Archive for Miguel Sano

Miguel Sano has been an absolute terror at the plate this season. Sure, there are flaws in his game and those may never go away. But the early results have been tremendous for a guy who seems to do nothing but crush every baseball that he comes into contact with.

Sano has gotten off to a stellar start for a Minnesota Twins squad that doesn’t look all that bad. His slash features an average at an even .300, while he’s reaching base at a .431 clip. Obviously a .440 batting average on balls in play tends to aid you in those aspects, but when you’re hitting the ball as hard as he is, something we’ll touch on in a moment, that number is always going to remain high. It all culminates in a park-adjusted offense of 190, which ranks at the top of the third base group by 23 points.

The approach hasn’t necessarily improved, but remained constant from last year into 2017. His Swing%, at 42.6%, is only 1.6% higher than it was last year. He’s seeing 4.24 pitches per plate appearance, a figure identical to that of 2016. His whiff rate is still higher than you’d like, at 14.3%, but it’s only 0.3% higher than last year. Brooks has him swinging at just about the same amount of each pitch type as he did last year.

And with the minimal change in those figures, his contact rate has also remained almost identical across the two seasons. His 65.9% contact rate isn’t terrific and represents a 0.1% increase from the previous year. When you factor in the notable improvements in his health, it becomes far less surprising that he’s managed to graduate from a wRC+ of 107 to the 190 mark he’s posted thus far in 2017. When he’s run into balls, he’s doing some major damage to a point that no other hitter in baseball can really touch at this point.

Despite a high strikeout rate (34.1%) and that high swinging strike percentage, Sano is making hard contact at an absurdly high rate. Nick Castellanos is the only player in baseball with a higher percentage of hard hit balls this year, as Sano currently sits at a 53.5% Hard%. He’s making soft contact at a rate of 1.7%. Read that again. That’s absolute nonsense. Baseball Savant has Sano averaging 98.9 MPH in terms of exit velocity. That’s easily the highest in all of baseball. When you combine that with his high launch angle tendencies, this guy has the potential to be a fantasy owner’s absolute dream over the course of a full season.

In fact, Sano has already showcased a dip in his groundball numbers. His 29.3% GB rate represents a five percent decrease and ranks 176th among 183 qualifying Major League hitters. As such, his 28.6% HR/FB ratio ranks third at the position, trailing only Joey Gallo and Jake Lamb, which isn’t terribly surprising given the power tendencies of each individual in their own right. Especially Jake Lamb. Because we all know how I feel about Jake Lamb. That penchant for making obscenely hard contact, while constantly putting the ball in the air, is going to continue to benefit Sano greatly. Especially if he can maintain the respectable 22.4% linedrive rate that he’s posted to this point.

There are obvious drawbacks to his game. He’s prone to strikeouts, which is nothing new at this point, and he is susceptible to whiffs low in the zone, particularly on the outer half of the plate. However, if he can continue to demonstrate improvements in his walk rate (18.7% BB rate is almost an eight percent increase from last year), he becomes that much more valuable.

It’s hard not to fall in love immediately with a player like Miguel Sano. Players with obscene power are always a treat to watch and particularly intriguing on the fantasy side. The strikeouts are always going to be there and represent one of the larger drawbacks of his game. However, with the ability to make this kind of contact and the power that he possesses, a healthy Miguel Sano is going to be an absolute joy to continue to watch develop out of the hot corner moving forward.

It’s that wonderful time of year where preliminary positional rankings starting pouring out for the upcoming season. Because I needed another reason to look like a fool by the end of it. The third base position opens 2017 with plenty of intrigue, with a couple of newish faces to the mix and one notable name departing for a new position. Let’s all pour one out for Matt Carpenter. My goal is to be far more consistent on the rankings side in 2017, which means more opportunity for folks to ponder, “Just what in the world is this guy thinking?”

Let’s get to it with some cleverly named tiers:

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The NFBC has ADP data up, and in the hopes of finding a player or players to write about this week, I combed over their draft data. It took until just the third page of drafted players to find a couple of players who sparked my interest. Miguel Sano is carrying an ADP of 114.00 with a minimum pick of 73 and a maximum pick of 157. Teammate Byron Buxton is even cheaper on average with an ADP of 145.33, a minimum selection of 104 and a maximum selection of 187. Both players possess their fair share of risk, but both have ample upside I fully intend on chasing at their respective current investment costs. Read the rest of this entry »

Folks, if you want to do something else we can totally forget about this. Right?

Sigh. The whole reason people like making predictions is that they garner a ton of traffic — power rankings, anyone? — and almost nobody ever holds them to reviewing them because the damn season is so long. It’s like a dog returning to its vomit or whatever, I think.

But anyway, here’s my a review of my word vomit from back in March:

1. Kyle Gibson holds top-50 value in leagues this season.

Welp. It was a disastrous season for Gibson, who saw a drop in groundball rate and strikeout rate and a jump in walk rate, leading to an ERA in excess of 5.00. Basically speaking, all the strides he appeared to be making late last year lapsed, despite his slider and changeup becoming even better pitches this year than last. Inexplicably, he threw both of them a lot less than in 2015. (0/1) Read the rest of this entry »

One of the drawbacks of adjusting to having a weekly column is that there are only so many opportunities for features in general, let alone ones that can avoid being outdated or immediately undermined. Given that we’re still in early August, though, allow me to indulge in some samples from July for this particular column. I tried to steer clear of the big names, largely because their stock tends to remain up throughout the year. And if it doesn’t, it finds a way to right itself in relatively short order. Circumstances for each presented here are different. Some guys have seen increased opportunity for playing time at different positions while others were moving around the field and getting at-bats, only to see their respective club’s lineup solidified and land them on the bench. Either way, here’s a sampling of folks who have their stock up heading into the middle of August and the home stretch of the regular season and a few who face questions moving forward.

Stock Up

Javier Baez – There is virtually nothing that Javy Baez cannot do on a baseball field. He’s hitting for power and average while providing elite defense at a variety of positions. That type of player in invaluable. He’s only logged five games thus far in August, with the Cubs having a couple of off-days mind you, but is coming off of a month of July where he hit .325 and reached base at a .364 clip. The strikeout rate is obviously still high, as it will probably always be, but his improved approach is evident but his ever-slightly-increasing walk rate (up to 4.5% for the month of July). He didn’t hit for quite as much power as he did in June (ISO came in at .157), but he made really solid contact throughout the month, with his 15.0% soft contact rate representing his lowest of the season for any month, and a might impressive 19.3% linedrive rate. He’s not technically a starter anywhere on the depth chart, but there’s a reason that Joe Maddon is finding him at-bats on a near daily basis.

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Earlier this week, I published the first installment of third base rankings for 2016. Those rankings featured no surprises at the top, but the third tier did bring about a bit of intrigue and basis for discussion. Smack dab in the middle of that third group was Minnesota Twins third baseman/outfielder/designated hitter Miguel Sano. Overall, he was ranked 13th. While that initial edition of the rankings will change almost immediately once the season gets underway, it certainly stands to reason that Sano could very well be among the quickest risers this fantasy season.

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I don’t often hang grades on prospects in my articles. I certainly have a strong interest in grading and I wouldn’t be able to do this job without a pretty good understanding of the process and scale involved. All the same, I’m typically reluctant to do things that would be perceived as me “playing scout,” and it’s easy to embarrass yourself and lose credibility as a writer by consistently pushing a poor grading scale in your pieces. Grading is something I put a lot of thought into, but I find it often doesn’t add much to my articles to include grades.

I had a discussion with a scout a few years ago about grades, and how averse I was (and still am) to labelling someone as having an “80” or “8” tool. The scout quickly agreed with me. We laughed about how despite the fact that there aren’t many 8’s out there, the first few times you see one it’s often… a bit underwhelming, believe it or not. The first time I saw a tool I thought deserved an “80” I thought about it for a couple innings, made damn sure I really felt that way and then finally wrote it down. Then I had a visceral reaction: “Is that it?” “Is that all there is?” “Where is the light shining down from the heavens and the choir of angels that’s supposed to announce this??” The consequence of hanging an 8 on a player’s tool means in 20 or 30 years I should be able to say that tool was the best I ever saw – or at least in the discussion thereof. “That is the best arm I’ll ever see??” The scout laughed and agreed with my sentiment, expressing his own similar reservations and doubts.

Well, I don’t have any reservations or doubts about saying Miguel Sano has 80 power. I’m confident that in my old age if someone asks me who had the most power I ever saw that the name “Sano” will quickly come to mind.

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