Daily Notes: Power on the 20-80 Scouting Scale for 2013
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. Power on the 20-80 Scouting Scale for 2013
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Power on the 20-80 Scouting Scale for 2013
Introduction
In a post that appeared in these pages this past February, prospect writer Mark Smith used statistical proxies to investigate the thresholds at the major-league level of different baseball tools as measured on the 20-80 scouting scale. Smith found, for example, that Jose Bautista‘s home-run rate of 6.6% between 2010 and -12 represented the standard for 80 power and that Michael Bourn’s average of 9 BsR per annum did the same for baserunning/speed.
With just a week left in the current season, the author has reproduced Smith’s effort for 2013 itself — for power, specifically.
Table: Power on the 20-80 Scouting Scale for 2013
Below are players who’ve posted numbers representative of a certain power threshold on the 20-80 scouting scale in 2013. HR/600 is home runs per 600 plate appearances. HR% is home-run rate. PF is the relevant park factor for the player in question. (Note that players who changed teams were assigned a 100 PF because the author consumed by sloth.) aHR% is adjusted home-run rate, which accounts for park factor. HRz represents the number of standard deviations of the player’s aHR% from league average).
| Name | Team | PA | HR | HR/600 | HR% | PF | aHR% | HRz | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Davis | Orioles | 656 | 52 | 48 | 7.9% | 110 | 7.2% | 3.2 | 80 |
| Mark Trumbo | Angels | 655 | 34 | 31 | 5.2% | 96 | 5.4% | 2.0 | 70 |
| Marlon Byrd | – – – | 565 | 23 | 24 | 4.1% | 100 | 4.1% | 1.0 | 60 |
| Desmond Jennings | Rays | 596 | 14 | 14 | 2.3% | 95 | 2.5% | 0.0 | 50 |
| Norichika Aoki | Brewers | 647 | 7 | 6 | 1.1% | 106 | 1.0% | -1.0 | 40 |
| Eric Young | – – – | 572 | 2 | 2 | 0.3% | 100 | 0.3% | -1.5 | 35 |
Three Notes
• The population considered for this iteration of the Smith’s experiment includes all non-pitchers who recorded 170-plus plate appearances, that figure (i.e. 170) representing the threshold at which home-run rates generally stabilize.
• As was the case with Smith’s version of this same experiment, the distribution here of home-run rates is such that no player is assigned a power grade of 20 proper. Six players, however — all of whom have hit zero homers in 2013 — did receive a grade of 33, the lowest possible score by this methodology: Jeff Bianchi (Milwaukee), Jamey Carroll (Kansas City/Minnesota), Ben Revere (Philadelphia), Derrick Robinson (Cincinnati), Ruben Tejada (New York NL), and Yorvit Torrealba (Colorado).
• An internet webpage featuring all 369 qualified batters is available here.
Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
TBD at TBD | ??:?? ET
As of press time, the identity of today’s MLB.TV hadn’t yet been announced. More on this one thing as it develop.s
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Unknown.
Today’s Complete Schedule
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire.
Note that these NERD scores are calculated using the methodology introduced recently and designed to account for the influence of playoff odds on the watchability of games. ***Unlike in recent iterations of this table, the author has adjusted the day’s NERD Game Scores such that, combined, they average 5.0.*** This allows said table to resemble more closely the Game Scores that have appeared here over the preceding four months.
| Away | SP | Tm. | Gm. | Tm. | SP | Home | Time | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hector Santiago | CHA | 3 | 0 | 8 | 5 | 5 | CLE | Ubaldo Jimenez | 19:05 |
| Matt Moore | TB | 5 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 5 | NYA | Hiroki Kuroda | 19:05 |
| Todd Redmond | TOR | 6 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 5 | BAL | Chris Tillman | 19:05 |
| Tyler Thornburg | MIL | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 4 | ATL | Freddy Garcia | 19:10 |
| Jon Niese | NYN | 6 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 5 | CIN | Mike Leake | 19:10 |
| Zach Miner* | PHI | 4 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 6 | MIA | H. Alvarez | 19:10 |
| Brad Peacock | HOU | 2 | 0 | 10 | 7 | 9 | TEX | Yu Darvish | 20:05 |
| Gerrit Cole | PIT | 10 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 3 | CHN | Chris Rusin | 20:05 |
| Doug Fister | DET | 7 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | MIN | Scott Diamond | 20:10 |
| Gio Gonzalez | WAS | 7 | 0 | 9 | 3 | 10 | STL | Michael Wacha | 20:15 |
| John Lackey | BOS | 7 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 6 | COL | Tyler Chatwood | 20:40 |
| A.J. Griffin | OAK | 5 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | LAA | Jason Vargas | 22:05 |
| Wade Miley | AZ | 6 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 8 | SD | Tyson Ross | 22:10 |
| Bruce Chen | KC | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 7 | SEA | James Paxton* | 22:10 |
| Hyun-Jin Ryu | LAN | 7 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 5 | SF | Matt Cain | 22:15 |
To learn how Pitcher and Team NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
Very nice.
yeah, Tonight definitely feels like a “statement game” for the rangers. what do the rest of you guys think?
I hope so. I’ll be there in Section 212. Or maybe 210. I forget.
Interesting to see how many Rockies are sitting in the 30s, given the Coors Field Effect
Is the reason there isn’t a 20 because batter power (defined largely by HRs) skews upward? Particularly, this would mean there is a longer right tail than a left tail made possible by the fact that few batters hit negative home runs.
If we were to increase the sample size significantly by considering 2011-13 and the raise the minimum AB requirement to something in the 1000 AB range, would it be safe to assume that Revere would then grade out as a true 20 power hitter?
Free game is Mets-Reds
I guess I don’t see why the KC game score is so low in comparison to the Rangers game score. Immediately I know I have made a mistake in thinking about this, but isn’t Bruce Chen the kind of queer commodity that gains talismanic importance in a near-pennant race?
Huh. Not that I doubt this process in the least, but it does surprise me that Trumbo doesn’t grade out at 80 power. He hits baseballs so very far, you see.
I don’t agree with the idea of basing the 20-80 power scale on HR/PA because it includes batting average and strikeouts, both elements of another scouting skill (contact). It should be based upon either HR/H or HR/AB-SO, which is HR rate on contact. So for Davis and Trumbo (through 9/23) we get:
Chris Davis: 31.9% HR/H
Mark Trumbo: 24.1% HR/H
Chris Davis: 13.9% HR/Contact AB
Mark Trumbo: 8% HR/Contact AB
Davis’ lead is still very extreme, and perhaps even here some degree of contact is involved as its hard to imagine any baseball player being physically stronger than Trumbo. Perhaps he’s not getting the fat part of the bat on the ball as well as Davis, which implies contact as well?
Either way the scouting scale has to involve much more than a single rate, especially HR/PA. I think HR/AB-SO is better, but you still need more.
By the way, out of curiosity I threw Trout into the mix. He has a 13.9% HR/H rate, and a 5.8% HR/AB-SO rate – both slightly lower than Marlon Byrd’s. So I guess Trout has 60 power?