=== ML Career ===
When Mickey Saunders first hit the bigs, SSI sez, here is one guy who's going to get 3,000 - 4,000 AB's in the bigs. Read (at the time): I don't know what this team could do with him and it's tough to see him being a good player here.
But for the Royals, or somebody, as a #4 OF or #3 OF or something, Saunders was going to play in the bigs. Quite a bit. (As of August 2009, that has now become practically a given.)
Same goes for Matt Mangini. This guy has a major league bat. He's much quicker than other AAA hitters. He waits on the ball better than other AAA hitters. He unloads on pitches with authority. He gets on top of high, hot fastballs. He turns on offspeed stuff and punishes it. I think he's going to have 2,000 or more AB's in the bigs before he's done.
Tino Martinez, minus 10%, is who he physically looks like. The swing looks kind of static, but he actually gets a lot on the ball. In his prime, Mangini's going to whack 20, 25 balls over the fence.
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=== Upside Scenario ===
If Mangini slugs .500 in the majors, and he could (3:1 against), then of course he will get his 550 AB's a year. Some place on the diamond.
Mangini's future, as an ML starter, probably hangs on that brass ring at .500 SLG. Don't rule it out on him.
This season, at age 24 in AAA, he's hitting .300/.350/.500, though with a .33 EYE that few .300 hitters run. But he's also on pace for 40 doubles and 25 homers per 155 games.
Mangini hits the ball to all fields with authority. He looks great in the box.
Based not just on SABR, but based on physical gifts, Mangini could do in the bigs at 27-28 what he's doing now at 24. .... A .280 AVG with 40 doubles (to both gaps) and 25 homers (to RF) is a .500 SLG and is a realistic upside three years on. If he does that, of course he will play.
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=== Dr's Prognosis ===
As far as the 50th-percentile -- a 100-110 OPS+ who's a dubious corner infielder -- what's that mean?
If you've got a 1B/backup 3B who hits for a 110 OPS, then what? You've got an ML starter who isn't going to help you win a pennant. Newsflash: there are a lot of teams whose goal is not to win a pennant.
SSI evaluates every player with a view to the question, "Can you win your next pennant with this player?" Our I/O on Mangini is "no," but then it was "no" on Miguel Batista and Carlos Silva and and Casey Kotchman and Jack Wilson too, and teams sign those guys.
SSI enjoys watching Matt Mangini play baseball. But for the M's plans at 3B/2B/1B? I wanna see Tui, Figgins, Ackley, and Liddi. Back o' the line is the prognosis here. Mangini's good, but the M's have better.
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My $0.02,
Jeff
Sometimes kids spend so much time playing baseball that they never work on the athleticism that you can gain from other sports (soccer,basketball). Kids love to hit the ball but they do not work on defense. Defense will keep you in the game and get you more at bats.
So, it's the leather that is keeping Mangini in Tacoma while Tuiasosopo is on the big club?
And as far as your last sentence goes, Liddi over Smoak? Crazy.
Good report. Sounds like Mangini is a more versatile B/U (1B/DH) at the MLB level than Carp, because he can play a bit (kind of!) at 3rd. That assumes, of course, that Smoak is the 1B-guy for the next decade ( I HATE sending him to Tacoma like the M's did...I see no value in that move and signs of a desperate organization/front office!)
Keep 'em coming.
...I think he was saying Liddi is better than Mangini (and he is)...and that Smoak doesn't even belong in that conversation because he's an order of magnitude better.
Mangini is all-world terrible at 3B. His hope for a ML career is for him to IMPROVE enough with the glove to be Russ Davis (50 patience points, Decent power, .260-.280 bat). Because he's LH he might get a small bump in average for that.
I don't think his bat plays at 1B full-time, and it's tough to be a backup corner IF with a stone glove. At least if he played 1st he wouldn't get to airmail as many throws, though - that's a plus.
Unfortunately Tui and Liddi are both nearly as bad with the leather - NONE of them should be a starting 3rd sacker unless they club for a country mile's worth of OPS. I could live with Glaus-level D (which ALL those guys currently only aspire to reach) if they were posting .850 OPS numbers in the bigs from the position.
Doc thinks Tui will - I don't.
In a thread about Chone, somebody brought up all our options for the 3rd sack that are currently in the minors and how he might be blocking them. The problem is, only Triunfel can field the position adequately and he'll never hit for enough power or take enough free passes to first to be a good 3B option.
Tui, Tenbrink, Liddi and Mangini are all various versions of awful glovemen. Their bats are going to have to make it worth the horrorshow at 3B...or will have to make it worth it to move em to first or the OF.
I like Tenbrink's chances to put up something like an Austin Kearns line and play OF. I don't like Mangini's chances to pull off a Russ Davis though I'd be glad to be wrong - I've liked his bat potential since before we drafted him. Tui is still reminding me too much of Mike Morse for my comfort (tho Mike is doing well this year) and Liddi....gah. The kid just doesn't hit righties, and while LH guys with large platoon splits can get away with it, it's far harder to do as a RH hitter. He's already seen 1500 ABs against RHP and is putting up a consistent mid-.700s against them. I don't see the growth left there, and I don't think he's gonna make it that way.
But I don't know that ANY of em are destined for 3B jobs in the bigs unless they improve with the leather in a significant way.
~G
Jack Wilson being the reductio ad absurdum.
Sticking his head into crosses, taking elbows in the chops, stuff like that, may have just drained him of all fear as far as a little 3-inch baseball bouncing along the ground at him.
From an aiki standpoint, Wilson subconsciously wants the ball, welcomes it as a friend ... other guys fight the ball as an enemy, and it shows in the stiff hands.
Never thought to intersect that with, say, soccer or basketball cross-training.
... on so many levels I wouldn't know where to start.
Clarifying: the M's do have a nice handful of guys who do intrigue me, as potential impact players, and unfortunately Mangini's skillset doesn't qualify. So those other guys, for my club, get chances way ahead of Mangini.
Smoak and Ackley, of course, you're married to, and should be.
Haven't seen Liddi, but such an assessment coming from you is alarming.
.............
Not meaning to cross-examine, but simply to follow up: I'm curious. Tui has played both 2B and SS in the bigs and he doesn't look particularly kludgy to me. What would cause the comparison of a fringy MI to a Jim Thome / Russ Branyan 3B type? We talking range, or the shortening of the reaction time causes the problems in your view, or ...?
Not qualified to draw an opinion, but just relating what the organization did with Tui when he went back down:
3b -- 24 G
LF -- 11 G
SS -- 2 G
2b -- 2 G
For better or worse, it sure seems that they have not been grooming him to be a utility guy who plays MI regularly. Prior to Ackley coming up, most of the MI was Woodward, Hannahan and Vazquez. If they wanted to groom Tui for MI they certainly could have shoved any of those aside. And to play him at first it would have meant moving Brad Nelson off (Carp has been playing more in LF of late), but they didn't play him at 1B once.
I don't know what it means, I'm just reporting.
I personally don't even consider Mangini, Tui, or Liddi to be prospects. I don't think any of those guys bring the neccessary bat/glove profile to be everyday major league performers. As for Triunfel, I still believe he'll hit for power down the road. He has the god given ability to square up a baseball and above average bat speed. I still want to see what happens with him if they tweak his swing a bit to get more loft, and what will happen when he physically matures more.
That being said, I certainly feel the odds are well below 50% that any of these four players ever plays 3B long term for the Mariners.
I personally don't even consider Mangini, Tui, or Liddi to be prospects. I don't think any of those guys bring the neccessary bat/glove profile to be everyday major league performers. As for Triunfel, I still believe he'll hit for power down the road. He has the god given ability to square up a baseball and above average bat speed. I still want to see what happens with him if they tweak his swing a bit to get more loft, and what will happen when he physically matures more.
That being said, I certainly feel the odds are well below 50% that any of these four players ever plays 3B long term for the Mariners.
Gordon and I aren't going to flame at each other, and there's nothing wrong with holding different lotto tickets. :- )
Ya, the Mariners have treated Tui pretty favorably all along and it speaks to their belief in him. Of course, they believed in Kotchman too.
My own favor towards Tuiasosopo isn't expressed as a 100% chance that he'll produce 6.5 runs a game with a plus glove some day. But I still give him a good 1/3 chance of being a good starter in the bigs, most likely at 3B.
...................
He *has* made what, 4 errors in 19 ML games at 3B, and now has 4 in 24 games at Tacoma. In a very short run, that is 30+ errors a year, not too far off a Mangini error rate.
Will be watching his D more, now that G grades him down.
Unless they're Smoak, Ackley or Pineda.
But I know what you mean. You don't see these infielders as MLB material.
Hm.
As great as Tui's June was, his bat fizzled in July. I thought the Ms needed to promote him back then, but he is really starting to look like a fringish prospect.
Mangini, Tui, and Liddi are starting to look fringe to me if all of them are butchers at 3rd base.
Triunfel is the one with potential to have an impact at 3B, but his bat is still a big question mark.
As much as I don't like Figgins.. we really need his '10 to be an abberration and not a sign of early decline.
For me the high probability guys in AAA are Pineda, Ackley, Smoak, and Lueke.
The rest either have low ceilings or very high bust%s.
Its a good thing our best prospects are all arguably MLB ready and all with high ceilings.
Tui has bounced around from "eh" to "ack!" with his fielding skills IMO. I've seen both. He can look okay out there, and he can look really bad. Minor league fielding stats are kludgy at best, but a .930 fielding % at 3B is awfully low, and his SS numbers are barely above .900. Just because they let him play it doesn't make it a good idea or representative of his skillset. Now, I personally think Mangini is worse than Tui (and the Ms seem to agree, because Tui is still being worked at other spots). There's no way they play Mangini at 2nd. Tenbrink is worse than both of em from what little I've seen, and watching Liddi in Futures games and the like I think he's more agile than I expected, and would put him about with Tui (though I think Liddi's frame is gonna bulk out and make him a 1B in a couple of years).
The numbers, rough as they are, bear this out.
Can they get better? Sure, minor leaguers get better at things all the time - and so do big leaguers. Jeter, one of the most reviled fielders in modern history, legitimately got better for a few years with some extra hard work and was not the atrocity he was earlier. I sure hope guys can get better - Nick Franklin hasn't been a fielding demon this year, and we really NEED that kid to stick at short.
But improving enough to stay at the 3B position means something like a .950 fielding percentage at the hot corner, which none of them have now. Right now there are 6 guys in the bigs at 3B under .950, a couple of whom are power bats, and just 2 under .940. Last year? One under .945. .940ish is the cutoff for position switch, and it's one none of the current 3B options we have are managing yet, but at that low a percentage there would still be a power need with the bat to compensate.
I would forgive Tui for not being Beltre if he can hit. But he can't hit like Beltre and field like Adam Dunn. However, since none of the other guys are likely to show Tui up (unless Triunfel can't stay at SS and has to go to 3B since Ackley's plugging 2nd) he still remains probably our best shot to get one of these guys to stick at that position and produce.
Which is why we gave Chone 4 years.
~G.
Bears more watching than I've been giving it, no doubt.
I'm getting more and more excited about Kyle Duerr Seager (Yes, his middle name really is Duerr), the Mariners have played him mostly at 2nd Base, with about equal time at 3rd and Short, but if I remember correctly, he played 3rd in college. Playing SS and 2B makes me assume he's pretty good at the hot corner, and I would guess the middle infield time is preparing him for life as utility guy based on his lack of power, but he's been able to show a bit in the second half, and though it is the Cal League he's playing in, he's got good patience and speed, and the BABiP at .400 isn't even that big a red flag, as he's had only one season with a BABiP below .341 since he started college (his first pro season his BABiP was a meager .296). I think right now, most scouts would look at his ceiling as a Todd Walker / Craig Counsell type, but who knows, if his power develops to 15+ HR a year type, he could be a viable option to start at 3rd. I think he's a good bet to speed through the minors system and maybe get a September call up as soon as next year.
At some point I owe Jon at Pro Ball an article on what I think the effects of Dr. Elliott's minor league training program have been and how well it may or may not have worked in the first year. Seager's a part of it. I don't think it's coincidental that Seager and Franklin have been terrific - guys who were drafted as baseball rats with limited athleticism and now seem to have upped their future potential significantly.
There's some evidence that working out helps high schoolers develop more batspeed than they had but that it has little to no effect on college players - but that's not with this regimen. We're developing the evidence on this regimen, and without having talked to their coaches it'll have to be an anecdotal article.
Hopefully I can find some good anecdotes. :) And I'm glad Seager has done well - now I want to see it in the Southern League. He and Matt Lawson are competing for the Bloomie role, but any kind of decent power spike from Seager could win him both a roster spot and a shot at starting since he's 2 years younger than Lawson.
You can't judge him on College BABIP though - it's almost always higher, just as standard minor league BABIP is more like .330 than .300 thanks to poorer fielders. In college those metal bats make it worse.
But I still think he's got a shot to be a Mariner. Not likely as a starter, but let's see him hit AA first. And can we PLEASE get out of High Desert sometime soon?
~G
He's covering that jam pitch for 4 bases these days.
If they get out of the High Desert, then I won't have Mariner baseball within 100 miles (assuming they stay in the Cal League somewhere). I wonder if staying in Adelanto is intentional though, to maybe give hitters a soft landing in A+ since they know they're likely to scuffle at AAA's pitcher friendly stadium. Having that added confidence of having succeeded to a high degree could be a desireable thing. On the other side, they know pitchers that any kind of decent will put up better numbers once (if) they reach Tacoma and the ones that succeed in the High Desert get a bullet "To be watched".
Him too. :) Problem is, I don't have a complete list of everybody who's doing the new-fangled workouts, and guessing biases the sample. So I'm just taking everybody was listed in a report as being a part of it and outlining their injury situation, progress (or regress) and throwing in some extra flavor.
Love watching Saunders. He just LOOKS like a sack of tough nails out there. If he's managed to get the strength he should have in that frame applied properly and can defend against lefties while killing righties, look out.
I like Saunders better than I liked Adam Jones. Now to be fair, I was never Adam's biggest fan. But the problem Mike faces that Jones didn't is being productive enough to lock down a corner spot. He showing he may be able to do that after all. Dunno how much of that is thanks to Dr. Elliott but it's definitely gonna be mentioned.
~G
As a guy that Dr. Elliott tested as being (1) very strong overall but (2) quite weak in his core. They've ID'ed Saunders a couple times as an Elliott project.
Word is that they're moving out of High Desert? Any idea to where?
Can sympathize (with them) about getting a site that doesn't wack out their system. Tough for you, though, mate. The Mavs must be fun to watch.
Saunders was referred to as having good lateral/vertical strength but terrible rotational strength. he could move your furniture like a beast, but he couldn't put that kind of muscle behind his swing.
I'm glad it looks like we're clearing that issue up.
~G
The entire minor league system was to begin using the Dr. Elliot workout, while only the major league team would have the option to not do it.
When I got pretty heavily into Summer baseball towards the end of High School, I felt it proper to quit other sports (football, skiing) mostly to prevent injury. I had a future in baseball to think about (however bleak it ended up being). That coupled with having sustained a knee injury a year earlier in football, it had to be the right thing to do.
I informed my Summer League coach of my intentions, a guy who had a vested interest in me coming back the next year, and what he said shocked me. Basically, he encouraged me to play all sports that I always had, injuries be damned, my athleticism would improve and frankly, a kid can play too much baseball.
The last being an important point. Today, I have watched 2 sons go through youth baseball, getting on the field much earlier, playing many more games than I was ever afforded the opportunity to participate in. This year, as I watched my 10 year old wilt in 100 degree heat at the State tournament having played for the 5th consecutive weekend, I remembered what I was told. Accessibility and opportunity for today's youth is important, but a varied experience doesn't in any way prevent one from excelling in the future.
CA Good Point
My 10 year old injured his growth plate in his left arm. He is lefty and righty. Primarily lefty. He was injured in March and put into a cast for 4 weeks and 4 weeks of therapy. His season was saved by being ambidextrous. He played on a travel team that was 45-1 from last fall and this season. The doctor told us no year round baseball. He is the only kid not playing fall ball. He is preparing for basketball and playing soccer. In my opinion, soccer is the best sport for all sports. Also, he led the team in hitting the last 6 weeks of the season. Your last comment says it all.
John