Catching Up

I need to apologize for not posting in so long. The weather has been really nice lately, and school duties have been minimal the last 2 weeks, so I've been taking some time to go play a bit of golf and relax instead of crunching stats and chasing down overlooked prospects.

Though I haven't been writing much lately, I have been keeping up with the Wild Card races, as well as the Rookie of the Year races. Enough has been said about both, so I won't rehash either topic. I do want to make a few points about a handful of rookies from both leagues that might not be getting the attention they deserve:

• Chris Coghlan is hitting .318 right now, which ties him with Ryan Braun for 5th in the league. His .387 OBP ties him with Pablo Sandoval for 15th in the N.L., and according to fangraphs.com Coghlan's 2009 stats are valued around $9.0 million. If he wins ROY, it will be well deserved, although I don't think he'll come out on top since voters usually gravitate toward more popular teams.
• As far as I can tell, Garrett Jones' .955 mark leads all N.L. rookies in OPS. His 21 home runs and 44 total extra base hits tops Chris Coghlan's line despite the fact that Jones has received only 60% the number of at-bats. Fangraphs.com puts his performance at $11.0 for the year.
• I have no idea who is going to win the A.L. Rookie of the Year, but I think voters should strongly consider Brett Anderson. His overall stats are less than impressive, but here are a few things about Anderson that may surprise even die-hard baseball fans. His K/BB rate is 17th in the majors, and 8th in the A.L. His FIP is 8th in the A.L., right behind C.C. Sabathia and Josh Beckett, and just ahead of John Lackey. Anderson's LD% is second in the majors, and his GB/FB rate is 5th in the A.L., right between Roy Halladay and Josh Beckett. According to fangraphs.com, Anderson's 2009 performance is valued at $17.2 million, good for 11th in the A.L., and so far I can't find a single player in either league with a more valuable stat line. While Rick Porcello has a better win loss record, his value is estimated at $7.7 million, and his other stats don't really compare to Anderson. Fellow ROY front runner Elvis Andrus has a 2009 value of $12.9 million. To me, this is a no-brainer. Anderson has essentially acheived the status of a #1 starter in his rookie season, at the ripe old age of 21.
• I think my top pitching prospect heading into 2010 might be Jenrry Mejia.
• The Braves almost pulled it off at the end there, but couldn't top the Rockies. I'll be really interested to see what Frank Wren does during the off-season. I'd like to see him trade one of his pitchers (Vazquez or Lowe?) and Kelly Johnson for one or two bats.

Ok, that's all for now.

TPC in Retrospect: Tommy Hanson 2009 Projection

Back in January I put together a post projecting Tommy Hanson's stats for 2009. At the time, it was hard to say how much the Braves would use Hanson, but ZiPS had him pegged for a total of 19 innings, a 5.21 ERA, and a 1-1 record. My projection wasn't perfect, but I think it was a bit better than the ZiPS projection.

To come up with my projection, I didn't simply grab some figures out of a hat. I compiled a list of comparables for Hanson and averaged out their performances during their major league season at the age of 23. At first glance, the compilation technique might not seem extremely accurate, but I think if we look a bit beyond the surface, we'll see that it is actually a very viable and mostly accurate approach.

Here's my projected line for Hanson coming into 2009:
7.9 K/9
4.1 BB/9
1.42 WHIP
4.56 ERA
.500 Win Percentage

Actual 2009 stats to date:
7.49 K/9
3.51 BB/9
1.25 WHIP
3.07 ERA
9-3 record, or .750 Win Percentage

The K/9 projection was relatively spot on, and the BB/9 projection wasn't too far off, but it would seem that my WHIP, ERA, and win percentage projections were completely obliterated. However, I would like to throw out another stat that Hanson has posted this year that will help make sense of the chaos:

Tommy Hanson 2009 tRA: 4.37

For those of you not familiar with tRA, here's the explanation given by fangraphs.com:

tRA involves assigning run and out values to all events under a pitcher’s control and coming up with an expected number of runs allowed and outs generated in a defense and park neutral environment. tRA is on a R/9 scale and does not involve any regression of the rates.

In essence, tRA gives us an idea of what a pitcher's true ERA should be given their overall performance throughout the season minus good luck and timely fielding.

Apparently, Hanson has had quite a bit of luck this season, and for whatever reason, his ERA is substantially lower than his tRA. This also helps explain why his WHIP and winning percentages seem to be so much better than my projections. Somewhere among all of his starts, there were a certain number of events that kept men off base and runners from crossing the plate while Hanson was on the mound, and his surface level stats depict a pitcher that is much different from his true production.

With that in mind, I feel like my projection of a 4.56 ERA is not far from Hanson's tRA of 4.37, and I think if we repeated the 2009 season 100 times in a vacuum, my projection would be remarkably accurate. Unfortunately, we don't live in a vacuum, and each season is only played once, and half of my projection has taken a sharp beating. I guess Tommy Hanson's good luck is by default my bad luck in this situation.



...Read more

TPC Quick Comps: Jordan Schafer

The Braves are off to a hot start this year, and rookie centerfielder Jordan Schafer has done an excellent job both defensively and offensively. There's also been some talk of moving Schafer to the top of the order to utilize his speed. It's not a bad idea, but what kind of production could the Braves expect from the 22 year old at the lead off spot, and would his speed make up for his inexperience? Let's check his comps and find out.

I found a nice group of comparables for Schafer, and the news is part good and part bad for Braves fans depending on their perspective.


The good news is that the majority of the above players have shown a great deal of talent, and at least 3 of them (Sosa, Hunter, and Gomez) have proven to be adequate to above average major league ball players. Also, of the 7 players, Schafer posted some of the highest power totals (although, he was suspended last year for PED substance abuse), and his plate discipline was pretty good as well.

And now, the bad news. Of the above players that have seen significant time at the major league level, none of them would have made a very good lead off hitter as a rookie. Here are their major league production totals.


If we stretch out the home runs and extra base hit totals to 600 plate appearances, Schafer could be good for 12 to 18 home runs this year, and 30 or more doubles and triples, with 20 plus stolen bases. Overall, those aren't bad numbers, but with an average on-base percentage of just .303, the Braves would be much better off leaving Yunel Escobar and Kelly Johnson at the top of their order for the remainder of the season (.373 and .355 career OBPs respectively). The batting average also projects as less than ideal.

So, maybe Schafer isn't quite ready for taking over the lead off spot for the Braves, but it looks like he has a promising career ahead of him. If Schafer keeps up with his comps, in his prime he could hit between .280 and .300 with 20 to 30 home runs and 20 to 30 stolen bases per year. ...Read more

TPC Prospect Smackdown: Michael Stanton vs Cody Johnson (vs Michael Stanton)

Young hitters with elite level power don't come around often, which explains the intrigue in guys like Michael Stanton and Cody Johnson. Both hitters can absolutely crush the ball, and both hitters have been known to accumulate a substantial amount of strikeouts. In 468 at-bats at A ball last year, Johnson hit 26 home runs and struck out a whopping 177 times. Stanton also had 468 at-bats at A ball in 2008, clearing the fences 39 times while striking out 153 times. So, the question begging to be asked is which slugger is better, and which one has the brightest future ahead of them?

To make things simple, let's just throw up each hitters stats from A ball last year.


Without too much analysis, I think it's obvious that Stanton is already quite a bit better than Johnson. Sure, they both hit the ball really hard, but Johnson's strikeout to walk ratio is really bad (1 being really good, 2 being average, 3 bad, and anything over 4 is really bad), and just by looking at the numbers it seems that he just swings the bat as hard as he can and hopes to make contact. Stanton, on the other hand at least displayed reasonable plate discipline, and put up much more substantial power numbers (his IsoP was the highest for any 18 year old at A ball that I can find on record). Toss in the age difference, and I think the comparison isn't even close.

If we end the smackdown right now, Stanton walks away with a sound victory. But if we dig a bit deeper, it gets even better. Here are each players monthly stats for 2008.


Johnson had a pretty good August, but other than that, his strikeout to walk ratio was generally very bad, and his power and average weren't all that impressive either. Stanton started the year looking a bit lost, but by June he had found his stride and really started to crush the ball. By July, his plate discipline had dramatically improved, and over his last 200 plate appearances he posted a strikeout to walk ratio of 1.56, and an IsoP of .365.

Normally, I don't like to consider a player's month-by-month performance line, as hot streaks and luck can significantly effect stats, but in Stanton's case, the improvement from April to August was so dramatic and followed such a smooth linear pattern, that I couldn't disregard the month to month changes. After a bit of research, I was very interested to find this excerpt from an article on mlb.com.

"Before the All-Star break, (Stanton) hit .281 with 15 home runs and 47 RBIs. An aggressive hitter, he struck out 86 times in 249 at-bats.

After the break, his numbers improved to .306 with 24 home runs and 50 RBIs in 219 at-bats. With a better command of the strike zone, his strikeouts reduced. He fanned just 67 times and drew 42 walks in the second half.

'He wants to be good on defense -- he just wants everything,' (Marlins' vice president of player development and scouting Jim) Fleming said. 'When we identify something for him, he works at it. One of the things we identified in the second half was, let's see if he can cut down on his strikeouts.'

He did."

I've heard of a lot of teams asking a lot of sluggers to work on their plate discipline, but I can't think of an instance where such dramatic improvement was achieved as quickly as what Micheal Stanton did in 2008. To give you an idea of just how drastic the change was (especially for an 18 year old), here are some A ball stats posted by various power hitters from the last decade or so matched up against the pre-All-Star Stanton and the post-All-Star Stanton, as well as Cody Johnson.


Depending on which Mike Stanton is the real Mike Stanton, we could be looking at either the next Russell Branyan/Wily Mo Pena, or the next Alex Rodriguez/Andruw Jones with substantially greater power.  But which one is it?  We'll probably learn a lot about Michael Stanton over the next 6 months, particularly how real his development at the plate was from July to August last year.  

If I had to make a guess, I would probably take the optimistic route with Stanton, and say that he's probably going to post a K/BB ratio of 2.5 or better in the coming year, maybe even under 2.0.  Unlike Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jr., Stanton was drafted as a very raw hitter.  In high school he played football, basketball, and baseball, and in his own words, he never had the chance to focus on just one sport.  

"It was always, I'd have basketball practice and baseball hitting at night.  Or during baseball season, I'd have to go to the gym and shoot, to keep up with all three sports.  I was pretty interested in seeing how it would be like to stick to one sport all the way through, and not have to deal with but one."

With three sports taking up his time in high school, it's easy to see why Stanton didn't get much attention heading into the 2007 draft.  Scouts saw very little of him, and pretty soon Pete Carroll at USC began recruiting Stanton as a wide receiver.  As Jim Fleming said in an article by Peter Gammons, "A lot of people didn't see a lot of him... He didn't do a lot of showcases."  If you know anything about high school football and the recruiting process, you know how time consuming it can be, and you know that anyone good enough for division I football probably doesn't have a lot of time to spend at baseball camps working on his swing mechanics.  

Whereas Cody Johnson spent three summers slowly posting slightly improved stats between rookie ball and A ball, Michael Stanton went from ground zero to the top in a matter of months.  Essentially, Stanton started minor league baseball as a novice.  He wasn't the son of a major league star, and he hadn't spent years refining his skills on the diamond, and to see a player like Stanton go from where he was in April to where he ended up in August speaks volumes about how good he could be.  In one summer he acheived more than a lot of hitters do over the course of  5 or 6 years.  Call it a learning curve, a developmental curve, or a whatever curve, but Michael Stanton's curve seems to climb higher and faster than just about any hitter I've come across.  Had he focused solely on baseball at the high school level, it's possible that he could have entered the '07 draft as polished and as talented as a young Alex Rodriguez.

Of course, I'm extrapolating some of these assumptions from vague comments and rudimentary data, but they all seem to point in the same direction.  Michael Stanton isn't your typical high strikeout minor league power hitter.  And while there's absolutely no reason in the world for anyone to believe my non-professional opinion, consider this final comment from Jim Presley, the Marlins hitting coach.

"I saw Ken Griffey Jr. play when he was 19, and (Stanton) is right there with him... Griffey was better defensively and had a better idea of how to hit .300.  (Stanton) has to learn the finer things, but he has skills.  He is a tremendously skilled player at 19.  He is going to be some kind of player.  This kid is an unbelieveable talent to be 19."

...Read more

TPC Prospect in Retrospect: Jeff Francoeur

After Jeff Francoeur burst onto the scene a few years back, Braves fans and just about everyone else was convinced he was headed for Super Stardom.  But when Francoeur's stats took a nose dive in 2008, fans found very to like about Frenchy.  Now that Francoeur is headed for arbitration, I decided to start digging around his minor league numbers to see if there were any indicators in his past that might have been overlooked in his rise to stardom and might be able to account for his sudden demise.  In the end, the only conclusion I could come to was that Francoeur has one and only one natural talent at the plate: power.  And while 2008 may have been a horrible year for Frenchy, the best is yet to come.

Before I explain myself, the first thing I want to do is to find some comparables for Francoeur, and here's what I came up with (all numbers are averages from each player's entire minor league career).

(*Dale Murphy skipped AA ball and went straight to AAA ball)

It turns out Francoeur's minor league stats were pretty good, and as a whole his closest comp was Corey Hart, followed by Dale Murphy, who both had similar plate discipline and power production in the minors.  I also added Chipper Jones to the list to illustrate the fact that while guys like Francoeur have similar power potential to hitters like Jones, there are very few similarities otherwise.  As evidence, here are Chipper's stats from his first 7 years in the majors compared to Murphy's first 7 years.

At 23, Jones and Murphy were pretty close in terms of plate discipline, but after that Murphy's strikeout rate and walk rate didn't improve much, while Jones continued to improve for the next several years.  Basically, great hitters like Jones display great discipline at an early age to go along with their power, while guys like Murphy never develop better than average plate discipline.  As one more piece of evidence, here are Jeff Francoeur and Corey Hart's stats from the last several years.

While there's evidence of improvement, neither Murphy, Hart, or Francoeur is anywhere near Jones in terms of plate discipline, and they never will be.  It's just a fact.  Plate discipline is not one of their natural God-given gifts, and no matter how much Francoeur or the Braves try to improve on it, it just isn't going to happen.  That's not to say that they shouldn't try, but everyone involved needs to realize that there's only so much that they can do before it's time to let it go and move on.  Like it or not, in terms of plate discipline, Francoeur is not a great hitter.  

The good news is that Francoeur is improving bit by bit, but the bad news is that even though Francoeur's K% and BB% have improved every year, his OBP and batting average do not reflect the difference. At 24, Francoeur struck out less and walked more than he did at 22, but it was the 100 point drop in his slugging that destroyed his production. Had he slugged somewhere around .450, he probably would have ended the year with an average well over .250 and an OBP of .330 or more.  

Luckily however, the one skill that Francoeur, Hart, and Murphy have in common with hitters like Chipper that is not absolutely dictated by plate discipline is power.  And if there's one skill to be born with, power is definitely one of the more valuable skills.  If we use a guy like Ron Gant as a floor, and Murphy as a ceiling for Francoeur,  I think we can determine a realistic power projection for Francoeur based solely off of his minor league stats. Gant was a year behind Francoeur in terms of age and never quite demonstrated the same power potential as Frenchy, so Gant's 321 career home runs seem like a reasonable baseline. Murphy was about a year ahead of Francoeur, so his minor league power numbers can be adjusted upwards to compensate for the difference. With 398 home runs (couldn't Murphy have hit just 2 more before retiring?), he serves as a reasonable ceiling for Francoeur. So, that puts us somewhere in the 325 to 400 home run range.  

I know a lot of Braves fans are concerned that Frenchy's numbers are just going to get worse, but despite his power dropoff in 2008, I'm certain that Francoeur's power will soon return, and his best years are yet to come. In case you don't believe me, check out Dale Murphy's 1981 season, during which at age 25 he posted a slugging percentage of just .390, down from .510 the year before.  Over the next six years, Muphy posted a slugging percentage greater than .500 fivetimes.   In case that doesn't convince you, take a look at Ron Gant's 1989 season, when as a 24 year old he saw his slugging percentage drop from .439 to .335.  Like Murphy, Gant went on to post a slugging percentage close to or above .500 five times over the next six years.

I'm not guaranteeing that Francoeur will actually perform like Dale Murphy or Ron Gant over the next five or six years.  But consider this: at 24 years of age, Francoeur has a .268 lifetime average, an OPS of .746, and has averaged about 18 home runs per full season, which compares well to Corey Hart's .277 career average, an OPS of .808, and an average of about 22 home runs per full season. Both Hart and Francoeur will no doubt raise those numbers over the next 10 years, and could both end up with career totals similar to Murphy, who retired with a .265 career batting average, with an OPS of .815 while hitting about 28 home runs per season.  Those numbers are very attainable given Francoeur's skill set, and 2008 will probably be remembered as one the worst seasons in his career.

So, what can we expect from Francoeur in 2009?  Below are the projections for Frenchy from CHONE, Bill James, and Marcel:

CHONE: .276 average, .445 slugging, 20 home runs, 93 RBI

Bill James: .272 average, .435 slugging, 16 home runs, 76 RBI

Marcel: .268 average, .417 slugging, 16 home runs, 79 RBI

Those numbers look adequate, but seem to be extremely conservative.  If history is any indicator of the future, I think Francoeur could post the following line in '09:

TPC Jeff Francoeur Projection for 2009:  .285 average, .505 slugging, 27 home runs, 90 RBI

...Read more

TPC 2009 Projection: Tommy Hanson

The following projection is based off of the assumption that the Braves will call up Tommy Hanson sometime in 2009. I'm not going to try and guess exactly when they'll call him up, but barring injury or some kind of horrible start in AAA, he should be called up sometime before the All-Star break.

Before we come up with a rough projection, let's first identify some pitchers that have posted similar minor league numbers to Hanson (each pitcher was 21 during their time at AA; all stats are overall minor league averages).

Of these 5 comparable pitchers, I think Johnny Cueto matches up the best with Hanson.  Cueto's walk rate was a bit higher, but his ground ball rate was also a bit higher, so it all kind of evens out.  I threw Jesse Foppert up there (the once rising phenom in the Giants organization) simply because his minor league numbers were somewhat similar to Hanson and Foppert actually pitched in the majors for almost a whole season before undergoing Tommy John surgery.  Unfortunately, I can't find a GB% for Foppert from before his injury, but if we assume that at worst he posted a 40% GB%, then he can provide us with a decent comp for Hanson.

Anyways, the first thing that strikes me when I look at Hanson's comparables is that he seems to be benefiting from some good luck or pitcher friendly situations.   His WHIP of 1.10 and ERA of 2.74 are similar to Jake Peavy's, but his K/9, BB/9, and GB% suggest that his actual performance is considerably inferior to Peavy.  With that in mind, it comes at no surprise that almost a third of Hanson's minor league innings came at Myrtle Beach, where hitters tend to struggle.  But that aside, we should keep in mind that the quality of minor league defenses can vary greatly, so WHIP and ERA are often out of the control of individual pitchers.  

The few stats that a pitcher can control in the minors include strike out rates, walk rates, and ground ball rates.  So, before we look at some possible major league stats for Hanson in '09, let's move forward with a rough ranking system that has Hanson matched up with Cueto and Jon Lester, while coming in somewhere below Jake Peavy and Jesse Foppert, and somewhere just above Scott Olsen.

Below are the major league stats for each of the above pitchers at the age of 22 years old:

          

If we dispose of the outliers in each category, we come up with a K/9 of about 7.9, a BB/9 of 4.1, a WHIP of 1.42, and an ERA of 4.56.  I'm pretty comfortable with those numbers for Hanson, and had he posted them in 2008, he would have fit in somewhere between Jair Jurrjens and Mike Hampton, and would probably have maintained a .500 win percentage for the Braves.  Not bad, but not great.

TPC 2009 Projection for Tommy Hanson:  7.9 K/9, 4.1 BB/9, 1.42 WHIP, 4.56 ERA, .500 win percentage

...Read more

Tommy Hanson Pitching Mechanics

As most of you know, I think that Tommy Hanson has been a bit over hyped, and he'll struggle for a few years in the majors before putting it all together. DriveLineMechanics.com has an interesting breakdown of his mechanics. Good arm action, but his finish leaves his release point high in my opinion, which helps explain his low GB% (the dominant and glaring weakness in his game).

Freddie Freeman 2008 Stats Revisited

Hey guys, I wrote a post several months ago highlighting some of the achievements of Freddie Freeman, an 18 year old power hitting first baseman in the Braves farm system. At the time of my first post, Freddie had somewhere around 350 plate appearances, and since the 2009 season is just around the corner, I thought I'd take a moment to reanalyze Freeman's full season stats and compare them to some other players with similar minor league numbers.

Below is a chart including Freeman's A ball numbers as they compare to other hitters' overall minor league totals.

Obviously, Freeman still has to make it through AA and AAA ball before we can make some definite projections for him, but the fact that his numbers (especially his power numbers) match up with this group of hitters is worth consideration. Ryan Klesko, while not a superstar, usually hit in the .275-.300 range, with 25-30 home runs; Justin Morneau is currently entering his prime and has hit .300 or better twice in his career and topped 30 home runs twice; and Ryan Braun has a .301 average and 71 home runs in his first 2 major league seasons (Josh Reddick has shown the potential to be a similar hitter, and I discussed his numbers in a previous post this week).

With those comps in mind, I think we can attach a rough projection to Freeman as a potential .300/30+ home run hitter and an OPS in the mid .900 range. Once again, projections are subject to change according to future performances, but at this point in time, I'm very comfortable with the above basic projection.
...Read more

A Look at the Braves Newest Pitcher: Stephen Marek

A lot of my friends here in Georgia have been asking me about the Teixeira trade and what to expect from Casey Kotchman and Stephen Marek, the 2 players Atlanta received in the deal. While Kotchman has put in some time at the major league level and is a relatively known player, Marek is one of those no-name prospects floating around in the minors without an ounce of fanfare. So, I thought we should take a look at him and see if he's any good.

To be honest, Marek was just a spare part to balance out what the Braves were losing with what they were getting from the Angels. He's not exactly Grade A beef, but more like the meat you get in a burrito at Taco Bell that has a little beef mixed with some textured vegetable protein. In other words, he's pretty much more of the same for Braves fans.



*The above chart is a comparison of AA pitching stats. Be sure to note the age differences.

In basic terms, Marek and Chuck James are pitching twins separated at birth. If Marek is the meat in your Taco Bell burrito, James is the weird chicken meat in those chicken nuggets your kids (and some of you) love to eat. There are some slight differences, like the walk rate and ground ball rates, but they pretty much balance each other out. Charlie Morton is the happy intermediate, with stats somewhere in between.

So, in a nutshell Braves fans, don't get too excited about this one. If I cared to come up with a projection for Marek, it would be a #4 or #5 starter if he's lucky, but more likely a sketchy #5/ bullpen type with an ERA in the 4.50-6.50 range. ...Read more

Tommy Hanson Thoughts and Comments

I've had a few requests from Braves fans to address my thoughts on Tommy Hanson. I know a lot of people have been impressed with him this year, but I don't think he's all that great. In fact, the Braves don't have a single pitcher in the minors that I think is going to have much of an impact over the next 3 to 5 years.

Anyways, here's Hanson and fellow comparables.

Not a bad list of comparables, but not great either. What really bothers me about Hanson and every other pitcher the Braves have in their farm system is the lack of solid ground ball rates. I don't know if the Braves pitching coaches don't teach their pitchers to induce ground balls, or if the pitchers just don't have the talent to do so. My gut tells me that the pitchers have plenty of talent, they just aren't being taught the importance of ground balls and how to make them happen.

To make my point, here's a brief excerpt from a recent interview Project Prospect conducted with Trevor Cahill:

AL: Simply put, you're a guy that balances out a lot of way to keep people off the bases. High strikeout rates, keeping the ball on the ground, low walk rate -- what's your approach when you take the mound?

TC: Usually it's about getting ground balls. Early contact and ground balls gets you later into games. I got a little obsessed with the strikeout when I was with [High-A] Stockton. I would start throwing to get them to swing and miss instead of getting them to roll over. That kind of prevented me from getting deep into games.

AL: So would you rather pitch deep into the game -- eighth inning, complete game -- or strike 15, 16 guys out?

TC: Well, right now with one inning [in the Futures Game], it's nice to strike out guys. But it helps the team out more if you go eight innings and give up no runs than it does if you go six innings, give up no runs, and get the strikeouts. Strikeouts don't matter for the win.

I always like to keep it in my back pocket. If a guy gets on third base with no outs and you need strike three, it's nice to be able to have it.

If the Braves minor league system was teaching their pitchers the importance and efficiency of ground balls, there would be a lot more guys like Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson in their system, and fewer Tommy Hansons. It would seem logical that a team that benefited so much from the efforts of Greg Maddux (career GB% around 60%) and Tom Glavine (50%) would try to instill their young pitchers with similar skills. However, at current, their best ground ball starting pitchers are averaging a GB% of 50% or less(compared to 60% or higher in the Oakland A's system), severely limiting their overall effectiveness. As long as the Braves fail to teach this important aspect of the game to their young pitchers, Braves fans are going to continue to see a revolving door of pitching prospects like Chuck James and Kyle Davies. ...Read more

Ian Kennedy - a young Greg Maddux?

Maybe, maybe not...

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if you’re a Yankees fan, you’ve got to be pretty excited right now with all these young pitchers coming up through the farm system. It reminds me a lot of when the Braves started their streak of division titles back in the early 90’s. They had a young John Smoltz, a young Tom Glavine, a very young Steve Avery, and later added a young Greg Maddux. Between those four guys and a long list of offensive talent that included Terry Pendleton, Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones, Fred McGriff, David Justice, Gary Sheffield, Javy Lopez, Rafael Furcal, and many others, the 90’s was the time to be a Braves fan. They don’t have the pitching anymore, and it’s unlikely they’ll be able to dominant the National League East anytime in the near future unless they address that need. But right now, the Yankees have Chien-Ming Wang, Joba Chamberlain, Phillip Hughes and Ian Kennedy, with the possibility of adding depth through trades or free agency. The market value of just those four pitchers is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of at least $40 million a year, if not more. Depending on how Chamberlain and Hughes perform, that number could be closer to $60 million, and possibly $80 million by the time their shot at free agency rolls around. I never thought I’d say it, but it almost looks like the Yankees are turning into one of those low budget home-grown-talent teams based around a well planned scouting approach. Obviously, the Yankees still need an established dominant pitcher for the play-offs, but if they keep the work loads of their younger pitchers relatively light, then I think one of their young prospects will step up and be a great Game 1 starter.

With Chamberlain and Hughes, the debate isn’t so much about if they’ll be any good, but rather how good they will eventually be. They’ve both proven themselves during their time in the minors, and they’ve both been impressive in the appearances they’ve made for the big league team, so the only real question is how long will it take to fulfill their potential.

When it comes to Ian Kennedy, there really doesn’t seem to be a clear cut decision about how good he is. The Yankees recently tried their very best to use him as trade bait in the Johan Santana mess, so it would make sense that they would try to convince the Twins and everybody else that Kennedy is a rising star. However, they couldn’t run the risk of over-hyping Kennedy and then have the Twins scoff at their sales pitch, or even worse they ran the risk of over-hyping Kennedy and then face the possibility of him never meeting the expectations of a deceived and unforgiving Yankees fan base. Either way, I think the Yankees have had to be cautious about the impression they give about Kennedy. I think the best thing they could probably do is put him in positions where he can succeed early, and then either trade him or hope he keeps developing (actually, I think that’s exactly what they tried to do this past season by working Kennedy into some late season starts, but the sample size was too small to convince other teams or Yankees fans of his potential). Regardless of what the Yankees hype-machine is or is not saying about Kennedy, we have his stats to tell us the real story. For quick analytical purposes, I’m just going to throw out a few pitchers with their minor league average stats and then we’ll take it from there.

Player K/9 BB/9 GB% H/9

Ian Kennedy 9.97 3.14 39% 5.62

Phillip Hughes 10.18 2.16 49.8% 5.56

Joba Chamberlain 13.79 2.76 53.7% 6.33

Tom Gorzelanny 8.98 3 43.3% 7.08

Ian Snell 8.46 2.13 43.5% 8.06

Kyle Davies 9 3.25 39.3% 7.56

Mike Pelfrey 8.53 3.17 53.5% 8.18

Out of these 7 pitchers, Kennedy ranks last in groundball percentage, and he ranks fifth in BB/9. His K/9 rate and H/9 rate are high, and scouts have praised Kennedy for being able to locate his off-speed pitches well, even making comparisons to Greg Maddux. But to be fair to Maddux, he went through the minor leagues at a much younger age and maintained a groundball percentage of almost 60% throughout his career. Also, while Kennedy was pitching through AA and AAA ball as a 22 year old, Maddux was pitching his second full season in the major leagues at the age of 22 with a K/9 of 5.06, a BB/9 of 2.83, and a GB% of exactly 60%. So the Maddux comparisons aren’t all that accurate. If anyone looks like Greg Maddux right now it’s Fausto Carmona, who just finished his second full season in the majors at the age of 23 with a K/9 of 5.73, a BB/9 of 2.55, and a GB% of 66%.

My biggest problem with Kennedy is that his power stuff isn’t good enough to blow major league hitters away and his off-speed stuff doesn’t result in enough groundballs, which tells me he’s leaving pitches high in the zone and isn’t getting much downward movement on anything. In the minors, those types of pitches were being popped up and usually didn’t amount to much, but major league hitters won’t be so merciful, especially in the AL East.

So what can the Yankees fans realistically expect from Kennedy? Probably #4 or #5 starter stuff for a few years, with a chance of becoming a solid #2 in the next 5 years. He’s much closer to being Mike Pelfrey or Tom Gorzelanny than Greg Maddux, which gives him a projected ERA for the next 2 years of around 5.00. That would probably put him in a good position to win 10 or 11 games next season pitching for the Yankees, while losing about the same number. Not bad, not great, just kind of average, but in a few years he’ll start to figure things out and if the Yankees can hold on to Hughes and Chamberlain until then, they might have two #1 starters pitching in the #1 and #2 spots and a solid #2 pitcher in the #3 spot, and that would make them a great playoff team.