Offseason Notes

This edition of Offseason Notes contains:

1. Some overenthusiastic assessments of AFL SCOUT leaders.
2. Some notable ZiPS projections for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

and

3. Some shameless promotion for our impressive new NotGraphs blog.

SCOUT Batting Leaderboard
The Leaderboard
Here is the SCOUT batting leaderboard for the Arizona Fall League. (Click here for more on SCOUT, the metric that’s “sweeping” the “nation.”)

Rousing Notes
Conor Gillaspie is a Giants third base prospect who’s demonstrated good contact skills in the minors (sporting just a 14% K rate over the last two years) but little power. He’s had ony 12 HR in his last 1070 PAs, nor — according to John Sickels in the most recent edition of his Prospect Book — nor is Gillaspie’s glove advanced enough to make up for the lack of power. All of which means that Gillaspie’s four homers this fall — against only 5 Ks — is an encouraging sign. Sickels still isn’t particularly high on him: in the former’s preliminary organizational top 20, Gillaspie is merely an honorable mention.

SCOUT Pitching Leaderboard
The Leaderboard
Same verse, very similar to the first.

Rousing Notes
Josh Collmenter, Michael Fiers, and David Bromberg all (a) have made all of their appearances as starters and (b) are new to the SCOUT leaderboard. Collmenter is an Arizona farmhand notable for throwing, like, seven pitches. Apparently, I personally saw and liked Fiers last year in Cactus League play. After posting ridiculous numbers in his first year of professional baseball, he did mostly the same thing last season, recording 130 K in 125 IP across High- and Double-A. Fiers is still old-ish (25), but he’s also never failed. Bromberg made it to Triple-A Rochester as a 22-year-old last season. I like Fiers the best of the three of them, although that opinion isn’t so much founded upon “reason.’

Projections: ZiPS for Arizona
Beloved Pole Dan Szymborski has published his ZiPS projections for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Below are some of the notable ones. (All numbers assume major league competition. OPS+ and ERA+ are park-adjusted.)

Behold, the future:
• Kelly Johnson, 2B, 29: .275/.350/.478, 113 OPS+. I’m not afraid to remind you that Johnson was an All-Joy Team member last year.
• Daniel Hudson, RHP, 24: 3.56 ERA, 32 G, 30 GS, 172.0 IP, 17 HR, 58 BB, 151 K, 124 ERA+. Wow. That’s promising.
• Ian Kennedy, RHP, 24: 3.90 ERA, 23 G, 22 GS, 129.3 IP, 15 HR, 50 BB, 109 K, 113 ERA+. Eleven percent less promising than Hudson.

Shameless Promotion
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