Back in June, Eno Sarris discussed with Byron Buxton some adjustments the latter had made in his attempt to succeed at the major-league level. Then, about two weeks ago now, shortly after Buxton was sent back down to the minors, August Fagerstrom discussed whether any of the aforementioned adjustments had helped or hurt Buxton’s production. We know both that (a) Buxton has attempted to make adjustments and that (b) he possesses tools that have distinguished him, at points, as the top prospect in all of baseball. We also know that his stat line is pretty much terrible so far. Here I’d like to ignore the tools and focus only on that latter part. What does Byron Buxton’s awful stat line tell us about his potential for future success?

In August’s piece on Buxton, he mentioned Milton Bradley, Jackie Bradley Jr., Carlos Gonzalez, Brandon Phillips, and Miguel Tejada as examples of players who struggled and then recovered. Surely there are other examples of players who fit that description — and probably an even greater number of players who were terrible from the start and quickly found themselves out of the league. Before finding those players, we should acknowledge just how difficult the transition to major-league can be, especially for a player like Buxton, who’s still just 22 years old.

Even if Buxton doesn’t get another plate appearance this season — a scenario which seems unlikely given the possibility of a September call-up — he’ll end his age-22 season having recorded 356 career plate appearances. In the last 50 years, only 334 position players have reached 350 PA by the end of their age-22 season — or, roughly 13% of all players over the last 50 years who’ve recorded at least 350 PA total. Of those 334, only around 40% have produced even average offensive numbers (100+ wRC+), and just one-third of those players have actually excelled at the plate (in this case, recorded a 120 or greater wRC+). Out of all position players to record at least 350 plate appearances in the majors, the population to produce a line above 120 wRC+ by age 22 is under 2%. Increasing the pool to all position players — regardless of plate-appearance thresholds — drops the percentage of players who excelled by age 22 to under 1%. Essentially, simply making the majors at Buxton’s age and earning the playing time Buxton did is a feat unto itself, and success at that age is rare.

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Byron Buxton’s demotion to Triple-A Rochester on Sunday brings the tally to four demotions to Triple-A Rochester more than fans of the Minnesota Twins hoped to witness their top prospect endure once he made his major-league debut on June 14, 2015. Buxton is headed to the minors to do one thing, and one thing only: fine-tune his swing. It’s what every demotion’s been about thus far.

Buxton’s got the tools. Stop me if you’ve heard that one before. Few players in the game have more speed. The defense certainly isn’t a question; he’s been something close to a +10 defender in center field. Already, he’s shown just how far his athleticism alone can take him, so long as the bat can do enough to stick in the lineup. If Buxton could manage a batting line just 20% below league average, as his current ZiPS projection forecasts, he could be something like a 2.5-win player at the age of 22. Even a league-average batting line would turn him into a borderline star. He would seem so close to that reality, if only his numbers didn’t make him appear so far away.

Buxton’s career batting line through 356 plate appearances sits at .199/.248/.319, the batting average being one point below the Mendoza Line embodying the tantalizing frustration of his being simultaneously so close and yet so far away. Among 363 batters who have batted at least 300 times since the beginning of last season, just three have a lower wRC+ than Buxton’s mark of 49. And so now, he returns to Rochester to diagnose what in that swing is keeping him from success at the major-league level, as we at home attempt to diagnose just how we got to this point.

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Brian Dozier isn’t concerned with the first three digits of his slash line. Nor does he worry about his spray chart, which reveals his pull-heavy approach. What the Twins second baseman cares about is creating runs.

Extra-base hits are Dozier’s forte. He had 71 of them last year, and this season he has 48 with two months left on the schedule. Yesterday he went deep for the 22nd time, putting him on pace to match last year’s career-high total of 28.

Dozier established his hitting identity in 2013. Since that first full season in Minnesota, he’s slashed .245/.325/.440, with 128 doubles and 91 home runs. Now, at age 29, he’s turning it up a notch. Gong into the weekend, Dozier is slashing .263/.341/.506 with the aforementioned 22 dingers.

Dozier discussed his approach during a recent visit to Fenway Park.

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Dozier on value: “The game has changed. Everything is being brought into light as far as advanced stats, and all that. They’re evaluating players like… for instance, a .300 hitter who slaps 5, 10 home runs is less valuable than a .250 hitter who hits 25-30 home runs. A guy who creates runs. People are realizing that’s it’s not just the statistics we see on the scoreboard that you use to evaluate a hitter.

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When a top prospect completes his ascension through the minor leagues and begins to carve out the early stages of a big-league career, a little war wages in all our heads, whether we know it or not. It’s the battle between our pre-debut perception of that player and our post-debut perception. Really, it’s just a variation of the age-old debate of scouts vs. stats.

When a player debuts, our knowledge of his skill set and abilities is limited almost entirely to the information found in public scouting reports. Sure, there’s minor-league numbers, too, but those can often be misleading or difficult to translate. Early on in a player’s career, the scouting report trumps all.

The more we see of the player in the majors, though, the more data we collect, and the balance of power regarding what informs our perception begins to shift from the scouting reports to the stats. The major-league stats become not only the more recent information but the more detailed. Sometimes, the data aligns with what the scouts reported. Other times, the two are at odds. It’s up to the individual to decide how much weight to give to either side, and why.

Twins rookie Max Kepler hit three homers against the Indians the other day, and has been among baseball’s best hitters since the All-Star Break. Digging through his scouting reports recently, something stuck out. Any emphasis that follows is mine.

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Though both technically still prospects, RHPs Alex Meyer and Alan Busenitz (who were involved in yesterday’s minor Angels/Twins trade that saw the clubs exchange Ricky Nolasco and Hector Santiago, as well) are now 26 and 25 years of age, respectively, and probably needed a change of scenery. Both only realistically profile as middle-relief options barring intervention from the player-development gods.

Meyer has a first-round pedigree. Drafted by the Nationals 23rd overall back in 2011, he was seen as a bit more of a project than the typical college arm because of wildness. He was traded to Minnesota for Denard Span in November of 2012, a watershed moment in the history of the Minnesota Twins, as they shifted their franchises strange obsession with pitchability prospects toward high octane howitzers.

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As it has been the past few years, the 2016 non-waiver trade deadline brought about a flurry of activity that was hard to keep up with even if it was the only thing you were doing. Since most of us have other things that we have to or would like to occupy our time with, we figured we would save you some hassle and create an omnibus post with all of our trade deadline content so that you have it all in one place. For clarity’s sake, I’m going to limit this to articles about trades that actually took place.

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Adalberto Mejia’s turned in a 2.81 ERA in 18 starts between Double-A and Triple-A this year. His ERA was helped by a low BABIP, especially at the Double-A level. But even so, his 24% strikeout and 6% walk rates signify a solid pitcher. Although he’s pitched professionally since 2011, Mejia didn’t turn 23 until last month, which makes his high-minors dominance all the more impressive. Mejia’s numbers where significantly less impressive in a limited sample last season, but were still encouraging from a 22-year-old at Double-A.

My newly revamped KATOH projection system rates Mejia as a good, but not elite, pitching prospect. It projects him for 3.4 WAR over his first six seasons by the traditional method. Incorporating Baseball America rankings bumps Mejia’s forecast up to 3.9 WAR, which places him 94th overall among all prospects. To help you visualize what KATOH’s projection entails, here is a probability density function showing KATOH+’s projected distribution of outcomes for Mejia’s first six seasons in the major leagues.

To put some faces to Mejia’s statistical profile, let’s go ahead and generate some statistical comps for the southpaw. I calculated a Mahalanobis distance between Mejia’s Double-A and Triple-A performance this year and every season at those levels since 1991 in which a pitcher recorded at least 350 batters faced. 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.

Newly acquired Minnesota Twins LHP Adalberto Mejia doesn’t have the fire-breathing stuff that many of his fellow 2016 Futures Game participants do, but he combines a deep, usable repertoire with advanced sequencing to accrue outs — and was arguably the most advanced arm in the 2015 Arizona Fall League.

Mejia signed with San Francisco early in 2011 for $350,000 and dominated the Dominican Summer League later that year. He was sent directly to a full-season affiliate for his stateside debut the next year as a 19-year-old. In July of 2013, when the Giants needed an arm for a spot start at Triple-A, they were comfortable enough to let Mejia, then 20 years of age, make that start. Over 18 starts between Double and Triple-A this season, Mejia has a 2.81 ERA.

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Kyle Gibson starts tonight against Baltimore. He pitched his best game of the season on Friday. The Minnesota Twins right-hander gave up a home run to the first batter he faced, but that was the lone blemish in a 2-1 win. Matching up against the Red Sox at Fenway Park, Gibson fanned six and allowed just three base-runners over eight innings of work.

He mixed his pitches proficiently. Per Brooks Baseball, the 29-year-old sinker-baller threw 37 two-seamers, 24 sliders, 18 changeups, nine curveballs and eight four-seamers. His sequencing induced a 38.8% swing rate on pitches outside the zone (O-Swing%) against one of baseball’s most patient lineups.

Gibson, who is suffering through a subpar year, discussed the game and his overall pitch usage the following day.

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Gibson on his July 22 outing: “The homer to [Mookie] Betts was on a four-seamer. There are times I’ll throw a first-pitch four-seamer to righties, but it’s usually all sinkers. Most of the four-seamers I throw are in to lefties and I haven’t been beaten too many times on that. One that comes to mind is a Jackie Bradley home run in our ballpark [on June 11]. It’s a pitch I’m normally trying to elevate and throw for effect.

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Most All-Stars weren’t born into baseball this way. Most of them had to alter their approach, or their mechanics, in order to find that a-ha moment. They threw a pitch differently, or decided to pull the ball more, or changed their swing, and then found a run of sustained success that put them in the All-Star game that’s being played tonight.

So, given fairly fettered access to the All-Stars from both leagues, that was the question I posed: what was the big adjustment, mechanical or approach-wise, that brought you to this podium today?

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