Here's why I don't put much faith in first-year eye results for latin ballplayers.
From a conversation with BA's inestimable Conor Glassey about Guillermo Pimentel over on Marinercentral.com:
Guillermo Pimentel gets a lot of love despite his atrocious eye rating. Is this another Greg Halman thing where the physical tools are such that the pitch recognition issues are overlooked, or does he have a legit shot to cure that eye rating at the next level?
I would give him a full season or two before we start to worry about his strikeout-to-walk ratio. No, it's not ideal, but you have to remember this is a 17-year-old kid playing in the states for the first time, trying to make a good impression. They don't learn how to walk because most of their baseball is played in the showcase format - throw from the outfield, take BP, run as fast as you can…show off your tools. They don't play a lot of actual games. The tools really stand out, which is why he ranks so highly.
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Very little game time. Nobody it throwing it in on your hands or trying to make you look stupid. They're all sprinting 40 yards and throwing the ball from deep CF and taking BP like crazy, but it's not organized games and let's not talk about furthering strikezone judgment.
It's why guys like Vlad Guerrero are so amazing to me: he has atrocious strikezone judgment and his is as big as a house. He just hits all the pitches anyway. Sometimes freakish talent can overcome a poor initial approach. You should know after a couple of years, but year one, in the AZL where zones and such are questionable anyway? I give a pass on that and look to a league with more structure for a better indicator of growth in that area.
They say Morban has freakish talent. I hope that talent includes the ability to read a breaking pitch and shore up that eye ratio soon. Pimentel too (who came on strong after an atrocious start).
~G
SSI Crunch: Gordon's and Deloney's excitement is contagious. Their slot at #4 last year, for a kid aged 17, was remarkable.
Various reports have Morban as the teenaged prospect you draw up on the chalkboard:
- Runs like a Gerenuk
- Easy cleanup power (51% extra-base hits and 247 ISO already at 17)
- Beautiful lefty swing
- Plays in the middle of the field
- Tremendous results considering age-and-level
At first glance, Morban's EYE in 2009 looked funky, but here you consider context (that Morban should have been playing, like, soph HS baseball). Also, Morban had an intriguing splash in class-A ball before the injury: he had 4 walks against his first 3 strikeouts.
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J-Hey Kid watch: At age 17, Morban was probably a better player than Jason Heyward was at that age. ... I'm just sayin', lurker boy.
This season, in order to keep pace with Heyward, what would Morban need to do?
Morban would need to play well, not great (.483 SLG) in full-season A, and then flop in high-A, which Heyward did at age 18.
At age 19, Heyward had a good first half in A+ baseball, and then right around the All-Star break of that year, was when he jelled and became one of the best prospects in recent memory.
That is the kind of arc that HQ is thinking of when they describe Morban.
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BULL/BEAR MARKET: Haven't seen any video - is there any? But I'm inclined to keep Morban in the M's top 15, if not actually their top 10.
Hey, if he's in everybody's top 10-15 a year ago, and was HQ's #4, what's changed?
You go Juli-O. Morban and Choi are, so far, the two guys that SSI has notably higher than others do.
Comments
And as you know, this is an entire novel, 100,000 words, what's a scout to do about 17-year-old Latin hitters.
Agree 1,001% that the TEENAGED eye ratios, in the first splash, are pretty immaterial. ... you think we're encouraged to be off track for the couple of great games that Morban had to start 2010?
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Are in the All-Star Game despite the poor EYEs. Igor, Pudge, Vlad, and 9,000 other guys.
At the same time, there you are usually talking about Morban types who look like Ken Griffey Jr. at age 17. That may be a simple enough formula to start with: be careful about the extreme free swingers unless you honestly think you have a Delmon Young talent on your hands.
Which may be the case with Morban. We'll see.