More HRs than Ks in his 2010 season, like Dimaggio used to do. That was after one of his ankle issues, and he did it as a sophomore. 3x as many walks as Ks. Ackley did a 2x1 in college but not a 3x1.
Rendon obviously won't be doing the HR thing again this year with the dead bats, and he's sitting on just 3 HRs, which is terrific for us. He's still running a 3x1 BB:K ratio though.
This is the perfect year for an all-world batter to fall.
The Pirates already have a 3B (who might eventually move off position, but still, Alvares can pull a Glaus and stay at 3B for a long time).
Pitchers all look like world-beaters against hitters who can't hurt them, but Cole in particular has taken a step forward (along with Sonny Gray, to be honest) and has upped his arsenal.
Rendon's power is sapped with bats that players say may be harder to hit HRs with than wood bats are, but because it's their first year of use we don't know what translations look like.
And he's had the ankle injury and now the pulled shoulder that kept him at DH for a few weeks.
Rendon is the dream prospect for us, IMO. He's a RH bat at a glove position who will win some gold gloves while giving us a bat in the middle of the order to offset some of the necessary left-handedness that Safeco encourages.
Cole would be fine. Cole is a good arm, maybe a great one. He's got a #1 mentality and what looks like a #1 arm, but I'd rather have the RH weapon in the lineup than one in the rotation. I think right-handed batters are so hard for the Mariners to get that Rendon could be the added critical mass our offense needs.
Come draft day I could be excited about adding Cole to a potential rotation of Felix/Pineda/Paxton in 2012 (and I agree, a healthy Bedard on the side might be an embarrassment of riches). The As are crowing about their rotation but ours could look pretty monstrous at that point.
But I'd be ecstatic about Rendon. You're right, we just need to gobble up whichever one is there, so our choice should be pretty easy (unless we surprise everyone and grab Gray or Starling, I guess).
Fingers are still crossed that the Pirates take the pitcher, even though their minor leagues are filled with pitching and few hitters.
~G
Q. And are you going to spend an hour drawing up a list of Rendon comps?
A. No, but here's a list of the #1 college hitters taken in the 2000-2007 drafts:
- 2007 - Mike Moustakas, disappointment so far Thanky kindly Spec
- 2006 - Evan Longoria
- 2005 - Alex Gordon (followed by Jeff Clement, Ryan Zimmerman, and Ryan Braun all worthy of #1 overall, like the 2006 pitcher draft)
- 2004 - (no college hitter drafted in first 8 picks)
- 2003 - Rickie Weeks
- 2002 - (nobody in college drafted high; B.J. Upton and Prince Fielder were HS picks)
- 2001 - Joe Mauer doesn't count, except he was better than college players ;- )
- 2000 - Adrian Gonzalez
If you go to 2008 and 2009 that's Pedro Alvarez and Dustin Ackley. Who are going to amount to about the same thing.
.........
That probably gives you a feel for it:
- If you draft a sensational college SP you are a slight underdog to get a franchise pitcher
- If you draft a sensational college hitter you are a heavy favorite to get a franchise player
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Q. Is Rendon that good?
A. Anthony Rendon is probably Dustin Ackley with power. And lots of it.
Last several games, Rendon's gotten back on track: 10 BB's vs 2 K's, that kind of thing. He's evidently got Ackley HIT but with 30-homer power.
Lot of scouts would make Rendon the #1 prospect in pro baseball, the moment he's drafted - would take him over Bryce Harper.
.
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Q. So SSI drafts Rendon over Cole?
A. If he's the Pirates, yeah. :- )
It's an easy choice, no matter what the flavor of the month might be.
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Q. Have you seen either one play?
A. No. So there's an asterisk here - that being if Gerrit Cole is SO good that he is -- truthfully -- better at this stage than Luke Hochevar was considered. At the same stage.
Cole better now, than Verlander, Morrow, Hochevar, Prior, and Miller were in college?!
I kind of doubt that a little bit, but hey. If Cole has Michael Pineda command that the other guys didn't, then that's the quid pro quo.
.........
The other asterisk, if somehow Anthony Rendon is running .600 OBP's but does not actually have Dustin Ackley's batting eye.
...........
With those two caveats, then you and I have something in common with ML GM's: we don't need to sit in high school bleacher seats to make a systemic analysis. Many of them don't, either.
We can use video and a synthesis of skills reports to make a logical call, if that call is easy. This one is.
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Q. Bummer. So the M's get a loser, eh.
A. If the M's wind up with Gerrit Cole as a consolation ... well, how does Felix-Pineda-Paxton-Cole-(Bedard) sound to youse guys?
The M's needed a 1 and 1a draft to emerge. It did. Let the celebration begin.
.
BABVA,
Dr D
Comments
Didn't realize that Rendon was considered a GG candidate at third, on top of everything else.
..........
Well, with G's signoff, at SSI we can relax into our Hope-Rendon-Falls swings :- ) as the rest of the neighborhood chatters about the trendy pick Cole...
That Cole is a bona fide #1-1 worthy prospect, we don't doubt at all ... Rendon, however, looks like a 3-year or 5-year storm, one you don't see every draft...
Good stuff, just clarifying: Moustakas was a HS pick. .347/.413/.687 at AA at 21 is OK by me. Didn't carry the OBP into AAA, but slugged 15 HR in 52 G in the PCL at 21 after getting promoted.
right, and now his age-arc hardly looks like a disappointment, does it?!
.........
Come to think of it, I always forget whether Mauer was HS or college, too :- )
... it's funny; now that you look at it with Fielder, Maustakas, etc., it looks like the [#1 Hitters Are Odds On] syndrome --- > might apply to batters even if you lumped HS players in too. I dunno.
............
Obviously if you lumped #1 HS pitchers in, you'd be making the odds even longer against the arms.
Not that you'd turn your nose up at the BEST ammy pitcher in the draft ... our estimation is merely that the odds are slightly with the house on #1 pitchers, but stacked much against the house with #1 college batters.
Wonder if that would hold up with the teenagers included. Takes quite a bat to draw #1 attention when 18 years old. The M's drafted a coupla those...
Agreed, Moustakas is one of maybe a dozen prospects (or fewer) who would rank #1 in the M's system.
His defense is pretty special already, and has the chance to be amazing. Rendon's middle projection is Rolen, IMO - a great-glove guy who hit well especially for his position but never turned into a league crusher. That was Zimmerman's projection too, until he took off the last two years into obscene-land. I think Rendon's gonna build a house in obscene-land and live there most of his days.
Rendon is trying for David Wright / Ryan Zimmerman offense with Beltre defense.
Hitting either of those marks is obviously a tough task - man's work. Maybe teams are just pitching around him so egregiously that his walk totals are staying lofty. Maybe he only has college power and not pro power - after all his body is not exactly huge at 5'11 or so. I have no worries about size or eye with Rendon - the obscene talent is there.
I like Cole, I do. But I have an inherent distrust for drafting a pitcher that high. With Rendon gone I can absolutely get behind drafting the best college pitcher...but Rendon HAS to be the pick if he's there. To put it another way, Rendon is a second chance to get Edgar Martinez to play third base for us.
And I would throw Cole in front of a (toy?) train to get 20-something Edgar at the hot corner.
~G
Another consideration - as far as I can remember, the M's have yet to develop a single impact MLB position player in their decade at Safeco while quite a few top pitchers have come along and/or exceeded expectations.
This obviously works the reverse way too - if no big bats want to sign here, a strategy might be to draft ones who do not have a choice.
Regardless, this might balance some of the pitcher v. hitter risk when comparing Cole/Rendon.
"Teixiera bat with shortstop hands"
"Hank Aaron wrists" says his college coach (who is 75 years old and played for the Phillies under Gene Mauch in 1963, so he knows what he's talking about). Rendon 6-0, 190; Aaron 6-0, 180.
The foundation of Rendon's offensive game is an innate ability to wait for his pitch.
"That's not something you teach," Rice hitting coach Mike Taylor said. "And Anthony's got supreme hand-eye coordination for this level, something I think he can take to the next level. He's also got the ability to keep his hands back and flick his wrists through the zone. I've been here 11 years, and the only hitter I've seen comparable through these ranks was Teixeira."
With the old bats: 2nd nationally in HR, 2nd nationally in walks, top 10 nationally in both OBP and SLG.
This year, new bats and dinged up: 2nd nationally in walks again, but dropped off chart in HR, 17th in OBP, but 191st in SLG.
I'm with G, I don't think he just forgot how to hit. He has seasons of 20 and 26 HR under his belt already. Picking him up at #2 would be a great windfall, I think.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=4299379
Wayne Graham had him pegged as a power hitter after freshman fall practice because of his wrists.
Also compares him to Mike Schmidt and (in tems of "wrist action") -- Dustin Ackley.
As BP's reseach from a few years ago showed, college position players selected for their bats are the best bets in the draft by far. They are not only better than pitchers, college and high school, but they are better than prep hitters and college players at premium positions as well.
This really isn't too surprising when you think about it because if a guy is a fantastic hitter at 20 or 21, there is very little projection necessary. It may seem like other college players would be just as reliable, but that isn't the case. With Shortstops and centerfielders, their bats are more questionanable and since offense is the most valuable asset in baseball, this makes them less likely to be impact players because they need more development. Pitchers, on the other hand, not only are inherently more likely to suffer serious injury, but they need to adjust to pitching more often and over a longer season. How a pitcher handles that is a huge question mark and can not be answered before he turns pro.
So while Cole may be a great pick at number 2, I have to take the polished bat if given the chance.
I am still confused as to why there is any controversy at #1.
Cole has tremendous assortment of pitches (especially now that hes added the plus-plus change), but performance-wise hes not even top 10 yet. Hes also a pitcher with the same mechanical flaws as Pineda, so the injury risk always has to be in the back of your head.
An elite college hitting prospect has historically been about twice as valuable as an elite pitching prospect.
Adrian Gonzalez was also a HS draftee
These are probably the only mistakes you'll ever see me make......
Rendon in 63 games (226 ABs) last year:
.394/.539/.801/1.340, 12 2B, 1 3B, 26 HR, 65BB/22K, 6 HBP
Rendon in basically half the season this year (36 games, 117 ABs):
.359/.561/.556/1.117, 10 2B, 2 3B, 3 HR, 52BB/19K, 3 HBP
They're trying to walk him a hundred times this year. o.O. He gets nothing to hit, since one of the only other threats in the lineup went down injured. The next highest walk total on the team is 19.
Everything I could have asked for in order for Rendon to fall to us is happening. His power has taken a hit, what with not being pitched to and having the new bats to deal with. A couple minor injuries and his fielding has suffered as well in the process. Average is down a bit and Ks are up as he expands the strike zone to try to help his team with hits.
But all his major skills are still there. He hits hard shots in the gap, can play the hot corner, and has one of the best eyes in college even WHILE expanding his zone. Still, the HR falloff and injury issues might concern the Pirates enough to make them go with Cole.
Keeping my fingers crossed for 2 more months.
Cole, btw: 4-2, 1.74 ERA in 57 IP, 33 hits, 64K/11BB (5.2 H/9, 10.1 K/9, 1.7 BB/9)
Last year: 11-4, 3.37 ERA in 123 IP, 92 hits, 153K/52BB (6.7 H/9, 11.2 K/9, 3.8 BB/9)
Keep it up, Gerrit - I want the other guy but if the Pirates swipe him, then I need you to be great.
~G