Nice line from Yoel Mecias, three hits from Tyson Gillies, two from Roman Quinn, and a second consecutive day without a K from Larry Greene.
Here’s the affiliate Scoreboard from MiLB.
http://www.milb.com/scoreboard/index.jsp?sid=milb&org=143&ymd=20130512
Phuture Phillies 
Ruf is showing he’s ready for the callup.
LikeLike
Ruf needs to be called up. I’ve seen enough. Joe Jordan (along with the LHV manager) speaking on his defense in LF was a bit surprising to say the least.
Here’s an interesting debate… so BABIP normalizes at some point… obviously, so in something like 1800 PA’s Ruf has had a BABIP of something like .350 … can someone explain to me how that is possible given his relative lack of speed? Is that a number you would expect to continue given the huge sample size? If not, do you have a legitimate statistical basis for believing that?
LikeLike
Line drives and hard contact, coupled with AAA fielders. I would expect if he stayed in AAA it to sit more .330-.340. On the major league level I would expect it to normalize around .300-.320 which is where most sluggers seem to sit (those sampled include Ryan Howard, Albert Pujols, Freddie Freeman, and Prince Fielder). It will fluctuate year to year based on homerun rate (if HRs go down and 2Bs go up so does the BABIP even though there isn’t a real change in skill set).
LikeLike
Short answer: no, but it is an indication that he’ll likely (not certainly) be above average in BABIP in the major leagues. I would say that his upside in this regard is probably Howard in his prime (.330), but I wouldn’t predict it to be that high.
The reason (in brief) is that fielding is worse in the minors. I would add specifically in his case, though I’m not sure this is a huge factor, Ruf seems to have modified his swing to produce more fly balls (and fewer line drives); this has benefits in terms of power, but would tend to hurt his BA.
As for statistical evidence, I can’t point you to a specific study, but it’s pretty common knowledge that high BABIP in the minors are often not predictive of high BABIP in the majors. An example (obviously only one data point, so I wouldn’t call it strong evidence) is Brown:
minor league BABIP (1989 AB) .345
major league BABIP (565 AB); .270
All that aside, and this is to some extent “gut” feeling, I would not expect Ruf’s major league BA to be much over .250, maybe .270. It would shock me if it was much higher. But .250 with power and (hopefully) decent BB totals, is … well, better than what D. Young is likely to provide. IF his defense is adequate (I’m still not sold; I give some weight to the reports from fans, not much at all to the statements from the organization), that’s a decent regular in left field.
LikeLike
Major league defense, forgot about that one… .250 doesn’t Jive with his average in 2011/2012 even adjusted down for an unsustainable BABIP.
He hit .314 over 1000 PA in those years with a BABIP of .340… assuming a BABIP of say .320, that’s still a .290 BA. While I agree with you he’s unlikely to hit that in the majors over a career given his lower LD% (which you cited above) I don’t think a best case scenario of .275-.280 average and a 9-10% walk rate is out of the picture (.80 pts towards OBP, so .355-.360). You would add this to an ISO of .220 or so and end up with an OPS of .850-860 for the next 4 years. Pretty good player.
I guess my open question is… why .250?
Matt, thx for the references to other sluggers.
LikeLike
Okay .. as a starting point, assume:
BABIP .320
K% 21.1%
HR% 5%
Those are all IMO optimistic assumptions. They yield a BA of .286. I’d call that his likely upside. If you want to throw on a couple more points by assuming a .330 BABIP, I won’t argue, as long as we agree we’re talking about upside rather than a prediction.
So why do I say .250, maybe .270? Because at the end of the day, I think his K rate in the majors may be closer to 25%, and I’m not sure he can quite maintain a 5% HR % and .320 BABIP. But after crunching some more numbers, let me slightly revise my projection upwards to .260 to .275.
LikeLike
One other point – I don’t even look at minor league batting averages in making predictions of major league BA. IMO what you need to ask is “what are his likely major league K%, HR%, and BABIP” and then just plug in the numbers.
LikeLike
And I’m not denying that, even with a BA in that range, he would be a good player. Really it depends upon his fielding to a large extent. A 2012 Carlos Beltran, with somewhat worse, but not terribly worse defense, is still solid. maybe a 2.5 to 3.0 WAR player. I still think that’s more of an upside that a projection, but why not see if he can be that? The playing time is wasted on D. Young.
LikeLike
Couldn’t agree more about Delmon Young… I’ll even take a 1 WAR player in comparison. The bottom line is the Phillies will never be in the playoff hunt without more offense. The pitching has actually been surprisingly good so far (Pettibone is 3-1!) But I suspect that’s mostly luck and without an improvement in run’s scored, it’s more likely to get worse then better.
LikeLike
Larry, doesn’t a higher K rate automatically bring up the Babip?
LikeLike
I wouldn’t say it “bring’s it up” more that K rate doesn’t affect BABIP since a K is by nature “not in play”.
Think of it this way, to ascertain batting average, you need to take Plate Attempts, back out HBP and BB to arrive at At-Bats. Once you’re there, you have to back out K rate, HR rate, and i think foul ball rate (since they’re by nature “not in play”), that gets you to a certain number of AB’s that are all either “in play outs” or “in play hits” at which point multiply your BABIP by the product of the above, add back in HR’s and you arrive at “Batting average”. Or something like that… i’m sure i could come up with a more efficient formula but for now by writing it out, that should give you an idea of where he’s going with it.
LikeLike
Let’s say for example a player goes 2:4 with 2k’s his avg would be .500 his babbip would be 1000. That’s why I think someone with a high k rate will always have higher babbip then avg. Ted Williams on the other hand had almost every year a higher avg then Babbip because he homered and had a low k rate.
Thats why I have a problem reading anything in the babbip.
LikeLike
The problem is BABIP will normalize for balls put in play (there are statistical outliers but years of data tells us it is ~.300 which is why pitcher BABIPs should be around .300) There is little way for a player to continue to go 2-4 with 2 Ks.
Lets use the best hi-K hi-HR guy of the current era Adam Dunn. Dunn has a career K rate of 28.3% and BABIP of .286 (big slow guy), he also averages ~34 HRs a year (hits unaffected by BABIP). His career average is .238. As his k rate drops the closer to his BABIP his batting average will become (with slight adjustments for homeruns). Outside of extraordinary circumstances of high contact hitters who also hit homeruns (Ted Williams who had 521 HRs and 709 strikeouts which is incredibly amazing) a player’s BABIP will always be higher than their batting average because of strikeouts
LikeLike
A higher K rate has no effect on BABIP. Of course, IF you hold BA constant it would, but it wouldn’t make any sense to do so (more Ks = lower BA, all else being equal). That’s one of the reasons why you don’t use minor league BA to project major league BA – OF COURSE striking out more is not going to increase the number of batted balls that fall in as hits.
LikeLike
I agree replace D. Young with Ruf. Put him in LF, put Dom in RF, and use Ruf at 1B against lhp Ryan has not been able to touch.
LikeLike
We’re pretty close in opinion now, though I like your view about inputting HR% / BABIP / K% … to arrive at an average. I feel much more confident backing into an average prediction then doing so via “gut” which is sort of how I was doing it before.
The real question is, do the Phillies believe he’s a 2.5 – 3 WAR player or not, because if they do, he’d be their best OF by quite a large margin (none of the current players is on pace to end in that range)? I guess we’ll find out over the next few weeks.
LikeLike
Even if they believe he is a 1.5 to 2 WAR player (not they would put it in those terms), which IMO is more likely, they should do it. I think the problem is that they like D. Young a lot more than you or I do.
LikeLike
That’s so f’ing stupid. Not a single recent metric, either traditional or advanced points to DY being a 2.5+ WAR player. Maybe Minus 2.5?
It’s funny, I was on the libertyballers website last night and in an article discussing the Sam Hinkie (new GM) hiring, someone was talking about Ruben being a “stat” guy. I nearly fell off my chair laughing. Nothing I’ve seen regarding their position player signings points to advanced statistics being as important as it really should be. Rather, I suspect he must have slept through stat class at Stanford.
One of the quotes from their new GM I was extremely jealous of was:
““I’m probably pretty boring to watch a game with because I’m all about expected values. I don’t even care if it goes in or not. I’m all about, ‘Should it go in?’ I can live with randomness. I mean, if it’s a close game in the end, yeah, I’m just like anyone else. But I just want us to play the odds all the time.”
That said, as bad as it is fighting for advanced statistics in baseball, it’s a far less accepted thing in basketball.
LikeLike
Here’s the combination of reasons why IMO the Phillies’ organization can’t see how bad Young is:
(1) They really think he’s “clutch.” And in fact his career situational stats ARE very good. This is a topic that could be explored at considerable depth, but suffice it to say that I don’t really buy it.
(2) They undervalue BB.
(3) They are mis-evaluating his defense.
(4) They are over estimating the chance that he has a 2010 type season.
There may be more to it than that, but I think those are the main reasons. And all of the above could be corrected with a better understanding of traditional player evaluation (except maybe #1 in part). They wouldn’t even need to use advanced metrics.
LikeLike
Mis-evaluating his defense? From what point of view could someone think his defensive ability wasn’t crap?
#2 Clearly
#4 Absolutely
#1 The entire concept of clutch is silly.
LikeLike
Well it isn’t as if we are disagreeing, but I’m make two quick points:
On defense, he DOES have a decent arm, and his error rate is okay. I think a lot of unsophisticated fans tend to see that & conclude, “well, he’s okay,” missing the horrible range. Now, that’s not a defense of Amaro, but remember this is the same guy who thought Ibanez’ defense was just fine.
As for clutch, I would tend to agree with you. I’ll throw one thing out there, though, despite the fact that I’ll probably regret it. It’s possible (not likely) that Young is a rare example of a certain type of “clutch” player – the type that dogs it most of the time, performing with a normal level of effort only when the game is on the line. Thus, only in “clutch” situations does his natural ability come through. Not sure you really want a guy like that on the team, though, even if it is true.
No, I don’t buy it. But it’s an interesting piece of speculation, though, don’t you think? 🙂
LikeLike
LarryM….how would you feel about D. Young replacing Howard at first base?
LikeLike
Posted this in the last thread. Seems like a reasonable plan for Ruf.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/phillies/A-quick-look-at-Darin-Rufs-immediate-future.html
“Here’s one scenario: the Phillies play a two-game series in Boston on May 27-28. They also have a three-game series in Minnesota from June 11-13. It might make sense to bring Ruf up for the Boston series, particularly if the Phillies are scheduled to face lefties Jon Lester or Felix Doubront. Ruf could serve as the designated hitter in those two games and in the three-game Minnesota series. In the 12 games in between those two series, Ruf could spell Ryan Howard at first base against lefties, and he could rotate with Young and Brown in the outfield. By the time the series in Minnesota concludes in mid-June, the Phillies should have a pretty good idea about what strategy they will pursue leading up to the trade deadline. And if the focus is on the future, then it would make sense to give Ruf the benefit of the doubt over Young.”
LikeLike
Justin Dalles, catcher of the phuture.
LikeLike
Ludy must really be awful defensively if they won’t even trust him with a backup role in Lakewood.
LikeLike
Why does Zach Taylor always bat 9th?
LikeLike
Worst prospect on the team, needs the ABs the least.
LikeLike
Too bad, because he’s one of the few guys hitting right now.
LikeLike
Larry Greene with a 6 game hit streak. Cut his strikeouts down a bit (5/6 Ks to BBs) the last 7 games. Boosted his RC+ over 100 for the season.
LikeLike
And an ISO under .050. Wake me up when he hits a homer.
LikeLike
This is the rub, isn’t it? The guy is big enough to take an infielder’s head off with a line drive and yet his Slg % is a low, low .258. Is the problem that he doesn’t have any lift in his swing? Everything is a line drive or a grounder?
LikeLike
Part of it is he hasn’t been making a lot of contact, as we saw, with tons of Ks and BBs his first few weeks. I’d hope the power shows up shortly if he’s really starting to feel it a little more at the plate, rather than just happening to catch pitchers’ mistakes and put them in play the last 2 days in a row.
LikeLike
Bellman……you heard of the ‘Mendoza line’ for average, well Greene is approaching the ‘Revere’ line for power.
LikeLike
Recently renamed from the “Pierre Line”.
LikeLike
Watched Lakewood yesterday. Larry Greene has a long swing and I don’t think he’s going to make it. Roman Quinn is a much better hitter from the right side. His defense is awful (even between innings). I think he will have to move to the outfield. I was disappointed watching these guys.
LikeLike
When you say long swing, do you mean “lazy swing” as in… he throws his bat out there without much hope of making contact. Or do you mean “Doesn’t keep his hands in mechanically.”?
LikeLike
Some org would not force switch-hitting on someone like Quinn…..Reds decided that way with a guy named Barry Larkin a few decades ago. But Phillies do have a better idea.
LikeLike
I have heard the left handed swing has more power (all of the homeruns are from the left handed side), but the swing is much more polished from the natural right handed side
LikeLike
Asche needs to stop striking out so much. I know there’s been a good bit of debate about what his BA in the majors was likely to be given his K rate in the minors, and this season isn’t exactly helping his case. 25% K-rate in AAA without plus power is concerning imo.
LikeLike
Not that i’ve given up on Asche, but he’s had a somewhat disappointing start to the year. But because Franco has lit it up, it’s been less noticeable for me! 🙂
LikeLike
I think Asche has shown a good deal in a small sample. It’s easy to forget that he’s only 22 (23 next month) – he’s within a few knocks of .300, the defense has been at least adequate – and check out the May slash. I’m curbing my expectations but at the same time Asche is looking more and more to me like a contributor at the next level.
LikeLike
Asche had a bad day yesterday, let’s not overvalue that against hisrising batting average trend. As for Ruf, he does look like he’s about ready but there’s no spot for him in Philly right now. They need Mayberry because he plays CF, Nix has done a great job off the bench, they’re not getting rid of Delmon right now and they need two backup infielders because of their age. That means Ruf will stay at LHV until someone gets hurt.
Quinn has had three 2 hit games in a row, that is something to get excited about. No, I don’t believe he’ll be moved to the OF anytime soon. He’s learning a new position and how to switch hit, he’s going to have his bad days. The question will be whether he plays his way out of it.
LikeLike
Exactly why aren’t they getting rid of DY?
LikeLike
Because they are already paying him, and they don’t have anybody who is any better to replace him.
LikeLike
Ruf is better right now then DY has been for the last 2 years. Comparable defense, and base running to go with better offense at a dirt cheap price.
LikeLike
VOR, I, like you, tend to be skeptical about many of the calls to “play the kids.” But really this is taking it to ridiculous extremes. You’re a Ruf skeptic, okay. But when the guy he would replace is D. Young, there’s just no case against the change. So maybe the chance that Ruf amounts to anything is lower than Supra thinks, and lower even than I think. But it’s non-zero, he would cost almost nothing, and Young is useless.
LikeLike
The calls to play Darin Ruf have nothing to do with making the team better. Because Ruf doesn’t make the team any better. It’s about who you root for vs who you root against. Larry, you justifiably, root against Delmon Young, so anyone would be an improvement from that perspective. From my perspective, Darin Ruf does not do anything better than Young, so what is the point in calling for Ruf.
Darin Ruf’s upside is a player like Tyler Moore of the Washington Nationals. Tyler Moore was a 0.6 WAR player last year, while being carefully used. Your estimation that Ruf is a 2 WAR player (last thread) is wishful thinking, to put it lightly. There are very few if any players that have Ruf’s profile, that became 2 WAR players.
LikeLike
Moore was a 0.6 WAR player last year because he only had 156 at-bats. With more playing time, the WAR would be higher.
LikeLike
Don’t use logic with VOR. If he doesn’t like a guy, stats and facts don’t matter.
LikeLike
More AB’s doesn’t always equal higher WAR. More AB’s for a fringe player often means overexposure. (See John Mayberry).
LikeLike
Then you’re assuming that Moore will be exposed or, if you’re comparing Ruf with him, assuming Ruf would be exposed. If Ruf can put up a .263/.325/.513 line or something close to it, which I think is a possibility, then he could be a 1-2 WAR player over a full season. And even if he has a hard time making it to 1 full WAR, that’s still better than Delmon Young since he’s bringing negative WAR to the team.
LikeLike
Although we criticize the team for not utilizing international talent correctly, BA has the Phillies linked to one of the top international players this year, Luis Encarnacion. http://www.baseballamerica.com/international/ten-international-prospects-to-watch-for-july-2/
LikeLike
Nice article, seems we have to wait until August though to sign him. I presume the bonus is in excess of 1 million. It’s a shame the phillies didn’t throw 10 million into the international pool over the two years before the “cap” was put into play. That talent could have really made a difference today.
LikeLike
We reportedly told Zapata’s agent that we are ready to make a $1 M offer July 2.
LikeLike
Sorry mark they are linked to a top ten talent. lets see if they spend the money it will take to sign him. I have no faith in them on international talent. until they prove me wrong. Really believe its one of the biggest mistakes they have made, and the reason we don’t have anything to replace our bad outfield.and aging players. especially with the tradeing of some of the prospects,and the low draft choices. This was were they could have spend to keep going with a good team. with some of that talent that has come out of there.
LikeLike
They have spent the last two years on top 20 talent (there isn’t as clear a heirarchy in LA), but Carlos Tocci, Franklyn Vargas (he was the top rated LHP in 2011), Jose Pujols, and Deivi Grullon were all highly rated. Also everyone be patient on July 2, Encarnacion cannot be signed until August 6 (much like Tocci 2 years ago) so it may look quiet at the beginning if the Phillies are pursuing him.
LikeLike
Since I started the topic on international signings, Phillies just signed a German outfielder. http://www.mister-baseball.com/philadelphia-phillies-sign-germanys-julsan-kamara/
LikeLike
Pretty tall dude, looks atheltic.
http://www.power-showcase.com/7th-annual-event-december-2012/7th-annual-line-up/germany-julsan-kamara
LikeLike
Listed 6’4″, 194 and he’s not 18 until December. Says +++ strength, (does not say “power”), ++ bat, + speed. CF/RF listed as his positions. Glad to see they being creative with who they target, I guess. MLBTR says he won’t even come stateside until next year. Not sure what Germany’s graduation schedule is like, if he’s slated to be in spring training, or if he has to wait until June or something…just said 2014.
LikeLike
I would expect May at the earliest, he is essentially an early high school sign out of the 2014 draft. Gets some extra weeks-months in extended spring training
LikeLike
The European school schedule does not have a long summer break. It has more frequent breaks of 1-2 weeks in duration. There’s a really good chance he’s not in the US until July.
LikeLike
Had to fill their European Quota since they dropped Marek Minarek.
LikeLike
Have any idea what he signed for?
LikeLike
Probably to play baseball 😉
Sorry…no. Haven’t seen that reported. There probably wasn’t a huge market for someone described as “one of the best prospects in Germany”, so I would be surprised if it was more than a $25k-$50k bonus, but I’m a complete novice on European signings.
LikeLike
Nick Hanson has done it again — seven innings of two hit, one run ball. Bull pen blew the lead. Inch has been good, but has been giving up a run in later games. Claws won it in the ninth with two walks after Tocci doubled Walding to third. Inch has the win even though he gave up the lead.
LikeLike