Will Vlad Jr. Hit .400?
(Photo: Tricia Hall)
It’s probably fair to say that batting average, as a shorthand for the quality of a hitter, has lost a bit of luster over the past decade or two as the public has become acquainted with metrics that correlate more strongly with scoring runs and winning games. That said, for a player to hit safely in 40% of his at-bats at any professional level is still incredibly rare and worthy of consideration.
Even if he weren’t to hit .400 this year, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. would still be worthy of consideration. As the son of a Hall of Famer, as a 19-year-old who has already reached Triple-A, there’s plenty that merits attention. But he’s also batting .389 in the middle of August, which means that Guerrero the Younger has a shot at a historic season.
Over at MLB.com, Jim Callis went through the list of minor leaguers who have hit .400 in a season. It’s not long. Back in 1999, Erubiel Durazo was a 25-year-old playing in Arizona’s system after a few years in the Mexican League. He hit .404 in 409 plate appearances between Double-A and Triple-A before his callup to the majors. He hit .329 for the Diamondbacks, putting his average at .381 for the full season. Back in 1961, Aaron Pointer hit .401, but almost all of that time was spent in Class-D, which was low in the stratosphere of minor-league affiliates — sitting below not only Triple-A, Double-A, and Single-A, but also Class-B and -C. Given the state of the minor leagues before the 1960s, it wouldn’t be unfair to say that the last time a a player hit .400 facing a reasonably high level of competition was Ted Williams in 1941, when he hit .406 on the season.
Guerrero missed time earlier in the year with a knee injury and has come to bat just 351 times this season. If he plays out the minor-league season and starts 13 of 15 game,s averaging 4.3 plate appearances per game, he’s only going to end up with around 407 plate appearances, which isn’t quite a full season. Assuming 3.1 PA per game over 136 minor-league games, one arrives at 422 PA as the standard for the high minors. Even if the Blue Jays brought Guerrero to the big leagues — more on that later — and gave him 20 starts, he’d still end up at roughly 493 plate appearances, just short of the 502 needed to qualify for the MLB batting title.
To determine Guerrero’s chances at hitting .400 in the minor league season, we have to approximate Guerrero’s talent level against minor leaguers. He has a .389 total batting average between Double-A and Triple-A with a .339 average in only 71 Triple-A plate appearances. With 56 presumed plate appearances left in the minor-league season, we can expect him to take six walks, which would be consistent with his 10% walk rate this season.
Using that calculus, Guerrero would need to record 24 hits in his final 50 at-bats in order to hit .400 on the season. What are the chances of that happening? I’ll provide two scenarios, one where Guerrero’s current .389 average represents his current talent level and one where a more reasonable .340 average does.
| MiLB Talent Level | Exactly .400 | At least .400 |
|---|---|---|
| .389 | 4.8% | 12.1% |
| .340 | 1.4% | 2.8% |
If you believe that what Guerrero has done this season represents his talent level against minor-league pitchers, then he has a 12% chance of hitting .400 this season. If .340 is more representative of expectations in Triple-A the rest of the season, then the odds are just 3% to reach the magic number. Because there is so little time left in the season and Guerrero currently has ground to make up, his chances don’t look great. If he were hitting .400 right now, even at the .340 projection, his chances at .400 wold be around 22% and near 50% with a .389 projection. As it stands, to give him 50/50 odds at .400, you’d need to believe he’s a .471 projected hitter.
Guerrero’s season doesn’t have to end with the conclusion of the minor-league season, though, as the parent Blue Jays play baseball all September. I’ve added another 20 games for Guerrero with a few different projections, including Steamer’s .302, to find a few more odds.
| MiLB/MLB Talent Level | Exactly .400 | At least .400 |
|---|---|---|
| .389/.302 | 0.7% | 2.0% |
| .389/.340 | 2.1% | 7.1% |
| .340/.302 | 0.2% | 0.6% |
Providing Guerrero with a larger sample over which to reach .400 doesn’t really improve his chances, because a promotion to the majors also means a step up in competition. Even if you think Guerrero is a .389 minor-league hitter and a .340 major-league hitter, he would still only have a 7% chance at hitting .400 over the rest of the season. It’s not impossible. Craig Wilson, for example, got 53 plate appearances for the White Sox in his 1998 debut and hit .468. It just isn’t likely.
There is one other scenario we haven’t discussed, however, and that’s the Blue Jays calling up Guerrero right now. We’ll go with the Steamer .302 figure for that. As the table below indicates, the odds are very long in this version of things.
| MLB Talent Level | Exactly .400 | At least .400 |
|---|---|---|
| .302 | 0.1% | 0.2% |
If Guerrero were called up today, he’d only have a 1-in-500 shot at having a .400 season. His odds of hitting .400 in the majors over the course of the rest of the season would be about 1-in-100. Those odds might be long, but they are actually pretty impressive. That .302 projected batting average from Steamer is behind only Jose Altuve‘s .307 mark while matching Mike Trout and Mookie Betts’s figures. It’s not just batting average where Guerrero rates highly. He is one of the top-20 hitters in baseball right now despite having to stay in the minors all year.
| Name | Team | AVG | OBP | SLG | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Trout | Angels | .302 | .440 | .597 | 180 |
| Giancarlo Stanton | Yankees | .277 | .362 | .598 | 155 |
| J.D. Martinez | Red Sox | .295 | .366 | .573 | 148 |
| Bryce Harper | Nationals | .276 | .400 | .534 | 146 |
| Mookie Betts | Red Sox | .302 | .381 | .534 | 143 |
| Freddie Freeman | Braves | .294 | .390 | .524 | 143 |
| Joey Votto | Reds | .286 | .421 | .478 | 142 |
| Paul Goldschmidt | D-backs | .282 | .394 | .513 | 141 |
| Jose Ramirez | Indians | .294 | .376 | .525 | 140 |
| Nelson Cruz | Mariners | .270 | .352 | .522 | 139 |
| Anthony Rizzo | Cubs | .277 | .386 | .513 | 138 |
| Kris Bryant | Cubs | .277 | .381 | .506 | 137 |
| Aaron Judge | Yankees | .253 | .368 | .505 | 136 |
| Josh Donaldson | Blue Jays | .260 | .367 | .496 | 134 |
| Juan Soto | Nationals | .287 | .385 | .494 | 134 |
| Alex Bregman | Astros | .276 | .360 | .484 | 134 |
| Justin Turner | Dodgers | .288 | .371 | .477 | 133 |
| Vladimir Guerrero Jr. | Blue Jays | .302 | .365 | .493 | 132 |
| Francisco Lindor | Indians | .289 | .360 | .503 | 132 |
| Matt Carpenter | Cardinals | .260 | .382 | .473 | 131 |
| George Springer | Astros | .265 | .356 | .473 | 131 |
| Jose Altuve | Astros | .307 | .368 | .465 | 130 |
| Eloy Jimenez | White Sox | .293 | .336 | .510 | 129 |
| Jose Abreu | White Sox | .283 | .344 | .503 | 128 |
| Miguel Cabrera | Tigers | .285 | .369 | .482 | 128 |
| Christian Yelich | Brewers | .292 | .370 | .485 | 128 |
While the numbers suggest Guerrero might already be one of baseball’s best hitters, he’s unlikely to have an opportunity to provide proof of concept. If the Blue Jays were contending for a playoff spot and trying actively to win games, Guerrero would likely already have a place in their lineup. They aren’t, though, so he isn’t. And because Guerrero isn’t a Blue Jay now, he likely won’t be a Blue Jay for the first few weeks of next season, either, as Toronto seeks to acquire another year of control over their hitting prodigy. We saw this happen to Kris Bryant in his rookie campaign. We saw it happen with Gleyber Torres and Ronald Acuna in April of this year. (Here’s a reminder that the Braves are currently one game from falling out of the playoffs.) It’s likely to happen with Guerrero and Eloy Jimenez next spring.
While there is sometimes real logic for giving certain prospects extra time in the minors, the practice of doing so merely to extend team control by a year ultimately does a disservice to the game. Currently, however, that’s the direction in which teams are incentivized — even teams that appear likely to compete for a playoff spot. Ultimately, everyone would benefit from an improved version of the policy. Kris Bryant’s service-time grievance went nowhere, however, so some combination of the union, teams, and/or commissioner will have to change this practice and prevent it from occurring.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
I’m really hoping that the Blue Jays do a sign-and-promote with Jr ASAP, so he can start compiling major league numbers.
This is a wild overgeneralization on my part, but he seems like he would be an extremely unlikely candidate for that kind of scenario given: a) his father already set his family up; b) Vlad Jr. himself signed for almost $4m and c) He’ll be up next season at latest, so he’s likely to hit free agency at an early age. Seems like the guys who have the most incentive to sign the kind of deal you’re describing are less financially secure and/or have less strong free agency outlooks.
Yeah, when your dad made $125M, no need to sell low to get financial security.
But it would be his money now, security is always nice too. It just means Vlad Jr likely wouldn’t sell himself for anything super team friendly. I’d still try to get him to sign something like 7/125 which would let him hit Free Agency one year later than it normally would through the arbitration route but still giving him the expectation he becomes something great.
That might actually get it done if you were only buying out one single free agency year, but $125m for 7 years would be insane even if you think Vlad is gonna be a superstar. By comparison, Manny Machado has only earned about $34m in salary to this point and Bryce Harper has earned around $45m in salary (per Cot’s Contracts). Mike Trout’s $144m extension came when he already banked more than 2 years of service time and it bought out 2 free agency years (I think).
So, I think you’d be safe to project Vlad Jr. to not likely earn more than $45m in six years AND to also end up being less valuable than 22 year old Mike Trout. I don’t think the team does $125m to buy out only one free agency year before even promoting the guy.
Trout’s extension covers 3 years of free agency @ 33.2M each. This past off-season would have been his free agent year.
The context of that signing is on the back of 2 seasons at 10 WAR. Vlad Jr. having seasons as an average defensive 3B and average base runner would be fortunate given his size right now.
If you want to be super aggressive in signing him right now, you need to be thinking more in the 125m/9 range.
Yep. Whatever you sign him to, feels like it’s worth it. Sign him to like an 8 year deal for 150M and I get to see him play in Toronto tonight.
That or MLB really needs to change the rules. I saw just dump super-2 but make a season like 90 days of service. So basically you call a guy up after July, you get an extra year of control. With rules like that, he’d be up already.
Or he might not be up until next July. Wherever you make a cutoff, it can be exploited.
My thought process behind this is that if he was offered 7 years for a reasonable amount of money, he would reach FA at the same time as he would if he was called up next year, but instead he would be A) guaranteed big money for the rest of his life and B) compiling mlb stats while he is young and certainly productive, helping build stats that might one day get him into the HOF (I realize that 6 months doesn’t move the needle a ton, but it certainly doesn’t hurt).
The best part? Clay Davenport’s stats think he can play defense at third base now. The Soto-Acuna debate is likely to rage for a while, but Vlad Jr looks like he could be even better, which seems impossible.
Its kind of funny that this article is posted a few days after another article about Jurickson Profar finally breaking through appears.
While I absolutely agree that Vladdy II appears to be be laughably better than his minor league competition, guys like Profar should serve as a reminder that just because a 19-20 year old is too good for MiLB doesn’t mean he is necessarily ready for MLB. I have a bad feeling that a lot of people in Canada (with varying degrees of baseball knowledge) are thinking he is going to come up and instantly be Ted Williams. Which could lead to a stupid backlash when he, most likely, isnt.
of course, then there are also guys like Juan Soto and Ronald Acuna lol.
Profar was hitting 280 in the minors. Vlad is hitting 380. Their minor league batting numbers are not comparable at all.
There’s absolutely no basis for comparing Profar and Vladito as hitters or prospects. Even the linkage between them being similar ages in the high minors barely holds water. Profar wasn’t destroying AAA pitching at 19. If you want to compare him to someone, compare him to other guys that got the call at 19, that’s the group he belongs in (Griffey Jr., etc).
Profar wasn’t remotely the hitter that Vladdy is in the high minors, then he had a series of devastating shoulder issues that derailed the early part of his career. Plenty of evidence about what a bum shoulder does to a hitter (see Ramirez, Hanley).
The old baseball think that you have to wait and wait to let MiLB guys develop is so tired and backwards. It’s all about service time, Vladdy is a top flight hitter in the majors tomorrow if he got the chance to hit. He’s a better hitter than Acuna and Soto, and those guys are ridiculous. If the Jays weren’t so content being irrelevant, he’d be up already.
Its interesting you mention Griffey because he actually wasnt anything special his rookie year. .264/.329./420, 106 wRC+, 2.5 fWAR in 506 PA’s. So I dont think that is as good of an example as you thought it was. It kind of goes more towards what I was saying.
The larger point I was making was that the hype seems to be getting a bit out of hand. Much like it did with Profar (seriously, go read the article if you havent for a reminder of what respected people were saying about him). There are people who legitimately think Vladdy is going to walk into MLB and be Mike Trout at 3B. Which is not a fair expectation for anybody.
I was an Expos fan my whole life and his dad is my favorite player ever. I have been rooting for him since he was like 13. I just think expectations are getting a bit crazy.
(its also probably worth noting that Vlad has played 17 games at AAA. So i think you might be getting a little ahead of yourself. An 0-4 game would drop his avg like 50 points lol).
Disagree completely. I think that Griffey is a very salient comparison, except for the fact that the Jays have held Vlad back longer. Griffey obliterated A and AA pitching and then went to the majors where he had an adjustment period (if you can call a .750 OPS as a 19 year old adjusting). He learned to hit major league pitching on the fly.
If you wanted Jr to have been completely ready to hit MLB pitching then we are probably talking about his age 21 season. Of course, he still may have needed an adjustment at the MLB level (impossible to tell).
Regardless promoting Griffey at 21 means he would drop 38 HRs from his career mark and rob us of that energy and enthusiasm that made young Griffey Jr such a fan favourite.
A >=100 wRC+ / OPS+ for a 19-year old, up-the-middle kid actually is really, REALLY special.
That list is going to be really stinking short and something probably ~90+% HOFers.
Even right now — with the massive amount of fan spoilage with guys like Trout, Harper, et al — there’s no current player that fits the full profile described (age-19 season, plays C/ 2B/ SS/ CF, >=100 wRC+/ OPS+). The obvious thoughts all just miss out:
– Trout’s; age-20
– Acuna; age-20
– Soto; COF
– Harper comes the closest and you might want to include him because of his 715.2 CF innings (a little more than 1/2 a full season). Since he wasn’t a full-time CF then, though, and immediately became a full-time corner-guy the next season, I can’t see nudging him into that territory.
I think we sometimes get a little to carried away with guys who look good in the minors and play a good shortstop (Profar, Swanson), overlooking the holes in the offensive game.
On the flip side, sometimes we are a bit too conservative with guys who are seen as “corner only” types who flat out rake (Soto is a good example).
I actually think the better example of a guy who is a cautionary tale is Rafael Devers. But even then, there’s hope Devers can fulfill his promise as an elite middle-of-the-order bat. Whether Vlad Jr is going to hit like Devers or Soto/Acuna, it’s pretty clear Vlad Jr. has the goods. His potential at the plate is something like peak Miguel Cabrera.
Devers was never comparable to Vladdy. That was always just red sox hype.
Age 17
Vladdy (High-Rk): 12.0b%/12.7k%, 122wrc+
Devers (Low-Rk): 8.0b%/17.1k%, 143wrc+
Age 18
Vladdy (A / A+): 14.4b%/11.8k%, 162wrc+
Devers (A): 4.7b%/16.5k%, 118wrc+
Age 19
Vladdy (AA/AAA): 9.4b%/10.0k%, 199wrc+
Devers (AA/AAA): 9.5b%/17.6k%, 159wrc+
ach, missed Devers actual 19yr old season:
Amended
Age 17
Vladdy (High-Rk): 12.0b%/12.7k%, 122wrc+
Devers (Low-Rk): 8.0b%/17.1k%, 143wrc+
Age 18
Vladdy (A / A+): 14.4b%/11.8k%, 162wrc+
Devers (A): 4.7b%/16.5k%, 118wrc+
Age 19
Vladdy (AA/AAA): 9.4b%/10.0k%, 199wrc+
Devers (A+): 7.3b%/17.2k%, 113wrc+
Age 20
Vladdy —-
Devers (AA/AAA): 9.5b%/17.6k%, 159wrc+
I mean… that’s still really fucking great. It’s not just hype.
If your point is that Vlad Jr is a better prospect than Devers was, I don’t think you’ll get too much pushback. But he’s about the best-fit “cautionary tale” you can find who fits the corner-only profile. (You could say Delmon Young, but I’d like to think we’ve gotten better at prospect evaluation since then).
I don’t see how he is a best fit. He was nowhere near what vladdy is, either in top line or underlying numbers. He seems a pretty poor fit, tbh.
if you want a red sox fit, Mookie makes much more sense, at least in terms of mlb readiness once they reached AAA., though Vladdy is well ahead of where Mookie was at the same age.
Vlad Jr. is on a track that would be darn close to Miguel Cabrera, except a year younger. He could always start slow ( like Devers) or get badly hurt ( like Profar) but his floor is really high….probably the scenario where he puts on too much weight and ends up as an Edwin Encarnacion level DH. That’s a really really high floor.
Well, Mookie Betts was chronically underrated through the whole prospect evaluation prospect, whereas we are talking about prospects who fall short of their prospect evaluation status. I don’t really think Betts fits the mark here.
When vladdy’s milb numbers, topline and underlying, track well with or better than most instantly successful prospects, and don’t really track well with those that struggled, then that’s pretty good evidence against having to worry overmuch about the risk of promoting Vladdy now.
I agree with your first sentence, and you don’t need to look as far back as Profar/Swanson (not that they’re too far back). You just need to look at the #1 prospect in baseball last July – Amed Rosario. Great SS defense, young, and hitting well in the minors.
His ‘great’ defense has led to -16 DRS this year, and he has a 77 wRC+ in 607 plate appearances since his call-up. Somehow he forgot how to hit *and* field.
We’re talking about three data points. Profar suffered serious shoulder injuries before now, so I’m not sure he’s even a fair data point. So just pointing to Swanson and Rosario doesn’t seem sufficient to conclude we have a valuation problem.
First, they’re both still very young (Rosario, especially), so it’s too early to write them off as complete failures.
Second, I can reply to the “but Swanson and Rosario!” claim with: Lindor, Correa, Seager, Bogaerts, Machado, Baez, Albies, Turner – all recently highly regarded shortstop prospects who have worked out very well.
Third, sadtrombone indicates we might be undervaluing corner-only outfield guys on the basis of Profar and Swanson struggling. To which I can reply: Jorge Soler, Jesse Winker, Josh Bell, Clint Frazier, Rymer Liriano, and Oswaldo Arcia all kicked some ass in the minor leagues (to varying extents) and, so far, they all suck in the majors (understanding that Frazier and Winker have been injury victims).
Obviously, I don’t think it’s fair to use those few players as an example that all corner outfielders who hit in the minors are overvalued. That’s the point. You shouldn’t just cherry pick two players and say that we’re not properly evaluating a particular class of players while ignoring the counter-points.
I think the point is well-taken on Lindor, Machado, Correa, Seager, Bogaerts, and Baez. But it’s worth noting all of those guys except Lindor and Machado were thought to be “too big” for shortstop, at least a few years after they came up. A lot of their big prospect grade was on their bat being so good it would play well at third base, while providing plus defense there.
I think my bigger point is that having a guy who can play shortstop really well is a valuable commodity, and having a guy who might have to handle left field or first base isn’t ideal…but let’s not get carried away. Sometimes, I think we let the halo effect of playing shortstop really well affect the overall grade too much, and the corner-only types the other way (especially when there’s a truly elite bat in there).
Other notes:
–Albies was underrated because he was too small.
-Soler, Winker, Bell, Frazier, Liriano, and Oswaldo Arcia were never very highly rated. Not sure what that proves.
My point is just that I think we’re doing OK in valuing prospects.
All of the guys I cited were top 100 prospects. That’s why I picked them and not, say…Travis Jankowski. I’ll throw in Hunter Renfroe, Brett Phillips, Max Kepler, and Nick Williams as additional examples, if you want. And you’re correct that none of those guys were top 10 prospects but there are very few recent examples of clearly corner-only outfielders being top 10 prospects (Harper is one of the exceptions – and even he started in center field around 150 times in his career). I’d argue that there are so few examples for a reason. Many were lower rated than the SS prospects I cited in large part because they projected to add little or no defensive and baserunning value even if they projected to be better hitters.
And that makes sense in projecting their value. For example, Bell is at 106 wRC+ this year and has only been worth half a win, whereas Trea Turner’s been exactly 100 wRC+ and he’s worth almost 3.5 wins. Hell, even Swanson and Rosario have both been worth more WAR than Bell this year.
Agree on the overall point, but would like to point out why we seem to overrate SS types: their defensive failure mode still results in a margin of error to slide down the spectrum.
Rather than look at single outcomes after a player runs into MLB quality opponents, it’s more useful to think of the range of possibilities for e.g. Vladito. If his bat isn’t as good as the medium projection, it’s a little harder to find him a spot on the field than if he started at SS.
Having options is an uncertain environment with a wide range of non-deterministic outcomes is *extremely valuable*, and something that I think the FG reader community doesn’t fully appreciate.
Right on. Machado, Baez, and Albies were all guys I cited as SS prospects but they have all played more games at other positions in the majors and still have been really freaking valuable. I even forgot Alex Bregman as another example.
minor league defensive evaluations need some work. Teoscar Hernandez was supposed to be fine in the OF, even maybe passable in a pinch in CF. it actually turns out he’s maybe the worst LF in the game.
BP’s minor league fielding stats seem to be a step in the right direction. They seem to have something legit good going on with those numbers.
Just for the fun of it, I’m wondering what the “worst” .400 season is in the modern era?
By WAR, it would be Ty Cobb in 1922, when he hit .401 in 137 games and had 6.3 WAR thanks to bad defensive ratings.
By wRC+, it is Bill Terry in 1930 , who also hit .401 but “only” had a 156 wRC+.
That 1930 leader board is stacked. Terry’s 156 wRC+ is 7th highest, led by some guy named Ruth.
Since 1903, 12 qualified players have hit over .400. The worst season by fwar is Ty Cobb’s 1922 season at 6.3.
https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2018&month=0&season1=1903&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=14,d
It’s always easy to spend other people’s money. As Craig points out in his last paragraph there is no monetary incentive for the Jays to bring him up this September. If I’m management I’m looking down the road a few more years and want to make sure Vlad Jr is around when they do have a chance of making the playoffs. That extra year of control will come in handy.
Nothing to do with money really, as they will wind up paying him regardless if he becomes the star he is expected to be. And yes, if you want to strictly think of this from the team perspective, of course there is no incentive and it makes sense. But as someone without any ownership interest in the Blue Jays, they are just finding ways of dicking him around in the minors for their own interests. At your job, would you like to have your promotion delayed by your boss for his or her own selfish interests, especially when they fully control your availability to industry competitors and delay that availability by a full year in the potential prime of your career? Of course not.
Except if they control him for another year, they can buy 1 year of his peak at below FA pricing. That’s very valuable “economically”.
This has everything to do with money, but it’s a “less money + better option” version, not about “money versus no money”.
Maybe, but in the end, he gets paid both ways, and under the likely scenario of getting 6.8 years from him, he gets to Super Two anyway, so not sure we can say it will even be significantly less money… it’s going to mostly be about better options, which I acknowledged but is icky to me as someone without an ownership interest in the Jays.
The solution in (mostly) stopping MLB teams playing with service time is pretty easy (IMHO!)… every player becomes FA with at least 6 years of service OR when they become 28 years old. Yes you may see the odd time teams can play with service time (i.e. Vladdy Jr). In turn, PA agrees to a hard salary cap link to revenues (and revenus sharing is increased!)
I guess I can only say…welcome to Utopia!
Any world where there is a hard salary cap is so far from Utopia that I’m not sure they are in the same universe.
This would also seriously impact player draft stock and the corresponding financials of being a high draft pick. That 23 year old college senior looks a lot less appealing if I only get him at any level for 5 years.
Agree that this practice of holding players back does a disservice to the game. The Jays are just robbing Vladdy of accumulation stats right now. If he’s as good as we think he’s going to be that’s just wrong.
The solution would be to change the rules so that your 82nd game in the majors is in your rookie year. Regardless of when it happens. Call someone up for a third full September, he’s an MLB player, call someone up in late May, he’s an MLB player. You’ve had over half a year in the majors, it’s silly to claim your NEXT year is your rookie year.
The winner of the Rookie of the Year award should have his service time count as a MLB player, because it should not be POSSIBLE to have enough service time to win the award without being an MLB player!
This requires a rules change which will disadvantage owners, and doesn’t help current major league players, so the union won’t push for it. I think the Commissioner needs to push something through, because it’s his job to look after the interests of the game, and this is bad for the game.
The reason that Vlad Jr and other prospects are held back in the minors is because teams want to control them for 6.8 years instead of only 6 years. This is a matter of service time (number of days on the 25-man roster).
During that first partial season, they still are an “MLB player” (i.e., on the 40-man roster) and still have rookie status (which is based on number of career plate appearances). A player who is called up in September is still an MLB player, and rookies who play a partial season still have their service time count.
No matter where you place the service time cutoff (which you have to do), teams are going to time promotions in order to maximize the amount of time they control a player.
They’ll time promotions that way, but if the number of extra games they get out of promoting at a time other than opening day is small enough, they’ll promote on opening day.
172 days in a single year means you miss 11 days to not have a player on the opening day roster. That’s a no-brainer. 82 games over a career means that if you came up last September, you’ll be calling the guy up about now if you want to service time manipulate, you’ve basically lost him for a year to gain that year, which simply isn’t worth it compared to putting the best possible team on the field.
It’s all about incentives, and reducing the gain from service time manipulation, from last September + 171 days this year to last September + ~54 games this year would make a difference.
I’ll add: The idea that the rules don’t matter, because any set of rules will be manipulated is insane! The manipulation of the rules determines what the teams will do, which is the opposite of not mattering. The service time cut-off being close to an entire season is WHY the current things happen. If you don’t like it, and I don’t, then changing the cut-off changes what happens. That’s the entire POINT of the change, to change how they act to maximize service time and value!
“No matter where you place the service time cutoff… Teams are going to time promotions…”
Not if you accumulate service time while you are in the minors. How about this: teams get 8 years of control starting from the year of signing If you want to keep him in the minors cuase he’s still got a lot to learn, you lose time he could play for you on the big stage, which will often make sense and sometimes not. “Development” is a service to the team if they reep the rewards for several years.
To make it work well, the numbers might need fine tuning, but the basic idea certainly looks good to me.
That just seems like a bad idea. It incentivizes focusing on drafting college bats, and would wreak havoc on the ifa market (which is seriously messed up, but a separate topic).
There are a lot of aspects of the system that need tweaking, but I think one small step would at least letting teams give players a truly free ‘cup of coffee’ during September call ups *one* time, without the whole 40 man roster and service time issues cropping up.
The Mets are going through a similar issue with an extremely lesser prospect in Peter Alonso, where there is absolutely no reason not to call him up except for service time, but they’ve already stated conclusively (at least as much as that poor, fractured organization can) that he will not see the bigs this September. If teams were given a free pass to bring players up once in September without it impacting service time or rule 5 status, Vladdy and Alonso would definitely be playing in a few weeks.
would it count/help if he went to the Arizona fall league after the minor league season. Has been some talk he might do that
I have tickets to the game at Skydome on September 6th. If Guerrero is not up, I hope all in attendance will join me in chants ranging from “We want Vladdy!” to “Rogers Sucks!” to “Shap-eeeeeee-ro’s a weasel!”
They raised season ticket prices just shy of 20% this past off-season. And they are perfectly content to serve us garbage. When all we want is garbage + Vlad Jr.
This has little to do with Rogers, every org would do the same thing given the Jays’ contention window and the potential windfall of prime Vladdy 6 years from now.
I would rather see him play today too, but, given the current rules, I completely understand and encourage the stance the Jays have taken. A little patience is never a bad thing.
If you’re frustrated with the ticket pricing this year (I am too), why not go on a roadtrip to Buffalo to see the kids play down there? Probably end up with a similar total cost, and apparently the Bisons’ put on a pretty good show.
This line of thinking is logical, but entirely owner-centric instead of player centric.
One thing I think is overlooked is what is happening to Vlad Jr’s counting stats over his career. Every extra month he sits in the minors, his oppprtunity to get 3k hits, 500 HRs, or any other legendary metrics go down. So not only are you doing damage to Vlad’s near term earnings, but you’re also damaging his long term legacy. How the heck do we expect any of these stories statistics to get challenged if players can’t start collecting the stats until they are no longer stymied by petty financial interests?
Again, I agree the team/ownership is acting rationally, but we are massively underestimating the cost to Vlad’s Jr and similar prospects.
All players deal with this. The record books aren’t ruined because Toronto is holding Vlad down a few months too long. It’s obvious that he is already very good at MLB level, but it’s not insane to get him a few more reps at AAA to complete his exposure and learning curve- he’s barely played at AAA yet.
As long as clubs are allowed to decide service time, they will do so to their advantage.
While the teams clearly have most of the power here, Vlad could come to tomorrow if he wanted by agreeing to accept “only” $25m through his age 26 year. He could probably get more than that. The teams are not the only ones making an economic calculation here. Given this, Vlad is weighing his legacy against some millions of dollars and, seemingly, weighing the dollars more.
It’s called leverage. Vlad Jr. has none. All he can do to get to the majors sooner is give the team a discount. That isn’t a negotiation, that’s a sacrifice.
The reality is that the union long pursued a lucrative strategy that exploited ownership’s inability not to throw money at free agents at the expense of younger players (and the MiLB) for the “greater good” of the biggest benefit to the whole. The problem is that nowadays ownership and front offices are much more likely to make truly intelligent business decisions regarding their costs and prospects for winning and as such have exploited the archaic system as well as the union’s inability to pivot to a new strategy, either because of inertia within the membership, a lack of experience at the top of the union, or the simple fact that the union squaring up against the owners is no longer the labor equivalent of a spring training game of an MLB team vs. a local college.
I (and multiple friends) looked into going to Buffalo for a game, but the logistics of getting from Toronto to Buffalo on a weeknight are very difficult (i.e. you’d have to take at least a half-day off work) and on the two weekends the Bisons were playing at home, I couldn’t make it.
Had he not been injured and made it to Buffalo in June, I probably would have made it.
I understand why the Jays’ approach is rational, but the 7th year of control is only an issue if they fail to sign him to an extension, which would be a massive failure of management. The Jays have almost no long-term commitments, and Rogers has deep enough pockets to sign him to whatever is required.
Given Vladito’s already wealthy (from his signing bonus and his dad), the Jays have less leverage with him than with almost any other young player in the game. Keeping him down alienates the fan base and, potentially, Guerrero, for a hypothetical benefit 6 years down the road that would be rendered moot by an extension.
The only thing Rogers cares about is money and public perception–that’s why I’ll be ‘heckling’ the franchise next time out.
Even if they sign him to an extension, the extra year of control will help by driving down the price. Buying out FA years is more expensive than buying out Arbitration years.
why would he accept a lower price on an extension just because they held him back longer?
I mean you see guys like Harper, Bryant, Lindor, Machado etc., that decide to push for FA and that last year might be extremely important for their teams. The system is flawed but again you cannot go after the Jays so hard as this decision could really matter!
It doesn’t really affect the odds much, since he has ground to make up, but note that there’s some wonkiness with respect to the battling title and the PA minimum, which you could argue, for consistency, should apply here too. In particular, a player who doesn’t reach the minimum PAs (3.1/G) can still win the batting title if they’re leading the pack after appending enough hitless at-bats to reach the minimum. So if Guerrero, say, gets all the way up to .406 spending his whole year in the minors but lands a few PAs short, that still Counts. To the extent any of this counts, at least.
This is probably the best minor league season of all time, and the organization is just sticking it to him. I hope he holds it against them when it’s time to talk contract extension. It’s only fair. Yeah yeah yeah – this is a lost season, so he doesn’t need to be up here…..but next year will be a lost season as well, so that argument doesn’t hold much water.
Sad to be a fan of an organization embarassing itself like this.
As far back as Fangraphs goes, best qualified MILB full-season level seasons:
K.Kouzmanoff (24): .385babip, 11.8k%, 205wrc+ AAA/AA
V.Guerrero (19): .388babip, 10.0k%, 199wrc+ AAA/AA
C.Colabello (29): .413babip, 22.8k%, 196wrc+ AAA
K.Bryant (22): .405babip, 27.3k%, 192wrc+ AAA/AA
N.Lowe (22): .361babip,15.7k%, 183wrc+ AAA/AA
M.Reed (25): .460babip, 24.2k%, 183wrc+ AAA/AA
M.Wieters (22): .375babip, 14.3k%, 182wrc+ AA/A+
A.J.Reed (22): .384babip, 19.6k%, 182wrc+ AA/A+
B.Belt (22): .400babip,16.6k%, 181wrc+ AAA/AA/A+
B.Bichette (19): .417babip, 16.2k%, 181wrc+ A+/A
“If the Blue Jays were contending for a playoff spot and trying actively to win games, Guerrero would likely already have a placeely in their lineup.”
If the Blue Jays were in contention they’d be getting a lot more production out of third base than they currently are, and might not be calling up Vlad’s 132 wRC+ to replace Donaldson’s theoretical 139 wRC+…
Conversely, as much as his 132 wRC+ could replace /any other/ bat in the lineup, the Jays may well want him to continue to take reps at 3rd…
/that guy
Take Solarte off the roster, put Morales on the bench, and DH Vlad Jr. A contention Blue Jays required a healthy and productive Tulo and Travis up the middle.
I wouldn’t keep him off the big club for the sake of 3B development if I was contending. Keep practicing it, sprinkle him in for a few games. As far as we can tell, average would be a ceiling defensively.
Here is a .448 season from rookie ball in 1997!
https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/team.cgi?id=3e68c2da
Fangraphs is great, let us get that over with, but the writers, while fully understanding the reasons behind it, seem to be reluctant to accept the fact that there is absolutely no, nil, nada, bagel, goose egg, zip, zero incentive for a team that is not in contention to bring up a young prospect before the team secures the maximum control it can over that player. We all want see the best players in the majors. I had the pleasure of watching Vlad Jr. play 4 games here in Hartford this year and he was everything that was advertised but right now the truth is that the Blue Jays would be acting in their best interest to keep him in AAA until they can surround him with a few more good players and that means 2020. Can you imagine the reaction if they did that, even the polite Canadians would storm Rogers Centre, but this isn’t a similar situation to Harper , or Machado or Soto, because those teams were ready to compete when they were 19 or 20 and their presence made a big difference. OTOH there is no disputing that Acuna has been a huge factor in the Braves rapid ascent. Could Vlad Jr. do enough to turn Toronto around? The Jays don’t appear to be in the same position that the Braves were in at the start of the year. The Braves had several young players who were ready to make the jump and contribute while the Jays still look a distance away from contending in the AL East. At this time it looks like the only difference Vlad can make now is whether the Jays finish 3rd or 5th.
I understand that approach, but by that logic, the Jays wouldn’t call Guerrero (or Bichette or Jansen) up until 2021, or when the Yankees or Red Sox look weaker (and by which time the Rays will be much stronger). It’s a recipe for never calling up your prospects.
This is compounded by the fact that MLB is a monopoly, so Guerrero can’t go to another employer who will let him play at the appropriate level. There’s no other professional sport in the world where this type of service manipulation happens, and I’m not sure how it can be eliminated, as teams will play games with wherever the line is set.
Baseball is unpredictable. With a few FA signings and better rotation health, if you squint, there’s a chance (albeit very limited) that the Jays could compete (at least for a wildcard) next year. It would be poetic justice if the Braves missed out on the division or the playoffs by 1 or 2 games, which they easily might have won had they not kept Acuna down to manipulate his service time.
Well, there is a limit to how long you can really keep someone down. The Jays would probably love to have him with at least a year or two of MLB at-bats under his belt so that he can work through potential problems that come up. You don’t want him to stagnate in the farm too much.
For next year, I think we can all agree that he’ll have the Bryant treatment to stay down the first 3 weeks. It’s not hard to make an argument to keep him down past the super-2 deadline as well, as much as that would suck, since keeping him down for those 2 months could save the team potentially 15-20M in future arbitration payments. And he’d still end up with less than a full season at AAA, so it’s not like they’d be totally insane to argue that for his “development”.
But that’s about as late as you could argue. And as mentioned, if you squint the Jays aren’t totally hopeless for the next few years, so you need him up at some point to start hitting MLB pitching.
I didn’t imply that the Blue Jays would because, while they wish they could time his arrival to the optimum moment, that might even be 2021 or even 2022, they simply can’t. The hue and cry would sweep management away. On your other point concerning service time manipulation, baseball is the only major sport that doesn’t have a pre-packaged delivery system of well-developed players available to them at no cost for that development. When I watch the Yard Goats play I know that only a very few of those players will ever play in the majors but much of the cost is an expense to the Rockies. Baseball doesn’t have a system that weeds out the Bubba Starling’s, Brady Aiken’s and Mark Appel’s before they have already handed them huge amounts of money. When I watch UConn basketball, the equivalent of AAA, I also know that very few of these players will ever play in the NBA but no team in the NBA has any financial exposure to the Huskies program. This is more than enough reason to allow major league teams the right to determine how best to utilize this talent once it is ready for the majors.
2020 is a step too far, but a call up next May/June for Vlad Jr. would be pretty typical.
All players deal with this, so it’s not a unique detriment to Vlad Jr. Many HOF type players were called up years too late, with Vlad Jr it’s simply a matter of a few more months of AAA. There’s a lot wrong with how young players are treated, but Vlad Jr waiting a few months is hardly the prime example.
The system is stupid and bad for baseball but it makes zero sense for the Jays to call Vlad up now. Essentially you’re trading (for example) 1 WAR in a non competitive year for 5 WAR in a year where you at least have a chance of competing.
The system has a purpose which is commonly ignored in these discussions. The Jays are likely to lose Vlad Jr. in a FA to a higher budget team, as they did with Edwin Encarnacion and soon will with Josh Donaldson. The rule is in place to protect them and other, smaller market teams, from losing their players so early in their careers.
Vlad’s a monster, but there’s an even bigger presence looming. Wander Franco will be the #1 prospect in baseball by mid-season next year. As a Rays fan it’s exciting, but seeing all the bitching about Vlad not being up yet and is just 19 I can’t wait to hear the moaning and wailing with Franco and the Rays mantra when it comes to MiLB players.
Who is your dealer? I need some of that shit. Been a tough couple of weeks.
As a stats-based guy, I’m with you. Franco looks monstrous.
He’s probably in the minors because he has no business wearing a glove in MLB.
wow i cant believe vlad jr is already an all star
“the practice of doing so merely to extend team control by a year ultimately does a disservice to the game…Ultimately, everyone would benefit from an improved version of the policy. ”
Before we continue to lampoon the current policy, let’s at least offer alternatives. This was collectively bargained and there is an actual, real life benefit to keeping players cost-controlled early in their careers (doing a service to the game, some might say).
I understand that the players union that negotiated it aren’t looking out for minor leaguers, but beyond that, the current policy is in place to protect the small market Royals from losing their best players who they spent time and resources to scout, sign / draft and develop before getting an opportunity to compete.
The solution isn’t so simple if you want to continue to protect the teams the rule was designed for.