Billy Butler and Pablo Sandoval: Headed for the Hall?

This past month, Billy Butler and Pablo Sandoval became the first players since Prince Fielder to top 70 extra base hits with 20 or more home runs in a season at the age of 23 or younger. It might seem like an arbitrary set of parameters to judge a player by, but it got me to thinking. Could either of these 2 young players be headed to greatness?

So, I checked to see how many times a 23 year old player had ever posted 70 total extra base hits with 20 or more home runs in a single season. A total of 71 instances came up, with 29 inactive or retired players and 19 active players accomplishing the feat (multiple players topped 70 extra base hits and 20 home runs before the age of 23 in multiple seasons).

Here's a list of the 19 active players included on the list.


And here are the inactive or retired players (obviously, I'm having trouble with font sizes).


Quite an impressive list of players. To put it all in perspective, I wanted to see how many of the retired players went on to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Of the 29 players that were eligible for the Hall of Fame, 17 have been inducted, which is a cool 58.6%. Not an overwhelming percentage, but if it's any indication for the future, we might be able to project that current players like Butler and Sandoval have roughly a 50:50 chance of making the Hall of Fame. While not definitive by any means, those are pretty good odds for any player, and very good company to be listed among.

Pablo Sandoval -- Cold Start, Bust, or Bad Luck?

A few days ago I was checking in on my fantasy roster and spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out what in the world was wrong with Pablo Sandoval. After almost a full month, he was hitting south of .250 with an OPS of .626. I knew he might struggle this year, but I thought he would at least come out hitting about .270 or .280.

So, I decided the best thing to do would be to break down some stats, and see if there was some kind of pattern. Here's what I came up with.

• Sandoval and the Giants have played against 4 teams this year. Of those teams, the L.A. Dodgers have one of the best pitching staffs in all of baseball, allowing opposing hitters to post a .223 batting average so far this year. Not surprisingly, Sandoval is hitting just .231 against Dodgers pitching.
• With a .760 OPS allowed on average by National League pitchers, the Diamondbacks (.747), Padres (.751), and Brewers (.765) have all looked good to average on the mound this year. Sandoval has an OPS of .900 or greater against both the Brewers and Diamondbacks, but an OPS of .300 against the Padres.
• During a 1 for 17 stretch from April 10th to April 15th, Sandoval faced Jake Peavy, Chris Young, Chad Billingsley, and Clayton Kershaw and dropped his average from .364 to .179.
  
• In his last week of play, Sandoval is hitting .444 with just 2 strikeouts and and OPS of 1.150.
• After his first 28 at-bats, Sandoval had just 5 hits and an OPS of .472. Over his last 40 at-bats, Sandoval is hitting .375, and has raised his OPS to .769.

It looks to me like Sandoval is mostly back on track after a very rough start to the season. When he's playing against teams with average to poor pitching he's making them pay for it, and his strikeouts aren't piling up like they were at the beginning of April. Obviously, he's struggled against guys like Peavy and Billingsley (not exactly unexpected), but as soon as the Giants begin play against non-division teams Sandoval will get some time off from the relentless onslaught of N.L. West pitching.

Final verdict? I think Sandoval will be fine. He might go a few games without much production here and there, but he doesn't seem to be a very sporadic hitter. He makes contact often, and is playing very well right now. His power numbers are still low, but given the fact that he's only 22 years old, there's not much need for concern. A year or two from now, his doubles will start carrying a bit farther, and his home run totals will start matching what he put up at AA ball last year.

TPC Video Break: Pablo Sandoval

Here's a short interview Pablo Sandoval gave last summer. He mentions that prior to 2008 he was more of a line drive hitter, mostly for singles and doubles, and then started hitting home runs in 2008.



Sandoval went on to compete in the Venezuelan League Home Run Derby last year, and actually beat Miguel Cabrera in the final round, as seen in the following clip.

Fun With Numbers: Matt Wieters vs Bengie Molina

After comparing Bengie Molina to Pablo Sandoval, I wanted to see how some of Molina's AA stats matched up against Matt Wieters, the #1 prospect in baseball. I was really shocked by the comparison, and it really left me scratching my head. Is Matt Wieters really the next Bengie Molina?

Here are each catchers numbers from AA.

Weird, huh? Of course, the sample sizes are sub-optimal, especially for Molina. But then again, anything over 200 plate appearances is large enough that you can't just completely dismiss it.

As I noted in the Sandoval vs Molina post, Molina bounced around between levels quite a bit in the minors, so it's hard to get a good read on how much of his production was talent and how much was luck. At the age of 21 he posted an OPS of .735 at AA, then went on to post an OPS of .956 and 1.003 at AA ball as a 22 and 23 year old respectively. I used his stats as a 21 year old in the Sandoval comparison since Sandoval played at AA as a 21 year old, and because that was the age at AA that Molina had the largest sample size.

In both the Molina vs Sandoval match-up and the Molina vs Wieters match-up we aren't really considering the whole picture, but it's just enough information that it creates a few problems with various solutions.

I think the most obvious thing to note here is that Molina had a career year during his time at AA at the age of 22 and 23, and for whatever reason he wasn't able to recreate the same level of production later is his career. It's possible that Sandoval also just went through a career year in 2008, and might plummet back down to his previous production level (.788 OPS at A+ in 2007), and it's possible that Wieters experienced a career year in 2008 as well.

There's something unsettling about the whole situation. My gut tells me that Wieters and Sandoval are both very much the real deal, and that Molina is the outlier in this situation, so I'll take that route for now, but I'll definitely keep this match-up in mind.




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Pablo Sandoval vs Bengie Molina

After posting a few times about Pablo Sandoval, I was a bit curious to see how he matched up against current Giants catcher Bengie Molina.

Molina spent time at advanced A ball during 2 separate seasons, and played at AA ball during 3 separate seasons, so the first thing I had to do was to determine which years to include in the comparison. Ultimately, I went with the largest sample size closest to the age the Sandoval played at each level. It might not be a perfect approach, but I think it provides a moderate baseline of stats for each player.

Here's their advanced A ball stats.

To keep things short and simple, using these numbers it looks like Sandoval is about 2 years ahead of Molina in terms of power and contact capacity, and about a year behind him in plate discipline.

On to AA stats (Notice that the best numbers I could come up with for Molina at AA ball were before the numbers used for the advanced A comparison. Like I said, Molina went back and forth between levels, so I went with what I felt matched up best).

Once again, Sandoval looks to be much more advanced in the power and contact departments, while falling a bit behind in plate discipline.

So, what does this all mean for Sandoval? Well, Molina has hit in the .275 to .295 range most of his career, with between 15 and 20 home runs a year (he usually averages about 450 to 500 plate appearances a year, so if you stretch his home run total out to 600 to 650 plate appearances you get 20 to 25 home runs a year). Not bad numbers for a catcher, but pretty lousy numbers for a guy who hits in the middle of the order.

If Sandoval gets 600 plate appearances, I think he could hit 20 to 40 points higher than Molina, and hit anywhere from 5 to 15 more home runs per year. That puts him in the .295 to .315 range with 25 to 40 home runs on the high side. That's pretty much in line with my other projections for Sandoval. I'm thinking maybe David Wright without the stolen bases and about half the walks? ...Read more

Pablo Sandoval Projections: The Remix

Yesterday I went over some numbers to try to illustrate why Pablo Sandoval is not the next Albert Pujols. I still don't think he's going to be as good as Pujols, but after digging through some stats and giving Sandoval's recent offensive breakout some consideration, I've decided that Sandoval might be a lot better than most people realize.

When I put up Pablo's numbers against Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, and Brian McCann yesterday, it looked like Sandoval might be on his way to a decent career as a Miggy Lite, or maybe a Venezuelan Brian McCann. Using his minor league totals, it certainly didn't look like Pablo was anywhere near as talented as Albert Pujols.

Using these numbers (which is what most projection systems go by), the relationship between Cabrera, McCann, and Pujols just didn't look right. After going over the stats, I noticed that prior to 20 years old, Cabrera and Pujols were both very mediocre hitters (Cabrera had very little power, and Pujols was a 13th round draft pick). Somehow, they both broke out at the age of 20 and went on to be incredible hitters. Since Sandoval seems to have taken the same offensive path, I think it would be much more accurate to use his stats as a 20 year old instead of his minor league totals (the same goes for Cabrera).

I'm not really sure why or how it happens, but some players don't put all their talent together until a couple to several years after high school. David Wright and Ryan Howard followed very similar routes, putting up mediocre totals until suddenly breaking out. It seems like Sandoval is following a similar route, so using his total minor league stats is probably the wrong way to go about analyzing him. Instead, I think a more accurate approach would be to use his numbers from his highest minor league level.

Going by these numbers, Sandoval will likely post a .300 average in the majors, with 25 to 30 home runs this year. Over the next 10 years, he's capable of hitting well over .300 with 30 to 40 home runs a year. It's a very basic approach, but I think it's more accurate than what most projection systems are predicting right now.

He still doesn't look like the second coming of Albert Pujols, but he'll do a very nice impression of Miguel Cabrera at times, and put up some very nice totals.
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TPC Quick Comps and Projection: Pablo Sandoval

Pablo Sandoval is the type of hitter fans love to watch. He'll swing at just about anything, and actually makes contact often enough that it isn't too painful to watch. I think Sandoval could surprise a lot of people in San Francisco this year, but I also think expectations might exceed his true capacity. In an article for ESPN, Hall of Famer Willie McCovey was quoted as saying, "I think (Pablo Sandoval is) a natural born hitter. I went out on a limb last year and said I think he's going to be another Albert Pujols. I know it's high praise, but that's kind of who he reminded of when he first came up."

No offense to Mr. McCovey, but Sandoval definitely ain't no Albert Pujols.


Here's a quick list of comps for Sandoval, including Albert Pujols. All stats are minor league averages.


Those are decent comps, but in terms of plate discipline and power, Sandoval comes in dead last. That doesn't mean he won't be any good, it just means that he's probably going to only be half as good as Albert Pujols. If he's lucky, maybe he'll turn into a Miguel Cabrera or Brian McCann and hit close to .300 his first few years with 20 to 30 home runs, and then have a career year or two with 35 or 40 home runs before his power begins to taper off.

Most projection systems have Sandoval hitting between .290 and .310 this year, with 17 home runs. I don't completely disagree with those numbers, but I think they could be off, maybe even severely off. Just looking at Sandoval's stats from 2007 and 2008 and excluding his stats from A ball, he actually projects as a .310 to .320 hitter with 25 to 35 home runs this year. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but it's definitely a possibility. I think it's important to at least give a bit more weight to his most recent stats, so I think the following stat line is reasonable for Pablo in 2009.

.315 Batting Average, 25 Home Runs, .830 OP, 85 RBI, 14% K%, 4% BB%

Definitely not a bad projection, but certainly not as good as Albert Pujols (.359 batting average, 43 home runs, 1.106 OPS at the age of 23).


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2009 N.L. Rookie of the Year Projections and Speculation

(Update Aug. 16, 2009: For a more up-to-date analysis of the 2009 Rookie of the Year contenders, check out my recent posts detailing the N.L. pitchers and position players still in contention)

I covered most of the candidates for the A.L. Rookie of the Year a while back, and now it's time to take a look at the N.L. candidates. I might be missing some eligible players, so if you think I should add anyone, just let me know.

When we looked at the A.L. candidates, I came up with the following chart of hitters that have won the award since 1990.

Using the averages at the bottom of the chart, we'll look to see which N.L. R.O.Y. candidates match up the best and narrow down the field. We'll also do the same thing using the following chart of pitchers that have won the award since 1990.

I think it should be noted that the odds of a pitcher winning the rookie of the year are very low. It's not impossible, but it looks like it only happens when the rookie position players are unusually below average. It's also worth pointing out that of the 8 pitchers that have won the award since 1990, two were Japanese pitchers with considerable experience at the professional level, and 3 of the above pitchers spent considerable time coming out of the bullpen. That means that a starting pitcher coming straight from the minors has roughly a 10% chance of winning rookie of the year any given year. Pretty tough odds.

Ok, so now we can make up a list of hitters and pitchers that are likely to meet the requirements for rookie of the year in the National League this year and come up with some basic projections to see what kind of shot they have at winning the award. (The following projections are based off of a combination of the projections given by Bill James, CHONES, Marcel, Oliver, Zips, and my own projections.)


There isn't really a standout among the group. I think Gamel might have the best shot, but everyone else in the group is completely capable of having a solid year and posting R.O.Y. worthy stats. I think McCutchen and Rasmus will probably come up short, and Gamel may not get enough playing time, so if I had to narrow down the field, I'd include Maybin, Fowler, and Sanchez. Overall though, I think this year's position players provide a relatively weak field of candidates, which opens up the opportunity for a pitcher to win the award.

So, let's take a quick look at the rookie N.L. pitchers.

Not really much going on there either. There are a few other N.L. players that have been mentioned as candidates for the R.O.Y. award (including John Mayberry Jr. and Jordan Zimmerman), but I think we've covered the names that are mentioned most often.

So, who's it gonna' be? I really can't single out any one player that I feel is going to stand out this year, and it might come down to who gets more playing time and doesn't screw up a whole bunch. To narrow it down, Kenshin Kawakami has the best shot at R.O.Y. simply because he has a secure starting role with major league team.

The N.L. field is wide open this year as far as the rookie of the year award is concerned. There are no clear cut stand-outs, and it's very likely that a player currently under the radar could spring to the forefront and win it. Be on the lookout for older players getting their shot at a major league roster spot due to injury or trades, especially power hitting corner outfielders or corner infielders. Also, look out for talented relief pitchers, especially closers, that could come in and save 25 or more games for a team in a division race.

If anyone can think of a player that has not been mentioned, be sure to let me know, and we'll throw him in the mix. I'm sure there are plenty of sleepers out there that no one is even considering right now. We'll check back in a few months and see how things look.

Edit: Pablo Sandoval is NOT eligible for Rookie of the Year (145 at-bats in 2008). Thanks for the heads up on that one Jim.

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