JABO: Carlos Correa and Projecting Power
On Tuesday night, in just his second game since being promoted to the big leagues, Astros shortstop Carlos Correa launched the first home run of his Major League career. Houston fans certainly hope that it won’t be the last, as the first overall pick from the 2012 draft is now being looked at as a potential franchise cornerstone; an offensive middle infielder who impacts the ball on both sides of the game.
It is not too difficult to look at the 6-foot-4 Correa and envision the heir to Troy Tulowitzki’s throne. At the time of his call-up, Correa was the consensus best prospect in baseball, thanks mostly to his destruction of Double-A and a solid performance in Triple-A despite the fact that he won’t turn 21 until September. While Correa had certainly performed well climbing the minor league ladder the last few years, he really broke out at the beginning of this season by developing additional power.
In Double-A, 24 of his 45 hits went for extra bases, which is the kind of mark you expect from aging players who can’t hit singles because they pull all their ground balls right into the shift. When you see that kind of power from a middle infielder, especially one who isn’t yet of drinking age, the sky really seems to be the limit.
But as we discussed in this space a week ago, projecting future power output is a tricky business. While a player’s power production is perhaps the most important variable in determining offensive production, it’s also the most difficult to forecast. Especially for taller, skinny athletes, power can develop later on into a player’s career, well after his other tools have gotten him to the big leagues.
But it doesn’t always develop quickly, and sometimes it doesn’t develop at all. In talking with some people in the game about Correa, I was struck by how similar the descriptions sounded to conversations we had a few years back about another can’t-miss slugging shortstop: Xander Bogaerts. Like Correa, Bogaerts rocketed through the minors, getting to the big leagues as a 20 year old, and was considered the cream of the prospect crop at the time. And while he’s showing real improvement this year on both sides of the ball, we’re coming up on 1,000 at-bats in the big league career of Xander Bogaerts and he still has a grand total of just 15 home runs.
To this point, just 29% of his career hits have gone for extra bases. While he’s raised his average this season to .297, he’s slugging just .401, and his improvements have come entirely from reducing his strikeout totals. Rather than morphing into more of the slugging shortstop he was projected as, Bogaerts’ offensive profile now looks more like that of a traditional middle infielder. At just 22, it’s still far too early to declare that he’s a finished product, and Bogearts still has plenty of career left ahead of him, but he is a reminder that we can’t just assume every player is going to add power in a nice linear fashion as they get older.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
It’s just too bad he has a current 20 hit tool which Kiley defended in a chat just a couple weeks ago (along with Schwarber’s 30). Does he really think they’d be among the worst hitters in the majors right now?
12:42
Comment From RK
Correa and Schwarber had 20 and 30 current hit tools respectively per you last fall. Have they gotten that much better? Did you underrate them then?
12:43
Kiley McDaniel: Current hit tool is what they’d do in the big league right now. If I should’ve put them higher than that, they’d already be in the big leagues and we’ve seen with many prospects last year that big AAA numbers do not equal big MLB numbers. So, no, I wasn’t low on them then, but maybe they get adjusted up soon due to performances
The bold part is especially silly given Correa’s injury and super 2 implications and Schwarber’s lack of a position. I appreciate all he’s doing and adding to this site, but to stand by those, is ludicrous – admit a mistake or say they’ve really gotten sooo much better in the last 7 months (don’t think this is the case).
At the time Kiley graded Correa a current 20 on his hitting (and a 60 for his future projection), Correa had last played a game on 6/21/15. In high-A ball. It’s almost a year later and 3 leagues higher. Of course his current skills are significantly better now.
You’re assuming because Correa is in the majors now that it’s ludicrous that he could’ve been a 20 hitter just a year ago. It’s just as easy to turn your question on its head: if Correa was better than a 20 hitter last year, what the heck was he doing in high-A?
And in the same write-up that Kiley graded Correa a 20-hitter, he said: “if he feels no ill effects of the leg injury and keeps hitting like he has been, he could be knocking on the door of the majors next year,” and called him the most talented shortstop we’ve seen since Tulowitzki.
I think this is just a case of you not understanding what a current grade means.
I know what a current grade is. So you’re actually contending that he’s gone from a 20 8 months ago to a what 45/50 now?
3 grades in 8 months? I don’t think so. Sure we have more information now to confirm what the rankings said before, but he was never a 20 – ever.
Carlos Correa was a .313 hitter in his minor league career, and never put up any outrageous numbers. You’re saying he was better than a 20 hitter in the Gulf Coast League? Why didn’t he hit .600 then? Why didn’t he hit .400 in high-A?
Do you not believe that the different levels of the minors represent different levels of talent? Do you not believe that players are promotions are based on mastery of each level? If a shortstop was a 30 or 40 hitter since being drafted, why would the organization keep him in the minors for four years?
Sweet straw man.
I don’t want to get into a pointless argument. I’m genuinely confused. You said “he was never a 20 – ever”. If that is true, why didn’t Correa have significantly better minor league numbers?
“Do you not believe that the different levels of the minors represent different levels of talent? Do you not believe that players are promotions are based on mastery of each level? If a shortstop was a 30 or 40 hitter since being drafted, why would the organization keep him in the minors for four years?”
Well let’s not act like Correa toiled in the minors for years before earning a call up, I mean the kid is barely 20.
Why would he have to hit over .325 in A+ to be > 20? What batting average would convince you? I tend to think that Butera wouldn’t hit .325 in A+.
http://www.fangraphs.com/library/principles/league-equivalencies/
I know they have the calculated at baseball HQ for a subscription. I would be curious to know what his was after last season
Yirmiyahu, come on. I presume that everyone who comes to this site is familiar enough with baseball to know that All-Star players don’t hit .600 or even .400 on rehab assignments except perhaps in ridiculously small samples. That comment is beneath you and doesn’t belong in this discussion.
I think d_i’s contention that Kiley graded the hit tool too low is fair, although it’s not important enough to get upset about. McDaniel appears to have a hard and fast rule that no minor leaguer ever receives a hit grade above 30 and no one in the low minors ever gets one above 20. That’s not something he should be doing, as it’s entirely philosophical rather than analytical, but if you’re going to err then I would prefer to be on the side of low expectations rather than slapping an above average current hit grade on a prospect.
What are you talking about, JD? There were 14 players with hit tools of 40 or better on Kiley’s Top 200.
Correa and Schwarber just weren’t among them, because neither had any experience above A-ball.
and even if you do, the answer is 144 wRC+. His MLE even at that point (I’m just estimating) had to be in the range of at least 70 wRC+ ie not a 20.
I can say with great certainty that Correa and Schwarber have at no point in their careers – not a year ago, not 2 years ago, been as bad a hitter as the Drew Buteras and the other 20/30 grade hitters currently in the major leagues.
And you know Correa is “at worst” a 40/50 right now because why, because the Astrots called him up and he’s hit well in three games?
He’s been the best or nearly the best hitter in the minors along with Schwarber and Bryant for a while now. If you think he’s going to be AMONG THE WORST HITTERS IN THE MAJORS, I don’t know what to tell you.
I’m not saying he’s realized hit 60 FG hit tool, but there is no chance he was a 20 8 months ago.
http://www.fangraphs.com/library/principles/league-equivalencies/
…or maybe he had a leap this year?
Which would, you know, explain why he hit so much better at AA than he had at any previous level.
No one without success at AA should ever receive more than a 20 on their present hit tool.
Yeah, stuff like that really makes the place seem like fanboygraphs. Oh the scouts use a 0-70 scale…we should too! Schwarber’s bat can play now. It’s the defense thats the problem. Heck, the Cubs were discussing maybe calling him up to DH. But nah, he has a 30 hit tool because he is currently in the minors…..
…what? Do you not get that the 20-80 scale is categorization by standard deviations from a mean of 50?