Brennan Boesch Mashing
On April 23rd, Brennan Boesch stepped into a major league batter’s box for the first time and proceeded to rip the first Rich Harden offering he saw for a double. Since then, the 25-year-old Tigers rookie hasn’t stopped swinging or making loud contact. In just 74 plate appearances, Boesch’s bashing has been worth +7.4 park-adjusted Batting Runs. Where did this guy come from, and what can we expect from him going forward?
Detroit snagged Boesch out of California in the third round of the 2006 draft. A 6-4, 235 pound lefty batter, Boesch fit the physical description of a power hitter but confused scouts with uneven performances for the Golden Bears. Here’s Baseball America’s scouting report leading up to the draft:
He has what scouts look for in a prospect, but while he had set a new career high with 10 home runs, his slugging percentage was actually lower than it was in 2005, and scouts had been disappointed by his overall performance. He’s been erratic, at times showing above-average bat speed and the ability to catch up to good fastballs, and at others showing a long swing that short-circuits his power. His hands are dead at the start of his swing, often keeping him from loading up and generating power.
The Tigers sent Boesch to the short-season New York-Penn that summer, where he hit .291/.344/.435 in 317 plate appearances. He walked in 6.6 percent of his PA and punched out 14.4 percent, posting a .144 Isolated Power.
Boesch ranked 16th on BA’s list of top Tigers prospects prior to the 2007 season, but he dipped to 24th before 2008 and fell off the list entirely leading up to the 2009 campaign. In the Low-A Midwest League in ’07, he batted a weak .267/.297/.378 in 542 PA, drawing ball four 4.2 percent and striking out 15.8 percent. Boesch’s ISO fell to a middle infielder-like .111, with BA saying that he “lacked the plus power expected from a corner outfielder.”
His 2008 season was little better: a .249/.310/.379 triple-slash in 461 PA in the High-A Florida State League, with a 7.8 percent walk rate, a 21.6 percent K rate and a .129 ISO. The MWL and the FSL are difficult offensive environments, but college-trained outfielders hacking and hitting singles aren’t going to elicit much excitement from talent evaluators.
In 2009, Boesch showed an offensive pulse for the first time in pro ball. Bumped up to the Double-A Eastern League, he hit .275/.318/.510 in 571 PA. Boesch remained aggressive (5.8 BB%) and his strikeout rate climbed to 24.1 percent, but his ISO shot up to .235. Baseball America rated Boesch as the 26th-best prospect in Detroit’s system this past offseason.
After a hot start in the Triple-A International League (.379/.455/.621 in 66 PA), Boesch got the big league call and has logged time in the corner outfield and DH spots. He owns a .380/.392/.676 line, with three home runs and a .296 ISO. Boesch’s plate approach, however, leaves much to be desired.
So far, his strike zone has been the size of Lake Michigan. Boesch has chased 50.4 percent of pitches thrown outside of the zone, highest among hitters with at least 70 plate appearances. He’s out-hacking the master of junk ball swinging, Vladimir Guerrero (49.6 O-Swing%). On pitches within the zone, Boesch has taken a cut 84.6 percent. Only Vlad (86.4 Z-Swing%) has swung at in-zone pitches more often. Boesch’s overall 66.4 percent swing rate bests The Impaler’s 65.2 percent mark.
Guerrero might be able to get away with swinging at everything. Boesch isn’t Vlad, though. That 2.7 percent walk rate is going to be an issue once his .421 batting average on balls in play comes back down to Earth.
Coming into 2010, CHONE projected Boesch for a .230/.261/.364 line. That seems pessimistic, but it is important to keep in mind that we’re talking about a mid-twenties prospect with a career .273/.319/.434 minor league line. He has an ultra-aggressive philosophy, and holds a .247/.294/.364 minor league triple-slash against lefty pitching. Boesch isn’t a hot-shot youngster so much as he’s a righty masher with a low OBP and problems with same-handed hurlers.
A recent graduate of Duquesne University, David Golebiewski is a contributing writer for Fangraphs, The Pittsburgh Sports Report and Baseball Analytics. His work for Inside Edge Scouting Services has appeared on ESPN.com and Yahoo.com, and he was a fantasy baseball columnist for Rotoworld from 2009-2010. He recently contributed an article on Mike Stanton's slugging to The Hardball Times Annual 2012. Contact David at david.golebiewski@gmail.com and check out his work at Journalist For Hire.
The next Chris Shelton?
Can you be more pessimistic? BABIP is over-rated imo. Better hitters generally have better BABIP than crappy hitters for a reason. Boesch is no Vlad? Who was Vlad as a rookie? Why can’t he be good? The guy is just a couple years removed from college and is blossoming like you expect a big guy too.
His minor league stats were great the last two years and yet you post his career minor league numbers against lefties suggesting he’s just a platoon kid. Did you see his first two at bats against CC Sabathia? Double, HR. He faced Jon Lester and struck out his first two times before hitting a triple off of him.
I’m starting to get a little tired of all the stat guys trying to preach working the hitters and the value of a walk. Even in Moneyball they wrote that not everyone is capable of that. Some guys are free swingers and Vlad has proven that you can swing at a lot of garbage and still be successful.
How about actually praising a rookie for a hot start? Instead the stat guys have to run out and find one of a million stats to tear him down. It gets annoying. Too often in baseball a writer can have a pre-determined opinion and use any combination of stats to prove their point. I’ll let the kids production stand for itself. He has the highest slugging percentage on the team right now. Better yet, he has driven in 19 RBI in 19 games (71 AB) which is damn good. Last I checked, baseball was all about scoring runs and preventing them. As far as I can tell Boesch is providing the runs which is all that matters.
I’ll leave you with one more thought. I’m a statistician so numbers don’t bother me but go ahead and plot BABIP vs. AVG and check the correlation. For the 154 batters in your stat download they have a 77.4% linear correlation of BABIP with AVG. Look at the chart and understand how closely BABIP is related to AVG. Nobody can definitely state how much of that is attibuted to luck vs. skill. All you can deduce from BABIP is that is should be close to your batting average. There is nothing there to prove good or bad luck in most cases. BABIP is an over-rated stat period.
of course they’re related, batting average is in the friggin name dude.
If you’re a statistician, you’re not a very good one.
Being that I just picked Boesch up a couple of days ago, I was hoping that Rudy’s defense to make me feel happy it would last longer than I thought it would.
Too bad…
Tigers fan much?
Do everything about Boesch’s underlying numbers and career path say he’s playing over his head?
Perhaps, but does that mean he’s going to come crashing back down to earth?
When looking at players with established track records on the big league level, it’s much simpler to separate the reals from the fakes. With guys who just turned 25? Not so much.
Guys do grow into power, learn how to become more patient hitters, learn how to become more efficient basestealers, etc. It may not be the norm, but we do see it all the time.
Garrett Jones and Casey McGehee are two great examples of that. Many owners — including yours truly — missed out them because of a refusal to believe that they could outperform their past or peripherals. Suffice it to say, I learned my lesson.
A few bullet points:
– Boesch slugged .541, .567, and .505 as a collegiate ballplayer (21 HR over roughly 500 ABs). I don’t see the significant drop-off as painted by the BA scout quoted above. It’s not like he went from .500-plus to .380. I’ll take “dead hands” every day of the week if it means my guy can slug .500. Screw the mechanics, I’ll take the results.
– There’s a reason why he was drafted in the third-round. Someone recognized his talent/power. The power only became a concern when it didn’t show up his first few years playing pro ball. Did that skill just disappear? Or did he just need more time to develop against stiffer competition? I’ll take door No. 2. Thirty-four homers over his last 588 ABs (AA, AAA, majors combined) tells me to.
– Again, Boesch is just 25. And again, he’s coming off a pretty impressive 24-year-old campaign at Double-A.
– Is his BABIP is unsustainable? Hell yeah it is. But we’re not asking him to hit .380. If he were hitting .350 with a .421 BABIP, that’d be more of a red flag. But even if you take 130 points off his BABIP (his xBABIP is roughly .290), he’d still hit around .250-.260. Bump him up to the MLB average and he’s all of a sudden a .265-.275 hitter. Who won’t live with that if it comes along with power?
– You mention Boesch’s free-swinging ways but neglect to mention his contact rates. He’s making contact with pitches outside the strike zone, and overall, at an above-average rate. Many more swings means he’s putting the ball in play a helluva lot more than most players right now. When did that become a bad thing? Would it be nice if he walked a little more? Sure it would. But it’s not a prerequisite for roto relevance. It’s not like he’s striking out 30 percent of the time either. His 16.9 K% hardly seems like an issue.
Again, this could be all for naught and he could very well become fantasy irrelevant by this time next month. As a fantasy owner, though, you have to be willing to take chances on guys like this. He just turned 25 a month ago, showed flashes of power in the past, and could be coming into his own.
A risk worth taking if you ask me. Am I dropping a struggling Carlos Quentin for him? No. But if I’m playing musical chairs with one of my outfield spots and want someone I know will play everyday and has some upside, Boesch looks like that guy.
Which reminds me, Boesch is now the everyday left fielder for the Tigers. He’s not a platoon guy or sharing the position with someone else. It’s his job right now, and with Guillen moving to 2B, for the foreseeable future.
one word: JUICE
Boesch’s avg is sure to drop but the fact remains that he does have a lot of power and he should get plenty of RBI opportunities the rest of the way with the guys hitting ahead of him. Assuming he stays at the 5 hole when Guillen gets back he’ll have Damon, Ordonez, and Cabrera hitting ahead of them and between them Zips ROS projects them at a .370 OBP between them. So even if his .avg drops 100 points, he can still give you 15-20HRs with around 80RBIS to go with a .275 avg. Those are pretty useful numbers from an OF. If he’s still available I’d definitely recommend picking him up in 12 team plus mixed leagues and possibly even 10 team depending on your roster.
Not buying this. There’s far more here than what I just read. Plate approach hasn’t looked nearly as bad as you recommend. Average drops….power remains