Men

Stephen Pryor Scouting Report 6.2.12 - Dr's Prognosis

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=== Don' Try to Bluff ME, eh hoser ===

Maybe the simplest poker tell is the staredown. If an opponent splashes his chips and stares at you real hard, he's trying to back you down. He's hoping you'll fold.

And why would he be hoping that you'll fold? Because if you bet, he'll get caught with weak cards.... now suppose a guy slides a stack of chips in gingerly and looks away meekly, hoping not to do anything to put your sense of danger into gear. Why would he sincerely be wanting you to put chips in?

See, life ain't so hard .... :- )

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Dr. D genuinely expected a soft landing for Stephen Pryor. And Eric Wedge is a guy who believes, even more than most managers, in letting a starry-eyed rook ease into the hot tub.

When the White Sox put men on base Saturday, and Paul .370 Konerko came up to the plate, Wedge went out and got the best pitcher. Stephen Pryor.

You ain't bluffing me. You can tell me the M's were still behind, or that the bullpen was low, or whatever. But in that AB, you confirmed everything I've suspected all along. Don't kid a kidder.

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Aroldis Chapman's FIP = 0.55

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BSR with a disconcerting visual for us, regarding Video Game Chapman's 2012 rampage:

[He has 47 K in 27 IP and an 0.00 ERA...] It's just funny, if he was on the Yankees doing this there would probably be a dedicated Chapman Watch minisite on ESPN.com tracking every pitch...on the Reds I didn't even know this was happening.

That IS funny, and true, too. I watch SportsCenter twice a week maybe and have not yet, this season, seen Chapman on the screen. I usually take Chapman in SBNation's "Pick Six" game; for a long time you could buy him for $3 of your $120 daily budget. He's still only like $11.

Hasegawa had a 0+ ERA at the ASB once ... it's probably not historically unusual for a reliever to take a 0.00 ERA into July. Eck had like an 0.64 ERA to finish one season ... but as to 0.00 ERA at 15K+ per nine innings, I wonder if this is the latest it's ever been done like this.

Chapman's FIP right now is 0.55, meaning that he "deserves" an ERA that is essentially zero, would have a near-zero ERA if the batted balls and fielding behind him were completely typical. You are witnessing a Sidd Finch-style perfect baseball pitching performance, or as close as you're going to see.

Max Fried, LHP, Harvard-Westlake HS - SSI pre-draft $0.02

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=== What's Lame About 'Im ===

It makes me want to hurl when a prep player's own coach - the man who has watched him on and off the field, now - says stuff like this:

"Max goes through spurts when he wants to do everything on his own," Harvard-Westlake coach Matt LaCour said. "He's at his best when he's pitching to contact and getting guys out early in the count. He's shown when he's at his best, he's going to strike out guys. He just doesn't need to strike out every guy.

"That's something with extended time on the mound, he'll learn. He will try to overthrow at times, but mechanically, he's in a good spot. I wouldn't identify that as something people need to be worried about in the future."

I would hope that this is just the coach venting his personal biases, like Jim Lefebvre trying to turn Jay Buhner into a contact hitter. But if there was any traction to this, it would be a pretty serious indictment of Fried.

Young men who are going to be IN the majors, much less stars there, should leave their prep environments shellshocked. (Lemme repeat again that Fried's coach may just be stepping up to the mic and trying to sound uber-savvy with the world watching.)

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Clayton Kershaw is who Fried needs to be, if he's worth a 1-1 (or 1-3) pick, and in Kershaw's day there was nobody saying that Kershaw should be pitching to contact. Kershaw threw an all-strikeout perfect game, threw curve balls that started behind LH hitters and broke in for called strikes, just left the entire gallery stunned silent every game.

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Bill James pointed out, 25 years ago, that ML organizations shoot themselves in the feet by taking high school pitchers ANYWHERE in the first round. It's not that you can't project them. Even if Fried is the real deal, how far is he from ever helping the big team? Fried is 3, 4 years from being James Paxton, and once he hits his 1-in-4 dice roll and is James Paxton in AA/AAA .... THEN you'll have the present quibbling and hem'ing and haw'ing over his getting to the big club.

Kyle Zimmer, RHP, USF - SSI pre-draft $0.02

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=== What's Lame About 'Im ===

There really isn't much. Whatever you throw in this canning jar, I can ink "QUIBBLES" onto the lid real quick.

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Zimmer is very early in his career, so like we say, there are some naive things in his delivery, as there are in Taijuan's. You could say that he doesn't connect his shoulderline with the center fielder like Appel does. I'm not wild about the "trueness" of Zimmer's head down the CL and he doesn't get very dynamic acceleration of the belt buckle. These things are also true of Taijuan Walker.

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One of the "knocks" on Zimmer, as it relates to being a 1-1 pick, is the idea that he doesn't profile as a Cy Young award winner. There's the dreaded #2 starter label. Siiiiggggghhhhhhh ... sometimes Dr. D sort of vibrates-resets in his chair while typing this stuff, like a holographic decoy in a Total Recall remake. Danny Hultzen of course was downgraded last year for precisely this (stupid) reason.

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I actually agree that Zimmer gives a vibe like he's going to max out at Jordan Zimmerman, Matt Garza, Gil Meche, Daniel Hudson level. Those being other 94-MPH right hand pitchers who can throw as many different kinds of breaking balls as they feel like. This kind of pitcher -- the 4-pitch guy with a good fastball -- frequently does settle in as a #2 type.

...... M's 4

Chris Chambliss' age-27 season landed him #5 in the MVP voting

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=== Michael Saunders ===

Is swinging the bat very well. He seems to be grooving in his stroke, the one in which his bat stops at the 1B foul line and the the one in which he finishes with his belt buckle pointed at the shortstop. He is swinging that way more and more often, and looking more and more natural as he does it.

His OPS+ is slightly above 100, and he's on pace for almost 3.0 WAR. Do you remember center field last season?

Player	WAR
Guti (92 games)	+1.1
Saunders	-0.5
Langerhans	-0.7
Trayvon	-0.9
Total	-1.0

Gutierrez was nominally credited with 1.1 WAR, but don't let that mislead you. His OBP was .261 -- think about that, now -- and his SLG was .273 also. UZR credited him with +15 defensive runs in half a season, so the aggregate looked like things were okay there.

If a stat tells you that a .534 OPS center fielder is a decent player, that's an idictment of the stat. Seriously. Franklin Gutierrez 2011 calls into question the statistic of WAR. ... I don't say it's the end of the discussion, of course. But if you look at a .261 OBP singles hitter, and go "well, he's got a decent WAR," check your blog pass at the door amigo.

. . . . M's 1. ('Problem of uncomfortable opponent')

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Q. What happened on the offense?

A. It was bemusing that, after three days of thematic discussion on the M's plate discipline .... they promptly went out and powerflushed a with swings on pitches outside the strike zone.

Jesus Montero's garbage swing at the 2-2 sucker pitch in the 1st inning was a tragedy, and it saved Harrison's 35-pitch keister that inning. Man alive there dude, what's the hurry? You've got a lefty and you love right field.

In the 8th, with two men on, Justin Smoak got a 3-2 pitch from Mike Adams and Smoak knew IN THE HUDDLE that he was going to be swinging. Apparently so did Adams, because he threw the ball a foot wide and way high, which would have walked the bases loaded, except he figured Smoak for a sucker.

Next AB, Seager worked 3-2 and then swung at exactly the same pitch. Not every day a pitcher gets to take a batter "up the ladder" and also into the outside batter's box for a little extra insurance.

As Jay Buhner would say, you gotta see the ball before you swing. What are you doing pedal-to-the-medal, like it's a 3-run jack or nothing? The tying run's on base.

No idea what had the M's hitters so panicky and shrill. The game was a complete reversal of the first 43 games of the season: plenty of chances to take walks, and plenty of times the M's feebed out. I got vertigo watching it.

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Don't get me wrong. They gave Matt Harrison lots more trouble than I expected. You should see their lifetime numbers against the 94-MPH lefty. For one thing, they came into the game with 120+ AB's and zero home runs against him.

They battled. I'm happy with it.

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Q. Every Mariner had bad numbers against the LHP Harrison?

A. Everybody except Chone Figgins, pretty much. Wedge's righty lineup did not include Figgins, you notice, and this despite the fact that the pre-game numbers made Figgy his number one man.

In this game Figgins was in the DEEEeeeeeeeEEEEP freeze. Just so you know.

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Q. What is SSI's version of the two near-miss HR's? Is complaining about that legit, or is it kind of chickenfeathers?

"Legitimizing" a Lineup

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You'll hear scouts use the phrase. "Konerko legimitizes that lineup in Chicago." What they mean is, as the pitcher throws to the three or four guys ahead of Konerko, they're thinking about Konerko. You don't want to see him come up with two men on base. If you can contain Konerko and the White Sox aren't all that scary.

Of course, while Edgar was here, the Mariners' lineup was automatically legitimate, whether Griffey and ARod were here or not.

More on Paxton, Hultzen and Taijuan

Dr D's version of a bullpen switch

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Q. Does Dr. D really expect the M's to re-boot in May?

A. 'course not. The M's are a mortal lock to keep them down until the latter part of June, anyway, as they did Ackley. Our little think tank ain't been hired to provide consultations, babe. We're cracking peanuts in the bleachers ... increasingly sitting by ourselves in empty stands.

That's too high! It's too high! ... oh.

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Q. Could the M's re-boot while leaving the Big Three down in the minors?

A. Sure. We listed 9,000 things you could do that would have the desired effect, starting with the health and safety of the soda machine and proceeding from there to Kevin Millwood's job. Dr. D would love to see a re-boot in any form, including the one that saves $8M on the salaries of Paxton and Hultzen.

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Q. Would Dr. D agree with Esteemed Money-Man that a complete U-25 roster sends the torpedo out into a U-turn that will sink the M's anyway?

A. Without a doubt the M's need a 90-RBI man and a reliable short reliever. They need Veteran Presence (TM) that leads in terms of bases gained and bases lost, not in terms of "showing kids the right way to go about their business."

M's 2 .....

Think Selig would O.K. a game or two with this helmet for the UNC kid? Hey, think of the merchandising.

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The Detroit Tigers won 95 games last year; the Rangers won 96 and the Yankees 97, forming a stellar Orion's Belt of megateams in the American League.

The major changes that they've made have not been to swap a great 300-lb. pitcher for a great catching prospect. By "changes" the Detroit Tigers mean "additions." Such as adding a $200,000,000 Prince Fielder to hit cleanup, and to call up Drew Smyly to strike out 9 men per game in their #5 rotation slot.

This situation is not unlike that of the NBA's Miami Heat. In the NBA, they only get one ball, but in baseball, there are nine lineup slots...

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The Tigers are 15-15 having lost five of six to the Mariners. Had the Tigers beaten the M's 5 of 6, in Tampa Rays fashion, the Tigers would now be 19-10 and essentially tied with the 20-10 Texas Rangers for the best record in baseball. The M's have grabbed the Tigers by the lapel and slapped them off the top rung down into a .500 record. And they're bloomin' lucky they won that single game...

The Placeholder Mariners v0.9 have been frustrating, but they haven't been lame. Night after night, Dr. D wrings his hands helplessly and wishes for the day that Seager, Vargas and Felix are joined by the organization's best baseball players.

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John Jaso, Bobby Abreu, and topspin swings in Safeco

John Jaso is, as things stand now, a role player in the major leagues. Bobby Abreu is on the lip of baseball's Hall of Fame, having 53 of 50 points on the HOF Standards test and 94 of 100 points on the HOF Monitor test. Still and all, scouts use "prototypes" to give a sense of a playing style. Danny Hultzen pitches in Cole Hamels style. James Paxton pitches in Mark Mulder style. John Jaso is, right now, playing in Bobby Abreu style.

Abreu has something of a topspin swing, giving him a moderately high groundball rate, yet with home run capability and lots of line drives. Jaso has the same. Here is MLB.com's video of an August 11, 2011 base hit in which the topspin on the ball makes it sit down in front of Endy Chavez.

Two pictures of that swing. Here is the throughswing, with the bat going from low to high to low again:

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And here he comes back down on the finish, with the tennis-type groundstroke motion that Raul Ibanez has used to such great effect:

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Similarities:

	MLB avg	Abreu career	Jaso '10	Jaso '12
GB/FB	1.2	1.4	1.3	1.3
EYE (bb/k)	0.4	0.8	1.5 (!)	*
Body type	Tall, lean	Short, stocky	Med., stocky	*

You've got uncommonly strong men with short arms, who work the strike zone very well, who come through the hitting area with Thome-type bludgeon effect, and yet who topspin the ball rather than lofting it in Thome style.

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