FG on Fox: What’s Wrong With Wil Myers?
Two years ago, the Rays traded James Shields and Wade Davis to the Kansas City Royals for a package of talent centered around outfield prospect Wil Myers. The deal was divisive to say the least, primarily due to Myers’ inclusion; teams generally just didn’t trade prospects of his stature. When you have a 22 year old Major League ready slugger who rates as the 4th best prospect in the game, and you have an opening at the position that he plays, you generally build around him instead of using him to acquire an upgrade elsewhere.
But the Royals didn’t keep Wil Myers, preferring the short-term boost of adding a frontline starting pitcher and another talented arm who would become one of the game’s most dominant relievers. So, instead, the young right fielder went to Tampa Bay, where he was quickly anointed as the next big thing; he then justified the hype by winning the 2013 American League Rookie of the Year. But after a miserable 2014 season — including a two month stint on the disabled list due to a broken wrist — the Rays are reportedly on the verge of shipping Myers to San Diego, being the second team to sell off his future in 24 months.
So what’s the deal? Why is a promising young talent like Myers about to be on his third organization before turning 25? Is there a concern about his future that has caused teams to sour on him more quickly than we’d expect, given his performance and pedigree? Let’s take a look under the hood and see if we can identify any potential red flags.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
It should be noted that Myers’ millions of homers in the high minors came in small parks, the same parks that Clint Robinson, Mike Moustakas, and Eric Hosmer tore up. A second note is that even in the small parks Myers wasn’t much of a defender. The third note is that Myers gets fooled by breaking stuff, as he gets much of his bat speed from a quick trigger trying to jerk the heater. Those are three reasons he was traded, his skills wouldn’t really fit Kauffman Stadium but might play in the AL East. Camden Yards would be a good park for him.
Tampa’s home park kills fly balls as well. Perhaps the relatively low ISO is, at least partly, a by-product of his home park.
Myers’ career splits have 7 HR at home, 12 away with .361 SLG at home and .433 away.
This is why I was never quite that convinced about Myers or any of the Royals homegrown bats.
This question has been eating at me all night.
Come on, Gil, at least include SPOILER ALERT!
I dont get it.
Nice mea culpa at the end. Good to admit a mistake, or at least a possible mistake, by Dave.
It’s a truism that properly evaluating your own players is the most important thing professional sports management has to do. Looks like KC may have done that well.
Yeah, these days so many talking heads throw out instant opinions that are absolutes and never look back. At least Dave is willing to re-examine things even if it means it might show he was wrong.
This reminds me of all of the deals involving Brett Wallace. What we didn’t know at the time was that scouts had identified a pretty significant hole in his swing which really deflated his value.
I wonder if the Rays have picked up a major flaw in Myers’ swing or approach and are trying to sell high.
Except they wouldn’t be selling high now. Selling high would have involved trading him after he won the ROY, not after he played a season at replacement level.
It’s because his approach limits his ceiling. When he’s aggressive you’ll see the power shine, but he’ll strikeout a bunch. When he’s passive the contact will improve, but he won’t have much power. He has shown zero ability to meld these two things and when the rest of his portfolio shows average or below skills then you’re talking about a player that’s more 2-3 WAR than a start. If another team sees him as a 3-4 WAR player then there is an arbitrage gap that can be exploited.
Getting someone to pay you as if he was a 3-4 WAR player when you don’t evaluate him at that level leaves room to steal some value. Unless he becomes a better defender then the bat is the carrying tool and he needs to see an outward shift of his Production Possibilities Curve, not merely a movement along said curve. His pitch recognition is a real weakness. If he can improve that then he can take the necessary leap to become a borderline star, but that’s basically all hitters. Easier said than done. I wrote this up if anyone is interested:
https://dockoftherays.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/revisiting-gagr-with-an-emphasis-on-wil-myers/
https://dockoftherays.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/gagr-vs-iso/
Good stuff. Incredibly enjoyable as a Rays fan.
wanna hear something crazy about today’s hitting environment? Back in 2007, Gil Meche had a 4.03 FIP and that generated 4.3 WAR
Sorry, but I refuse to lump his 2 small samples — which were separated by major adjustments (a ROY award which might change his personal expectations & approach, and a long layoff for pitchers to adjust,) and which were terminated before he could adjust to those adjustments — into one supposedly adequate sample size.
Was Myers really totally healthy those first two months?
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/83887512/time-off-tests-will-of-injured-tampa-bay-rays-slugger-wil-myers
“If there is a bright side to Myers’ injury, it is the fact that the time off has allowed his left hand to heal. Myers injured the hand while sliding in the sixth game of the season and never quite felt right, which could be seen as being a factor in the numbers he had accrued — a .227/.313/.354 slash line, five homers, 25 RBIs — by the time he went on the disabled list.”
Oh, please. He had a boo-boo on his left hand, not a broken right wrist. No baseball player is 100% healthy. You hit a ball off your instep, it hurts to run for five days. You get plunked on the ribs, it hurts for two weeks. Andre Dawson spent a good chunk of his career having a team trainer remodel the scar tissue in his knees so he could play nine innings every day. What Myers had before he crashed into Desmond Jennings was nothing more than a nagging injury. He didn’t even miss playing time, nor batting practice. Nor X-Box playing, for that matter. His left hand couldn’t have been bothering him that much.
Besides, Myers made it clear in that article that he believed his struggles at the plate before the wrist injury were due to him “over-analyzing” and becoming “too mechanical” at the plate, and not a minor injury to his left hand.
A boo-boo to his left hand didn’t cause Myers to trade in line drives in 2013 for infield pop ups in 2014.
You’re right. I’m probably reading too much into a minor injury when there were bigger issues. Thanks for the reply BRH 🙂
Aaaaannndd, the “the classiest reply of the month” goes to…
The trade reinforced to me that nothing is black and white, trades just shouldn’t be judged right after they happen, and we simply do not know all the facts (one of which is that the Royals may have been worried about Myers’ high strikeouts/troublesome contact rate, and wanted to leverage Myers’ prospect rating into an area of clear need). Dave Cameron already knew all this, but he’s paid to have definite opinions, as he has said. He also mentioned he still does not love the trade in his chat this morning, and I say kudos to him for reconsidering all the factors in hindsight, but not completely going back on his heels over it. Even I at one time thought “NOOOO!!” when I first heard overatures of the trade. Now, I am glad it happened and glad I switched position to defending the trade as a Royals fan, even after coming to a greater understanding of the surplus value attached to top-ten prospects. It’s been said that one shouldn’t invest unless they can afford to lose, and I still think KC understood the risk when they pulled the trigger.
21 homers in 2015, 9th among all RFs in the game.
.328 wOBA. 26th among all RF in the game.
What is the difference between Myers and Viciedo… Yes, I know they are very different players, but why is one apparently worth 5 players (as reported by MLBTR) and the other can’t be auctioned off for anything at the moment?
Myers’ career wRC+: 105
Viciedo’s career wRC+: 95
Myers’ career UZR/150 in OF: 2.6
Viciedo’s career UZR/150 in OF: -7.9
Myers’ career BsR/600: 1.3
Viciedo’s career BsR/600: -1.3
Myers’ age: 24 y, 7 d
Viciedo’s age: 25 y, 9 m, 7 d
Myers’ years of control: 5
Viciedo’s years of control: 3
Myers’ career WAR/600: 2.1
Viciedo’s career WAR/600: 0
Not what I was driving at… But thanks for the Info
I usually drive toward things; “at” sounds slightly dangerous.
i never quite understood how Myers’ rep stayed intact through his AA and AAA stints.
no doubt he had legit elite numbers in single A, but his AA and AAA numbers certainly weren’t. he posted wrc+ in the 130s at both AA and AAA with K rates approaching 25%. those numbers simply do not justify elite prospect status, especially for an all-bat prospect.
i guess i have an idea of how his reputation stayed intact, and that’s because his inconsistent track record gave room to excuse the bad streaks. i.e. his first stint at AA he was young and then was injured, and then his healthy stint he crushed the ball and that was the real him….even though that brief stint of crushing was a small sample with a crazy babip. then his AAA numbers seemed to carry over that hot AA finish but really were just PCL-inflated numbers that dissappeared under any league or park adjustment.
i guess there’s a few lessons here:
1. never ignore the bad samples, even if you come up with a logical reason to.
2. always always use adjusted numbers like wrc+.
3. don’t rely on low level performance when you have plenty of high level results to look at.
myers doesn’t completely suck but the star treatment should have ended years ago.
Myers AA (20-21): 568pa, 12.0bb%, 22.7k%, .339babip, 131wrc+
Myers AAA (21-22): 728pa, 10.2bb%, 23.2k%, .343babip, 139wrc+
so we can talk about his mlb numbers all we want, but we really have to see that his high-level minors performamce simple wasn’t elite in any way way, especially for an all-bat prospect.
and in fact his babip-fuelled rookie season should have been seen as a lucky surprise, and the regression the next year the unsurprising expectation.
we should have known he wasn’t an elite prospect right when that trade was made. and i bet you KC knew it full well.
Well, ignoring scouting reports completely (talk to Kiley McDaniel about that), you’re saying a 139 wRC+ with about 2/3’s of those PAs at the age of 21 isn’t elite? Lol, okay buddy. Keep going with your “proof” that Fangraphs was stupid for mocking the Shields trade!
Eric Hosmer had a 165 RC+ at AA, a 187 RC+ at AAA. Same parks. Clint Robinson had a 181 and 130 respectively. Kila had a 182 and 172 his visits to the two parks in 2008. Johnny Giavotella had a 139 and 118 respectively at his first visits to those parks. And that with K% in the 11% range. Bat boys ring up 110 RC+ in Omaha. Alex Gordon had 198 and 145 in 2009.
If will changes his approach into a all around hitter and focuses on contact, he will be a GREAT hitter. I just think that the rays havent given him a chance. They are trading him as if he will never make an adjustment. He’s not even 25! Give him a chance!
Someday Wil Myers will become the next haunted GM who brilliantly exploits the economic inefficiencies in roster construction.