I’m not going to give in. I’m not going to throw the ball down the middle and hope it works out. It’s not like I’m wild. I’m not throwing fastballs to the backstop or in the dirt. I’m just not giving in to hitters. If I’m throwing outside, I’m just throwing outside. Even if it’s a lefty up and a righty on deck, and I fall behind, I don’t give in. That’s my game.”

Buchter cites a certain instance in which he’s throwing balls out of the zone on purpose. Superficially, he’s exhibiting poor control. In reality, he’s demonstrating good command.

Despite entering the season having produced only modest success in the low minors, right-handed Milwaukee prospect Brandon Woodruff was nevertheless well regarded. Of Woodruff, Dan Farnsworth wrote the following in his evaluation of the Brewers system:

One Brewers source put Woodruff’s status best: his numbers don’t do his talent justice. He still has plenty of potential with a quality delivery and stuff, and has had stretches of real dominance in the past year and a half. He will start in either High-A or Double-A, and the Brewers are hoping this is the year he really puts himself on the map, with his ongoing oblique issue from last year hopefully behind him.

The current post exists because Woodruff has recently put himself on the map real hard. After producing one of the top strikeout- and walk-rate differentials (22.2 points) across all High-A, Woodruff has recorded almost exactly the same numbers with Double-A Biloxi. Over the past month, the effect has been exaggerated. In six starts and 38.0 innings since July 8, Woodruff has recorded strikeout and walk rates of 32.4% and 2.9%, respectively. For reference, consider: Woodruff’s strikeout mark would represent the highest among qualified Double-A pitchers by over seven points; his walk, the lowest by half a point.

The strikeouts are almost certainly informed — in part, at least — by Woodruff’s terrific arm speed. Two years ago, erstwhile lead prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel conveyed reports of Woodruff’s fastball sitting in the 94-97 mph range. More recent observations suggest the right-hander is currently visiting the upper bound of that range with regularity. Pat Kelly, coach of Southern League rival and Reds affiliate Pensacola, recently referred to Woodruff’s four-seamer as a “97 mph fastball.” Meanwhile, Woodruff’s pitching coach with the Shuckers, Chris Hook, suggested that the velocity of the pitch has been “anywhere from 95 and 97.” All things being equal, velocity is a benefit.

The combination simultaneously of Woodruff’s physical tools and in-game success — the sort of success (measured by strikeouts and walks) that’s predictive of future success, as well — suggest that he’s probably well-equipped to handle major-league batters in the near future. Not to dominate them, necessarily, but certainly to compete against them. Which, even that might seem like an optimistic assessment of a pitcher who entered the season absent from every top-100 list and ranked as the Brewers’ 31st-best prospect before the season per Baseball America. But pitcher development is swift — marked not by slowly rising and descending trend lines but jagged and improbable improvements and attrition — and reassessments of pitchers have to be appropriately swift, as well.

The purpose of this post is to serve as a sort of reassessment of Brandon Woodruff. But only accidentally. In reality, the purpose of this post was merely to serve as a sort of annotation to the video footage that appears at the top of it. That footage is from the top of the fourth of Woodruff’s most recent start, against the Pensacola club mentioned previously. After Pensacola shortstop Zach Vincej quickly fell into an 0-2 count, Biloxi catcher Jacob Nottingham called for a fastball on the outside corner. Nottingham settled into a kind of split, not unlike the sort Tony Pena used to assume with the Pirates and Red Sox and probably other teams. Woodruff threw a fastball directly over that outside corner for a called strike three.

What can one pitch reveal about whoever’s thrown it? Well, this particular pitch reveals that, no fewer than one times, Brandon Woodruff has exhibited flawless command of his fastball. That’s an improvement over zero times — anyone would have to agree. And there’s what else this pitch has done — namely, to provide any sort of pretense upon which to contemplate Brandon Woodruff.