Welcome to the annual series: ‘A Minor (League) Review of 2015.” This series is a great way to receive a quick recap of the ’15 minor league season for your favorite club(s), while also receiving a brief look toward the 2016 season and beyond. It can also be a handy feature for fantasy baseball players in keeper and Dynasty leagues.

Previous Reviews:
Baltimore Orioles
Atlanta Braves
Boston Red Sox
Washington Nationals
New York Yankees
Philadelphia Phillies
Tampa Bay Rays

The Graduate: Justin Bour, 1B: Talk about coming out of nowhere. Bour wasn’t expected to be much of a contributor in 2015 but he ended up slugging more than 20 homers for The Fish. His OPS of .809 was third on the team and he led with 71 RBI. Miami popped prep first baseman Josh Naylor in the first round of the 2015 draft but he’s at least four years away from The Show so Bour has some time to keep the position warm if he continues to produce like he did in ’15 (at a low cost).

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Welcome to the annual series: ‘A Minor (League) Review of 2015.” This series is a great way to receive a quick recap of the ’15 minor league season for your favorite club(s), while also receiving a brief look toward the 2016 season and beyond. It can also be a handy feature for fantasy baseball players in keeper and Dynasty leagues.

The Graduate: Steven Souza, OF: All kinds of eyebrows were raised (including my own) when the Rays gave up on Will Myers and replaced him with the overaged-rookie Souza. The 26-year-old rookie struggled to hit for average in 2015 because of a massive strikeout rate (34.6%) but he walked more than his fair share and also hit for power; he’s currently third on the team in home runs behind Evan Longoria and the surprising Logan Forsythe — and second on the team in Isolated Power (ISO) behind Tim Beckham. So, he wasn’t the breakout player the Rays were probably hoping for but he’s been more valuable than one might expect by looking at this batting average.

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A couple of years ago for FG+, I created a minor league rating stat for hitters called ZOBRIST. It looks for hitters who were off prospect ranking lists and showed a propensity to control the strike zone and hit for power in the upper minors. It aims to find such untouted hitters such as Ben Zobrist, Matt Carpenter, and Kole Calhoun. I ran it after the 2014 season and didn’t have the best of luck picking out some non-prospects (it did love Mookie Betts). Well, it is time to run it again for some 2016 unheralded sleepers.

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Welcome to the annual series: ‘A Minor (League) Review of 2015.” This series is a great way to receive a quick recap of the ’15 minor league season for your favorite club(s), while also receiving a brief look toward the 2016 season and beyond. It can also be a handy feature for fantasy baseball players in keeper and Dynasty leagues.

Previous Reviews:
Baltimore Orioles
Atlanta Braves
Boston Red Sox
Washington Nationals
New York Yankees

The Graduate: Maikel Franco, 3B: A wrist injury may have ended Maikel Franco’s season early (He hasn’t played since Aug. 11) but he adapted more quickly to the Majors in his debut than I expected — at least at the plate. He significantly out-played incumbent third baseman Cody Asche and even out-performed Ryan Howard — who he’ll eventually supplant at first base. Fellow rookie Odubel Herrera was worth more in terms of WAR (3.0 to 1.3) but Franco was superior in wRC+ (weighted runs created — 125 to 107). It may not be a stretch to call the third base prospect the best hitter on the 2015 Phillies. On defence, though, Franco struggled as expected and will no doubt move from third to first once the Phillies decide to cut bait with Howard.

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Welcome to the annual series: ‘A Minor (League) Review of 2015.” This series is a great way to receive a quick recap of the ’15 minor league season for your favorite club(s), while also receiving a brief look toward the 2016 season and beyond. It can also be a handy feature for fantasy baseball players in keeper and Dynasty leagues.

The Graduate: Luis Severino, RHP: New York did not rely overly heavily on rookies in the early stages of 2015 but there have been some key freshmen performances down the stretch. With injuries to Mark Teixeira and Nathan Eovaldi, players like Greg Bird and Severino have emerged. The right-handed hurler has had a meteoric rise considering he was in Rookie Ball in 2013. In eight MLB starts, he’s averaging more than nine strikeouts per nine innings and has a 3.12 ERA. On the downside, he’s been touched up for six home runs (after allowing just seven in his four minor league seasons). Another thing to keep an eye on with Severino is his workload. After pitching a career high 113.1 innings in 2014, he’s already up above 142 in 2015 with the playoffs yet to come.

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This is the best rookie class for fantasy baseball nerds in a long time, possibly of all time. Between hitters like Miguel Sano, Joc Pederson, Kyle Schwarber, Kris Bryant, Carlos Correa and pitchers ranging from Roberto Osuna to Lance McCullers, Noah Syndergaard and Raisel Iglesias et al. Rather than focus on the rookies that win roto-MVP awards or fantasy Cy Youngs, and since I’m a big fan of self-deprecation, I’ll be focusing on the rookies I gambled and whiffed on. I’m tentatively calling it the “Sigh, young” because sometimes I would see what my young players did and just audible sigh. Prospects can break your heart. If I were more clever, I’d think of a separate award for hitters and pitchers, but alas, I am not. Perhaps the comment section will help. I’ve limited the player pool by only including rookie hitters with a minimum of 100 plate appearances or rookie pitchers with at least 30 innings pitched.

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Javier Baez has been getting quite a bit of acclaim since returning to the Cubs with his reduced strikeout rate. In 2014, Baez had a 42% strikeout rate (K%) in the majors and 2015 value of 22% K% looks to be a huge improvement. Don’t get too excited about this small sample of data as his swing strike rate (SwStr%) points to a strikeout rate which will likely increase quickly.

Historically, a hitter’s strikeout rate correlates almost identically to their swinging strike rate. The reason to use SwStr% instead of K%  is because it stabilizes a bit faster. I took all hitters since 2002 who had at least 200 plate appearances in a season and found the linear correlation between their strikeout rate and swinging strike rate. The R-squared between the two values was .947 with the equation working out to:

K% = 2.25 * SwStr%

With this little bit of information, here is a look at Baez’s stats in the majors the past two seasons.

Season: SwStr%, Predicted K%, Actual K%
2014: 19.2%, 43.2%, 41.5%
2015: 18.5%, 41.6%, 22.2%

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Welcome to the annual series: ‘A Minor (League) Review of 2015.” This series is a great way to receive a quick recap of the ’15 minor league season for your favorite club(s), while also receiving a brief look toward the 2016 season and beyond. It can also be a handy feature for fantasy baseball players in keeper and Dynasty leagues.

Previous Reviews:
Baltimore Orioles
Atlanta Braves

The Graduate: Blake Swihart, C: A swath of injuries to the big league club’s catching depth led to the earlier-than-expected arrival of Swihart in The Show. He looked overwhelmed in the early going but, after missing some time due to injury, the young catcher found his footing and showed why scouts were so high on him. He’s been a stabilizing force behind the plate as he’s become more confident and improved his game calling. He’s also been much better at the plate with improved patience and more contact. The next thing the switch-hitting catcher needs to do is to get stronger from the right side of the plate. Look for Swihart, 23, to be behind the dish for Boston for years to come.

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Welcome to the annual series: ‘A Minor (League) Review of 2015.” This series is a great way to receive a quick recap of the ’15 minor league season for your favorite club(s), while also receiving a brief look toward the 2016 season and beyond. It can also be a handy feature for fantasy baseball players in keeper and Dynasty leagues.

Previous Reviews:
Baltimore Orioles

The Graduate: Mike Foltynewicz, RHP: Acquired from the Astros in the Evan Gattis deal, Foltynewicz has a chance to be a real steal for the Braves. The right-hander was probably in the Majors before he was ready and he struggled mightily with his command. However, his overpowering fastball gives him a chance to survive even without his best stuff — most specifically command and control. He has a strong frame that should allow him to provide 200+ innings and could be an excellent No. 3 starter for Atlanta. Some see him as the future closer for the Braves but I remain hopeful that he’ll stick in the starting rotation once he solves his command issues and keeps the ball in the park more consistently.

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We’re on the cusp of September call-ups when rosters expand to 40 guys and a bevy of relative unknowns flood the league. Given the influx of players, it’s hard for even the most alluring of these call-ups to be guaranteed a substantial amount of playing time, but a fast start can help get their name penciled in more regularly as we hit the homestretch of the 2015 season (by the way, how are we almost in September?). It’s been a banner year for rookies coming up and making an impact which actually makes call-up season a little tougher in terms of identifying guys who could really help.

Everyone is still hoping to see Corey Seager, but the playing time issues that have been present in LA all year haven’t exactly cleared up with the emergence of Enrique Hernandez and the addition of Chase Utley into the mix. Plus, at this point Seager is stashed so he’s likely not even be available to you even if we thought he had a bead on significant time. Instead of perusing the top prospect lists, I went through the leaderboards of the upper minor leagues (Triple- and Double-A) looking for guys who could be primed to give us that boost in the standings in the season’s final month.

Some of these guys are in fact top prospects themselves, but others are off-the-radar prospects or journeyman-types who we might not expect a lot from generally speaking, but the opportunity could be there for them to parlay their big minor league season into some major league success. I’m looking specifically for power and speed assets here with the former coming today and the latter coming later this week.

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