Projecting Ozzie Albies
At 48-57, the Atlanta Braves are nowhere near this year’s playoff race. Braves fans can look forward to a brighter future, however, as Atlanta placed nine prospects on KATOH+’s most recent top-100 list. Ozzie Albies, who is arguably the most promising of those prospects, made his big league debut last night, starting at second base.
Although he’s a 20-year-old who was born in 1997 (!), Albies’ minor-league performance suggests he’s ready for another challenge. He slashed .285/.330/.440 at Triple-A, with an exciting 21 steals. Despite his small stature, Albies popped nine homers in Triple-A, resulting in a respectable .156 ISO. Albies’ offensive performance would be compelling for any infield prospect. And coming from a 20-year-old middle infield prospect, it’s extremely compelling.
Albies has been a consensus top-100 prospect since 2016, since his strong 2015 campaign put him on the map. KATOH had always liked Albies, even before it was cool, pegging him as one of the top prospects in baseball when he was a 17-year-old in 2014. Interestingly, Albies was a punchless, high-contact hitter back then, but he’s gradually sacrificed contact for power as he’s worked his way through the Braves system. The 8% K%, 048 ISO Albies who tore up Rookie Ball in 2014 scarcely resembles the 20% K%, .156 ISO guy the Braves just promoted. But regardless of what it looked like, Albies always had offensive talent to go along with his speed, defense and extreme youth.
My KATOH system pegs Albies for 12.9 WAR over his first six seasons by the stats-only method, and 13.8 WAR by KATOH+, which incorporates his No. 25 prospect ranking from Baseball America. Those marks place him 6th and 2nd, respectively, among prospects. Those point estimates don’t tell the whole story, however, as KATOH sees some serious star potential in Albies, giving him a roughly 1-in-4 chance of racking up over 20 WAR over the next six years. For reference, Robinson Cano, Dustin Pedroia and Ian Kinsler were the only second baseman who crossed that threshold in the six-year span that ended in 2016.
To put some faces to Albies’ statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps. I calculated a Mahalanobis distance between Albies’ Triple-A performance and every season since 1991. 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. 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.
| Rank | Name | KATOH+ Proj. WAR | Actual WAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Omar Infante | 8.3 | 3.4 |
| 2 | Jimmy Rollins | 16.3 | 19.1 |
| 3 | D’Angelo Jimenez | 13.2 | 7.4 |
| 4 | Ray Durham | 13.0 | 9.4 |
| 5 | Ronnie Belliard | 12.2 | 10.7 |
| 6 | Joe Thurston | 9.5 | 0.0 |
| 7 | Alex Gonzalez | 7.7 | 4.8 |
| 8 | Alcides Escobar | 9.3 | 10.4 |
| 9 | Jose Ortiz | 10.1 | 0.3 |
| 10 | Wilton Guerrero | 7.8 | 0.5 |
Chris works in economic development by day, but spends most of his nights thinking about baseball. He writes for Pinstripe Pundits, FanGraphs and The Hardball Times. He's also on the twitter machine: @_chris_mitchell None of the views expressed in his articles reflect those of his daytime employer.
When you have a 50% chance of winding up in the “Jimmy Rollins” or “Better than Jimmy Rollins” buckets you’re a pretty safe prospect.
But one thing that worries me–how much of his defensive value is tied up in being a shortstop at the lower levels, versus a second baseman now? It’s still a premium defensive position, but it seems unlikely he can pile up as much defensive value as someone like Rollins or Escobar while playing at second base.
Well, if Swanson can’t figure things out, there is a very real possibility that Albies can reclaim the SS position at the major league level.
July 4th was the last stolen base.
That’s the thing that scares me. He hasn’t stolen a base in nearly a month, which is problematic for players who are going to build a lot of value on speed. I hope this was just some weird developmental choice by the Braves org rather than a sign that we’re overrating his SB potential.
He was super-efficient this year (21/23), so that’s both encouraging, and makes me think it was less about ability, or whatever, and more about, as you say, something to do with development.
Is it normal to have the “M” shaped distribution of WAR probabilities? I would think it would almost always be a waterfall with better prospects having a less steep decline (as they have higher likelihoods of success).
What does the “M” shape mean? He’s less likely to have 7-16 WAR than 16-20+ WAR or less than 7 WAR.
So basically he’s either sub-regular caliber or an all star. Is it based on likelihood he sticks at MIF?
I would guess that it’s a function of his skills set. Most of his skills are things that should scale up easily, defense and speed. No matter what he’ll bring those to the table. But he has no power and little patience, so his entire offensive profile is built around his hit tool.
If the hit tool doesn’t translate then he’s not a starter, if the hit tool does then he’s very good. Which makes sense if you think about it.
A speedy good glove 2B with a .270/.310/.350 line is probably a backup, that same player with a .300/.330/.375 (obviously bumped SLG and OBP to reflect more singles) line is probably an AS level guy. There’s not a ton of room in the middle projection wise, it’s far more likely he’s worse than the former number or better than the later than that he falls in the middle.
Ok, no power? ISO of 0.156, 9 hr, 8 3B, twenty-one doubles… geez, what’s a guy gotta do to impress you? Moncada is 3 years older than him and has less power. And no patience? 20% K rate is problematic for you?
Did you actually read the article? Did you check out Albies’ stats?
Your narrative might apply to Albie a fe w years ago, but not now.
Joe Thurston 4 life