Uncertainty, Mookie Betts, and Javier Baez
A number of people who are actually good at math have asked before why we don’t present measures of uncertainty, like error bars, when talking about WAR or projections. I’m not in charge of those things, myself, so I can’t give you the official answer, but, they’re difficult numbers to calculate, if they’re possible at all, and many people wouldn’t know how to understand them, and it’s unclear how much those measures would add to the picture anyway. Sometimes you’ll see projections presented in percentiles, like PECOTA, but generally speaking the percentiles can include almost any and all outcomes, so that doesn’t help much. There’s interest in seeing uncertainty, quantitated. It’s challenging, to do it in a meaningful way.
But I want to try something, again with your help. Last week, I ran a bunch of polls, and a few days ago I analyzed the information generated. Here I’d like to take a similar approach. Now, the post was inspired by the transcript of Dave’s Wednesday chat:
12:40
Comment From Curtis
Of all the prospects yet to debut in MLB, who has the highest bust probability in your eyes? Best chance to succeed?
12:41
Dave Cameron: Baez seems to have a very high chance of being nothing. Mookie Betts will be a solid player unless he dies.
Let’s think about Javier Baez and Mookie Betts. Let’s see what we can do to effectively crowdsource their uncertainties.
Now, this leans on an assumption, that Dave is at least in the vicinity of being right. Though it isn’t exactly what he said, I think Dave would agree with this statement: Mookie Betts is more predictable than Javier Baez. Dave also agrees with this statement: Mookie Betts is a safer prospect than Javier Baez. Whether they’re the most and least, I don’t know, but I think it’s fair to say that Betts and Baez occupy opposite extremes. They’re extraordinarily different sorts of prospects. Betts is seemingly all about having a high floor. Baez is pure boom or bust. It’s easy to see the ceiling, and it’s exactly as easy to see him flaming out.
You don’t want to get too carried away, of course. You don’t want to get too committed to labels or preconceived notions. There’s risk with every player, and certainly with every young player. Betts isn’t a lock. We can talk about him like he is, but, he isn’t. I’ll never forget being told that Dustin Ackley was ultra-safe. One of those guys who falls out of bed and hits .300. And indeed, Ackley had a very impressive big-league debut. After a couple thousand trips to the plate, he’s in possession of a 92 wRC+. Safe players fail.
And you don’t want to forget how much raw ability Baez has. You don’t want to focus too much on the negatives. Those negatives come with unquestionable 80 bat speed. Baez has an elite-level skill. Sure, he’s thought of as risky, but, George Springer had trouble making contact everywhere. Or, if you prefer: lots of people are on board the Kris Bryant bandwagon. Awesome prospect, Kris Bryant. He’s supposed to have a high floor. Bryant’s also struck out a lot. Last year in Triple-A, Baez made 63% contact. On the same team, Bryant made 65% contact. The swings are different, and the discipline is different, but, contact is contact. Baez makes good contact when he makes contact.
If you want to break it down way too simply, Betts and Baez have both proven they can look good in the majors:
And also, Betts and Baez have both proven they can look bad in the majors:
Let’s take this back to the purpose. Betts and Baez have certain probabilities of big-league success. They also have certain probabilities of big-league failure, or at least big-league disappointment. We don’t know exactly what those probabilities are, but I think many people have some sort of idea how they compare. While fighting the urge to exaggerate, it seems the consensus is that Baez has the higher bust potential. Betts has the narrower band of potential outcomes. Baez is the more uncertain player, and though we understand that as an idea, the point here is to try to find a number.
Just how might the uncertainties compare to one another? I want to try taking the polling approach. The best any of us can do is guess, since we can’t readily analyze a million different futures, but you guys make a crowd and the crowd knows a lot. So this is an attempt to crowdsource uncertainty by asking for 2015 offensive projections. We’re using Mookie Betts and Javier Baez because I’m not sure you could find two more different upper-level position-player prospects, in terms of how they profile. Because this just focuses on two players, there’s not much we can do with the information, but it might be a starting point. How safe is arguably the safest prospect? How unpredictable is arguably the most unpredictable prospect?
These should be self-explanatory:
This considers just the season ahead, and not entire careers, but I think it should work fine as a proxy for uncertainty; people who like or don’t like Betts will like or not like him for 2015. The same could be said for Baez. I doubt anyone expects Baez to suck in 2015, and then be great. I similarly doubt the opposite of that.
If enough votes come in, I’d like to analyze the data as soon as later today. Or maybe no one will vote, or maybe Max Scherzer will sign with the Phillies in six minutes. But I’ll come back to this at some point, provided there’s even anything to discuss. Thank you for your gracious participation, or even for your reluctant participation. I don’t care why you participate.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Baez- 73 wRC+
Betts- 136 wRC+
I am extremely high on Mookie.
But what if he’s nothing but 40 degree days?
Ain’t nobody got nothing to say about a 40-degree day.
Banking on Baez to be my 60-degree day.
Isn’t it a little early in the day to be that high?
It’s 11 o’clock somewhere.
It’s 4:20 somewhere
Here is where I fall on this. I can easily see Mookie anywhere in the 90-120 range and will be surprised if he falls outside that range. With Baez, I could easily see anything in the 70-130 and I wouldn’t even be that surprised if he was higher or lower than that. That is where error bars are helpful. While the average WRC is 105 for Mookie and 100 for Baez in this case, it really doesn’t give a solid picture since the two ranges I provided above are vastly different.
I agree with Los 100%. Error bars would be helpful in understanding the scope of a forecast. Depending on the data available, it may be relatively easy to produce with SAS programming.
Although I believe it has been clearly demonstrated that Betts is both the safer prospect and the one more likely to be valuable in 2015, I am also bullish on Baez’s long-term value. In his brief career, Baez has shown that he is capable of making adjustments following an initial phase of struggling. I am optimistic that he will be a .240 hitter by 2016, following some substantial adjustments, and in the process will provide an enviable power/speed combo for a middle infielder. Think something approaching mid-1980s Howard Johnson and you get the idea.
I am a Cubs fan, so I am naturally optimistic on Baez. But I’m also realistic and I understand that he’s always going to strike out. And strike out a lot. But I agree with you that he’s shown the ability to make adjustments and improve. I think he’ll be able to do this in the majors, but he’ll probably never be able to get the Ks down under 30%. But if he can get them even to that? Whoa boy, what a killer MI bat he will be.
I cannot see Baez getting anywhere near a 30% k rate and I cannot see him get anywhere near a 250 average at his peak year. His ceiling is probably uggla with less walks at his floor is very near uggla last year. His k rate and lack of strike zone recognition worries me.
80 bat speed works in low minor where balls are straight, but if Baez do not know where the bat goes it won’t help. He struggled in aaa and he was clueless on breaking pitches in the majors. I think he is probably similar than Hamilton but hamilton has 2 tools and Baez has only one
60 bat speed works in the low minors. 80 is elite.
Anyone with better information on this?
I would not be surprised if Mookie was above 120. He was above 120 last year (130) and his Steamer projection is 118 so even a slight out performance is above that range.
I’d be very surprised if Baez is above 130. But you’re right, he has a wider range of possible outcomes and Mookie has the higher probable floor.
Sorry, I agree with the post except the mean WRC+ for both ranges isn’t the same. The midpoint of 90-120 is indeed 105, but 70-130 is 100.
Jeff, I like the approach. Not much different to the one discussed in the book “How to Measure Anything” by Douglas W. Hubbard. Basically, the premise is that “you know more than you think you know” and “you don’t need as much data as you think you need” in order to make informed decisions.
“Sometimes you’ll see projections presented in percentiles, like PECOTA, but generally speaking the percentiles can include almost any and all outcomes, so that doesn’t help much.”
Spoken like the guy who is “not in charge of those things himself.” I mean seriously, how can you believe all three of these things at once: (1) projections are useful, (2) knowing the probabilities of different outcomes is useful, but (3) the probabilities generated by projection systems are not useful? It doesn’t make any sense.
“Follow the projections!” followed a by a flurry of “How error bars on projections are necessary because baseball!”
What I meant was that the error bars were incredibly wide, such that almost any player could be really good or really bad. Didn’t make for easy comparison of uncertainties. Ultimately we always care about the mean, and it’s been demonstrated that projected means have validity. I haven’t seen any research performed on PECOTA’s percentile projections. With that said, I just did some player-page checking, and I might be remembering an older version of PECOTA. At first glance, it looks like the percentiles have been tightened up. I haven’t bothered to look at these for a while.
Right, you need to look at all the percentiles, not just the 5-95% error bar. If you need to simplify it to one bar, make it one SD (32-68).
I’m a fan of this, in theory. Don’t know how tricky it is in reality, since I’ve never been a projection developer.
The issue therein becomes a less acute audience wondering what the hell is the worth of saying a batter looks like a .285 – .335 wOBA hitter while another looks like a .270 – 320 guy. The SD would be nice to know so that you can mentally project the range off of the median projection, assuming a normal curve.
Do with offense what smart people already do with defense. If I hear a guy is a +5 defender then I know he’s somewhere between 0 and +10 runs. I’m pretty confident that he’s an above average defender. If I see a 90 wRC+ thrown on a guy I have no idea if the range is 75 – 105 or 88 – 92. This would be a useful piece of information without inundating those less in the know.
Sandy Kazmir: What smart people do on defense is also what smart people do with offensive projections: recognize that they are rough estimates and that the truth is within some range.
The issue here is a little different. We are interested in how different players might have different ranges of probable outcomes. You can’t get that just by acknowledging inherent uncertainty and applying a default range. You need some way of estimating differences among players.
I have thought about this in the part, specifically with regards to the win expectancy graphs. The thing is, I doubt simple standard error calculations would be accurate. We’re talking with practically an infinite number of variables that go into a player’s performance which means we’re dealing with propagated uncertainties.
If I recall correctly, that involves having to come up with an equation that factors in all of the variables, then sum up the partial derivatives of with respect to each variable. That is way too complex considering we don’t know how many variables we’re dealing with.
Just picture a bell curve. We know that the probability increases as the number gets closer to the mean.
*past
I actually do think it’s entirely possible Baez could suck in 2015 and then be good after that.
Everything is possible.
That’s impossible.
That’s possible.
As of right now, the top 3 votes for Betts, representing 82% of the total vote, say he’ll have a wRC+ from 100-129. The top 3 votes for Baez range from 80-109, with splits of 28.57%, 22.02%, and 20.24% for 90-99, 100-109, and 80-89, respectively.
Clearly, there’s a lot of uncertainty regarding how good or bad Baez will be next year. I personally voted for 90-99; not horrible, but definitely below average. The only thing that we’re all certain of is that Betts will be the better player, and I think that applies not just to this year but to long term as well.
Eh, I don’t know that we’re *certain* Mookie will be better long-term (and I say this as a homer). As I understand, Baez could turn into Stanton if he cuts down the Ks. Of course, Mookie could turn into Zobrist, and Zobrist has actually been better than Stanton on a WAR/600PA basis (4.66 vs. 4.43 or something). That would be an interesting poll: who has the highest likelihood of turning into a 4.5+ WAR player (true superstar)? I would again say Mookie but I’m probably biased. Either way, Baez does better in this poll than in the one in the article, and that’s what Jeff seems to have been getting at.
I don’t know. I could see Baez ending up as an Alfonso Soriano sort of guy– less speed. Frustrating at times, but super-talented. Betts is more polished and seems likely to be better long term, but Baez has that insane power. Say Baez is an infielder who hits .260 with 40 HR?
I don’t know about these Soriano comps for Baez. Soriano’s hit tool was actually pretty solid – he hit around .300 multiple times and did a great job of barreling up bad pitches. I haven’t seen Baez enough to to determine whether he might possess the same skill at the MLB level – but the scouting reports seem to indicate that he currently doesn’t and probably won’t. Baez probably has more defensive potential though – either at SS or 2b.
Soriano did not have a k rate over 22% until late in his career when he sold out for power. I think Baez would be ecstatic if he have a k rate of 35%. The chance of Baez becoming soriano is nil
I shouldn’t have spoken for everyone there and I apologize; there’s definitely some debate as to how each career will turn out. I’m personally just terrified of Baez’s strikeout rate, which makes me lower on Baez than a lot of others. His power is real and incredible, but I’m wary of power hitters like him, especially one who strikes out as often as Baez.
Mookie will draw a lot of walks without striking out frequently, and he should be able to hit for a solid Avg and reach base consistently. He is fast and runs the bases well. But I see no reason to think he will ever develop any power. Regardless – Mookie’s skill set is rare and should translate very well to the majors for a long time.
Javier is the mirror universe version of Mookie – his exact opposite. Javier will hit for extreme power, but he refuses to draw walks and does not make contact consistently. His value is tied directly to his ability to make contact more frequently, and I do not know how to predict that.
I wish Mookie had an Infield position. As an outfielder (with the exception of elite defensive CFers, which perhaps he might become) his bat is less impressive than if he could stick at 2B, 3B or perhaps SS. I think he may have been written off prematurely as a candidate to “stick” at short.
Incorrect. Mookie does not strike our frequently.
That’s what spa city said:
“without striking out frequently”
Actually, Mookie DOES have solid power. Dont let his small frame trick you into thinking hes Billy Hamilton… He should hit around 14-16hrs a season, with upside to get up to 20hrs once he matures. He has the bat speed and ability to barrel up the ball, kinda like Kris Davis
interesting question: whose more likely to be a hall of famer?
Baez has more chance of being a HOF. He also has more chance of being this generation’s Sam Horn but with defense.
Dave Kingman playing up the middle…?
How many .250 hitters are in the hall of fame. Baez have no chamce
Harmon Killebrew hit .256 lifetime, spent five years before he got to play, and also struck out a lot, especially for his era. And slid into the HOF without a throw.
Baez, no doubt.
Mookie has a much, much better chance of being an above-average player, however.
#hottake: we’re all being rather generous with these opinions on 2015. A 115 wRC+ for Betts would place him at 26 of qualified OF in 2014; a 95 for Baez would make him the 11th SS by wRC+ in 2014. These players are quite talented, sure, so they may be uniquely set to play well right off the bat. But flipping through those position players who received ROY votes this year, only one of them (Springer) was appreciably above 100 wRC+ without BABIP luck. It’s hard to transition to the big leagues, and it’s quite good performance to get to league average in your rookie season.
Again, these are special players — they’re not Nick Castellanos, Brock Holt, or Kolten Wong. But so was Xander Bogaerts a special player, current owner of a 83 wRC+ in 644 ML PAs. Whether Betts has a “high floor” or not, these polls are — if you work from Adam Jones’s 2014, featuring a 117 wRC+ with solid BsR and good CF defense — predicting Betts to approach 5 WAR in 2015. In his first full season. Less to say that it’s wrong to think he’ll achieve it (that WAR figure comes from a lot of other things Betts does well), but more to say that we should better appreciate the difficulties of ML play and not be disappointed when a rookie “only” puts up a 100 wRC+ and 2.5 WAR/otherwise expect that as a reasonable outcome.
Baez doesn’t play short though.
Steamer doesn’t seem out of line and it projects Betts for a 118 wRC+, good to be tied for 23rd among outfielder projections (tied with, among others, Kole Calhoun and Nelson Cruz).
Crowdsourcing is great, but after priming like that, I will be very surprised if the numbers gathered in the poll aren’t pretty extreme. There are important subtleties in gathering data about people’s beliefs, familiar to those who work in, e.g. cognitive psychology, that have just been completely disregarded here. E.g., the most basic: you rally can’t find out what someone believes by asking them!
But I’ll be damned if I won’t keep trying!
I agree. I think that the polls should’ve been at the beginning of the article, so as to avoid biases collected from reading your article. I think the article was framed to have the reader vote more conservatively in their projection on Baez & more liberally on Betts. I do like the exercise, however!
That would’ve been smarter. 🙁
Look man, my rally can do whatever it wants. Free speech and all that!
If Baez gets 600 PA in 2015, he must not have busted. He’s so boom or bust, after 250 the Cubs FO will have to look at him and say “Wow his K% is 40%+ we have to stop using him the same way or send him to AAA” or else he’ll have been doing fine.
Very true albeit unintended
Remember when Xander Bogaerts was the next “Can’t Miss” Red Sox prospect? Guy could do it all. Field SS well. Hit for power and average. Work a count. He even hit splendidly in his first real taste of the Show!
Human beings like to think that they can predict the future, but even the best scouts in the world have little idea if a guy has plateaued or if there’s still room for growth. Lots of guys look good in their first run around the league, the ones that stay good are those that continue to work to limit their weaknesses in order to exploit their strengths. It’s fun to speculate on stuff like that, but nobody has any idea whether these guys will inevitably be able to counter what pitchers end up learning about them.
Mookie looks a lot safer than Bogey ever did.
This was from a year ago almost to the day. A lot can happen in a year. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=22508
That’s a fair point, but I’m not trying to speak for BP, just for myself. When I look at Bogey through 2013, and Mookie through 2014, I think it’s clear that Mookie now is a much safer bet than Bogey was.
That said, 2013 Bogey was ranked so high because of his tremendous upside more than because he was a sure thing. He didn’t have Mookie’s excellent contact skills, but power potential at the SS position at age 21 meant Bogey had MVP potential. Honestly, he still does. A bad year at age 22 isn’t enough to give up on a guy with that kind of potential.
When trying to figure out who has a higher floor though, I’ll take the guy like Mookie with elite plate discipline and contact skills combined with speed and defense over the guy like Bogey with highish strikeouts and power potential easily.
Mookie and Xander are almost exactly the same age (6 days apart) but Xander has already shown the ability to handle a key defensive position in the majors. He had a rough year, but Mookie started the year at AA.
In my view (which, obviously, may be off base) is that Boegarts is an extremely safe bet to have a lengthy and productive major league career. Betts also seems to be a safe bet, but I do not see anything about him that makes him safer than Boegarts.
The Red Sox are blessed with several high-end and “safe” young major leaguers.
Let just wait for them to have a full year where they are actually above league average before calling them stars. Frenchie say hi
For me it just comes down to plate discipline. Mookie’s MLB and minor league numbers consistently show that he is far superior to Bogey in this respect. Yes, Bogey will have value just for being an acceptable SS, but he won’t become an above average player unless he either cuts down on the Ks or makes up for it with excellent batted ball authority. Mookie can easily be a 2-WAR player even if his BABIP regresses heavily just by maintaining his K% and BB%.
Nope. Bogaerts was and is a considerably better prospect. I fully expect him to be a stud going forward, now that he’s not being shifted around willy-nilly.
Field SS well
This hasn’t ever been a part of the scouting book on Bogaerts.
Bogaerts certainly struggled in 2014, but keep in mind hes only 21. No one doubts his ability to become a pernial all star.
Bogaerts hit .300 for half the season in April, May, and Septmber. The other half, June, July, and August he hit an awful .150. This period was also when he switched over to 3rd base and the sox were having serious problems scoring runs. He couldnt hit breaking balls but got adjusted.
“No one doubts his ability to become a [perennial] [All-Star].”
No Bogaerts homer would think that, but perennial All-Star is an extremely high level for literally any player whose only full season in the majors produced .4 WAR.
The scouting consensus for some time has been that that is his ceiling.
Weird way to break down a season. April, May and . . . September? Amazing but true stat. If you take all of Bogaert’s at bats where he got a hit, he hit an amazing 1.000. In all the other at-bats, he struggled to a .000 average. Make of that what you will.
I think this poll would be better using just WAR than wRC+. Part of the reason I have more confidence in Mookie over Baez is that I trust his defense and baserunning abilities more.
I think the only thing you can do when analyzing prospects is to make an evaluation based on all of the available data and the opinions of scouts and people who know the game (writers, front office, other players, etc.) understand the intangibles of what it takes to be successful. Which is pretty much what Jeff, Dave, Kiley and others on FanGraphs have done to draw their conclusions on Betts and Baez.
All you can really do is make the best possible prediction and then see what happens. If you could find a guy who could reliably predict whether or not a prospect was going to be successful in the Major Leagues, all 30 teams would be trying to hire him. Its baseball and thats why it’s awesome. You just never know.
Suggested amendment: ” I’ll never forget being told that Dustin Ackley was ultra-safe. One of those guys who falls out of bed and hits .300. And indeed, Ackley had a very impressive big-league debut. After a couple thousand trips to the plate, he” couldn’t hit 300 if he fell out of the Battle of Thermopylae.
“many people wouldn’t know how to understand them” is a bad argument. Especially in a community that has developed/learned scores of new metrics over the last decade or two.
Indeed. Its not like we’re all going to be like: http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/57882585.jpg
Is it fair to say that they’re completely different prospects? I think you’re really underselling Mookie’s ceiling here. I think he’s probably has a higher floor, but also a comparable ceiling in terms of value. Baez obviously has the higher ceiling in terms of flash and pop, but total package, they’re not as far off as you seemed to indicate.
Maybe. But I don’t see where Mookie has much room for improvement. At 5’9″ 155 lbs, he seems unlikely to develop much power. But for power hitting, how could anybody expect Mookie’s contact skills, plate discipline, or baserunning to improve.
Javier seems to have tremendous room for improvement. If he starts making more contact, it would not be hard to project him to hit 40+ HR. If Starlin Castro is moved, Javier presumably would play Short. In the current scoring environment, a reasonably good fielding SS who can slug .550 would be an All-Star and likely MVP candidate.
Javier has done it in the minors in ’12 and ’13, so it is clear he has the potential.
Betts’s bat speed and ability to barrel up balls gives him the ability to hit 20hrs. Sure its not as flashy as Baez’s 40hrs, but this day in age, 20hrs is considered plus. Plus when you combine that with Bett’s speed, contact ability (Bill James projects him to hit .320), and OBP I think he has a very very similar, if not higher celing to Baez.
Bill James projections are not to be taken seriously. They are just for fun.
Source: Bill James
I think Addison Russell will end up at SS. Baez at 2B or OF, if he sticks.
Funny… ZiPS used to calculate a likelihood of events for each player that looked a lot like your poll. As the new host site of ZiPS, maybe you could just ask Dan for those numbers and publish?
I never saw Boggie as a sure thing. Betts is sure to be in the hall of very good. If he can get back to 2B, maybe more. He is an uncommon connection between talent and application early on. Perhaps it is because of his size that he learned to apply himself so astutely at a young age. The upside of Trout is not open to him, we get that, but he’s a greater talent than Pedroia.
Want even more uncertainty, answer the question originally asked – which prospect yet to debut in MLB has the highest bust/success probability?
In lieux of recent events, maybe DC should hold back on jokes about prospects dying?
Otherwise, cool article!
Not trying to be a dick, but lieu is the word you’re looking for – and that’s not what it means.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lieu
Hope this helps.
inconceivable!
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
hard to vote for a low number on either if the cutoff is 600 PA’s, because if they’re getting that many, they are probably doing at least close to average if not better.
If Baez is in the 50-60 wRC+ he’s going to be sent to the minors, and the way his winter season is going, may very well start there.
A few thoughts for ya, Jeff:
First, Mookie projects to offer more defensive ability than Baez. I have nothing quantitative to back this, but intuitively, projecting the glove seems easier and safer than prjecting the bat. Andrelton Simmons as a 21 year old in high A probably still could have provided a ton of value in the big leagues, while the same could not be said with any certainty about a prospect with an elite bat at that level. So with that considered, I think that offers some stability with Mookie, who could be an average hitter and still have substantial value, whereas Baez has to hit above average for this to be the case.
Second, Mookie thus far has had more consistent minor and major league numbers to date. I know this is an imperfect method, but I took their career numbers to date and included all levels at which they amassed at least 200 PAs (arbitrarily) and looked at the standard deviations of BB%, K%, ISO, Babip, wOBA, and wRC+. I would happily embed my results, but I don’t know how to do that. I felt this was at least a reasonably fair comparison, seeing as they have developed at similar rates and similar ages. Here’s a quick summary:
The only category where Baez had a lower standard deviation was BB%, which has more to do with Baez’ consistent swing-early-swing-often approach and Mookie’s stint in A ball with a 17% walk rate. As expected, Baez saw the biggest spreads in K% and Babip. Overall, mookie’s average wRC+ was 149 plus or minus 27 and Baez’ was 130 plus or minus 52.
Of course, this was a very quick and rudimentary approach, but I think this quantifies to an extent Dave’s (and seemingly most knowledgeable baseball fans’) belief that Betts is the safer prospect, seeing as his standard deviation for wRC+ was just above half of what Baez’ was.
Mookie
A good MiLB 2B projects to have more defensive value than an average MiLB SS?
Why would you think that? I don’t understand.
And I say this as someone who adores Mook.
Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised at all by someone who thinks that Baez will suck in 2015, but be better going forward.
He sucked in Hi-A, until he figured it out.
He sucked in AAA, until he figured it out.
I don’t understand why anyone would be surprised if he sucked in the MLB, until he figured it out.
His wrc in aaa was 108 and k rate 30%. He had barely been adequate in aaa and had a hot 3 weeks only. Baez was horrible in 6 month in 2014 and was good for 1 single month. He need to learn pitch recognition and learn how to hir
At 20 years old in 54 games in AA ball, Baez had a 180 wRC+. It was 170 at 19 years old in Daytona high A. Kid has freak show ability.
Gotta go with Baez. Smart kid, big power, he keeps adjusting, and I think he has more value as a middle infielder (unless) Mookie plays center.
If we frame in terms of WAR, I would bet over a 5 year period Baez wins the battle.
Bill James prediction on Mookie Betts
.321/.405/.493; 41 doubles, 15 home runs, 40 stolen bases
Baez stuck out 50% of the time in the majors last year.
I think im sicking to Betts on this one
Bill James projections are not to be taken seriously. They are just for fun.
Source: Bill James
The bullishness on betts’ defensive value is mysterious, to say the least.
To Bluejays homers, certainly. A lot of things are mysterious to them.
Baez is both a bust and non-bust.
Total side note –
For all the talk about Betts having more defensive value than Baez, I think that’s fairly debatable. Let’s keep in mind that, while there were initial doubts about Baez’s ability to stick at short when he was drafted, those doubts were mollified as he progressed. By all indications, most of the reports from the minors seem to suggest that he’d be just fine at short. I’m too lazy to open a 2nd browser to look at defensive statistics from the past year, but I seem to recall UZR being better for him at short than 2nd last year, and with 2nd being a slightly more foreign position for him, that’s sort of understandable. From a tools perspective, it’s hard to think that he doesn’t have the tools for 2nd, but whether or not he improves/adjusts is a fair question. Still, that goes for all youngsters. Baez has a cannon of an arm, and no one denies that, hence why there was some thought of him at 3rd. No one’s really contemplated Baez in the OF, since he has defensive tools to stay in the infield, but the arm would seem to fit for RF as well.
Look, none of this is meant as a knock on Mookie, but if we’re projecting both guys going forward on defense … I’m taking Baez’s defensive potential over Betts at all positions besides CF.
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Obviously, defense wasn’t the focus of Jeff’s. I don’t spend enough time looking over baseball numbers these days, but my general votes and opinions fall in line with most everyone else it seems. Obviously, if both get 600 AB’s, they have both succeeded well enough. Still … that can come in two forms. I think if Baez has a wRC+ in that 90-99 range, most will view it as a successful season, as a sign that he is improving and tapping into his potential. If Betts has a wRC+ in that range, I think it’d be fine, as he’s young, but I imagine most people would view it as a disappointment. Still, if he’s doing something around that range, it’s hard to think the Red Sox would pull the plug unless he goes threw extreme spells of hot and cold, which few seem to anticipate. (To be clear, I voted 100-109 for Betts)
In the short term, I expect Betts to be a more successful player offensively. That might go through 2016. In a sense, Baez is riskier, but I think a marker has to be placed to note that the situation is a bit unique. If he’s hitting around .230 but smashing 25 HR’s a year, certainly possible I think, there’s a decent chance that he’ll be allowed to float around Uggla-esque for several years as a starter (and he is far more talented than Uggla was). Short of it is, what it takes for Betts to stick as an offensive player isn’t necessarily what it is going to take Baez to stick as an offensive player, and I think that is an important distinction that needs to be made (which was more point earlier as well … a 90-99 wRC+ will be viewed as a slight positive for Baez, and a disappointment for Betts).
Baez may be the modern version of Harmon Killebrew, who the Senators/Twins kept on the bench for five years before putting into the lineup at age 25, whereupon he averaged 46 HRs over the next six years, retired with 573, and slid into the HOF without a throw. In the five years before he became a regular, he struck out 33.5% of PAs, which at that time was very high, and he never stopped striking out (over 100 times in six seasons, with a high of 142). His lifetime BA was .256 and he topped .280 only twice. Following his career at the time, when OBP and SP were unknown, we thought his BAs meant he wasn’t very good — an opinion we had to revise because 573 HRs don’t lie. He was a transitional figure — a low average, major power hitter was something not seen before. The previous power hitters had high BAs to match.
If Baez turns into that, the Cubs have gold on their hands. I expect that they’ll be very patient before giving up on him.