In a surprising turn of events, the voting for #13 ended at a 41-41 tie between Edgar Garcia and Antonio Bastardo. So, to settle this we’ll do a simple one day runoff vote between the 2, and the move on to #14 on Tuesday. Argue your case and place your vote.
42 thoughts on “Reader Top 30; Runoff for #13”
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Phuture Phillies 
wow i’m the first voter!!
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dannggg bastardo’s running away with it haha
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close call for me, but i gave it to Garcia. He might not have performed as well at AA, but he has the advantage in age and im scared a bit of the injury history in Bastardo.
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The Bastard has shown WAY more than Garcia has and likely will make the majors as an Eyre type if nothing else. He looks to be back from the injury if the winter leagues are any indication.
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Garcia younger, a starter. Injury issues with older, reliever Bastardo.
How about we give the loser #14 and then move Directly to #15 next?
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It has to be bastardo. At the same level and against the same competition, bastardo was clearly superior. He will be in the big leagues at some point while garcia still needs to show he can put it all together.
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It’s too early to say that Bastardo will be a big leaguer, at least one who sticks in the majors. Since Garcia has the advantage in age and the scouting reports seem to favor him as well, I’ll stick with Edgar.
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I voted for bastardo. I know he’s had shoulder issues, but if he can manage to stay healthy he’s got a better chance to contribute at the ML level.
I just can’t get past how bad Garcia was at Reading. He’s young and the coaching staff handled pitchers poorly there, but he was atrocious. The most concerning thing was how few bats he missed. If he struck guys out but made too many mistakes and got hit around, that’s one thing. But it doesn’t seem like a case where a pitching coach has to harness his skills. He may have just topped out with his stuff. I could be completely wrong, but this fear puts Bastardo ahaed of him IMHO.
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Bastardo off a nice winter performance. and the swell gift he put in my stocking (an Ed Wade vodoo doll)
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I say Bastardo. Injury not really that big a concern anymore than many others, because he has performed well in winter leagues and went long innings at times. Really , think both of these will turn up as middle releiver prospects of middling indeterminant worth. I see more use for the LHP. People go on and on about the 20 year old thing. Alot of people are 20 years old.
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While Bastardo wins cool points for his name I still went with Garcia due to the labrum concerns.
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The choice is Bastardo. Far superior performance at the same level offsets the 2-year age advantage for Garcia. It isn’t like Bastardo is an old geezer.
Also have to laugh at the continued argument that Bastardo is a reliever and Garcia is a starter. They are both starters at AA but both will probably end up being middle relievers at the big league level.
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Why not make the winner #13 while the other becomes #14, then we all vote on #15. I really enjoy this set up and survey and the comments on each.
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Phuture…just as an FYI, if you make the mistake of viewing the results prior to casting your vote, it will not accept your vote and tell you that you’ve already voted. No big deal as it looks like Bastardo is going to win easily. But, I did try to vote for Garcia (the two years is a big deal in my mind) and it would not allow the vote.
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I like my Bastardo vote but if Cisco had gotten one or two starts at clearwater Maybe they should have the player pick his time to move up just kidding
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Bastardo–name alone makes him a top 13 prospect
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I went with Garcia, and I like the suggestion of making the “loser” #14 and skipping ahead to the #15 vote. Also curious as to when we’ll see what you’ve been working on re: Savery. Looking forward to reading your piece whenever its completed. Happy holidays!
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yea thats a good idea I guess, since whoever finishes 2nd here is likely to take #14.
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@ Pat
Yes, Garcia’s numbers were poor at Reading, but I think people are scared by an unsightly ERA that’s a product of: (1) a small sample size; and (2) some bad luck. I made this comparison a few voting threads ago, but I think it’s worth restating for comparison’s sake. Both are 20-year old pitchers making their debut in AA:
Pitcher A: 70.1 IP — 6.27 K/9 — 5.89 BB/9 — 36.8% GB — 5.65 FIP
Pitcher B: 58.0 IP — 5.28 K/9 — 4.50 BB/9 — 38.6% GB — 5.82 FIP
Pitcher B, of course, is Garcia, but Pitcher A is none other than Carlos Carrasco. Nobody panicked at Carrasco’s numbers last year, so I think it’s a bit unfair to do so with regard to Garcia. If he struggles in his second go-around at Reading, then we can discount him a bit — but until then, I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
@ 3up3kkk:
I think Bastardo is a reliever, and Garcia a starter, because of their platoon splits. Garcia has actually posted better numbers against LHB throughout the course of his career, which to me indicates that he has the stuff (namely, the change up) required to stick as a starter. While Bastardo’s numbers are impressive — and, I’ll be honest, his numbers against RHB are still impressive — I nonetheless fear that the walks and fly ball tendency will catch up with him by the time he hits the major league level.
Bastardo’s ceiling is as a J.C. Romero-type pitcher; Garcia could ultimately turn into a Kyle Lohse-type hurler, which is why I give him the nod here.
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Just an idea once we get past #15 (or possibly #20).:
Similar to this run-off, why not take the top two vote-getters and fill in two spots. You could even extend the entry to 1.5 or 2 days instead of one. I think it would save a lot of the rehash, allow us to talk about “deeper” prospects sooner, and of course get us to the next topic of discussion – your Top 30, individual reader Top 30s etc…unless of course that’s the point (killing time in the off-season).
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Joe — Bastardo is also 2 years older, so he should be at a more advanced level in the organization than Garcia if he is better. For prospects, age matters — a lot.
I vote Garcia and agree we should just slot the loser of this vote to break the tie as #14. In most voting like this, when there is a tie, they simply list tie for #13 and resume the list at #15.
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34 to 35 what’s the tie breaker this could go on to spring
btw i did yard work today incredible
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Bastardo, easily. Agree age is a factor, but you HAVE to perform at an advanced level for your age for that factor to have any force. Just being there and the constant refrain of “they must see something in him” does not do it for me. I am totally open to detailed arguments but the argument so far has been weak. I want to see performance (inconsistent at best), physical ability or stuff (by all reports I have see here, Garcia is not a physical stud, nor does he have exceptional stuff) or some other SPECIFIC quality that gives him a leg up.
I am open to any argument. But in the absence, much of what I have read here seems like a personal infatuation with the guy. I have those too, nothing wrong with seeing a prospect and getting an idea he is something special. But in a vote/debate, there has to be something more specific.
Very good performance at a younger age would trump Bastardo. But Batsardo’s outstanding performance two years older trumps inconsistent performance with occasionally OK or good games. There are hundreds of failed fringe prospects in the latter category. And Bastardo seems to be pitching healthy this winter, so I discount that until he show there is a problem.
As I said, marshall the clear specifcic argument, explain why mediocre performance trumps outstanding performance, even with the age diff, and if it’s convincing, I will turn on a dime.
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I am the anonymous above.
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Garcia has much better overall BB/9 ratios than Bastardo in their respective minor-league careers…though both were pretty atrocious in that category at Reading last season. Bastardo has the better K rate though.
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PhillyFriar,
My issue with Garcia isn’t particularly with his “bad” numbers at AA but rather that his numbers at every level have been mediocre.
He has given up a hit per inning at every level, his strikeout/IP have decreased and his BB/IP has increased at each stage along the way. That he does equally well righty vs. lefty doesn’t change the fact that he has been average against both.
Aside from anticipating an improvement base on his age/level, nothing in his previous performance history or various scouting reports indicate that Garcia has some obvious talent that will take him to another level once is has been tapped.
Meanwhile, Bastardo has put up outstanding numbers against lefties while also being successful against RH’ers. Not sure why that should be looked at as a negative.
At worst, Bastardo is a LH reliever who has show an ability to strike-out hitters and get lefties out. Meanwhile, Garcia hasn’t shown any special ability to get hitters out from either side of the plate yet. The only thing he has going for him at this moment is that he is just 21 years old and already has made it to AA..
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One additional note about the Carrasco comparison.
You left out an important number, H/IP where Carrasco was under 1 and Garcia was over 1.2.
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What 3up said.
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Actually, Garcia’s rise through the system is comparible to another Phillies prospect who hit Reading at a young age, Elizardo Ramirez in 2004. He was also a control guy who moved quickly through the organization, even getting an appearance with the big club at the age of 21.
He had similar stats, giving up more than a hit per inning, low walk, low strike-out rates, etc. If anything, his minor league numbers were slightly better.
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I like the idea of going right to #15. I’ll feel like I’m involved again as I’ve been voting for Garcia since about 8, but in hindsight if we do personal top 30’s I might move him down from that. I still like him as a prospect but those that have but others ahead of him have made some good points.
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Bastardo partly because of the LHP v RHP Garcia…a close call no doubt, but …
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@ 3up3kkk:
I think Garcia’s “hittability,” if you will, is a bit misleading. To take an example, let me compare the Reading numbers for Carrasco and Garcia again.
CC: 36.8% GB — 10.3% LD — 51.6% FB — .277 BABIP
EG: 38.6% GB — 10.1% LD — 50.2% FB — .316 BABIP
That last number is the most important. The peripheral numbers actually point to them being very similar pitchers (at least over this small sample size). For whatever reason, Carrasco just had a bit more luck, hence his 8.3 H/9 as opposed to Garcia’ 10.9 H/9.
To flesh out the point a little… over the course of his career, Garica’s batted ball numbers look like this: 41.3% GB, 13.9% LD, 43.0% FB. While I’d like to see more grounders, he’s a neutral pitcher overall, and the line drive ratio is more than acceptable (to put it in perspective, the leading MLB starter in that category this year was Brandon Webb with a 15.4% LD). For some reason, those numbers have added up to a .313 BABIP over the course of his career, which to me indicates that he’s had bad luck with the fielding behind him.
He’ll still walk a fine line as a non-strikeout-type guy, but if he can exhibit the stinginess with free passes that he has over the course of his career, an MLB-caliber defense behind him can turn him into a serviceable #3/4 if everything breaks right. Just my two cents anyway.
@ DiamondDerby:
I don’t think I’ll be successful in swaying you, but just a broad point: one of my big reasons for supporting Garcia here is speculation over what he would be doing at a more age appropriate level. It’s just that — speculation — but let’s not forget that most 20-year olds are in Williamsport or Lakewood. The Phils could have had Garcia repeat Lakewood, and I’m guessing he would have put up the impressive numbers that everyone’s looking for. But they chose to challenge him at Clearwater, he responded with a pretty impressive 79.1 IP sample. It’s a subjective thing, but that’s how the age-relative-to-level considerations affect my analysis.
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PhillyFriar: Points well taken. As I said, I agree age is important, but for me, sustained dominance trumps age when the lower age guy has not had dominant stats and has even struggled. Now struggling at a young age may not mean much in his case. He can be a good MLB pitcher eventually. But it also does not prove superiority over someone who has been dominant, despite the age diff.
I hope both are successful and I will root for them. We need the depth badly. Guys like them and Zagurski, etc. And maybe Garcia will join the rotation someday. Just no positive-performance reason to see that yet. As you say, some speculation backed by some promising performance from time to time. Good enough to keep him in the mix at this prospect level.
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PhillyFriar: I am just learning many of the stat rationales, so I have a question:
Does a higher BABIP always mean bad luck? Can it not mean that the pitcher with the lower BABIP gets hit harder, even with the other peripherals. For example, a guy who throws hard will get in on the hands more and get some line drives over the infielders’ heads that are still rather soft and a good fielder will have an extra split second to come in on it and grab it. Or the fly balls of the pitcher with better stuff don’t carry as far and the softer thrower will get more balls hit off the wall, etc, Maybe some things like that are not due to luck. Please enlighten me if that is off base. Are all line drives, grounders and fly balls equal and differences in results due only to fielding factors? If not, then how do you interpret the stats to correlate with talent and skill?
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@ DiamondDerby:
To your first point, I think our discussion simply boils down to a simple difference of opinion. I see some good things in Garcia’s peripherals that leads me to believe he has a shot to stick as a starter; you value Bastardo’s rather impressive track record more highly. It’s an age old debate — performance v. projection — and I don’t think it’s something that the baseball scouting community will ever be in complete agreement on.
To your second point, I’d be lying if I said I had some deep understanding of sabermetrics, but based on what I do know, here’s a quick response. First off, hitters are another matter — BABIP is a controllable skill for them to some extent, but I don’t think we want to get into that here. As far as pitchers go… pitchers can “control” their ground ball, line drive, and fly ball rates. That’s it; everything else pretty much boils down to luck, at least if you have a large enough sample size. Line drives fall in for hits something like 70% of the time, ground balls much less so, and fly balls least of all.*
*(In true Joe Posnanski-esque style) The reason for preferring ground ball pitchers over fly ball pitchers, despite the fact that more ground balls wind up as hits, is pretty simple: ground balls rarely turn into extra base hits and never turn into home runs (whereas fly balls turn into four-baggers something like 9% or 10% of the time on average). This is why someone like Aaron Cook, despite otherwise underwhelming peripherals, is such an effective pitcher: a career 57.6% GB rate.
To (try to) sum it up: while, anecdotally, the things you pointed out can certainly play a role, given the limitations of the data we have and the likelihood of all the numbers regressing to the mean, a discrepancy in BABIP between two players with similar batted ball numbers (like the Carrasco and Garcia numbers I posted above) can really only be accounted for by pointing to luck. As far as I know, at least… James, feel free to jump in and correct me if I’m wrong here.
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Call it a tie and move to #15!
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Right now it’s 59/58! I voted for Bastardo due to the strikeout rate.
Thumbs down to making Garcia (or the loser) #14. I need to cast yet another Sebastian Valle vote!
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Still pretty close even without any options…pretty surprising.
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I have no idea why anyone is excited about Garcia. He shouldn’t even be in the top 20.
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Thanks PF. That advances my understanding. I guess one question I have is what is the distribution curve of a large number of pitchers across multiple years. Are there many outliers when you look at that? To me, that might provide a qualitative insight to the quantitative data.
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Thanks for the insight baxter.
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I voted for Tony Bastid, for reasons of performance and the fact that his handedness and skill set makes him a better bet IMO to contribute in some way at the big league level)… but I will say that there’s a Garcia argument I’m not sure I’ve seen made yet.
The story on Garcia as I understand it always has been that his talent is ahead of his results. For two years now there have been rumblings about his work ethic and coachability. Yet, as his defenders keep pointing out, he reached a high level at a very young age… and then got absolutely pasted there. If that experience is a wakeup call, and he comes back determined to get better, maybe the light goes on and he emerges as something more than a middle reliever/swing man.
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