Evaluating pitchers is a real challenge. A combination of experience and knowledge can help one to better understand how variables like velocity, spin, and pitch mix translate to the majors. Even with that information, though, the influence of other factors — like injury risk, like a pitcher’s likelihood of responding to mechanical or mental adjustments — creates a great deal of uncertainty.

Nor is this a challenge that faces only prospect analysts like myself and Eric Longenhagen: even front-office execs who have the benefit of substantial resources — in the form both of data and personnel — have trouble reliably projecting outcomes for otherwise similarly talented young arms.

In my role as a talent evaluator both with FanGraphs and with a few major-league clubs, the question of how best to assess pitchers is obviously one to which I’ve returned with some frequency. In my recent efforts to get some final looks at certain top pitching prospects, however, I began to rethink how Eric Longenhagen and I should approach rankings this offseason. Three prospects, in particular, help to illustrate my concerns.

Tigers righty Matt Manning was the ninth overall pick in 2016, is an athletic 20-year-old who stands 6-foot-6, and was promoted to Double-A last week. In addition to that, he sat 94-96 and hit 98 mph in my look, mixing in a spike curveball that flashed 65 on the 20-80 scale. The positives here are numerous, and very few other minor leaguers could match even a few of these qualities.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

Note from Eric: Hey you, this is the last one of these for the year, as the minor-league regular season comes to a close. Thanks for reading. I’ll be taking some time off next week, charging the batteries for the offseason duties that lie ahead for Kiley and me.

D.J. Peters, CF, Los Angeles Dodgers
Level: Double-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 7   FV: 45+
Line: 4-for-7, 2 HR, 2B (double header)

Notes
A comparison of DJ Peters‘ 2017 season in the Cal League and his 2018 season at Double-A gives us a good idea of what happens to on-paper production when a hitter is facing better pitching and defenses in a more stable offensive environment.

Reports of Peters’ physical abilities haven’t changed, nor is his batted-ball profile different in such a way that one would expect a downtick in production. The 2018 line is, I think, a more accurate distillation of Peters’ abilities. He belongs in a talent bucket with swing-and-miss outfielders like Franchy Cordero, Randal Grichuk, Michael A. Taylor, Bradley Zimmer, etc. These are slugging center fielders whose contact skills aren’t particularly great. Players like this are historically volatile from one season to the next but dominant if/when things click. They’re often ~1.5 WAR players who have some years in the three-win range. Sometimes they also turn into George Springer.

Read the rest of this entry »

This past weekend’s Sunday Notes column included a section on Brock Deatherage, a self-described “country boy from North Carolina” who aspires to be a farmer after his playing days are over. As promised within those paragraphs, we’ll now hear much more from the 22-year-old Detroit Tigers outfield prospect. More specifically, we’ll learn the reasons behind his poor junior season at North Carolina State and how that experience made him a better player today.

Deatherage is thriving in his first taste of professional baseball. In 231 plate appearances between the GCL, West Michigan, and (most recently) Lakeland, the left-handed-hitting speed burner is slashing .329/.383/.512 with six home runs and 16 stolen bases. He’s doing so after being selected by Detroit in the 10th round of this year’s June draft, one year after choosing to return to school rather than sign with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Deatherage discussed his tumultuous penultimate collegiate campaign, and how he subsequently turned things around, prior to a recent game.

———-

Brock Deatherage: “I had a pretty tough junior year. I started the season really well — I was hitting .400-plus — but then I kind of ran into a little wall. I was having some good at-bats, a lot of hard contact, but balls weren’t falling. From there, the mental side of the game kind of took over. I obviously knew it was my draft year, and I was projected to go pretty high, so I started to press at the plate. A lot of those little mental things started piling on, piling on.

“Then I started to make physical adjustments. I tried everything. I widened out. I shortened up. I stood up taller. I leg-kicked. I started open and strided in. I started with my hands a little bit lower, a little higher. I was trying everything to get out of that funk, but you can’t go in there and hit one way and then show up the next day and hit another way. Basically, I was trying to figure out what worked for me rather than sticking with what got me there and just working through it. I kept making all of these changes and adjustments, and it obviously didn’t work.

Read the rest of this entry »

Clay Buchholz has been rejuvenated in Arizona. Signed off the scrap heap in early May — the Royals had released him — the 34-year-old righty is 6-2 with a 2.47 ERA in 12 starts since joining the Diamondbacks. He twirled a complete-game gem on Thursday, holding the Padres to a lone run.

Health had been holding him back. Buchholz has battled numerous injury bugs over his career, particularly in recent seasons. Cast aside by the Red Sox after a tumultuous 2016 — a 4.78 ERA and a six-week banishment to the bullpen — he made just two appearances for the Phillies last year before landing on the disabled list and staying there for the duration. Frustration was clearly at the fore.

Truth be told, he’d rarely been his old self since a sparkling 2013 that saw him go 12-1 with a 1.74 ERA — and even that season was interrupted by injury. Given his travails, one couldn’t have blamed him had he thrown up his hands and walked away from the game.

That wasn’t in his DNA.

“No, this is what I do,” Buchholz told me earlier this summer. “I wasn’t ready to give it up. And while this offseason I told myself I wasn’t going to go through the whole minor league deal again, I swallowed my pride and did that for a little bit. It was for the best, because it helped me get to where I’m at now. It feels good to be able to go out there and throw without anything going on, mentally or physically.”

Buchholz made five starts in the minors before being called up, and he did so with a glass-is-half-full attitude. Read the rest of this entry »

Lance Parrish embraces the opportunity to help young players chase their dreams, and he’s doing so in the organization where he made six of his eight All-Star appearances. The 62-year-old former catcher manages the West Michigan Whitecaps, the Low-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers. Parrish broke into the big leagues with Detroit — the Motown home of Aretha Franklin — and went on to play for 19 seasons.

Parrish joined the coaching ranks shortly after hanging up his shinguards, and he became a minor-league manager soon thereafter. As fate would have it, he later found himself on the outside looking in, wondering if he’d ever get back in the game. He was skeptical that would happen, but then the Tigers came calling. He couldn’t be happier.

———

Lance Parrish: “When it was getting toward the end of my playing career, Sparky Anderson told me that if I had the desire to stay in the game, his recommendation was to go right into it as soon as my playing days were over. I think he was trying to give me a heads up that it’s not that easy to stay out for any length of time and then get back in whenever you feel like you want to get back in. He said, ‘If I were you, I’d jump right into it and see if it’s something you want to do.’ I took his advice.

“At first, I kind of moonlighted as a minor-league catching instructor with the Kansas City Royals, when Bob Boone was their manager. That was in 1996. Then I went to the Dodgers. In 1997 and 1998 I coached in San Antonio, Texas, in Double-A. My first year there, Ron Roenicke was managing and we won the Texas League. That got me off on the right foot, and I learned a lot from watching Ron manage. Ron is very astute when it comes to details. I learned about managerial style, how to relate to players, structure — he’s a very structured guy — things to work on throughout the course of a baseball season.

Read the rest of this entry »

Blaine Hardy believes in the value of “screwing around with things.” That’s how the 31-year-old Detroit Tigers left-hander learned how to throw one of his best pitches. Tinkering while playing catch, he discovered a vulcan.

His career was at a crossroads at the time. Five years after the Kansas City Royals took him in the 22nd round of the 2008 draft out of Lewis-Clark State College, Hardy was treading water in the minors. As a low-round pick with a nothing-special fastball, he needed either to dd a new pitch or to improve the quality of one he already threw. With a who-knows-what-you-might-stumble-upon mindset, he kind of did both.

Hardy, who will be on the mound for the Tigers tonight, has made 22 appearances on the season, 12 of them as a starter. He has a record of 4-4 to go with his 3.53 ERA, and he’s thrown the pitch in question nearly a quarter of the time.

———

Blaine Hardy: “I’ve always had a good changeup. Growing up, my dad didn’t want me throwing a curveball or slider — anything with spin — nor did my pitching coach. They said, ‘Just keep it straight. That’s going to help your arm in the long run.’ I was like, ‘Well, alright. So, what are we going to work on?’ Well, a changeup, obviously.

“I basically threw a circle change to start. I learned how to simulate my arm speed to my fastball, and it was a very good pitch for me. It looked exactly like my fastball and would just die a little bit.

“For whatever reason, over the years it kind of straightened out. I was tweaking certain grips to try to make it a little bit slower, a little bit slower, a little bit slower. People would talk to me about trying to dip my back side, which I tried, and it didn’t feel right. Nothing seemed to work. Finally — this was around the time the Royals released me and the Tigers picked me up (in 2013) — I switched to a modified split. It’s not with the main fingers, but rather the ring finger and the middle finger. It’s what’s been called ‘a vulcan.’

“Basically, I was screwing around with every grip I possibly could, and I stumbled on that one. I threw it, and it went straight down. I was like, ‘I want that.’

Read the rest of this entry »

Niko Goodrum has been a find for the Tigers. His 232/.297/.435 slash line is admittedly ho-hum, but he’s providing plenty of value with his versatility and verve. Reminiscent of Tony Phillips, the 26-year-old former Twins prospect has started games at six positions. In his first Motor City season, he’s served as both a spark plug and a Swiss Army Knife.

He came to Detroit on the cheap. After toiling for eight years in the Minnesota system, Goodrum arrived as minor league free agent with just 18 MLB plate appearances under his belt. He’s more than earning his league-minimum money. While the aforementioned offensive numbers are pedestrian, the switch-hitter has driven his fair share of baseballs up gaps. His 24 doubles and 12 home runs rank third on the team, and he’s legged out two triples to boot.

Goodrum recognizes that his ability to play all over the field is a major reason he’s getting an opportunity with the rebuilding Tabbies. Another is that he’s finally found himself.

“I’m not searching anymore,” Goodrum told me. “I think that when you’re trying to find your identity of who you are, including what type of hitter you are, the game is a lot harder. When you believe in the things that are in you, your ability will start to show.”

Goodrum feels that corner was turned two years ago. Read the rest of this entry »

Rick Porcello has a plus curveball. That wasn’t always the case. He could really snap one off in his amateur days, but then something strange happened. Shortly after signing with the Detroit Tigers, who drafted him 27th overall in 2007 out of a New Jersey high school, Porcello found that the pitch had gone missing.

When I talked to the 29-year-old Red Sox right-hander recently, the plan was to include him in my ongoing Player’s View: Learning and Developing a Pitch series. As it turns out, the story behind his hook merits a longer look than can be folded into three or four paragraphs. A tale of disappearance and recovery is not only compelling, it takes time to tell.

——

Rick Porcello: “When I was a teenager I had a really good curveball. It was something that came naturally to me. Then, when I got into pro ball, I didn’t have a good one in my first start, and I didn’t have a good one in my second start. It turned into this thing where it wasn’t there all year. I completely lost it. But I did have a really good sinker and a really good changeup, so I was fortunate enough to make the big-league team the next year.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Indians’ center-field woes — which is how you describe it when four players combine for a 55 wRC+ and 0.2 WAR — earned them a spot on the center-field edition of my Replacement Level Killers series. On Tuesday afternoon, however, the club did something about that, acquiring 30-year-old flychaser Leonys Martin from the Tigers in exchange for 21-year-old switch-hitting Double-A shortstop Willi Castro, whom our own Eric Longenhagen called “Cleveland’s most realistic trade chip this summer” back in April.

The well-traveled Martin, who joins his fourth team since the end of the 2015 season — he spent 2016 and most of 2017 with the Mariners before being dealt to the Cubs on August 31 and then signing with the Tigers in December — is in the midst of his best offensive season, hitting .251/.321/.409 with nine homers and seven steals. As modest as that line looks, it’s good for a 98 wRC+, 16 points above his career mark and a strong turnaround from last year’s dismal .172/.232/.281 (35 wRC+) line, a performance so bad that he wound up making 388 plate appearances at Triple-A Tacoma. The uptick in production appears to be the result of a newfound ability to elevate the ball: his current ground-ball rate of 35.6 % is nearly 13 points below his pre-2018 mark and his ground-ball-to-fly-ball ratio of 0.77 basically half of what it was. According to Statcast, his average launch angle has increased from 9.4 degrees for the 2015-17 seasons to 16.8, with his xwOBA jumping a neat 100 points, from .264 to .364.

Read the rest of this entry »

Fringe Five Scoreboards: 2017 | 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 Prospectus, MLB.com, John Sickels, and (most importantly) FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel* and also who (b) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing within Longenhagen and McDaniel’s most recent update — and the updates published by Jeffrey Paternostro of Baseball Prospectus and John Sickels at Minor League Ball — have also been excluded from consideration.

*Note: I’ve excluded Baseball America’s list this year not due to any complaints with their coverage, but simply because said list is now behind a paywall.

For those interested in learning how Fringe Five players have fared at the major-league level, this somewhat recent post offers that kind of information. The short answer: better than a reasonable person would have have expected. In the final analysis, though, the basic idea here is to recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant.

Tony Gonsolin, RHP, Los Angeles NL (Profile)
This represents Gonsolin’s third consecutive appearance in this weekly exercise, and it’s possibly his most deserving. Since last Friday’s edition of the Five, the right-hander has made two starts. In 13.0 innings between them, Gonsolin recorded a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 18:3 against 50 batters.

Gonsolin’s profile isn’t the most common sort for a future major-league starter. He was a two-way player in college, not drafted till the ninth round, and features some traits on the mound (pronounced over-the-top delivery, effort) that are atypical for starters. He’s made it work thus far, however. He’s also continued to exhibit a strategies for contending with left-handed hitters, six of whom he faced in his second-to-last start (box).

Here’s a 92 mph slider to a lefty from that game for a called third strike:

And a curveball at the back foot for a swinging strike:

And a change with splitter-type action, also for a swinging strike:

Read the rest of this entry »