The Colorado Rockies minor league system has some interesting prospects, many of whom are almost MLB ready, but the depth in the system is not overly impressive. The organization is not known for putting much emphasis on amateur talent acquisitions – either through the draft or the international market – although the club has made a few shrewd trades, including the Ubaldo Jimenez deal with Cleveland last season. The front office has toed the line with draft bonuses by focusing heavily on college players, although they do mix in some prep selections. Unfortunately the player development staff has had some challenges in developing high school arms despite the additions of highly regarded amateurs such as Tyler Matzek and Peter Tago. Perhaps in response to this fact, the organization shied away from drafting and signing prep pitchers during the 2011 draft, focusing instead on prep bats and college arms.

1. Nolan Arenado, 3B
BORN: Apr. 16, 1991
EXPERIENCE: 3 seasons
ACQUIRED: 2009 2nd round, California HS
2010-11 TOP 10 RANKING: 2nd

Arenado is one of the top corner infield prospects in the game. Unlike a lot of players that perform well in the potent California League, Arenado’s numbers are pretty much 100% legit. He has plus power potential to all fields and he has a strong feel for the strike zone, as witnessed by his strikeout rate of 9.1%, which is ridiculously good for a power hitter. It should allow him to dance around the .300 mark throughout his career. He also almost doubled his walk total over 2010 to 8.1%, allowing him to see better pitches to hit. Arenado has the potential to be at least average on defense at third base and he’s made big strides on defense since turning pro. His range will never be better than average but he has good actions and a strong, accurate arm. The hot corner prospect will move up to double-A for 2012 and he may not be there for long after hitting .388/.423/.636 in 29 Arizona Fall League games. Arenado could join Troy Tulowitzki on the left side of the infield by the end of 2012 to give the organization another all-star-caliber player to build around.

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When scouting at the lower levels, examples of “stuff” explaining statistics is pure prospect gold. In the case of Albert Campos, few pitchers have had repertoires which have correlated so closely to statistical strengths and weaknesses from a scouting perspective. As entertaining as a scouts versus statisticians “Moneyball” death match would be, Campos is a prime example of the synergy between the two and how using the numbers to support what the eyes see make for stronger scouting reports.

Video after the jump

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Josh Outman was back last year after missing the 2010 season due to an arm injury that required Tommy John surgery. That alone doesn’t make him unique — plenty of hurlers undergo the procedure — but there‘s more to the story.

Outman was employing a conventional delivery when his pitching elbow gave out, but that hadn’t always been the case. Prior to being drafted — in 2005 by the Phillies — the hard-throwing southpaw utilized a biomechanically-structured delivery that was developed by his father, Fritz. When I first interviewed Outman, in 2008, he described it this way.

“You would start from what would look like the stretch, your glove side facing the plate with the pitching hand in the glove. The pitching arm would then go to where the humerus is vertical, or the pitching elbow facing the sky and the elbow at a 90-degree angle. The glove would come up to where it appeared as though you were catching your glove-arm shoulder while bringing the glove elbow up high enough to conceal the baseball that is positioned almost behind your head. Then, taking a walking step towards the plate you would deliver the pitch.”

Outman, who was acquired by the Rockies earlier this off-season, made 14 appearances with Oakland last year, going 3-5 with a 3.70 ERA. He was 4-1, 3.48, in 12 starts, at the time of his 2009 injury.

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David Laurila: You blew out your arm in the middle of the 2009 season. Would that have happened with your old delivery? Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, one of our readers, Simon, noted that the Rockies might be targeting fly-ball pitchers with the recent additions of Guillermo Moscoso, Jamie Moyer and Jeremy Guthrie. I decided to examine if going after fly-ball pitchers was a practical method for limiting runs at Coors Field.

In an ideal world, the Rockies would love to have all extreme sinker-ball pitchers. The Rockies GM, Dan O’Dowd, stated this stance recently on Clubhouse Confidential.

In an ideal world, every single guy in Colorado would be a heavy sinker ball guy who would have a tremendous ground ball to fly ball ratio.

It is not an ideal world and he knows it. He goes on further to state:

Unfortunately not all of our decisions are made in an ideal world. When we balance fly ball rates, we really try to balance soft and hard.

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Earlier this week on Twitter, I was part of a discussion comparing Troy Tulowitzki and Evan Longoria, two of the best players in the game. I personally give Longoria a slight edge, but obviously Tulowitzki is great, too. If someone prefers him to Longoria, that is fine, and I could probably be talked in to it. What really spurs this particular post is the discussion we had about comparing their offense. Keeping in mind that this was a casual discussion rather than a deep evaluation of “true talent” involving all of the necessary regression and adjustments, someone noted that over the last three seasons (2009-2011) the two players have had virtually identical offensive value per plate appearance: Tulowitzki has a 137 wRC+, and Longoria has a 136 wRC+. I argued that Longoria’s performance was more impressive given that the American League has superior pitching relative to the National League.

However, Dave Cameron made an interesting point: the Rockies play in the National League West, where hitters seemingly face s larger proportion of stud pitchers — Dave mentioned Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Clayton Kershaw, and Mat Latos in this connection. He also pointed out that Longoria did not have to face the Rays’ own excellent pitching staff. So I decided to look at it more closely. The point is not to settle the Longoria versus Tulowitzki dispute. Rather, I am interested in whether individual hitters face (or do not face) particular pitchers enough that they require a “divisional” adjustment of some sort.

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It is a simple question.

What is sabermetrics?

Not the history of it, but what is it, right now? What is, in our nerdiest of lingoes, its derivative? Where is it pointing? What does it do?

Last Tuesday I created no little stir when I listed the 2012 saber teams, delineating them according to their perceived embrace of modern sabermetrics.

Today, I recognize I needed to take a step back and first define sabermetrics, because it became obvious quickly I did not have the same definition at heart as some of the readers and protesters who gathered outside my apartment.

I believe, and this is my belief — as researcher and a linguist — that sabermetrics is not statistics. The term itself has come to — or needs to — describe more than just on-base percentage, weighted runs created plus, fielding independent pitching, and wins above replacement.

Sabermetrics is the advanced study of baseball, not the burying of one’s head in numbers.
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Silly monkey, BRAINS ARE FOR ZOMBIES.

Casey Kotchman is in many ways a man without a home — a player equal parts under-appreciated and over-valued, who irks both old and new schools at the same time. Old school analysts say his defense is amazing, but they cannot quantify it, and in 2011, they claimed his cleared vision meant he finally learned how to aim the ball “where they ain’t,” but he’s still a .268 hitter with little power. The new school says he’s worth about 7.6 runs per season defensively, but worth ~1.1 WAR per 600 PAs — not good — and his BABIP was high 2011, so he should not be able to repeat his success.

Despite his inability to build a consistent following of fans in the baseball outsiders communities, Kotchman seems to have some insider communities very much interested in him, as Tom Tango points out:

Kotchman’s last four teams: Redsox, Mariners, Rays, Indians. Can we say that a team that signs Kotchman is saber-leaning?

Indeed, after spending five and a half seasons on the Angels’ and Braves’ rosters, Kotchman has begun to shuffle around with the Nerdz, most recently signing with the Cleveland Indians. It makes sense too — Kotchman’s lack of power keeps him cheap, and his strong defense keeps him amorphous for the old school teams, while the new schools might have different valuations on Kotchman, they can at least quantify his contributions and better know how he fits.

Then, on Monday, the Houston Astros signed Justin Ruggiano, long-time Tampa Bay Rays outfielder who was never good enough to stick on the Rays’ roster, but who possesses strong defensive chops and above average patience. His lack of power and ~.290 batting average, however, must make him a mystery — or at least an undesirable asset — to the old school teams.

Upon Ruggiano signing with the Astros, a once highly old school team, my reaction was all: “Welp, that’s one more team to compete with” — and then it occurred to me! No only have the Astros entered the realm of, so to speak, saber-minded organizations, but so have the long-backward Chicago Cubs.

Suddenly the league looks very different.

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This morning, the Rockies traded away Jason Hammel, a starter who has posted relatively high BABIPs over most of his career. While his .280 BABIP last year doesn’t look so bad, the distribution of when those hits came (.272 BABIP with bases empty, .291 BABIP with men on, .300 with RISP) – along with the .327 overall mark he posted in the prior two seasons – led to the Rockies souring on his abilities and shifting him to the bullpen in August. Hammel was just the latest in a string of pitchers who have fallen out of favor with the Rockies due to high BABIPs, as the team traded away Ubaldo Jimenez and Felipe Paulino during stretches of allowing hits last year, and had decided not to bring back Jeff Francis last winter due to his proclivity for giving up base hits.

Eventually, though, the Rockies are going to have to realize that it’s not the pitchers, it’s the park. Here are the BABIPs for all pitchers at Coors Field for each of the last 10 years, and where that ranks relative to the other parks in that specific year.

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This is a trade that just doesn’t make sense to me:

The Rockies and Orioles are nearing an agreement that would send starter Jeremy Guthrie to Colorado, most likely for pitchers Jason Hammel and Matt Lindstrom, reports Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun. (MLB Trade Rumors)

Let me preface this by saying that I like Jeremy Guthrie and Jason Hammel more than most people probably do. After watching Guthrie pitch in the AL East for the past five seasons, I’ll be glad to see him go. Despite his underwhelming strikeout numbers and flyball tendencies, there are some nights where he pumps his fastball up around 95 MPH (with good movement) and can shred through opposing lineups. My eyes are overly optimistic on Guthrie, though, as the reality is that he’s a 32-year-old starter that doesn’t generate many whiffs and is only around a +2 win pitcher. He’s no ace, but he’s still a valuable pitcher to have.

The same can be said about Jason Hammel. Since being traded to the Rockies prior to the ’09 season, he has racked up +9 wins over three seasons. He comes with his share of question marks — his strikeout rate plummeted in 2011, and his ERA has always outpaced his peripherals due to a high BABIP — but considering he will be 29 years old this season, he has the potential to be better than Guthrie. His 4.37 career SIERA is better than anything Guthrie has posted over the past five years, so you can argue that the Orioles are getting an excellent buy-low starter in this deal. Whether Hammel lives up to that potential…well, we’ll see.

But here’s what I don’t understand: what do the Orioles and Rockies get out of this trade?

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The Rockies have had a confusing offseason, but there should be no confusion on their latest move, which was to acquire infielder Marco Scutaro from the Red Sox. The move, a salary dump for the Red Sox, is a clear win for Colorado.

Any devoted Rockies follower will tell you that the Rox have had their fair share of turnover at the keystone. The elder Eric Young was a mainstay for a few years, and Clint Barmes held things down for a few years after Troy Tulowitzki bumped him off of shortstop, but otherwise it has been a revolving door. A revolving door is no problem if the players coming through are good ones, but that has not been the case in Colorado. Collectively, Rockies’ second basemen have been worth three wins in a season once in 19 tries. And while a part-time player can quickly drag an overall position WAR down in a short amount of time, their individual leaderboard tells a very similar story:

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