Chiang's Massive Result in the Eastern League

=== See Ya, Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya ===

In Jack's sound bytes, he's referred to Chiang as "the Eastern League MVP" or some such...

Pro talent evaluators have a rather better feel for what "best player in the Eastern League" actually means.  It tends to mean "future MLB MOTO hitter."  In AAA you've got a lot of ex-major league fringe players, but in AA you're generally talking about dynamic young prospects.

I think Taro already pointed out this listing of historical players who went as EL-bananas as Chiang has.  Like 50% of them are impact ML players.

Check out the list.  The top 25, on which is Chiang, includes Vlad, Rolen, Wright, Weiters, Nick Johnson, Ryan Howard, etc etc.

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=== Stop Da Fight ===

Chiang isn't "the best hitter in the Eastern League."  He is "the best hitter in the Eastern League by a preposterous margin."  Sort this table by OPS, and then sort it by SLG.

The 37 doubles in 88 games are amusing.  That's 60+ full season, along with 30 homers.  LOL.

There's a syllogism here somewhere, I think:

  • P1 The Eastern League MVP is likely a soon-to-be ML cleanup hitter
  • P2 Video Game Chiang is doing a Secretariat on the Eastern League
  • Concl .... [you do the math]

From a sheer saber standpoint, it's hard to project Chiang as anything other than a top-40 prospect in baseball.  But labels in baseball die verrrrrry hard.

Not clear why Boston would give him up for a rental, but Erikkk could be the World Series.

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=== The Locals ===

Next up, POTD Chih-Hsien Chiang, grokked by G-Money to be --->  Jack's key to the Bedard deal.

Meantime, you can find interesting local shtick on Chiang in this chat thread.  

A comparison to Josh Hamilton comes up ... that's awfully ambitious, needless to say, and Hamilton was a once-in-a-decade 1-1 draft pick.  But looking at vids of the two players, there are some strong similarities, as well as dissimilarities.  Both players utilize their upper-body strength to crush the ball.

Cheerio,

Dr D

Comments

1

because Epstein didn't want to be made a fool of.  Epstein had to want Bedard bad but  he knows it's a big risk (trading for Bedard) and doesn't want to look silly by trading a top prospect.  A top 10 prospect for an injury prone pitcher is not the image that Epsein wants to cultivate.  Enter Z with his knowledge of hitters and up and coming studs.  Epstein might of said I can't give you a top ten prospect and Z might of said that's ok I'll take Chiang.  Boston fans aren't upset because Chiang's not on their radar yet and if Bedard helps them do well in the post season Epstein can point to that with justification as to why he would trade this potential MOTO.

2
Taro's picture

Chiang is the central piece in this trade IMO. Its interesting Z seems to see it this way as well.
I'm not touching the Hamilton-comps, but Chiang is an intriguing RF/DH prospect (though sounds like more of a DH). Opposite field hitter with that kind of pop. He has monster game power according to the reports.
Maybe not a premium prospect, but he has a shot at being a pretty good hitter.

3
Taro's picture

Some of my favorite quotes:
“Call him Video Game Chiang,” Red Sox third baseman Will Middlebrooks said of Portland teammate Chih-Hsieh Chiang at the All-Star Futures Game, where both players represented the Sox. “He hits the ball with video game pop. He hits the ball harder than anyone I’ve seen. He squares balls up. If he squares a ball up, and a guy is throwing hard, he’ll hit a ball 500 feet, no problem.”
“He’s always had that pop but he’s more consistent with it now. He hits line drives, I flinch because I think they’re going to kill somebody. … This guy hits the ball so hard, and it’s to all fields. He hit a ball, actually it was in spring training, he hit a ball to left-center, a lot of righties couldn’t pull it that far. It’s just unreal how hard he hits the ball.”

4
ghost's picture

...they've made video game baseball WAAAAAAYYYYY harder these days...I'm finding it nearly impossible to hit at ALL in MLB 2011: The Show...and I used to dominate these games...not that I have much time to get better lately what with real life and all...darn you real life...you're messing up my video game street cred. :)
In all seriousness, Cheech-and-Chiang looks like the real deal to me as long as he keeps his focus and stays on his diet and medication regiment.  And no...I'm not ready to consign him to DH only prospect status...he's our future LF/RF IMHO.

5
Rob's picture

The Eastern League is stupid to have an Eastern and Western Division. It's both redundant and contradictory (and annoying).

6

As we've seen even around Seattle, if a GM sheds a player that is perceived as an exciting young top-100 talent, and if that move doesn't work out perfectly, that GM is liable to hear about it for the rest of his LIFE.  Literally.
And, am not sure that inside baseball, the laughing isn't almost as bad as it is on some blogs.
This way, if Chiang pans out, most people will give it a pass as "the best information we had at the time."  :- )
Same reason that nobody got fired over not drafting Tim Lincecum.  Lot of cover-your kiester goes on in baseball.
***
Their loss, our gain, if the *actual* best info at the time (the Eastern League [1000-OPS and U-26] table) holds up.
Wouldn't blame Epstein if he thought even more highly of Chiang than Lavarnway, but didn't want to deal with the flak.

7

Check out the videos in the thread that Doc links above.  Man does he have an relaxed presence at the plate.  Almost like a company softball game....then he drives the ball.  On the third one he homers, you can get a nice view of the preswing wrap that he gets with the bat.  Not quite like Ackley...but nice enough.
And improvement doesn't lie, his month to month progression at AA over the past two years is something cool to see.
The health issues can be concerning.  But with the right diet and a strict adherance, they are overcome.
Why isn't he in Tacoma?
 
 

8
IcebreakerX's picture

At first, I thought Z blinked when he traded Fister vis-a-vis the Harden Trade... But trading Fister also, in an economic sense, reduced market supply.
Reducing supply raises prices.
Was Z playing two steps ahead?

9

Vinnie!
122 ABs, 45 H, 14 dbl, 2 tpl, 4 HR
.369/.406/.615/1.021
His walk rate at AA is down a bunch (4% after being at 10% at both Clinton and HD), but I suppose if you have a .426 BABIP you don't see much need to be patient.  He had a 0.5 eye at Clinton and 0.73 eye at High Desert, so I'm not overly stressed about it.
Consider this:
Chiang -- 37 dbl, 4 tpl, 18 HR, 25 BB, 64 K -- .336/.398/.636
Vinnie (A + AA) -- 33 dbl, 3 tpl, 18 HR, 39 BB, 69 K -- .356/.417/.587
Chiang is 23 and LH; Vinnie is 22 and RH.

10

Guys with dynamic upside that others pass on for some reason.
Chiang had 5 consecutive seasons with sub-.800 OPS (diabetes/nutrition)
Robinson has the 30% K rate (but from age 20-22 he didn't)
Walker was a hoopster who'd barely pitched (but had all the tools)
Franklin was a scrawny gym-rat (that made people miss the picture-perfect LH swing)
Paxton had let his stuff get coated with too much rust (that was surprisingly easy to shake off)
Carp was just a slow singles-and-walks guy with Dave Magadan upside (but had the big-time SLG hidden down in there if you looked)
Seager was just Ackley's lightweight buddy (before he started stinging doubles all over the place)  -- Seager, by the way, is back on the MLB roster with Figgins placed on the DL.
Every one of them cherry-picked by Z & Crew in a trade or draft.  Seriously, those guys could be about half the team over the next five years.  Makes you figure there's something to love about Francisco Martinez.

11

Who still can't get any respect.
I wish I could remember where I saw the scouting report (from THIS YEAR IIRC) that had all his tools at 30-35 and where the author mocked anyone who disagreed because the reports his scouting friends were giving him were worse than that.
For a comical joke of a baseball player, Vinnie is having a pretty nice season even with the scary-high BABIP.
Lookin forward to seeing him in AAA next year - he keeps this up, maybe he can get a 40 tool somewhere along the line.
~G

13

Story on trade deadline winners that has the M's at #5:
5. Seattle Mariners
You can only besmirch Mike Adams to a point — he's got real swing-and-miss stuff that makes him more than just a product of Petco. Can we really say the same about Doug Fister and David Pauley? The two Mariners right-handers also benefited from a pitcher-friendly ballpark, plus some excellent defense behind them. Will they fare as well in Detroit, where Comerica Park only slightly favors run prevention and where Fister's anemic 6.3 percent swinging strike rate in particular could make him a disappointment to his new team?
That's not Jack Zduriencik's problem, at least not after the Mariners GM flipped the two pitchers to Detroit for some promising young talent, including minor league third baseman Francisco Martinez, four-pitch lefty and All-Name Team MVP Charlie Furbush, and either the Tigers' second or third pick from last year's draft. The M's may have trumped that deal just before Sunday's deadline, flipping injury-prone walk-year starter Erik Bedard and busted closer prospect Josh Fields for an exciting outfield prospect in Trayvon Robinson (toolsy Dodger farmhand with 26 homers in Albuquerque's launching pad this year) and a potential fourth outfielder in Chih-Hsien Chiang (hitting .339/.401/.652 at Double-A in the Red Sox system, but scouts don't think that production will come close to translating in the majors). For a team so starved for offense and young position player talent, this might turn out to be a big score. Maybe two big scores.

Chiang's Eastern-League lapping performance is only getting him 4th OF street cred.  And notice Casper Casey Wells the 5th gets no mention in the piece at all?  That's the fun part about prospecting - guys you like are not liked by others, and you get to defend your point of view.  And the paid experts are not always right.
*grins*  Here's hoping they're wrong on both Vinnie and Chiang.  I'd love for those "4th OF/backup DH" guys to club like crazy.
AAA will be fun next year with both of them there, potentially both in the OF along with Trayvon.  Could be our best minor league OF since Choo, Jones and TJ Bohn (what an arm that kid had). 
That 2006 Tacoma squad was full of great prospects.  All the arms blew out (Nageotte, Blackley, Livingston, O'Flaherty, though Eric is doing GREAT in the ATL bullpen now) and all the good bats went elsewhere (Choo, As-Cab, Jones, Morse these days...) while some just flopped due to injury (Snelling) or ineptitude (Clement).  But at the time, it felt like you were watching the future of the Mariners.
Maybe next year, we will be. The lineup might have Trayvon, Vinnie, Chiang, Truinfel, potentially Nick Franklin and/or Francisco Martinez at some point, and Seager or Liddi at 3rd, and the staff could include Paxton, Carraway, Erasmo, Tony Vasquez, Robles, Wilhelmsen, and even Hultzen during the year.
That's about 10 of our top 25 prospects, wouldn't you say?  That means, percentage-wise, you'll be looking at 3 future good major leaguers on that team, maybe more if we're lucky.
Buy your tickets now. ;)
~G

14

It's more like .330 thanks to worse fielding, inadequate hit charts for proper fielder placement, etc.  Vinnie's had a consistently higher BABIP than even that since he got into pro baseball.  Either he's been really lucky for 1100+ ABs...or he might just be one of those high-BABIP players.
Vinnie's having some luck, but the translatable league he's got the most at-bats in, the MWL, offered up .304/.388/.490 as a 21 year old.  I wouldn't call him a .270 hitter just yet - he's given no indication at any level that he can't run a high BA.
If he's a .270/.340/.420 hitter in the bigs that's not especially exciting...but it's still a 95-100 OPS+ isn't it? With all the 30s and 40s we've been posting the last three years I'd kill for some 100 OPS+ bats that didn't cost us a dime.
We'll see.  Vinnie's still got a lot to prove at a corner.
~G

15

Regular lineup guys over 30: Ichiro, Olivo
Rotation over 30: no one
Bullpen over 30: Wright
Other than that you have Kennedy sharing time at 3b and DH, Wilson buried on the bench, Bard backing up C, and Figgins on the DL.
Middle of the order today:
3. Ackley (23)
4. Carp (25)
5. Wells (26)
And Smoak (24) still clearing his head, I guess.

16

Gameday shows him getting Jemile Weeks to swing and miss on a splitter in the dirt, and then throwing two more to Crisp, while his 4-seamer is at 95-96.
Anyone see it?

18
ghost's picture

It doesn't actually matter what the minor league BABIP is here.  I'm saying I don't think Catricala is going to remain X% better than his league as he moves up to the big league level.  I'm saying if you translate his .400 BABIP in minor league ball today to a .300 BABIP in the big leagues...he'll be a useless 95 OPS+ corner outfielder...a 4th outfielder at best.  Not that it's bad to have those guys in the system...just that I'm not really buying in on Catricala until I see better evidence that he has some identifiable skill for hitting above league BABIP.  Are his LD rates sky high?  If so...why?  Is he blazingly fast?  Perhaps above average speed, but not blazing speed...he's certainly not a power threat...some XBH, but not a ton of longballs to help BABIP...

19

When Mike Trout has a .400 BABIP across his 1100 PAs it's because he's blazingly fast, but Vinnie doesn't yet have an identified skill that lets him beat the average.
He is hitting a ton of line drives this year, which has boosted his BABIP, but while line drive percent can be more telling year to year than some stats, it's only one year.  He goes back to 16% and it's nothing to call home about.
*shrugs* I'm not sold on Vinnie - I want more data.  Luckily, I'll get it.  And in the meantime, I wouldn't sell low on him any more than I'd sell low on Chiang.  The blips on the radar right now re: line drive percent and how they're hammering the ball will be fun to track.
~G

20

One of the other things Jack said in the booth the other day was something to the effect of, "We expect to get all our top draftpicks signed."  I would hope Cron is included in that.  I REALLY want him.  I'm already imagining the possibilities.
And Smoak isn't clearing his head, he jammed his thumb with a grounder yesterday, so he might miss a few days . His hand was swollen and he couldn't grip a bat to take his last swing the other night.
Hopefully nothing serious.
~G
 

21
Jpax's picture

Not only that, Z has a Seattle history of selecting good prospects in trades.  Everyone we received in the Putz trade has made the Majors (briefly for Cleto) and 3 of the 4 in the Lee trade (the 4th, Lawson, was traded for Laffey, already a Major League pitcher).
I fully expect these recently obtained prospects to shine.  As GMoney likes to say, sometimes players leap plateaus in their development.  Although more typical of pitchers, I suspect the scouts and Z saw something in each prospect that makes them believe they are better than their career statistics, or are ready to make another leap.

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