Archive for AA

Peripheral Prospects, Ep. 1.12

by
June 28, 2019

Yo! It’s been a hot minute (read: a month) since Brad or I published a Peripheral Prospects piece. Sometimes, life gets in the way. Such distinct absences aren’t so bad, after all — it allowed us a little more time for some of the season’s early conquests to flesh out in larger samples.

Around this time last year, I became enamored with a hitter about whom no one knew hardly anything at the time but of whom everyone has heard now: Jeff McNeil.

At the time, Pete Alonso was slaughtering Double-A pitching. But so, too, was McNeil, with a strikeout rate (K%) below 10% — and a higher isolated power (ISO) than that of Alonso, the Mets’ premier power-oriented prospect. Between Double-A and Triple-A, Alonso finished with the higher ISO (.295 to .274), but McNeil, thanks to superior contact skills and (non-homer) batted ball efficacy, produced a wRC+ almost 20 points higher.

Read the rest of this entry »


Peripheral Prospects, Ep. 1.09

by
May 13, 2019

Behold! Another installment of Peripheral Prospects, the low-price, off-brand fantasy baseball version of Fringe Five. Brad Johnson and I have brought something on the order of five minor leaguers per week who make us feel — like, really feel. These players tend to be unloved and unheralded but very much deserving of love and, uh, herald, not unlike the two authors of this series.

Some quick housekeeping, per usual:

Read the rest of this entry »


A Late Primer on MiLB Infield Fly Ball Rate (IFFB%)

by
January 9, 2018

The impetus for this post arises from a Tweet by our very own Al Melchior:

This is, in no way, meant to shame Melchior; if anything, he has afforded us a valuable learning opportunity, especially because it became clear to me there likely exists a large swath of FanGraphs users who routinely misinterpret the relatively new Minor League batted ball data. (Through no fault of their own, by the way. The new data didn’t come with a user’s guide or anything. We have been left to our own devices, and it’s easy to assume such clean data comes without warts.)

Read the rest of this entry »