Archive for Prospects

Late last season and into the start of this season, I couldn’t stop singing the praises of Robert Gsellman. Gsellman had the pitcher trifecta going on with above average strikeout and groundball rates and a below average walk rate. While I encouraged owners to acquire him, I didn’t completely buy into the transformation. But I still hoped for the best. My reservations and hopes can be linked back to T.J. House and Jacob deGrom and the waning months of 2014 season.

Near the end 2014, House put together a respectable season with a 7.0 K/9, 1.9 BB/9 and a 61% GB%. They combined to support a 3.35 ERA and I was all in going into 2015. He seemed to be the perfect sleeper candidate with results similar to Dallas Keuchel.

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This week’s Prospect Stock Watch celebrates the amateur draft – which kicks off later today. Let’s have a look at three early draft picks from 2016 and catch up on their exploits.

Mickey Moniak, OF, Phillies: We can’t review the 2016 draft without checking up on the first player selected. This 19-year-old outfielder isn’t producing eye-popping numbers just yet but he’s holding his own in low-A ball. Although he’s hitting just .266, he projects to develop into a .280-.300 hitter with gap power and maybe 10-12 home runs. He has good speed that helps him play excellent center-field defence but he’s struggled on the base paths with just five steals in nine tries. He’s probably about three years away from the Majors at this point when he might push Odubel Herrera to a corner outfield spot.

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Today at the Prospect Stock Watch we’re taking a look at the value of three catching prospects from around the minor leagues. One has long been considered a top catching prospect, while the other two have come on quickly and are trying to shake the label of “future back-up backstop.”

Danny Jansen, C, Blue Jays: Drafted out of high school by the Jays in 2013, Jansen showed a lot of promise in rookie ball before injuries basically wiped out his 2015-16 seasons. Healthy again (and playing with glasses), Jansen has re-discovered his stroke and earned a promotion to double-A after just 31 games in high-A ball. He has solid defence and the offensive uptick has Jansen looking like a future first-stringer and eventual replacement for Russell Martin. The 34-year-old incumbent still has two years remaining on his deal after 2017 so Jansen likely won’t see regular at-bats until 2019 (if Martin starts playing more infield) or 2020. In his prime, the catching prospect should hit for a solid average with gap power and make lots of contact.

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As a Royals fan, I had my doubts Jorge Bonifacio would be a major league contributor. Over the past couple of seasons, my opinion has changed as he showed some power in AA in 2015 (17 HR) and AAA in 2016 (19 HR). I fostered some reservations on the AAA power because he played in the offensive happy Pacific Coast League.

He’s started 2017 off great with 3 HR and a 10% HR/FB ratio in AAA before getting his major league call-up. Since the promotion, he’s hit six bombs with a 29% HR/FB rate. Owners may be expecting some heavy regression from Bonifacio but they shouldn’t. The “juiced” ball era has reversed a trend of position players hitting for less power once getting a major league promotion.

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As a RotoGraphs reader, I’ve always enjoyed Joe Douglas’s “Buying Generic” series. In past articles, he has compellingly compared “generic” players like Ryon Healy, Logan Forsythe, and Justin Bour to “brand name” ones like Jake Lamb, Jason Kipnis, and Carlos Santana.

The fantasy relevance of the exercise is obvious: Buying generic allows owners to acquire players cheaply and with relative ease, instead of paying a premium (whether in a trade or in a draft or auction) for a brand-name player.

For today’s comparison, we’re going to analyze two players who have played in parts of the last three seasons, but neither has eclipsed 350 plate appearances in any one year. Both appear on their way to full-time jobs in 2017 and beyond.

Here’s how Mr. Generic and Mr. Brand Name have fared since 2015:

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At the beginning of the 2017 season, I wrote pieces reviewing the potential impact rookie hitters in each league for 2017. Today, we continue a semi-regular review of how those players are actually performing. Previously we reviewed:

AL East
NL East

1. Jharel Cotton, RHP, A’s: When the season began, Cotton appeared well-positioned to play a significant role on the A’s starting staff. To date, he’s thrown the fourth most innings on the staff but has also received a demotion to (and subsequent return from) triple-A. A lack of command has hurt the young hurler and he’s given up too many base runners. Cotton will no doubt continue to get opportunities as the year progresses so if things finally click for him he could still be an asset.

2. Francis Martes, RHP, Astros: Martes reached triple-A at the age of 21 but he’s had a rough season so far. He’s walking more than seven batters per nine innings — resulting in 24 free passes in just 29.2 innings. When he can find the plate, though, he’s exhibiting swing-and-miss stuff as witnessed by his 36 strikeouts. The Astros are one of the strongest teams in the American League but the team’s weakness so far has been the starting pitching depth. Once this young hurler finds the plate on a more consistent basis, he’s going to get a shot.

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Today at the Prospect Stock Watch, we take a look at a former Red Sox prospect making good in the Brewers system, a Dodgers prospect that no one is talking about (but should be) and a top-of-the-rotation arm on a collision course with the Indians big league staff.

Mauricio Dubon, SS, Brewers: Dubon was on my list of 2017 sleeper prospects as a guy that might sneak up into the majors and help the Brewers this year. A career .306 hitter, the former Red Sox prospect already has 53 hits on the year in just 45 games in double-A. He hasn’t hit for much power — just 11 extra base hits — but he’s made a ton of contact and struck out just 24 times. Putting the ball in play is a good approach for this fleet-footed infielder; he already has 23 steals (in 29 attempts). The club’s starting infielders up the middle — Jonathan Villar and Orlando Arica — have struggled but backups Hernan Perez and Eric Sogard have been very good, which is bad news for Dubon. Still, he has to added to the 40-man roster at the conclusion of the season anyway so the club will likely give him at least a cursory look later in the year. He has a chance to be a solid table-setter at the top of the order for the club.

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On Friday the Blue Jays called up Anthony Alford. The move surprised me since he struggled in 2016 with a 29% K% in High-A. He was doing better in Double-A this season (17K%, .393 wOBA) but I figured he would follow a progressive advancement with a Tripe-A stint.

Here’s a quick dive into what we know about his possible production. First here are his available prospect grades.

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At the beginning of the 2017 season, I wrote pieces reviewing the potential impact rookie hitters in each league for 2017. Today, we continue a semi-regular review of how those players are actually performing. The American League East was the first up for review and we hit the NL East today.

1. Dansby Swanson, SS, Braves: Swanson entered the year as one of the favorites for NL Rookie of the Year after performing well in a brief MLB showing in ’16. The 23-year-old infielder has seen his BABIP drop from .383 to .242, though, and that’s dragged down his triple-slash line to just .190/.261/.270.  He’s hitting .255 in May – up from .156 in April – but the swing-and-miss rate is actually up and nearing 30% this month. The team wasn’t expected to win in 2017 so the club can be patient with Swanson but he has a lot of work to do before he’ll consistently produce at even a league-average rate.

2. Koda Glover, RHP, Nationals: Glover was expected to be a key high-leverage reliever for the Nationals in 2017 but an injury knocked him out for close to three weeks. When healthy, he’s shown excellent control with just two walks in 11.2 innings. However, he’s struck out just nine batters and his swinging strike rate is just 8.4% (In comparison, Craig Kimbrel leads relievers at 23.7% and Chris Devenski is second at 21.1%). Glover has some work to do before he’s considered an elite relief option — but the potential is still there.

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I’ve made it almost a month since I made the following declaration on investigating prospect Hit grades:

I am going to stay away from more Hit tool predictions until I have collected every one of MLB.com’s prospect grades from 2013 and 2014, not just the top 100. I probably will not be able to compare many to their major league stats but I can with Triple-A.

I broke my position after collecting MLB.com’s 2013 grades. I ventured forward without the 2014 grades. With this larger and more diverse dataset, I compared the hitters’ grades to their batting average, home runs, and stolen bases in both AA and AAA.

Trying to better understand the Hit tool stems from finding it doesn’t contain any predictive power. When looking at players with different grades, major leaguers ended up posting similar batting averages. I concluded two issues were causing the production to level out.

First, hitters needed a talent and/or production baseline to get into the majors. Some hitters with below average grades were under-graded and produced up to the MLB baseline. Additionally, “better” hitters were over-graded but still had just enough talent to make the majors. This talent convergence tends to average out the grades.

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