Once upon a time, I was a Phillies fan. I grew up in a mostly empty Veteran’s Stadium watching Doug Glanville and Wendell Magee and Rico Brogna. Occasionally, my past links to Philadelphia help my fantasy rosters. That happened this year with Odubel Herrera and Aaron Altherr.
So there’s this table I’m going to show you. Actually, you can already see it. I know you can. But humor me and pretend that only the next word appears after you read this one, and that the table simply hasn’t manifested yet. This table holds within it Christian Yelich’s career statistics, parsed by year. It’s unlike a normal table because I prorated all of the counting stats to 600 plate appearances. The rest, however, are rate statistics, or component metrics presented as rate statistics. Basically, everything is comparable on a playing time basis. What it will all tell you is what ended up being a discarded title for this post:
Christian Yelich is a remarkably consistent hitter.
The Minnesota Twins dealt Aaron Hicks after parts of three uninspired seasons and I’m sure many of you were like me and thought this could be a case similar to Carlos Gomez. Gomez came up as a Mets prospect. He was raw, speedy super-athlete who showed the defense for center in the minors, but he was projected to add power as he filled out. The Mets rushed him to the majors at age-21 after just three-plus seasons in the minors and he’s been a major leaguer ever since.
He was the key piece in the Johan Santana deal for Minnesota and that likely encouraged them to continue the rushed development of Gomez as they immediately inserted him into the starting centerfield role at 22 years old. After a rotten 74 wRC+ in 614 PA, his playing time was drastically cut the following season.
Unfortunately, he played even worse (64 wRC+ in 349 PA). He was traded again, this time to Milwaukee in a straight up deal for J.J. Hardy. He labored through two half-seasons upon arrival, marred by three DL stints, and didn’t look much different than the Minnesota version with a 79 wRC+ in 576 PA. Hicks’ backstory has some key differences.
Thirty-year old Chris Coghlan just had his best season of his career. He’s only surpassed 500 plate appearances twice in his seven-year career, and as a guy without a standout tool and some established platoon issues, he obviously owns a substantial ‘bust rate.’ As in, he could be unusable next year, even though he was worth $6 in mixed leagues this past season.
And so, even though we liked some boring veterans at third base, it’s time to take inspiration in another direction — where’s the line, when you should bypass the veteran for the unproven prospect? Is it right around a guy like Chris Coghlan?
For our third Pod Projection review of the season, I will recap what was predicted and what actually happened for George Springer in his sophomore season. Refresh your memory by checking back on my original Pod Projection post.
Heading into 2014, Springer ranked as one of the top prospects in baseball and didn’t disappoint upon his arrival to Houston. He did exactly what his minor league record suggested he might — strike out a lot, supplement those swings and misses with a strong walk rate, and display immense power. Unfortunately, his season was cut short by a quadriceps injury, but naturally, expectations were high for 2015.