Tony Kemp and the Inevitable Jose Altuve Comparison

Two months ago, the Houston Astros looked like the obvious favorites in the AL West, but things haven’t exactly gone according to plan. Houston’s off to a disappointing 15-24 start, due in part to some terrible performances in the outfield. While George Springer and Colby Rasmus have hit well, Carlos Gomez, Preston Tucker and Jake Marisnick have a combined 252 plate appearances this year, and each has recorded a wOBA below .250. Gomez has been one of the biggest disappointments in baseball this year, and his struggles appear to be more than just bad luck.

To help fortify their struggling outfield, and provide a spark to their under-achieving team, the Astros have called up 24-year-old Tony Kemp from Triple-A. Although he stands at just 5-foot-7, Kemp hit .314/.393/.391 with 38 steals last season between Double-A and Triple-A, and was off to a similarly good start this year, slashing .298/.410/.405 at Fresno. Kemp’s a second baseman by trade, but has played a good deal of center and left field of late. Dan Farnsworth ranked Kemp 11th on his Astros prospect list heading into the year. Kemp appeared 15th among Houston prospects on Baseball America’s list. KATOH, however, is won over by his stellar minor-league track record. My system ranked him #2 in the Astros system and #53 overall.

I know what you’re thinking, and although it’s a lazy comp, it’s hard not to think about it. Kemp’s an undersized, speedy second baseman out of the Astros system who never appeared on any prospect lists, but consistently performed in the minors. We saw a movie like this once before, and the ending featured one of the best players on the planet. The similarities abound, but there are some notable differences between Kemp’s and Jose Altuve’s minor-league credentials, and those differences favor Altuve.

For one, Altuve came up when he was just 21, making him much, much younger than Kemp, who spent his age-21 season in short-season A-Ball. Altuve also made more contact than Kemp, hit for more power and was more prolific on the basepaths. In sum, Altuve was a notch or two better than Kemp across the board, and was also three years younger. Even if Kemp is only a fraction of the player Altuve is, however, that fraction of an Altuve could still be an asset.

Kemp’s biggest strength is his ability to control the strike zone. He’s walked roughly as often as he’s struck out at every minor-league stop, which has enabled him to run OBPs up around .400 in the minors. Kemp doesn’t do much damage on the balls he puts in play — a side effect of his 35-grade raw power — but he makes the most of his limited skill in other ways. He puts the ball in play, draws walks, and lets his legs take care of the rest.

The one blip on Kemp’s statistical track record came in the second half of last season. After he hit a scorching .358/.457/.420 in Double-A, his batting line plummeted to .273/.334/.362 in his first taste of Triple-A. There’s no denying that was quite a stark decline, but if we focus on Kemp’s peripheral stats, the two halves don’t actually look all that different. While Kemp’s walks and BABIP plummeted, his strikeout rate and power — the attributes most predictive of big-league success — actually improved. Those 71 bad games in Triple-A weren’t actually all that bad.

To put some faces to Kemp’s statistical profile, let’s go ahead and generate some statistical comps for the undersized 24-year-old. I calculated the Mahalanobis Distance between Kemp’s Double-A and Triple-A numbers since the start of 2015 and every season at those levels from a second baseman or outfielder since 1990 in which a hitter recorded at least 400 plate appearances. In the table below, you’ll find the 10 most similar seasons, ranked from most to least similar. I also included a column for height, since Kemp is such an extreme outlier in that area. Since KATOH — and, by extension, the Mahalanobis comps — take height into account, Kemp’s comps are mostly similarly small in stature.

There are a handful of successful players in that bunch, including Quilvio Veras, Eric Young Jr., Willie Harris, Marco Scutaro and Chone Figgins. Erstwhile lead prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel also invoked Harris’ name when he evaluated the Astros prospects two winters ago. According to my KATOH research, height doesn’t mean all that much once you’ve proven yourself in the high minors. It’s better to be tall than short, but not by a wide margin. This list is further evidence of this phenomenon.

As an undersized second baseman who was drafted in the fifth round, Kemp is short on physicality but long on performance. In other words, he’s a typical Astros prospect. Many of the Astros prospects don’t look like prospects, but their minor-league numbers tend to outpace their tools. Heading into the year, the Astros had 31 prospects projected for at least 1.0 WAR over the next six years according to KATOH — more than any other team. Kemp is an ovachieving performer, which is just the type of player the Astros tend to collect.

Kemp’s flaws are obvious: his power is minimal, and he lacks the speed or athleticism to be an elite defender. But those flaws are counteracted by the things he does well. His high-contact approach should continue to work against big-league pitching, and his plus speed should allow him to play an adequate center field. With Altuve at second base, Kemp figures to get most of his reps in the outfield, potentially in place of the struggling Gomez. Only time will tell if Kemp is cut out for an everyday gig, or if he’ll come anywhere close to hitting his lofty KATOH projection. But he’s already proven there’s more to him than meets the eye, and the Astros are hoping he can prove people wrong against one more level of competition.