Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - Minor League Hitters

With the absence of minor league updates I am having withdrawal symptoms, so I decided to look at some minor league hitters stats. I read an article around a month ago that looked at numbers in the lower minors and calculated which numbers mean something in predicting future success. I cannot find the story now, but as I remember it the two main numbers with meaning were age relative to league and strikeout rate. Or to put it another way, if a player is young for the league, and if he can put the bat on the ball, that is a sign of future success. I looked at those numbers for all of the Jays minor league teams and the results are below.

Hitters are evaluated based on five tools, but one tool is the most important, the hit for average tool. Some players can fill a utility role as a great defender, some can find a role as a power bat with a low average, but most players in the majors can hit for average. A minor league players batting average might not be a true indicator of future success in the majors. Particularly in the lower minors hitters can take advantage of weak fielders, inconsistent pitchers, and bad fields. But ultimately if you can put the bat on the ball, you have a better chance of success at higher levels.

In general I only looked at players with more than 100 at-bats and I made that 200 in the higher minors.

GCL Jays

The best GCL Jay at making contact was Santiago Nessy, who had an 82% contact rate. Seth Conner and Jorge Vega-Rosado were close behind at 81%. Nessy is 18 and Conner and Vega-Rosado are both 19 so all three qualify under this theory.

On the negative side Dickie Thon struck out 36% of the time, Eric Arce 31%. Yudelmis Hernandez gets the prize with 50 K's in 92 AB's for a 54% K rate.

Bluefield

Kevin Pillar had an 85% contact rate as you would expect from someone who won the batting title. Pillar though is 22, older than league average of 20.5. Andy Fermin also had a good contact rate, 83%, but he too is one year older than the league average. Chris Hawkins had an 81% contact rate and played most of the year as a 19 year old.

Kellen Sweeney had only 35 at-bats but he K's 17 times. Art Charles had a 36% K rate.

Vancouver

Shane Opitz was the first player I thought of when I read the article referenced above. I knew Opitz made contact, maybe not always strong contact, but he a 19 year old playing in a league where the average age is 21.3. Opitz's contact rate was 86%, excellent for his age.

Three older players had good contact rates too, Jon Berti who is right on the average age at 21, had a 79% contact rate, Jon Jones who is a few months older than the average age had an 83% contact rate and Nick Baligod had an 84% contact rate but he is 23. Baligod had 38 walks and 38 K's, showing a good eye.

Lansing

The average age in the Midwest League is 21.6, just a few months older than the Northwest League where Vancouver plays. KC Hobson lead the Lugnuts with a contact rate of 85% and he is a year under the average for the league. However Hobson hit just .250 this year, does this make him a break-out candidate for next year?

Jake Marisnick, Carlos Perez and Jon Jones all had contact rates around 81% and of those three Marisnick and Perez were below the average age for the league.

Bryson Namba led the K'ers with a 38% rate.

Dunedin

As you get higher in the classifications this formula breaks down a little. A player may K more than the average but if he has a lot of pop in his bat he can still be a valued major league prospect. Similarly older players are more prevalent at the higher levels. The average age in the FSL is over 22.5, a year higher than the Midwest and Nothwest leagues.

AJ Jimenez and Brad McElroy led the D Jays with a 84% contact rate. However Jimenez played at almost two years under the average while McElroy is 25, more than two years above the average.

Kevin Nolan (81%), Ryan Goins (81%) and Sean Ochinko (83%) are all 23 years old, around league average, with good contact rates.

New Hampshire

Ricardo Nanita, who is 30, and Callix Crabbe who is 28, has contact rates of 88% and 87% respectively. The league average age is 24.4, two years higher than the FSL.

Among the prospects both Adeiny Hechavarria and Moises Sierra, both 22, had contact rates of 83% and 81%. Travis d'Arnaud was at 76% and is also 22, Mike McDade and Anthony Gose are younger and they had contact rates around 70%.

Las Vegas

A shout to Manny Mayorson and his 93% contact rate. At 28 Mayorson is a year older than the league average of 27. Nine of the 51's players had contact rates at 80% or above, Lane, Woodward and Nanita all made it.

Among the prospects Brett Lawrie had an 82% contact rate, David Cooper 91%, Eric Thames 80%, Travis Snider 82%, Darin Mastroianni 83%. All are under the league average age that that doesn't mean a lot when the average age is 27. Adam Loewen is right on the league average and he K'd 27% of the time.

Summary

Here are the players who score well under this predictor:

Santiago Nessy; Seth Connor; Jorge Vega-Rosado; Chris Hawkins; Shane Opitz; KC Hobson; Jake Marisnick; Carlos Perez; AJ Jimenez; Adeiny Hechavarria; Moises Sierra; Brett Lawrie; David Cooper; Eric Thames; Travis Snider; Darin Mastroianni.

Among the players who didn't score well are:

Dickie Thon; Eric Arce; Kellen Sweeney (small sample); Anthony Gose; and Mike McDade.

Posted by Gerry on Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 02:47 AM EDT.

Minor League Hitters - Age and K Rate | 33 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

China fan - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 06:16 AM EDT (#244800) #

Interesting analysis. The ones that jump out at me are Hechavarria, Sierra and Cooper. It's added evidence for those of us who are optimistic about all three. Hechavarria, especially, stands out because his defence is already major-league-ready, so all he needs to do is convert his high contact rate into an improved OBP and he becomes a very useful major-leaguer. As for Cooper -- if he can develop just a little extra power, he gets a lot more doubles and homers from his fly balls. His high contact rate would then be converted to an improved SLG and OBP.

Mike Green - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 09:47 AM EDT (#244804) #

Contact rate is important, but it is far from an overwhelming factor. A.J. Jimenez is not a better prospect than Travis d'Arnaud despite making much more contact, running better and (perhaps) being a better defender. And we remember fondly Robinson Diaz who was terrific at making contact.

bball12 - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 09:58 AM EDT (#244806) #

Along with Flyball/Groundball ratio - the faster you are the more it means to me.

bball12 - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 10:02 AM EDT (#244807) #

Interesting - and a bit disconcerting - is that most if not all of our fastest guys strike out 4x to 5x more times than they walk.

That is bad.

hypobole - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 10:19 AM EDT (#244809) #

bball, it would be bad if true. Gose and Crouse K'd about 2.5 times as often as they walked. Marisnick and Hawkins about twice as often..

bball12 - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 10:21 AM EDT (#244810) #

hypo - I am talking about the MLB team - not the prospects

bball12 - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 10:28 AM EDT (#244812) #

Hypo

The best - McCoy 1.67x

The rest - Thames 3.87x - Davis 4.20x - Patterson 4.34x - Snider 5.09x - Rasmus 7.20x

I dont count Wise as he hasnt played enough - ( O bb's - 14 ks)

AWeb - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 10:58 AM EDT (#244814) #

It is an open question whether or not this organization can develop a player with an above average ability to walk (Bautista, as he was sent by the gods themselves, does not count). Position players brought through the system lately - Lind, Hill, Arencibia, Snider, Thames, none walk much. It would be nice to have a "at least he gets on base" caveat for a few players to replace all of the "at least he hits for some power" types. If he was good enough, this would be McCoy, but he seems unlikely to start hitting .280 anytime soon. Cooper will need to walk to have enough value to play first. Lawrie will need to walk to be a superstar, which I think he will. Not asking for a bunch of 80-100 BB guys, but here are the team leaders this year by %, note that league average is 8.1%: Bautista (20.3%), Escobar (10.3%), Lawrie (9.4%), Molina and Encarnacion (8.1%). Everyone else below average, and I excluded Johnson (12.9%).

Guys from the Jays' system (I may have some of these wrong, but they seem like organizational guys to me): Lind, Hill, Cooper, Loewen (the hitter), Snider, Arencibia, Thames, McCoy. Only McCoy and Cooper, in very limited ABs, have above average BB%, and even then it's not by that much. None of them have hit for a notably high average either (I'd prefer that method of getting on base). I don't know if it's coaching, drafting, or just luck, but the Jays need to figure it out.

bball12 - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 11:03 AM EDT (#244816) #

AWeb - Other than Lawrie - I could see Cooper putting up a decent (if not good) BA and Walk stat in the future

Very patient hitter with a very good eye.

Mike Green - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 11:19 AM EDT (#244818) #

Aaron Hill had good W/K rates in the minors. At the time, analysts (including BP- I have an e-mail from Nate Silver about this) thought that he did not have enough power to have much of a big-league career. It wouldn't shock me if the club had a similar view. It sure looks as though changes were made to his swing to hopefully assist in adding power. These changes worked but at a cost of poorer strike zone control.

bball12 - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 11:24 AM EDT (#244819) #

Does every player on the team have to hit 20-30 home runs in order to be considered a productive player?

Perhaps we could afford to have one or two Gardners on the team - that get on base alot - and that let the big guys knock them in.

As opposed to batting .210 with 20 HR's and swinging at every single thing thrown their way.

John Northey - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 11:40 AM EDT (#244821) #

I think a lot of the time the Jays follow the Cito approach - go to the plate with a plan about what you want to hit and if you get it, hit it and hit it hard.

That leads to more K's but also more power. Mix it with strong strike zone judgement (ala Bautista) and you're laughing. Few are strong in that area though, so we rarely get those high walk players. It'll be interesting to see if things change now that we have AA in control and Ferrell as the manager.

bpoz - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 12:12 PM EDT (#244823) #

John N, Keeping in mind that memory is not always reliable,I remember last year A Gon WON a lot/few? games by hitting a HR near the end of the game. This year Bautista seemed to win a lot of games by hitting a HR early in the year.

This Hr thing seems to work, I think.

But then I could be wrong about this HR thing. Baseball can prove good thinking is wrong, maybe. So how about you combine good pitching to keep the score low and then finish off the game by hitting a Hr to win the game.

hypobole - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 12:45 PM EDT (#244825) #

Interesting - and a bit disconcerting - is that most if not all of our fastest guys strike out 4x to 5x more times than they walk.

bball, even our major leaguers aren't as bad as you suggest, Yeah Davis and Snider were terrible this year. Rasmus has been awful so far as a Jay, but on the year is at 2.3x, and 2.4x career. Patterson, thank goodness isn't our guy, he's St'. Louis guy. And I don't see how you can include Thames in a group of "all our fastest guys", but leave out Lawrie, Johnson and even Escobar and Encarnacion who are about as speedy as Thames.

John Northey - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 12:55 PM EDT (#244828) #

Never said I disagree with the Cito approach, just that I'm curious if things will change.

In truth, it would be best if all hitters could see the strike zone clearly and tell which pitch is 'their' pitch thus being able to drive that one while laying off (or fouling off) the others.

hypobole - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 12:56 PM EDT (#244829) #

bpoz, you may be thinking of Earl Weaver's great quote, "The key to winning baseball games is pitching, fundamentals and three run homers"

hypobole - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 01:10 PM EDT (#244832) #

Cito's approach is fine, but you need players that aren't constantly hacking away at breaking balls a foot off the plate. Because if they do, the hitters are usually walking back to the dugout before they even get a chance to see "their pitch" and pitchers are much less likely to throw anything close to a hittable strike if they don't have to.

bball12 - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 01:10 PM EDT (#244833) #

Hypo - I did not leave Lawrie out.

Johnson-Escobar and Encarnacion are all established players that I do not consider "speedy" - and have - I believe - never stolen more than 10 bases in any one season.

I do not consider them to be our fastest guys - so I guess we disagree.

sam - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 01:14 PM EDT (#244834) #

Richard S.S. if the Jays do sign Darvish or it's revealed they were competitive bidders in the posting fee process I will certainly apologize for my previous comments. However, I'm still skeptical of Olney's recent comments.

Chuck - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 01:25 PM EDT (#244838) #

I remember last year A Gon WON a lot/few? games by hitting a HR near the end of the game.

Did he win the games himself? Or did his late homerun contribute to the wins (albeit dramaticallly)? This distinction is important since it tempers the romance of the drama of the "game-winning" homerun by not attributing the entirety of a win to the player who hit it.

Further, could a reason the team had to win the game late was because of Gonzalez's inability to get on base earlier in the game, and therefore potentially score a run that might not have been required later in the game?

I don't think anyone would argue against the value of players who can hit homeruns. But that ability alone cannot singlehandedly offset the need to be able to get on base. Vernon Wells has hit 25 homeruns this year (and I'm sure many have been dramatic late-inning shots) and his HR/AB ratio is better than his career average. But his OBP is .249. And he has hit only 15 doubles. Homeruns are all he has brought to the table this year. And that has not been nearly good enough.

Earl Weaver rightfully loved his 3-run homers. But one of the prerequisites for them is two guys to get on base.

hypobole - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 01:33 PM EDT (#244840) #

Kelly Johnson has 16 SB's this year, 13 last year. he is a fringe speedster at best,

Escobar stole 12 bases between AA and the majors in '07 but no mare tham 6 since. Edwin has stolen 8 bases this year after losing weight in the offseason. Thames has 7 combined steals between AA and the majors this year and had 8 SB's in NH last year. So we agree that EE and Escobar are definitely not speedsters, but shouldn't Thames be in the same group as those 2?

John Northey - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 01:44 PM EDT (#244845) #

Cito's approach has nothing to do with swinging at breaking balls a foot off the plate. In fact, he'd get mad at hitters who do that unless they were George Bell or someone else who could actually hit that pitch (ala Vlad Guerrero).

The Cito method is to swing as hard as possible at YOUR pitch. IE: to know what type of pitch you can drive and where it has to be thrown (be that in or out of the strike zone). Then a hitter can reach his full potential. If he takes that ideal pitch then he might not see it again that night. Thus it is important for hitters to be ready to hit on all pitches at all times. Ideally the hitter also knows the strike zone so they don't swing at pitches that are outside the zone - a hitter who can identify zones where they can drive the ball should be able to do this. However, often hitters get overanxious and swing at pitches the pitcher wants him to swing at which leads to ground outs or pop ups or strikeouts. After all, that is the pitchers job.

MatO - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 02:40 PM EDT (#244855) #

I assume Lind's "pitch" is not one that has a good possibility of hitting him in the leg if he doesn't swing at it as per last night's 9th inning.

Magpie - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 02:52 PM EDT (#244857) #

Perhaps we could afford to have one or two Gardners on the team

There aren't one or two Gardners in the league, so good luck getting them on your team. That type of player - Brett Butler comes to mind - used to be fairly common. Now they're almost extinct. Everybody wants to hold the bat down at the end and swing as hard as he can....

Magpie - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 02:59 PM EDT (#244859) #

a good possibility of hitting him in the leg if he doesn't swing at it

It looked pretty awful. It was a slider, and Lind obviously hadn't recognized that when he committed to swinging at it. He thought he was seeing a fastball on the inside corner, he had two strikes on him...

That said, a major league hitter has to be able to recognize a slider.

hypobole - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 03:14 PM EDT (#244860) #

John, you and I agree on Cito's approach, but as you said, the hitter may only get one ideal pitch a night. The point I was trying to make was hitters with poor pitch recognition will see fewer pitches and fewer hittable pitches because they're continnually behind in the count. If you swing at balls, why throw strikes? Hitters with good recogbition get to see more pitches and have more chances of getting drivable pitches. Or the pitcher may not give in and you become a baserunner via a walk, allowing teammates to cause more damage if they get their ideal pitch.

bpoz - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 05:33 PM EDT (#244875) #

Thanks for responding, Chuck & others.

About Game Winning & By Himself, my memory may be wrong but this is what I meant:- We were either losing or tied getting close to the 9th inning and he hit a HR, the result is that we are now leading by 1 or 2 runs. If its a home game in the 9th we do not need a save but if it is not then the pitching stood up and we won. If A Gon did it(for the Jays) 3 times or less then it is few, if 4 or more then a lot IMO.
A Gon's OBP was low & BA was maybe OK but 42 doubles, 23HR & 88 RBI. So that is 3 good numbers but all his other numbers were probably poor. But IMO he had a great season.

I don't believe we talk much about RISP. Not sure why, but I always look at that number in our Minor League updates. I know Alan Ashby is awestruck? by EE's low RBI number and IMO it could be RISP. Is the term Clutch Hitting just a myth?

I know about Earl Weavers strategy, which my last sentence described (3 run Hrs & good pitching). I know he had great pitching. But the hitting was not that great was it? How about the BB & OBP? How reliable was that side of the equation. To finish the equation, how was the Defense?

I also was describing the results of the 2010 Jays. We did not know what good to expect from most of the team, except a few pitchers (Downs?) and 2 or 3 hitters. I mean 2009 was 75 wins. But in 2010 we got great results from 4 SPs, close but no NONOs & lots of HRs and 85 wins.

Chuck - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 06:35 PM EDT (#244876) #

by EE's low RBI number and IMO it could be RISP.

Encarnacion's overall OPS this year is 787. His RISP OPS is 729.

For his career, his overall OPS is 789 and his RISP OPS is 787.

Incidentally, and unrelated to the above, Encarnacion's OPS is exactly 787 for the second straight year. His OPS+ last year was 110 and this year it's 111. The shape of his offense has changed as he has subsituted 30 points of SLG for OBP. It's more than a fair tradeoff (a point of OBP being worth more than a point of SLG) but it has had an effect on his RBIs. Or production, as Buck and Pat like to call it. Getting on base, apparently, is not producing. Knocking in a run, however, is the essence of masculinity.

uglyone - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 06:38 PM EDT (#244878) #

I really think this kind of analysis is screaming out for a consideration of BB% as equally important to K$%, with ISO thrown in there to boot.

ayjackson - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 07:06 PM EDT (#244881) #

That said, a major league hitter has to be able to recognize a slider

With only about 25% of major league hitters hitting above .250 (according to Ashby via Hentgen), perhaps this isn't so.

Anders - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 07:23 PM EDT (#244884) #

With only about 25% of major league hitters hitting above .250 (according to Ashby via Hentgen), perhaps this isn't so.

Well the Major League average is .255, so I'm going to assume this isn't true.

bball12 - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 07:26 PM EDT (#244885) #

hypo - Eric can actually run pretty good.

His baserunning instincts have a long ways to go - but he can run.

Shane - Tuesday, September 27 2011 @ 07:34 PM EDT (#244887) #

About Aaron Hill:

"It wouldn't shock me if the club had a similar view. It sure looks as though changes were made to his swing to hopefully assist in adding power. These changes worked but at a cost of poorer strike zone control."

Interesting theory.

Minor League Hitters - Age and K Rate | 33 comments | Create New Account

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