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This time last year, Austin Barnes looked poised for a potential breakout after he slashed .289/.408/.486 with a 142 wRC+ in 263 plate appearances during the 2017 season. Unfortunately for the Dodgers, Barnes took a step backwards in 2018. His strikeout rate jumped from 16.4%, all the way up to 28.2%, and his slash line fell to a near-unplayable .205/.329/.290.

With incumbent Yasmani Grandal now in Milwaukee, Barnes has a more direct path to playing time. The 29-year-old will begin 2019 in a platoon with fellow righty, Russell Martin. Its possible that Barnes could inherit the lion’s share of the playing time if Martin gets hurt or continues to see his offensive production decline with age. With only 574 major league plate appearances across four seasons, it remains to be seen if Barnes is the starting-caliber hitter he was in 2017 or the glove-first backup of 2018.

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Welcome back to my annual off-season series that has a quick-and-dirty review of all 30 minor league systems around baseball. This feature began way back in 2008.

If you were perusing the series in 2016 you would have read this:

The Tumbler: Trey Ball (LHP): Selected seventh overall in the 2013 draft, Ball has yet to break out despite four years of pro experience — including three in A-ball. His lack of development with his secondary stuff is especially worrisome — as is the continued regression with his control (Walk rates over last 3 years: 3.51 to 4.18 to 5.22 BB/9). Ball, 22, has a decent fastball for a southpaw so perhaps a move to the bullpen would benefit him; it would allow him to scrap the breaking ball and focus on his changeup. As very good two-way player in high school, the young athlete may also want to think about sharpening his skills in batter’s box.

Now on to the new stuff:

First Taste of The Show: Bobby Poyner, LHP: The Red Sox didn’t get a lot of help from its minor league system in 2018 with Poyner getting his first call-up. The 26-year-old hurler struck out almost 10 batters per inning despite having a fastball that sits right around 90 mph. A solid changeup and above-average control helped him survive the dangerous American League East. He’ll want to focus on keeping the ball down and inducing more ground balls going forward after posting a ground-ball rate of just 30% in his first taste of The Show. .

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It is projection churning season and today, I’m going to investigate hitters in the top-200 who have the largest variation in projected plate appearances. I’m trying to see who seems off and any adjustments I’d make to their projections.

Normally, I just use a plate appearance average of several unique sources for my projections. I don’t have time to adjust each player. For now, I’m using five sources who constantly update their projected playing time. One is FanGraphs but I’m not going to reveal the other four as I don’t want to debate their merits. More importantly, it’s tough to know for sure who is wrong and who is right. In most instances, a reasonable explanation can be drawn for any total. Besides the players with the larger variation, I’ve included my top-300 hitters at the article’s end with their plate appearance differences.

Note: I ignored catchers and will look at them in detail at a later date.

Eloy Jimenez
Range: 336
Standard Deviation: 238
Average: 446

I’m not surprised with Jimenez being divisive. I sort of expected projections to have him being promoted either in mid-April (extra year of service) or early June (miss July two cutoff). One source was extremely low with a sub-300 value increasing the range. For me, I’d split the possible callup dates and go with a 525 plate appearance total and adjust it as more news becomes available.

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1/30/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

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Catcher Strategy (2:55)

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1/29/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

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Speed took off in the 1970s (in multiple ways…). The AL went to 162 games in 1961 and the NL followed suit the next year so looking at things since 1962, we saw a surge in stolen bases around 1973 when they cracked 2,000 for the first time at 2,034. They surged over 3,000 in 1976 and essentially held that floor every year until 2002 save a couple exceptions (2,982 in ’79 and 2,924 in ’00) and the strike years of 1981, 1994, and 1995 (which still almost got there at 2,932). There was a 353-base drop in 2002 to 2,750 and since then only 2011 (3,279) and 2012 (3,229) have been over 3,00. There was another big drop after 2012, going down 536 bases to 2,693 and that has ushered in this current drought of premium speed.

Since 2011, we’ve seen a precipitous drop in 20+ SB players going from 50 that year to just 28 in 2018, which tied 2016 for the lowest in this eight-year period. Interestingly, we actually saw a spike in 30-SB players last year, going from six to 11. Meanwhile, the 40-SB pool has been steadily low since 2014. Here’s a year-by-year since 2011: 8, 6, 8, 4, 3, 5, 3, and 3. One of the biggest issues with the 30-SB guys is that they are all expensive. Of those 11 from 2018, just one has an ADP outside the top 115 and it’s Billy Hamilton, who is already on the rise. He’s seen his ADP jump 20 spots over the winter, up to 152 since January 1st in NFBC leagues.

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I love the idea, almost to a fault, of taking one or two of the top 5 SPs in the first and/or second round. The reason I like getting these top arms is that they provide a ton of strikeouts with great ratios. This base in ratios allows me to ignore pitching for almost 10 rounds and then bottom feed. One problem I’ve run into with this strategy is that I won’t have this option available if I’m picking in a draft’s first few spots. I’m not passing on the five-category hitters and according to the current NFBC ADP (average draft position), the top Aces will be gone by the time my second pick comes around. If I’m forced into this situation, I’m considering going with the what I’ll call the “Streaming WHIP” plan.

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1/28/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

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