Revere This Twins Prospect
Quick quiz: What 2007 No. 1 draft pick has a career .331 average, but is never, ever talked about as a serious prospect?
The answer is Minnesota’s Ben Revere, an outfielder who was taken 28th overall out of a Kentucky high school. He entered 2010 with a triple-slash line of .331/.396/.430 in 997 at-bats. The speedy outfielder, now 22, has moved slowly up the system’s ladder, one step at a time through rookie ball, low-A, high-A and now double-A.
This season, he’s been unfazed by the more advanced pitching in double-A and is hitting .313/.387/.380 in 163 at-bats. Revere is not a power hitter, as witnessed by his .067 ISO rate. And he’ll never be a power hitter. Luckily, he seems to realize what his strengths are, and he plays to those attributes.
Revere stole 40+ bases in both ’08 and ’09. So far this season, he’s nabbed 17 bags in 21 tries. He doesn’t have a huge walk rate because he makes good, consistent contact, but he has also struck out just four more times than he’s walked in his career. In ’10, he has 17 walks and 16 strikeouts. A left-handed hitter, Revere is not a player you have to worry about platooning. His career OPS versus southpaws is .866 (.363 batting average) and it’s .800 (.324 average) against right-handed pitchers.
Although he’s never been promoted in-season by the Twins, this could be the year that the organization decides to change things up. Revere is close to being MLB-ready and is hitting .415/.489/.537 with six steals in his last 10 games. The organization lacks depth in the outfield at triple-A and if the MLB club needs an injury replacement for the second half of the season, Revere might be the type of player that can provide a playoff-seeking club a real boost.
Revere also provides an element that the big league club could benefit from: speed. Aside from fellow outfielder Denard Span, who has 13 steals, no other Twin has more than four (Orlando Hudson). Neither Delmon Young (.324 wOBA) nor Jason Kubel (.304) has really pulled his weight this season. If placed in the ninth spot in the lineup, Revere should be able to get on base at a clip of .350-.370, leaving him in a good position to be driven in by Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, and/or Michael Cuddyer. Mr. Young could take his .315 on-base percentage to the bench.
Ultimately, Revere is probably not a difference-making player all on his own, despite his lofty draft status. However, he’s proven over the past four seasons that he has skills to be an important cog in a playoff-worthy club.
Marc Hulet has been writing at FanGraphs since 2008. His work focuses on prospects and fantasy. Follow him on Twitter @marchulet.
Those are all good points but as a follower of the Twins minor leagues I have many reports criticizing his defensive play including arm strength and routes to fly balls. The average is nice and the OBP is good but with no power and limited defense he doesn’t seem to have a huge upside. Maybe he turns out like M.Bourn. Not to mention, Revere would probably receive a little more attention if it weren’t for Aaron Hicks
He has Juan Pierre written all over him. Speedy, non-existent ISO, doesn’t walk OR strikeout, low ceiling on defense relative to the player’s speed. That’s actually fine by me, because I think Juan Pierre is a reasonably valuable major leaguer despite his reputation.
I do want to see him improve on defense though. Otherwise, I’m very ok with him being a trading chip because he and Denard Span in the same outfield isn’t exactly a perfect scenario from a power perspective.
He has Juan Pierre written all over him.
This is actually a fact. After a run-in with a mentally unstable tattoo artist, Revere now — literally, tragically — has “Juan Pierre” written all over him.
I guess. How would we feel about him if he was a Royals or Astros prospect?
Counting on him to post a .350 to .370 OBP? His MLE according to minorleaguesplits.com is .259/.313/.313.
How does he compare to Jason Tyner?
A poor man’s Brett Gardner? Wow, I never thought I’d ever have a reason to use that expression….
Guys with no power tend to walk even less once they meet MLB pitching. Maybe he can keep up that .330 BA, but facing the better pitchers and defenses in MLB I doubt it.
“…is never, ever talked about as a serious prospect…”
He was a 1st round draft pick and made it onto every Twins offseason Top 10 list, so I don’t see how he isn’t talked about as a serious prospect.
While I’d love to see him suplant Young in the lineup, being superior to Delmon Young isn’t high praise.
Best case is he figures out his defense enough to handle CF, becomes a .300 with 50+ steals and a .700-.750 OPS kind of hitter at the major league level, and the Twins can move Span back to LF where he’s a plus plus defender instead of a minor liability.
Worst case, he gives up some nice depth in the OF until (if) Hicks is ready.
The team is pretty woefully slow at the moment, so a burner like Revere would be nice if he can put it together. Playing statiion-to-station baseball when you’re not hitting many home runs is not a good combo.
Young at this point is at 0.5 WAR (Cuddyer at 0.1 WAR) and projects to 1.8 WAR for the season. You think that a Revere can be better this season? I doubt it. Another severe point in consideration is that Revere is not in the Twins’ 40 man roster (and there are other players not in that roster, like Anthony Slama, who will help the team more this season…). That said, I would not mind if the Twins find any takers for Cuddyer to see Revere in the bigs in 2011.
LOL! Trade Cuddyer and replace him with a guy with no power?? Makes sense to me.
“That said, I would not mind if the Twins find any takers for Cuddyer to see Revere in the bigs in 2011”
Wow. That might be the dumbest fangraph comment EVER.
Your suggestion is to dump the ONLY right handed power threat and replace it with a weak hitting Left Hander in a line-up FULL of Lefties.
Is there a hall of fame for stupid posts? If so you need to be on it
No, I don’t think Revere is a better option this year. I was speaking more of 2011/2012. They’re stuck with Young for the rest of this year, until/unless Kubel starts hitting enough to justify giving him a lot of starts in LF.
Even with Cuddy’s play so far this year, I’d still consider Young the weakest regular in the Twins lineup right now. Unless Harris is in the lineup, that is. But the sharp downward trend on Cuddyer’s defense from 2007 to this year suggests he needs to be DH’ing more than he’s in RF. I think the Twins still think of him as a plus defender, though.
Cuddyer has never been a plus defender. Career UZR/150 -7.3 @RF. Always in the bottom annually in +/- ratings. Used to have a strong and accurate arm, but the last couple of season has been going south. I think that the Twins see him as the team spokesperson because the superstars are timid and quiet. Picking his too expensive 2011 option was a very bad mistake. At least Young is 24 and has shown a drastic improvement both in plate discipline and defense this season. His prime years ahead of him and could be very exciting to watch. An outfield of Span/Hicks/Young (L/C/R) would be very good. I would not be surprised if Revere is repositioned to 2B as Hicks moves in the organization.
You guys are idiots. Do you actually watch the Twins play?
You are just not very smart.
The Twins HAD to pick up Cuddy’s option because there is no other right handed power threat in the system. – Go back to the Strib’s site and stop posting where people actually understand baseball
hey, look what I posted late last night:
http://www.twinkietown.com/2010/5/27/1489562/ben-reveres-ceiling-looking-a-lot
Since a rough first 3 weeks of AA (shocking to see a player have a hiccup with the A+ to AA jump, I know), he’s locked in.
Punchline: He’s now gone 20 games (hitting mostly leadoff) without a single K, walking 9 times in that time period.
Defense is indeed the big question. One respondant to my sbnation fanpost states many pro scouts outside the Twins org. have a much more positive view of his defense than the Twins do. If you follow the Twins enough, you know the organization has a tendency to develop and deploy a narrative about their players and then stick to it, so prima facie it’s entirely plausible that he’s better in the outfield than the Twins “know” and say he is.
That’s not even close to the truth. And quite frankly makes you look like a moron. The Twins Scouting department is among the best in the bigs and it isn’t because they “deploy a narrative about their players and stick to it.” That’s just idiotic! If that’s the case, I guess we’ll see Deolis Guerrera in the rotation by the end othe year!
Fool.
This isn’t an ESPN message board, being an ass in every comment isn’t necessary.
if you are going to be an ass, at least spell the name of your punch line right.
unlike kubel and young, revere won’t play with his back up against the left field wall as singles continue to fall in front of them.
unlike kubel and young, revere won’t play with his back up against the left field wall.
Seems like maybe his value could be as a late-game pinch runner, where he might score on 1 hit instead of them needing 2 hits. But I wonder. How often those situations present themselves and wether it’s worth a roster spot.
Revere was just named Eastern League Player of the Week, and has his season line up to .329/.403/.401. 7 walks in his last 10 games.
The Twins do like to use pinch runners, esp with guys like Kubel and Thome on the roster. But as an OF, with his defense, it’s very unlikely they’d have him on the roster as a purely backup player who’s main contribution was pinch running.
A team that doesn’t carry a backup outfielder and insists on keeping multiple futility infielders around should be able to find a spot for a guy like Revere if need be.
Maybe. I would be suprised if there were any teams that didn’t carry a backup outfielder, though. And I don’t think the Twins are looking to move him at the moment.
But it has been since Jason Tyner in 2007 that the Twins carried an OF on their roster who was below average defensively and didn’t hit well enough to DH. Their backup OF’s are either plus defenders (Gomez) or DH types (Kubel) or guys than also play in the IF (Casilla, Punto). If that’s what Revere’s only real value is on the bases, they likely won’t have a spot for him just so he can pinch run.
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