Sean Coyle And the Unfair Dustin Pedroia Comps
Boston Red Sox minor league second baseman Sean Coyle is a solid minor league prospect which is actually pretty rare for a player of his stature. In fact, in three years spent Scouting the Sally, only a handful of prospects have been worthy of more than a cursory look (Jose Altuve – HOU, Leury Garcia – TEX, Wilfredo Tovar – NYM) which speaks volumes about Coyle as a baseball player. However, as kind as it may seem on the surface to compare the best second baseman in the Red Sox system to the best second baseman in baseball – organization mate Dustin Pedroia – it’s pretty unfair to both players.
Video after the jump
At first glance, the initial reaction of a contact I spoke to about Coyle was, “the Red Sox paid 1.3 million? Really?” But after seeing a number of games his skill set grew on the scout to the point where he acknowledged Coyle’s ceiling as a regular at the big league level. In witnessing similar, a few aspects of Coyle’s all-around game stuck out and deserve mention.
In batting practice, Coyle arguably displayed the most power of any player on the roster (including power hitting prospect Brandon Jacobs). This was also seconded by a scout who was shocked at Coyle’s ability to drive the baseball. When scouting Coyle, he didn’t barrel any balls of note in game action, but I can certainly second his uncanny batting practice power as he belted numerous line drives over the left-centerfield wall onto the patio beyond the fence.
Looking back at his 2011 numbers, Coyle’s strikeout percentage stands out considering his ability to control the strike zone. Coyle rarely swung at balls outside the zone and displayed a short, quick stroke. However, he fouled a number of balls straight back – especially pitches at the letters – and swung-and-missed too often. While statistics at the lower levels rarely tell the story of a prospect, Coyle’s combination of a high walk rate, surprising pop for his size and slightly concerning strikeout totals frame his game quite well.
On defense, Coyle turned an excellent double play behind a lightning quick transfer and release while maintaining his arm strength. On routine plays, he showed soft hands and fluid movements, but his range left little doubt as to why he was moved across the diamond from shortstop after being drafted. Additionally, his throws were erratic due to what I perceived as an inconsistent release point. On one play he fielded a ball to his left, turned and fired a throw at the first baseman’s shoe tops nearly causing an error. When a simple flip is in order, a throw like the one described tends to stick out as an awkward moment and this one certainly did.
With 20 stolen bases in 26 attempts, Coyle has above average speed, but his lower half thickness indicates room for growth. This is likely to slow him down at full maturity leaving him an average runner. However, Coyle should be able to maximize the speed he does have utilizing his high baseball IQ and maintains the potential for double-digit steals at the big league level.
Like any other low level prospect, Coyle has strengths and weaknesses which need to be ironed out as he continues to advance levels and develop as a prospect. And while it’s difficult to visualize Coyle having a great deal of projection left based on his size, he’s the baseball equivalent of a “gym rat” which leaves me confident in his ability to maximize the tools he does have.
Coyle’s prospect status going forward depends on how he is framed in prospect circles. If judged fairly, he’s a solid second base prospect with a solid, but unspectacular all-around game who projects to provide return on on the organization’s investment. In the South Atlantic league, that’s about all an organization can hope for.
Throw out a Dustin Pedroia comp and Coyle is destined to fall short of those phenomenally lofty expectations. Red Sox Sean Coyle is the epitome of why prospect writers avoid comps like the plague and find it an exercise in futility. Quite often, they wind up doing more harm than good when framing the conversation about a prospect.
Mike Newman is the Owner/Managing Editor ofROTOscouting, a subscription site focused on baseball scouting, baseball prospects and fantasy baseball. Follow me onTwitter. Likeus on Facebook.Subscribeto my YouTube Channel.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I think it’s ok to compare a guy to another player even if he’s unlikely to reach that level, especially when it’s coming from a scout (i.e. what “type” of player is this guy?). Now, it’s lazy to look at height, weight, position, and team affiliation to make a ML comp (and that’s what is likely happening here, and previously with Jed Lowrie), but it could be that they’re similar players/prospects even if Coyle’s ceiling is lower than an 8 WAR season…
Good piece, a lot of people are really high on this guy, long term…
Comps, when well thought out can be great tools. For example, I previously comped Danny Hultzen to “good” Jaime Garcia based on not only their being LH, but projected K rates, walk rates. In other cases, I’ll try to go even further in to pitch types and whatnot.
In the case of Coyle vs. Pedroia, I consider the comps to be extremely lazy which hurts a prospect more than it helps. Let’s face it. A ton of prospecting is perception and I’ve written about that plenty of times before.
Off the top of my head, Jesus Montero has been a golden boy for years while Dayan Viciedo has been a black cloud. They both aren’t very good fielders. Both are about the same age. Both crushed triple-A. the difference is Viciedo was thrown into double-A, received a bunch of money and “disappointed” at 19 (even though his numbers were quite good considering age vs. level) while Montero hit better early on. Both might wind up being similar hitters in the end, but the prospect conversation about both has been framed quite differently.
“Rich Garces is a lot like Willie Keeler, in that they both played baseball.”
Also, Cano > Pedroia. I’ve watched enough Yankee games to know that Pedroia’s defense is nowhere near as much better than Cano’s as UZR claims.
Ah yes, watching Yankee games gives you a great idea of how good Pedroia’s defense is. Those 19 games a year, coupled with personal bias and the almight eye test, is a much better way to evaluate defense.
Wow, I mean – just wow. Most agree that advanced fielding metrics are touchy at best over small sample sizes. But here we have 6096 innings of work for Pedroia and over those innings he has accumulated 41.5 UZR and 27.6 RngR. Cano has 9070 innings to work with and boasts -39.9 UZR and a -38.7 RngR.
Going over to BR, you can find that in Pedroia’s 6096 innings he has 46 Rtot (Fielding Runs Saved Above Average) while Cano has managed 32 in 9070.
I don’t care how well you like or dislike advanced fielding metrics but that is just plain opposite spectrum when comparing the two
And Jeter is a great shortstop– he just got a Gold Glove in 2010!
Seriously though, there’s just no comparison in terms of range or glove work. The whole point of defensive metrics is that your eyes deceive you, mainly because a ball that one guy has to dive to get to looks routine when hit to a better defender.
No knock against Cano, though, he’s certainly a great ballplayer. Just at other things than fielding.
That’s funny. So you’re saying Pedroia’s better defense isn’t enough to bridge the gap between their offense output? Pedroia owns a career .368 wOBA (122 wRC+) and Cano has a career .359 wOBA (119 wRC+). Pedroia slightly ahead, but the difference is pretty small. Once you factory in defense there is no doubt Pedroia is the better player. I understand Cano might not be as bad as UZR rates him, but Pedroia is an absolute vacuum cleaner. Your bias is showing.
I’ve watched enough Yankees games to know that Cano drowns children and puppies in his bathtub, so there!
Pedroia is such a freakish little man, he shouldn’t be used as a comp for anyone.
Well said
Muggsy Bogues?
Their games seem to be very different. Pedey is a great fielder and almost always gets more walks that strike outs.
It’s a little funny because Coyle is putting up Pedroia’s power and speed numbers in the minors. But if you look at Pedroia’s numbers in the minors, he didn’t exhibit much power and use of speed.
You are right, but need to consider Coyle’s age. Pedroia was a college hitter with much more polish so who knows what his K% would have been at 18-19 in the Sally. It’s kind of an apples and oranges argument.
“the best second baseman in baseball – organization mate Dustin Pedroia”
Robinson Cano, Chase Utley, Ian Kinsler, and Ben Zobrist are all laughing.
2011 WAR
Pedroia – 8 WAR
Kinsler – 7.7
Zobrist – 6.6
Cano – 5.6
Utley – 4.9
2008-2011 WAR
Utley – 25.9
Pedroia 23.0
Based on 2011 AND the past 4 seasons, I’m comfortable with saying Pedroia is the top dog at the position right now.
Wow, Mike, you and I are on the same wavelength. That was weird.
Mike,
As you well know, there are many stats you could choose to compare the players that don’t include enormous amounts of error and wishful thinking. Reasonable people could very well disagree with you. But this is all beside the point. Why distract from the actual point of your article with such a statement? Do you prefer the discussion here to be between Yankees and Redsox fans about Pedroia and Cano?
Jason,
Pedroia’s talent level and his being very unique is one of the key points of this piece. Is it a scouting report on Coyle first and foremost? Absolutely, but it’s important to point out comping Coyle to a GREAT player like Pedroia is poor judgment and that it frames Coyle the prospect in an entirely different light.
In all honesty, I thought 0 people would have a real problem with my saying Pedroia is the best based on 2011 when he was the best 2B in baseball in terms of WAR. It’s cool to disagree, but it’s splitting hairs.
Mike,
I think you both overestimate the importance of WAR and overestimate how seriously people take it. Nobody thinks Pedroia is a bad player or even an average player. Plenty of people think there are better second basemen out there though. Perhaps even the plurality of people think there are better second basemen than Pedroia. Your point would have been better made, I believe, by simply stating that Pedroia is a great player, etc. As it is, most of the discussion has been about things other than Coyle…
You’re the one who derailed the thread, Jason, so you have nobody to blame but yourself. And if you are determined to remain off-topic, then feel free at least to build your case against Pedroia.
John,
I derailed the thread by commenting on something explicitly stated in the article. Do you see the problem?
^The “problem” is that you have a pet argument you can’t resist bringing up any time a person so much as mentions the subject in an otherwise unrelated article.
2011 WAR:
Cano: 5.6
Utley: 3.9
Kinsler: 7.7
Zobrist: 6.6
Pedroia: 8.0
2012 Projected WAR (Bill James):
Cano: 5.9
Utley: 5.5
Kinsler:6.6
Zobrist: 6.3
Pedroia: 7.0
Actually buddy, Pedroia is laughing..
Nice to see it! I’m feeling the love today.
I heard this crazy rumor that they started recording stats on players. If only we had a method of using them to determine how a player stacks up against his peers.
I think how well a 2B fields seems to get over looked.
I don’t see how you could argue that Cano, Kinsler, or Zobrist is better than Pedroia. Also, Utley has been slowed by injuries in recent years and is unlikely to be an upper echelon second baseman anymore. Source: Fangraph’s WAR graphs
You can have a different personal opinion, but there’s absolutely nothing controversial about what the auther said.
Take a poll of the fangraphs community, or the general baseball community, and Pedroia would get voted the best 2Bman.
It is controversial. You wouldn’t be commenting if there was no controversy. Pedroia might win your poll. But it would be like Romney winning Iowa. Not convincing and with plenty of controversy.
At any rate, I guarantee he would not be voted best by the players, managers and general managers themselves.
Because polling players, managers, and general managers is the best way to evaluate a player.
No, clearly FanGraphs readers know more about baseball. That is who we should poll….
I heard this crazy rumor that they started recording stats on players. If only we had a method of using them to determine how a player stacks up against his peers.
(sorry for the double post, was on the wrong spot before)
rather than comparing him to Pedroia now, I would have been more interested in comparing him to Pedroia when Pedroia was Coyle’s current age? I recall Keith Law didn’t think much of Pedroia and I bet many scouts had the same negative comments on him that they made or are still making about Coyle.
This is what I was thinking as well. Comparing him to Pedroia the prospect isn’t actually very flattering, as there were serious doubts Dustin would ever become an everyday player.
It seems like all you do is breakdowns of red sox prospects. How about some guys who aren’t from the Yankees – Sox – ESPN publicity triangle?
It seems like the headline made it clear who he was talking about, and rather than bitching in a comment section you could always ignore this piece and look elsewhere. Or maybe he can give you back your free99 subscription cost…
A bit confused…
In my 4 months with Fangraphs, I’ve written exactly 2 Red Sox specific pieces and 0 Yankees pieces. Are you confusing me with Mike Axisa?
I’ve written about as many or more Braves, Dodgers and Cubs prospects than I have Red Sox and Yankees combined.
Yup, that’s what I did. Shit. Sorry about that.
If you look at WAR over the past five seasons you can hardly claim those 4 are better than Pedroia
…but then, why would anyone look at WAR?! ….in all seriousness, I’m not interested in a discussion of who the best second basemen is on this thread. I just think the article would have been better without that clearly distracting statement.
It’s only distracting to people who have a bias. WAR is kinda important on this site. Pedroia has a claim to being the best, or at least being as good as anyone in the game. If you come to fangraphs and ignore their WAR evaluations, you shouldn’t be surprised when people disagree with you. Know the platform.
and by anyone in the game, I’m referring to only 2B obviously. Pedroia is about as underrated as a former ROY & MVP winner playing for the Red Sox can possibly be. Cano is good, but Pedroia is for the children.
Earl,
I’m not surprised when people disagree with me. I’m happy they do. How boring a world where you just sort by WAR and have all the answers without disagreement or discussion….
Well you could look at wOBA over the last 6 years (offense only stat)
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=2b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2011&month=0&season1=2006&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&players=0
and Pedroia is 2nd behind Utley. Due to Utley’s age/injuries and the fact that Pedroia is in his prime – not a big leap
CampBrice,
That is a great chart. You can see that Pedroia is well below Utley and effectively tied with Kinsler and Cano in wOBA. However, when you look elsewhere across those numbers in the chart, Pedroia is the real outlier and not generally in a good way. His power deficiency relative to the other players is striking. You are making my point.
Cano seems like an outlier (and not in a good way) in that he can’t walk or steal a base. See…i can pick out stats that make someone look bad too. Pedroia has out-WARed Cano in 200 less games. Get over it.
Over the last four years Utley is the only one who has a case for being a better overall player than Pedroia, however, based one his age/injuries, the most recent season, and the fact that Utley has been in clear decline since 2009, I think it is safe to say that Pedroia is the better player going forward.
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2011&month=0&season1=2008&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&players=3269,8370,1679,6195,7435
I have a huge man crush on Robinson Cano. And Derek Jeter. There I said it. What a huge relief.
Los,
If WAR was the finally arbiter of how good a player is you would have an excellent point. It is not. In fact, WAR should not be used to evaluate players at all until we understand the error inherent in it. We know the error is huge. We don’t know if the error is biased in any way. If the error is huge and random it is a big problem. If the error is biased then WAR is almost meaningless. The most conservative course is to ignore WAR completely until these issues are worked out.
Someone doesn’t understand wOBA.
Jason, you do know that wOBA is an aggregate of general offensive production, right? As in it weights things like power, stolen bases, OBP, etc. according to their run producing value. And that’s not even taking into account Pedroia’s (significant) defensive edge.
I would suggest actually taking the time to understand the statistics upon which this whole site is based before making some vague assertions about error and bias in WAR. The Glossary is a great place to start!
doc,
I am aware of what wOBA is. I think composite stats like that are a nice starting point. However, when two players have the same wOBA (such as Pedroia, Cano and Kinsler) it is worth looking into the components to see which player you would prefer. It is my opinion that if two players have the same wOBA or OPS you should prefer the player who gets there by way of power rather than walks. wOBA applies a factor for each outcome based on the expectancy of producing a run. But the lower the expectancy of producing a run the greater room there is for random variation. If you walk four times in a game you might EXPECT to score at least one run (I don’t know the actual weights), however, you very well may not score at all. On the opposite extreme, if you hit a home run you expect to score and you do 100% of the time. Thus, there ought to be greater deviance from run expectancy in players like Pedroia than in players like Cano. For example, last season, according to wOBA Pedroia and Cano had the same chance of producing runs each at bat, however, Cano actually produced more in many fewer plate appearances. I suspect this is because Cano’s method of getting to his wOBA relies on his teammates (and chance) less than does Pedroia’s. I think Cano is a surer bet even though you might expect them to produce the same.
If you don’t know how the metrics are weighted, how can you possibly argue against the validity of it?
…I’m not arguing against the validity of it. I think weighting outcomes based upon run expectancy is a good thing to do.
I like his swing, but you’re right that he hurts himself swinging at balls up in the zone. As he advances, if they can get him to focus down and through the middle, that average regular tag could hold up.
Ronald Torreyes, the 19 yr old 2B that moved from the Reds to the Cubs in the Sean Marshall deal gets a lot of Pedroia comps. Torreyes is listed at 5’9″, but is likely only 5’7″. It seems like an easy/lazy thing for scouts to try and compare any diminutive 2B to Pedroia.
Yes, Torreyes is a guy I’m excited to scout in the next year or two. Daytona Beach and Tennessee are certainly close enough to make a trip. The selfish prospect guy in me is hoping the Cubs trade many more pieces and load the minor league ranks with talent at the A+ and AA levels.
I don’t mind comps as long as some thought is put into them and you’re not just comping prospects to the guys on your rotisserie team right now, which is what people tend to do. I compared Brandon Jacobs to a pre-steroids Gary Sheffield and Henry Ramos to Dave Clark. It’s an interesting conversation starter. The problem is when people take this kind of stuff waaay too seriously (if you consider yourself part of “Whatever-your-team-is Nation,” you take it waaay too seriously) and hold the comp against the player. The player didn’t make the comp, some “expert” did. Comps are like you-know-whats, everybody’s got one.
Interesting stuff Richard. It sounds like you have had the opportunity to see Jacobs and Ramos in person. I’m assuming it was Greenville? Where are you located?
Yo Jason, you don’t like UZR (how convenient), okay.
Of the guys you mentioned, the only one with a higher wOBA since 2008 is Utley. Oops.
Yo Tom,
Disliking UZR is inconvenient. It just happens to be good policy.
Utley has a higher wOBA. Kinsler and Cano have effectively equal wOBA (if you disagree show me that the small difference is significant). Further, Pedroia has a massive home/away split. If he did not play most of his games in Fenway we would not be having this conversation.
As Rick Perry says, “oops”.
Pedroia’s career defensive ratings look like this:
DRS: +40
UZR +41
TZL +40
A UZR conspiracy, no doubt.
The weighted averages for the players discussed (wRC+):
Pedroia 130
Utley 127
Cano 125
Kinsler 124
Zobrist 125
Your comments about UZR, wOBA, and now about park factors give you away as the guy who sometimes sees these things talked about (and criticized) but does not understand them.
Its not a conspiracy. Its just that those 40’s are probably something like 40 +/- 40 in reality. …in other words completely meaningless for comparison’s sake.
NS,
If you think you understand UZR you either are privy to confidential information or are mistaken. It is a black box. FanGraphs will not release the data or the formula they use to calculate it. They just ask you to have faith. I don’t.
NS,
With respect to wRC+ I think you have a common misunderstanding. Stats like wRC+ make adjustments to an individual’s raw numbers based on what the average player in the league does. However, Pedroia is not the average player in the league. He is a specific player with his own specific quirks. What the rest of the league does at Fenway is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that Fenway happens to suit Pedroia particularly well. So much so that he is a very different player at home and on the road. This is particularly true with respect to his power numbers. Compare, say, Pedroia and Cano’s performance on the road where they are largely facing the same competition in the same ballparks (except the 19 games when they play each other).
More evidence you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about: UZR isn’t fangraphs’ creation.
Caveman,
I agree I don’t know anything about UZR. The data isn’t available to me. Who created it is irrelevant. I just want the data so I can evaluate it.
You sound like you fully understand it. May I have the raw data and the formula please? I’d like to be able to evaluate it myself.
Jason,
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/the-fangraphs-uzr-primer/
The data from BIS is recorded by staff they pay to watch hours and hours of game footage and take notes.
But really, pick any defensive metric, or average them all together since they’re all created in different ways. Or go by scouting if you want. They all say the same thing.
Interesting point about home/away splits though.
^It isn’t actually an interesting point though, Doc. This issue has been done to death in saber circles — including fangraphs. A split like that needs to be regressed to be meaningful in the first place.
Stats like wRC+ make adjustments to an individual’s raw numbers based on what the average player in the league does. However, Pedroia is not the average player in the league … The fact of the matter is that Fenway happens to suit Pedroia particularly well
And Coors happened to suit Matt Holliday particularly well. Blah blah blah. This is just standard jabber dressed up as an insight.
Pedroia has a significant split just like Kinsler and Utley do. Cano is the outlier in the group. But of course he too has had a significant split in 2 of the past 4 seasons. Not surprising, really, since most of the league does.
A person who wants to make the case that a park is affecting a particular player to a greater-than-average degree needs evidence to do so and unregressed split data sure doesn’t qualify. What you’re reading here are the words of a guy doing his best to sound right without having to show any work.
That’s likely because there isn’t any work to be shown, of course. Any evidence that doesn’t fit his bias is ignored (so far: UZR, DRS, TZL, wOBA, and wRC+) and all that’s left at the end are the same conclusory statements with which he began.
NS,
There are a few problems here. You write”
“A split like that needs to be regressed to be meaningful in the first place.”
Regress it to what? This makes no sense at all, unfortunately. “Regression” seems to be the new buzz word amongst those interested in baseball analysis. It is absolutely not applicable here. Regression assumes some model. NS is not explicit about what s/he wants to regress to (is it Pedroia’s career?). Regardless, applying a regression makes some assumptions about how the world works. For example regressing Pedroia’s home/away splits towards his career average makes the explicit assumption that the observed variation is random. Well, the hypothesis we want to test is that it is NOT random. We don’t want to regress it, we want to compare the data to see if the variation differs significantly from randomness!
“A person who wants to make the case that a park is affecting a particular player to a greater-than-average degree needs evidence to do so and unregressed split data sure doesn’t qualify.”
I don’t want to make that case. I want to do away with the assumptions of models all together. I suggested comparing Cano and Pedroia on the road over their careers. Since they play in the same division, and their careers have largely spanned the same time period this is a very fair comparison. It is far more rigorous than applying a league-wide park effects factor because it is not loaded with assumptions.
“Any evidence that doesn’t fit his bias is ignored.”
I’ve given reasons for why I ignore the defensive metrics. I didn’t ignore the hitting metrics at all.
Jason, my moronic friend, even if everything you’ve said thus far to defend your argument was sound and accurate, the only thing you’d have demonstrated is that Pedroia is a marginally worse hitter than the other suspects. You apparently have no regard for defensive metrics, so we’ll assume they’re all the same. So, Pedroia is among the best 2B in baseball, according to Jason.
Tell me again why something you yourself just argued for is laughable?
Tom,
Despite my impairment, my original point was that Pedroia is not without question the best second basemen in baseball and that the unqualified assertion of it was a distraction from the focus of the piece. I fully agree that Pedroia is amongst the best second basemen in baseball. Upstream I wrote:
“Nobody thinks Pedroia is a bad player or even an average player. Plenty of people think there are better second basemen out there though. Perhaps even the plurality of people think there are better second basemen than Pedroia. Your point would have been better made, I believe, by simply stating that Pedroia is a great player, etc. As it is, most of the discussion has been about things other than Coyle…”
Pound for Pound. Or inch for inch
Pedroia > Cano.
Amount of Hair
Cano > Pedroia
Deadlocked still, sorry thought I had it figured out.
My metrics say that Dustin Pedroia is approximately 17 times manlier than Robinson Cano, with a standard deviation of +/- .863 man units. Seriously though, why come to a site that evaluates players based on statistical analysis only to rail against the validity of said statistics? There are plenty of ESPN forums and Bleacher Report articles for that kind of argument. Furthermore, while Pedroia is obviously the superior all-around player, Cano wins the “throwing the ball across the body to first while on a full sprint towards third” award hands down. Boo-Ya!!
“why come to a site that evaluates players based on statistical analysis only to rail against the validity of said statistics?”
Because that is how science works (and should work). No one is arguing against using statistics. The argument is how to use statistics and what they mean.
“There are plenty of ESPN forums and Bleacher Report articles for that kind of argument.”
Actually, this site is devoted to the use and discussion of quantification to understand baseball.
“while Pedroia is obviously the superior all-around player, Cano wins the “throwing the ball across the body to first while on a full sprint towards third” award hands down.”
You might enjoy ESPN: http://espn.go.com/
Dustin Pedroia, although very good, probably is not the best second baseman in the game. Robinson Cano is much better. Cano’s slugging percentage is almost 100 points higher than Pedroias. Cano gets more extra base hits, and also has range like no other second baseman. Although Pedroia is a solid 2nd baseman he is not a game changer or wow factor like Cano