Lots to see in those Clearwater boxes – first off, there has been a Miguel Alvarez sighting. 1-4 with a double in his season debut with CLR. Dugan and Franco also doubled in that contest, Franco had 3 hits and doubled in the rain makeup from earlier in the day, and Aaron Altherr had 2 hits, including his 5th homerun, and stole his 14th base over the course of the day. Nick Hernandez got the job done in the nightcap – 6IP, 1R, 8H, 0BB, 4K, and he got Giancarlo Stanton out three times on fly balls, so that’s something.
And back for a second turn through the DSL, fresh off slaying a dragon or saving a princess or something, Seranthony Dominguez. Nice line for the 18 year-old righty – 2 hits, 2 walks and 7K in seven scoreless innings. Too bad the team didn’t think him prospect enough for the GCL. The name plays. The stuff? Maybe not so much.
Here’s the affiliate Scoreboard from MiLB.
http://www.milb.com/scoreboard/index.jsp?sid=milb&org=143&ymd=20130604
Phuture Phillies 
Sorry if this has been asked and answered, but who are the names to keep an eye in the VSL and DSL leagues?
What’s the deal with the LV ERA’s? They look like beer league softball batting averages.
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The LHV pitchers have all been subject to some really bad outings here and there. It’s been compounded by the usual MiLB stuff with arm-shortages, rain-outs, and scheduling quirks which have caused Brundage to leave guys out there a few times to “take one for the team.” This has ballooned some ERAs. Look at last couple outings on MiLB.com player pages to get a better idea how these guys have been doing. In this case, Tommy Cochran got really rocked a couple Sundays ago at home. JC Ramirez is highly inconsistent, as he is want to do. Robles has been finding his way at AAA, but has been solid so far. Diekman started the year really really poorly, and has been the closer of late. He was left in for a close the other night even when giving up three runs as the ‘Pigs had a 4-run lead. That canceled out much of the recent improvement in his ERA. Brundage has really been challenging him to pitch under pressure. For the most part, he’s responded. I’d like to see him command his FB a little better and gain confidence with the breaking pitch.
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I have seen diekman, he cant control his offspeed stuff, just too wild, has one pitch the fastball. he is 27 not much hope he ever gets it., just too wild
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Working on some initial reports on the 2 leagues. Will post one on the VSL team by the end of the week.
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Hewitt hitting .272 can’t say I ever saw that being the case in June of any month… definitely nice to see. He looks like he’s got the chance to possibly shape himself into a 4th/5th outfielder. Good for him.
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Although Hewitt has always been a long shot, his raw power potential alone made him worth keeping around in case he ever put it together. He is still striking out too much, but his walk rate is up…slightly.
I think Hewitt is one of the most interesting prospects in the system right now. I didn’t say best…I said most interesting. If he can put together a full year at Reading at this pace, it would be his best year in the system ever. Still might not be good enough…but his tools were never in question.
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Also, Franco with a superb k rate of 13.6% this year and a +RC of 148, that’s elite. Little disappointed to see the BB% drop but he’s made up for it with the reduced K rate and dramatically increased power output. (.259 ISO)
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Not to mention he is doing that while being the second youngest player in the FSL.
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If he earns a mid-season promotion, would he become the youngest player in the Eastern League?
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He’d have to get moved before Miguel Sano (currently hitting .333/.427/.641 and eight months younger than Franco).
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Now that’s what I call a prospect. Sano is leading the league with 198 wRC+. Cameron Perkins is third with 153, Altherr fourth at 152 and Franco is sixth with 148.
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As it stands now he would be the third youngest; about a month older than the SS for the Red Sox Bogaerts.
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I was just noticing this (indirectly). The kid is an extra base hitting machine – I have visions of Adrian Beltre in my head and they may not be that far off the mark. I think he and Biddle should be top 50 mid year prospects. By year end, if he keeps it up, Quinn should be in the top 75.
By the way, I was at the big league game last night (didn’t stay until the end, I have a little thing I do every day called work) and Pettibone really impressed me with his tenacity, composure and velocity. His fastball sat at 92-93, touching 94. If he can develop a plus breaking pitch or continue to improve his command, his upside is higher than previously thought – solid 3 or borderline 2, rather than a solid 4 or borderline 3 – and as we all know, that’s a pretty significant difference.
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I agree that they’ll both be top 50 prospects, but i’m still not sold on Quinn being top 75, I think if the season ended today he’d probably still be at #100. His BB% went up slightly, which is good, but his K% went up to 23% while his +RC is down to 110 from 133 the previous year. While performing at a higher level, to me, he’s only in the 100-150 range.
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I don’t think Quinn would be higher if the poll were done today, I think he’d stay in the same place. But I think he’s a surging player ready for a breakthrough and, if he continues on, I think his star will rise steadily. His talent is electric – the progress has been more difficult for those on the outside to see because it has been clouded by his learning a new position and figuring out how to switch hit – once he becomes more comfortable, which may be happening now – watch out!
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Jim Callis about a month ago said he didn’t think Franco would ever be a top 50
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Callis based the comment on the length of Franco’s swing … the consensus on the board at the time was that he has the bat speed to overcome any holes it might create. I think his numbers this season would support that.
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Someone on CSN reported that Pettibone worked with Dubee on lengthening his stride toward the plate. He didn’t have a great start last night but, just watching on tv, it looked like his fastball was better.
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En, Em, En…manuels all hitting back-to-back-to-back in the order now.
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I know he K’s a lot but Altherr has to be the stand out in the organization so far this year. Hes been rather unimpressive since he was drafted and now putting it together. 15 steals, .320, and a little power?? I read different things regarding his potential in CF or if hes destined to be a corner with his build.
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The ISO is good, the BABIP is very bad, normalized, he would be hitting .220. If he’s going to K at a near 30% clip, he’s going to need more walks (>10%) and a higher ISO to justify it. He’s got time to work things out, but this year his only step forward has been his power, everything else is either neutral or negative.
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BABIP is a worthless stat IMO. Who decides what is normal? I keep reading those commands and I just can’t understand why people keep bringing it up. A high k rate automaticly blows up your BABIT.
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A normal BABIP for Altherr might be higher than the major league average-ish .300, but I can guarantee it’s not going to be .440. I, like everyone else, was excited by his start to the season, but the strikeouts have become a red flag. He won’t continue hitting over .300 with all those Ks.
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His walk to K ratio was fine in April and I think he will get back to that. But even if not if he hits .320 and 420 with runners in scoring position and strikes out 30% I would take that from anybody. I just don’t see why a weak ground ball that is turned in to a double play is better then a k. It would help normalizing his BABIT thou.
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I think the point is that he can’t possibly sustain the .320 BA if he’s striking out 30% of the time.
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You’re really not getting the whole strike out thing. Comparing a K to a weak grounder is comparing apples to oranges. You need to compare a K to putting the ball in play (technically, to putting the ball in play AND HRs), not to a weak grounder. 100 fewer Ks means, yes, a few more weak grounders, along with a bunch of hard hit grounders, some of which find a hole, a bunch of line drives, most of which become hits, and a bunch of fly balls, some of which fall for hits and some of which leave the park.
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That’s wrong, though analytically I think the better way to put it is to, rather than focus on BABIP, make the legitimate point that minor league batting averages are almost completely useless for predicting major league batting averages .It’s simple enough (and historically accurate) to say that a guy with close to a 30% K rate will never bat anywhere near .300 over a sustained sample size. Before I make the argument, let me illustrate Altherr’s case:
Let’s assume for a moment the absurd – that Altherr, though a combination of line drive stroke and speed, (IF hits) manages to have the best BABIP in the majors, an historically high BABIP, a HOF type BABIP, of .362. This is unlikely in the extreme (before this year, his career rate was just a little over .300). Assuming his current K and HR rates, that would give him a .262 BA. Not close to .300, even assuming an unrealistically high BABIP.
That aside:
(1) A high K rate has zero to do with BABIP. It doesn’t “bump up” BABIP, automatically or in any other way. It would bump up BABIP if you held BA constant, but that would be a silly (and unrealistic) thing to do. In the real world, when a player Ks a lot his BA does not remain constant, it declines.
(2) It’s not a question of anyone “deciding” what is normal, it is a question of what is, in fact, the major league norm, which is about .300. Now, OF COURSE players deviate from that norm somewhat on an individual basis, but only to a limited and somewhat predictable extent. As Handzus said, NO ONE BABIPs anywhere close to .440.
A final point on Altherr – he’s a real prospect because he may well get the K rate under control (it had been significantly lower previously),and become a major league player, or he may develop enough power that he can be a good player despite the K rate. But to sustain a .300 BA with that K rate over a sufficiently large sample is literally impossible.
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Larry I know you know a lot more about this then me but you say I compare appels to oranges. A K is an out a weak ground ball is an out and unlike with BABIP both count in calculating the avg. No one says that 300 in minors translate to the same in the Bigs but I rather base my predictions on actual average rather then BABIP.
I said that before according to BABIP Ted Williams average should have been lower in every but 1 of his years in Majors.
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A HR doesn’t count as a ball in play (and Williams struck out very few times and hit HRs at a high enough rate to make the ratio backwards of normal). Thinking of BABIP is normalizing as removing the defense from play. Pitcher BABIPs should normalize due to the number of batters they face. Hitter BABIP will normalize over a career but is affected by how they hit a ball (line drives highest likelihood of a hit, infield flies have 0% chance) and speed of the batter. BABIP is only batting average predictor when combined with strikeout rate so it doesn’t say that Williams batting average should be lower.
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The Ted Williams argument is something I’ve heard before, and honestly used myself. I still don’t fully “understand” why BABIP needs to be reasonably limited to say .350 as a max, but I’ve learned over the last 6 years on this site to accept it. Look, it makes sense, as a player, you hit a ball in play, you don’t really control where in play it goes (within reason) as it’s a product of pitch location, timing of your swing (most batters are lucky to make good contact given major league pitching these days), and then, we haven’t even discussed the position of the defensive players, if the outfielder is playing in, or deep, or if they’ve employed the shift (ala Ryan Howard).
The only reason we say a normalized BABIP (BABIP being the percentage of balls hit in play that land for hits, so discluding home runs, strike outs, walks, HBP, etc.) is around 300-320 is because that’s what the average across all major league players is.
Everyone on this board also recognizes that some players are able to achieve higher then average BABIP’s, this is caused by 2 things primarily, extreme speed (infield hits, drag bunts, etc..) and a very high proportion of line drives.
Each type of hit has a different “normalized” BABIP, ground balls being the worst option, whereas line drives are most likely to land for a hit. The other aspect that impacts a players BABIP is the concept of well hit balls, meaning regardless of what direction off the bat the ball travels, it comes off at different velocities. A player who hits the ball very hard every single time while maintaining normal LD%/GB%/FB% rates will have a much higher BABIP.
When we say Altheer’s average will drop as his BABIP comes down, we say that with confidence because baring him being a once in a generation hitter, who has an extremely high line drive percentage and strikes the ball consistently with more power then 99% of MLB players typically do, it must come down from .420, and with his K rate being as high as it is, it’s inevitable that his average will plummet with that statistical correction.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask, I just ask that we keep it civil 🙂
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No this is all good I respect all you guys that are into those new stats.
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OT,
Ted is actually a really bad example for you. This probably reflects to some extent lack of understanding about what those of us using BABIP are trying to say, which may be our fault for lack of good communication skills, but the fact that Ted routinely had a higher BA than BABIP actually strongly reinforces the argument we are making. We’re NOT saying that BABIP is a predictor of BA. Almost the contrary; absent a sufficient sample of major league at bats, players with high BABIP tend to have deceptively high batting averages.
Ted Williams had an insanely low K rate of 7.2%. That was the single biggest reason he hit .344 on a career basis. Another reason was the home runs; 100% of all home runs are hits.
Also contributing, yes, was a better than average BABIP of .328. But, to put Altherr (and other players with very high SSS BA in the minors) in perspective, if he was Ted Willaims in terms of his ability to get a hit on a ball in play, and if he retained his current K% and HR%, he would hit …. not going to do the precise calculation this time, but well under .250.
No purely statistical projection system is a particularly good predictor of major league batting averages for minor league players – itself a reason for caution in projecting the batting average for a guy like Altherr. That’s PARTICULARLY true, empirically, with players with exceptionally high BABIP. Also especially true given small sample sizes. Better is to look at the fundamentals – K%, HR% to a much lesser extent. Then factor in things like speed (infield hits) and observed swing characteristics – what kind of contact does the player make?
There are times when minor league batting averages have SOME predictive value. For a guy like Altherr, small sample size, high K rate and an absurdly high BABIP, his batting average has zero predictive value. None.
The single best predictor of BA is K rate. Not, of course, perfect by any means. But look at a list of .300 hitters since the turn of the century – mostly low K guys. A few about league average, but none close to 30%. In fact, the only guy over 20% is Mike Trout (21.2%), and that’s a SSS – he will either bring the K rate down, or the BA will decline. And the players who hit .300 despite mediocre (but never poor) K rates tend to be big HR hitters (Votto, Ramirez, Braun, etc.).
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Great post. Thank you.
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Think Franco has been.
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I thought people on here were under-rating Austin Wright before the season, I guess I was wrong. I hope this is just lingering effects of the injury. This has been a major Colvin sized step back for him this year.
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It’s been downhill since he received the AEC stamp-of-approval during the Reader Top 30 voting.
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LOL!!!!
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Free AEC jinxed Darin Ruf also. He was supposed to have Dom Brown’s job by now.
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Definitely been disappointing. That said he could still probably be a valuable bullpen piece if/when they decide to convert him.
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Gillies has a 1.014 OPS in his last 10. He’s beginning to set me up to break my heart all over again.
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I know…I’m just starting to look for him in the box scores again….
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ok, so fool me once shame on Gillies and fool me twice shame on me… when Gillies fools me this time who is it a shame on? me again or is it back on Gillies?
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He’s a minor league prospect…he’s allowed to fool you up to 10 times before you feel shame
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The nice thing about Gillies is that he has been legging out triples lately without his hammies blowing out like a truck tire on the Schuykill.
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Can someone explain difference in ISO vs OPS?
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ISO = Slugging – Batting average
OPS= OBP + Slugging
ISO really only takes into account power, whereas OPS takes into account walking
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OPS also counts singles, by subtracting slugging from batting average to get ISO you take both out.
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Cut Delmon, bump Ruf up and then move Gillies back Lehigh.
Make it happen Rube.
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Maikel Franco with 9 XBases out af his last 11 hits. He has more doubles (6) the last 10 games, than strikeouts (5).
It’s funny, because if you just look at the numbers, and ‘age to level’ in the FSL, Franco would probably be ranked as the 2nd best prospect in the league. Franco is the same age as 1st round pick, Javier Baez, and has better numbers. Franco is younger than Jorge Soler, and has better numbers
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I agree, it does seem as though he’s a little bit underrated. Which is good, maybe he won’t get traded then 🙂
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with our luck he will be a throw in for our deadline hunter pence deal…..
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I’ve tried to be upbeat about Larry Greene. I find it harder and harder to even look at him in the boxscore. What do people think about dropping him back to Wmsprt when they start? I thought his punishment for coming into camp out of shape was to go from XST to Lakewood. I hope he’s been punished enough and gets dropped to central PA. I think I also mentioned, he should be made to walk there.
Who should move to SS ball, when that season opens? Mora, Quinn…? I think Quinn stays where he is but thought I’d still ask.
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‘Who should move to SS ball’…say what?
ss-shortstop or ss-short-season
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Don’t give up on Hewitt! His progress has been remarkable!
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I think we are seeing what he can do for BA and OBP when he doesn’t focus upon hitting HR. However, as a consequence the HR rate has come way down. I think this illustrates the fallacy of ‘raw power’ as a tool. With an exagerated power swing, and his batting practice swing, Hewitt displayed a lot of raw power and even in-game power, but batted not much more than .200, because he was trading contact to sell out on his power swing. With a normal swing, striving for respectable contact, Hewitt looks like he’s good for about a dozen HR a year going forward. His offensive potential is drastically limited by still striking out about once every 3 AB, a number which has changed almost not at all as he has moved through the minors. He is still not a good defensive player. Although he is supposed to have good speed, 2011 at Lakewood was his only good stolen base season. He is improved this season, but a .741 OPS for a corner OF who is old for his league isn’t going to get it done. He is teasing, but he has to get significantly better to count as a prospect.
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Have you seen/read/heard evidence that Hewitt has changed his swing this year and is not “selling out” for power? Because Hewitt’s rise in BA seems to be coming solely from a higher BABIP. And even though his HRs are down, his ISO is up, slightly.
There’s something to be said for moving up a level and maintaining all your stats across the board, but it seems like the only real improvement that Hewitt has made this year is getting his BB rate up slightly. And even that is suspect given that his BB rate in May was much lower than his rate in April.
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All caveats about Hewitt apply, but … I’d rather seem him making contact without significant power. It seems like power is something that can fall into place all of a sudden–see Brown, Domonic–but obviously it’s never going to do so if a player can’t make contact. That said, he’s still not making contact very much, and it’s getting late in the day for him. He’s really only someone we talk about because he was a first round pick, which is also why I imagine the Phillies still have him kicking around the system.
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Phillies should try to get Michael Taylor back since Oakland is never going to give him a fair chance in the bigs and he is now already 27.
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how many times you going to post the same stupid remark. about michael taylor.
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has Perci Garner earned a promotion
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I think he has because he is getting old (24 years old) for single A ball. He doesn’t give up many HRs and his K/9 is decent at 7.2. You would like his WHIP little lower (1.45). I also think Hoby Milner should be called up this summer.
Age/WHIP/(K/9)/ERA
Perci Garner: 24/ 1.4/ 7.2/ 2.70
Hoby Milner: 22/ 1.3/ 9.2/ 3.99
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