Indulging in some self-horn-tooting
Here's a little scorecard for the record

 

Doc says I should be less understated.

So I go out and predict that James Paxton will be too inconsistent in the majors and Danny Hultzen will be a better option.

Maybe understated is good!

But I'm going to start rolling out a bunch of my analytical stuff here on SSI for the first time (it was on MarinersTalk.com last offsesaon), so I at least ought to justify myself a little bit.

So here's a little scorecard for you.

 

***

 

1.  We directed your attention to one Danny Farquhar as a bullpen darkhorse candidate in January.  He did OK.  His xFIP was lower than Felix. 

 

2.  We told you that, despite his reputation, Yoervis Medina would not be a disaster as a major leaguer.  He may not have been spectacular, but he wasn't in Hector-Noesi-neverending-meltdown mode either (3.82 xFIP, 2.96 ERA, 125 ERA+).

 

3.  We suggested that Carson Smith belonged in the same breath with Stephen Pryor and Carter Capps when discussing young bullpen aces.  Smith torched AA: 12.8 K/9 and 1.94 xFIP.  Can we use another Jeff Nelson?  Wouldn't hurt.

 

4. We reached deeeeep into our bag of tricks to annoint a former mediocre college starter named Dominic Leone as an emerging bullpen star and the #25 overall prospect.  Last winter ... way before anyone else was talking about him.

  • Fact is, by the time I got to writing it up, I was, like, why did I do this?, but since I'd already written up and published all the guys from 26 and down, I was stuck.  But it was a good thing that I boxed myself in and had to stick to my instincts, since Leone was flat-out brilliant in May, June and July.  He was merely mortal in August, but still pretty good.

Now Leone is headed to the Arizona Fall League, Jack Zduriencik says "he's got everyone's attention," and presumably he'll start appearing on other people's prospect rankings as well.

 

5. We noted that the organization moved Gabriel Noriega out of the way so that Brad Miller could play shortstop everyday, but it didn't move Carlos Triunfel out of the way for Nick Franklin.  That, combined with Miller's better all-around hitting skills, caused us to rank Miller ahead of Franklin.  Did Baseball America, Fangraphs, MLB.com or John Sickels rank them that way?  No, they didn't.

 

6. We immediately noticed that Chris Taylor's reputation as a weak bat seemed overstated, and, when he showed well at the plate in his first minor-league season, we slid him right in at #28.  Now, he's considered the "Breakthrough Prospect of the Year."  And the MLB.com re-rack now has him #5 overall in the organization.

 

7.  We've been telling you about our man Ji-Man Choi since he first landed on U.S. soil and started hitting like Korean Olerud.  He still doesn't get a ton of respect despite a .929 OPS with just 68 strikeouts, but he'll just let his bat talk.

 

8.  And we warned right from the start: Casper Wells, Carlos Peguero, Trayvon Robinson ... thumbs down; virutally no chance.  Not the kind of hitters who have sustained MLB success.  And, Alex Liddi we gave the benefit of the doubt because he was so young, but more-or-less the same deal.

 

***

 

OK, to be fair ...

 

1. I still stand by my conclusion that Vinnie Catricala had three years of very strong results that non-prospects just don't have.  But he ended up a non-prospect anyway.  Not sure what happened.

 

2. I got fixated on Taylor Ard's early power with very low strikeouts, and stuck him at #32.  He's not that good.

 

3. Gabrial Franca is very good at getting on base, but I ignored the signs that the organization likes Ketel Marte a lot more.

 

4.  Of course, we bought into Jesus Montero, but we were not alone in that. 

 

 

 

Comments

1

Spec,
Do you have any righty-lefty breakdown on Smith? His heater has so much tail on it he must be hellacious on RH'ers. Looks like lefties just end up trying to poke it the other way, too.
And he's got a bit of El Tiante in him. Witness the look toward 3B on his wind-up.
So, how quickly does he jump to Seattle? In a hurry, I wouldn't be surprised.
moe

2
blissedj's picture

Do you or Gordon have any recent info on Gohara shoulder injury? Is he throwing again or scheduled to this winter?

3

As you suggest, Moe
130 PAs, 2 XBH (both doubles), 7 walks, 50 K
.158/.217/.175!
.017 ISO-against!
Untouchable.
Less so vs. LH: .233/.370/.333
Details at bottom of this page: http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=smith-009car&type...
BTW, b-ref has these game logs and splits for minor leaguers now, going back to 2008 (I think).  Game logs can be clicked for time-period splits in the same way as the major-league ones.
minorleaguecentral.com still has more stuff, but they also use a lot of stuff that isn't super-reliable, particularly as you get down to lower levels.  Unfortunately for them, b-ref has most of the good stuff now, and also goes farther back in time.

4
Rob's picture

I have no problem with your bragging, mainly because you included your misses. Not all that common in the M's blogosphere.

5

I think they were going to be cautious with him anyway, but obviously the Hultzen thing makes you wary of anything out of the ordinary.
If I see anything I'll let folks know.

6

Great stuff Spec. Your stat work adds an invaluable service to this site, and with Gordon and Doc, we have our own triple threat. You guys complement each other so well, it's amazing. And it feels like a few of us have your brains to pick all to ourselves.
Regarding Carson and Smith, I wonder if it would not be a better idea for the Mariners to make them either starters or long relievers while in the minor leagues. Seems like the best relievers are converted starters, with rare exceptions. These kids need to pitch more innings in he minors to better learn their stuff and escape the problems that plagued Carter Capps and Chance Ruffin, who got lit up like Christmas trees in the bigs (and in Chance's case, Tacoma). How are you gonna fix that if you are pitching one mere inning here and there? Now we see Chance resurrecting his bullpen career after a stint as a starter. I wonder if you have any thoughts on that, or if the Spectometer might have anything to say about minor league IP numbers and later success.
I like Smith, Carter and Leone, but I am really worried about their ability to convert to the bigs without a bunch more innings under their belts.

7

He must splinter a bunch of RH bats. Looks like his real lefty issue is walks. Do they just lay off anything on the outside part of the plate?
What does his slider look like? Will he backdoor it to lefties?

8

Since the first time you said something. Did a quick Google search for "closer throughout the minors" and there were 6 results. I'd start somewhere at looking into the history of what you're saying except I'm not sure where to and can only think of things that would be very time consuming.

9
Jpax's picture

I know they aren't truly 'sleepers', but I rarely see much comment about my two favorite 'sleeper' prospects: Kivlehan and Wilson. Since I do occasionally get to see some NW league games, I have seen both play (as well as more famous teammates) and really like both.

10

According to saves, 7 of these were starters in the minors (and in some cases, the majors as well):
Johnson
Rivera
Soriano
Nathan
Chapman
Balfour
Romo
The three groomed as bull penners exclusively, from the very start:
Kimbrell
Holland
Reed
Grooming exclusively to relieve appears to be a very recent development, and in these 3 cases, quite successful.

11

Is that we have way too many starters AA+ to keep them all in the rotation. I can see both sides of this because you wouldn't want your entire minor leagues to be filled with rotations made up of guys you think have little chance of staying starters and bullpens full of minor league filler. We can't put all the starters in rotations as it is so adding a half dozen relievers to rotations seems like a step backwards. Maybe you're saying it's too late for Smith (eg.) Or that he should stretch out in Arizona or Everett? Or guys you're looking at as top relievers should be stretched out before advancing in the first place? I think the rotation crunch makes that difficult anyway. If it's over a non prospect, start the experiment. If it's over other starting Prospects I'd think the tradeoff would be at best equal. A college closer stretched out in the minors isn't usually the ex starter who's been converted to relief at the show so that would be an experiment with unknown outcomes. Not actually saying this group does well and here's this guy from this group but actually creating a new group or adding to a much smaller group. We have the depth at starting to convert a few anyway which is grabbing from exactly the group you're talking about.
I see what you're saying, maybe a guy like Smith could get more mop up duty at least. Rotation spots are already hard to come by in this system though. In 2009 (or another org.) this would have been a much easier conversation.

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