Daily Prospect Notes: 8/15/18
Notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.
Tanner Houck, RHP, Boston Red Sox
Level: Hi-A Age: 22 Org Rank: 4 FV: 45
Line: 7 IP, 4 H, 0 BB, 1 R, 7 K
Notes
The Red Sox have been tinkering with Tanner Houck’s arm slot and pitch grips throughout the year in effort to find the best combination of pitch types for him. Earlier in the year that involved raising his arm slot and incorporating more four seamers into his mix, but now Houck’s fastball and arm slot look more like they did in college. His results have been better of late as he’s walked six and allowed nine runs combined over his last six starts. His low slot makes it easier for lefties to see the ball out of his hand and Houck will still need to find a way to counteract this issues to profile as a starter.
Mickey Moniak, OF, Philadelphia Phillies
Level: Hi-A Age: 20 Org Rank: 14 FV: 40+
Line: 2-for-4, 2B, 3B
Notes
While his overall line is still disappointing, Mickey Moniak is slashing .298/.341/.465 since May 22. He’s made a subtle swing change that has him taking a using bigger leg kick with his knee driving back toward his rear hip (similar to the one Adam Haseley adopted while in Clearwater this year) and he’s also striding closed which has helped Moniak deal with stuff on the outer half, which had been a problem for him as a pro. I’ve asked teams for updated reports on Moniak and the pro side of the industry think he has tweener outfielder tools but acknowledges it appears he’s been playing a level ahead of his ability so far. The industry considers him a big leaguer but thinks it’s going to take some time.
Bryan Abreu, RHP, Houston Astros
Level: Low-A Age: 21 Org Rank: 28 FV: 35+
Line: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 0 R, 10 K
Notes
Bryan Abreu has generated varying reports throughout the year, at times 92-94 with a 50 breaking ball and 40 control (which is barely a prospect) and others when he’s been up to 97, sitting 94-95 with big vertical action on one of two his breaking balls. He’s accrued double-digit strikeouts in two of his last three starts and has a 69:13 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 42.4 innings this season. The Astros are great at installing coherent pitching approaches into their prospects, most of whom are high-spin fastball/breaking ball guys who work up in the zone with their heaters, an approach which leads to more strikeouts. This, combined with Houston’s piggyback approach (where hitters don’t often see the same pitcher three or more times), leads to lots of strikeouts. I think the fastball (which is pretty straight) plays better out of the bullpen and I’m skeptical of Abreu’s short-term walk rate improvement because I’ve still got scouts questioning his command and it’s been an issue for Abreu in the past. I have him projected in relief and have added him to Houston’s team page on The Board.
Meandering Thoughts
Kiley wrote today about how he thinks the Rays have identified pitching subtypes that have skills to fit somewhere on the value spectrum between the perhaps unnecessary extremes of typical six or seven-inning starters and single-inning relievers. I’d like to talk about a few other oddball skillsets that might have a place on a 25-man roster as they help perform traditional and necessary on-field tasks but come in atypical packages. I’ve given them names that that the Cespedes Family BBQ kids will improve upon.
Waxahachie
This role, in which a player acts as relief specialist who can also play the outfield, has actually been utilized in the recent past and has been explored by other clubs in the minors even more recently. Outfielders with superlative arm strength or pitchers with plus athleticism could put an extra late-inning hitter or two at platoon disadvantage. The Astros have done this with Tony Sipp, bringing him in to face a lefty before sending him to the outfield while someone else gets righties out, and then returning Sipp to the mound to face another lefty. It seemed Houston might have hoped Rule 5 selection Anthony Gose would have been able to do something similar, but he didn’t make the team out of spring training and was returned to Texas.
Texas also has several candidates for this type of role in Gose (who is also a 70 runner and good defensive center fielder), James Jones (plus runner, plus outfield defense, low-90s with loopy breaking ball on the mound) and Jairo Beras (right-handed, mid-90s fastball, plus-plus raw power) who have all converted to the mound but have one or two other useful skills that could enable them to be deployed in the right situation.
James Jones, LHP, Texas Rangers from Eric Longenhagen on Vimeo.
Former big league OF Jordan Schafer would seem to have fit this archetype as well and he was used in various ways by different clubs (Atlanta played him in the outfield, the Dodgers tried to make him a base-stealing specialist for the 2016 stretch run and St. Louis tried him on the mound) but never in several different roles at once.
Rick Ankiel, who is attempting a big league comeback, is perfect for this kind of role, too. He could shuttle back and forth from the outfield to the mound a few times, while also pinch hitting when it makes sense to have a power-before-hit bat at the plate and pinch-running on occasion.
If someone like this already exists in the Rays system it’s RHP/OF Tanner Dodson, who the Rays wanted announced as a two-way player when he was drafted out of Cal in June. Dodson sits in the mid-90s on the mound and is also a plus runner who hit near the top of Cal’s lineup last year. He’s not polished in center and has a slap/slash approach at the plate, but there’s premium arm strength and speed here.
Pull-Side Infielder
There are certain hitters who don’t pull the ball enough to merit a shift but still pull the ball on the ground more often than hit it the other way and, perhaps, that means your rangiest infield defender should just play on the hitter’s pull side, even if that means swapping your 2B and SS, hitter-by-hitter. I think this idea is half-baked but I’d argue the Brewers are candidates for something like this right now as they’re playing Travis Shaw out of position at second base to shoehorn better hitters into their lineup. In my opinion, they should be swapping Jonathan Schoop and Shaw, hitter by hitter, something to maximize Schoop’s defensive touches and minimize Shaw’s. Perhaps my name for this type of thing is too narrow but the concept interests me. Tampa Bay has a slew of bat-first 2B-types who are either athletically viable all over the field in a dynamic defensive equation like this (Vidal Brujan, Nick Solak, Lucius Fox) or benefit from being hidden by it (Brandon Lowe, Taylor Walls, Jake Cronenworth)
Eric Longenhagen is from Catasauqua, PA and currently lives in Tempe, AZ. He spent four years working for the Phillies Triple-A affiliate, two with Baseball Info Solutions and two contributing to prospect coverage at ESPN.com. Previous work can also be found at Sports On Earth, CrashburnAlley and Prospect Insider.
Rename the relief specialist who plays in the outfield the “Crutch-fielder?” Works as both a Waxahatchee reference and kinda sounds like something you would call a temporary, emergency fielder
Isn’t a high-spin fb just a guy that throws hard by another name? There certainly is a high correlation between FB velo and spin rate. A lot of sabermetrics is re-branding of common knowledge.
Speaking of sabermetric fads – not letting pitchers face hitters a third time is the same as limiting a pitch count and the positive effect that it has on stuff as opposed to some statistical breakthrough. I think I know your stance as Carson mentioned it recently. You wouldn’t/shouldn’t compare SP stats to RP stats as it won’t tell an accurate story. My point is that you should discount the stuff and results if you are going to be limited to fewer innings and pitches, which is what not facing hitters a third time amounts to. Pitchers get fatigued – that is the problem much more than looks at pitches. It might not manifest itself in velocity, but it can show up in command and focus. Its debatable for sure, but the pitcher certainly isn’t getting better in most instances as the pitch count mounts. Sometimes they are, which is why one-size fits all analysis is a mistake. Some guys shouldn’t face anyone twice. Some guys shouldn’t face anyone at all! Your best pitchers should face as many hitters as possible and that gets lost sometimes. Another issue is approach – if you only have to face a guy twice, then you don’t really need a third pitch as much. Maybe its not even the lack of need of a diverse arsenal as much as simply going to your best stuff rather than trying to pace yourself as far as pitch mix is concerned. Again, I would expect better results and maybe everyone should throw their best pitches more, but smaller inning counts certainly help facilitate this. A player with a diverse arsenal is better suited to facing more hitters. Facing fewer hitters can help to mask a problem or two.
There is also the fundamental problem with the statistics that come from a third time through the order. The best hitters are at the front of the order and the worst are at the back. A trip through the order is the good and the bad. When you get pulled after a partial trip through the order, you by definition just faced the tougher part – those stats are going to be worse just based on that. They might have evened out a bit if you got to face the weaker guys at the back. You also generally get pulled after a bad outcome just happened which is going to have a massive impact on the stats. I don’t think there is anything magical about a third trip through the order, but its not too hard to understand why the data might support it. The real problem is that pitchers get left in too long – nobody knows what point that is… unfortunately the biggest trend in sabermetrics appears to be over-simplification.
“Isn’t a high-spin fb just a guy that throws hard by another name?”
No. While there are correlations between velo and spinrate, there are other direct contributors, like length, flexibility, and strength of the guy’s fingers, spin efficiency (a tighter axis will retain spin en route), and how aggressively they pull down at the end of their delivery. A hard thrower is more likely to have a higher spin rate because they are usually a large person, but velo itself isn’t an indicator of spin rate. Rich Hill is a good example of this.
Do you have any sources that say more about what causes spjnrate?
You want players playing fixed positions ideally. If it is hard to be elite at one job then it is probably impossible to be elite at two. When you watch an overshift everyone looks out of position. It is pretty easy to see how much worse they are… how many times do you see their range reduced by 50% as they just kind of stand there and let it split two of them.. or when they don’t read the hop correctly or sit back and boot it or make a late throw… that’s what playing a foreign position looks like.
I don’t think there is any masking an infield without a SS like in MIL – all they should hope for is that neither kills them at doing their jobs and the path to that is not limiting reps at their jobs and increasing responsibilities. Both are already in over their heads.
If you watch you can see MLB going away from overshifts. The most effective shift is players playing their positions and just shifting a bunch in a direction for the reasons I mentioned already. Having guys run all over the field is just a circus. The murderous shift is the one where a guy plays up the middle – that one is really effective, but not really an overshift.
Except that the game is moving in the opposite direction. Versatility allows teams to play matchups, put a defense on the field that plays to a pitchers strengths, rest players and keep an elite or hot bat in the lineup that may be a defensive liability.
Versatility and the options it provides is rarely, if ever, a bad thing. There is a reasonable argument to be made that moving players around on defense takes their mind off of offense, in a productive way.
do you chill your pinot noir?
looks like you should!
Namaste
Your last idea is really a pretty basic point: your beset defenders should play on the pull side since nearly every hitter is likelier to go that way. You could imagine any team putting their two best infielders on the left side for righties, and then one of them moving to 2b for lefties (how you handle the balance depends on the player type presumably) . No reason it shouldn’t work the same in the outfielder either: Why not put Alex Gordon in right field when a lefty is up? All depends on who you’re switching with, of course. The more pronounced the gap in defensive ability in the guys you’re switching, the likelier this is to be worthwhile.
Of course, it may also lead to unwatchable baseball as we watch guys running around and switching positions between every at bat. But unless the league wants to prevent it, I assume we’ll see teams start experimenting with it.