I take it you've changed your mind since 2004, then, when you wanted to rank Tui as the #1 Ms prospect the week after he was drafted, simply because Lee P. comped him to Griffey?
If so, I agree with you. :) Taijuan Walker isn't my #4 in the Ms org either. You know me - I prefer a track record rather than using other people's guesswork as a substitute for my own.
I think Peguero is more likely to be a top find than Tui was, though, and I'd rate him higher than Littlewood based on what I've seen of both of their swings. It's like grading a 50 foot mural off a picture the size of a postage stamp, but when it's the offseason and you're bored, what's a guy to do?
And if he isn't better and flops as a prospect, then we still have Castillo who was ranked #6 or so among Latin prospects this year, as well as some arms. That Choi kid is coming along, trying to be the next Choo, but in the infield. Morla has interesting qualities.
The international scouts are trying to earn their money under Jack - or at least spend his money.
There are worse ways to help the Mariners recover than flooding the minors with as much talent as we can get our grubby little mitts on.
~G
Q. What's the SSI impression of the swing?
A. Gorgeous from an aiki standpoint. Basics as they apply to tenkan, to golf and to baseball hitting:
- The one-point, the belly button, is powerfully driving the whole motion
- The hands are short to the ball
- The acceleration is a high point (short to ball, but speeding up at high rate at contact)
- Great balance
- He's turning, as opposed to swaying, Tiger
Not sure when I've ever seen such a swing from a 16-year-old. The kid is definitely a natural, like the Uptons. Few major leaguers have such a naturally efficient, dynamic swing.
Hey, some people are just born to their sport. I'm sure Peguero just does it that way because it feels right.
................
I agree with those who see an ARod type dynamic in the swing. Have you seen this video? The 3rd swing is in slo-mo.
Watching that swing, I can't imagine projections of 20 homers. This is a kid with a 35-homer swing, if not an ARod swing, a Soriano swing anyway.
He's got the volume turned up to 11. The question, on a max-out swing like that, is dealing with changeups, not whether he has projectable power.
.
Q. Does SSI buy the hand-eye reports, the pitch recog, etc?
A. Strictly have to take the scouts' word for it, and that's all.
In the cage, it's one covered pitch after another -- pretty cool for a 16-year-old.
Basically, you're left with a superstar high school shortstop. That is what it is.
.
Q. If he turns out to be a star, what will it look like in the next few years?
A. Fifteen homers per year early on.
.
Q. Would SSI rank Peguero fourth in the org?
A. I wouldn't, no ... but I tend to take scouts' opinions of 16-year-olds as only one (excellent) piece of evidence on the pile.
Scouts go down, spend months or the whole year in the heat and dust, and here this Peguero kid is, the best teenager down there. If you can't get excited about him, what has your year meant?
But he's still just a first-round teenager. You have Taijuan Walker in your top 5? ... well, the scouts might. :- )
You get a HS kid who's in the first round ... that's an inkblot test for how much you trust scouts. Some people have Taijuan Walker real high in the M's org. Some don't have him in the top 10.
...............
I realize that scouts know tons of things I don't. It's just that you're asking for miracles, if you're asking a scout to get all the 16-year-olds right.
It's inherently super risky, trying to visualize a 16-year-old as a 23-year-old. Scouts do a great job, but there's only so much they can do. Taro had a lot more information, sticking the bulls-eye on Colby Lewis, than scouts do with Esteilon Peguero. Scouting is an art, sabmetrics a science.
...............
Dr. D is a saberdweeb. My shtick is about performance analysis, more than it is about tools scouting. Let Peguero perform like Nick Franklin, and then I'll rate him like Franklin. Till then, Peguero is a first-round HS shortstop ... very intriguing but we'll see.
My own stab in the dark would have Pegeuro battling it out with Triunfel, Chavez, Robles, Pimentel, Liddi, Cortes, Morban, Raben, Poythress, and the others between 5-15, I guess.
..............
Maybe he's ARod.
If he is, well, he'd be invisible to us, and the scouts would know one more thing that we don't. Hope that's true. It could be.
.
Cheerio,
Dr D
Comments
1. Very possible that my opinion of Tui *the prospect* was off track.
2. G, if we're going to debate this perpetually, you gotta get it straight why I liked him so much, dude. :- )
a) *Roger Jongewaard,* the best talent scout I've ever spectated and the only man on earth who knew who Ichiro was, thought Tui was a once-in-a-decade talent.
That's a lot different than taking Lee P's word for it. This was the equivalent of hearing Pat Gillick say "Esteilon Peguero is better at his age than ARod." Yes I would sit up.
b) Tui hit with power the other way, slowing the game down. The template is one I'm very partial to.
c) Tui's makeup.
...................
I'm inconsistent about a lot of things, but not this one. I value scouts' opinions in context; Tui's resume was a flier.
:daps:
I think Peguero is more likely to be a top find than Tui was, though, and I'd rate him higher than Littlewood based on what I've seen of both of their swings. It's like grading a 50 foot mural off a picture the size of a postage stamp, but when it's the offseason and you're bored, what's a guy to do?
Oh yeah.
Would cheerfully concede that -- objectively speaking -- Peguero's status is much higher than was Tui's.
Jongewaard, and I, thought we had a find in Tui. EVERYbody says that Peguero is awesome.
I vehemently disagree with you on so few things, Doc, that I just can't help buy yank your chain on one of those rare occasions that it comes up. :)
Probably a character flaw, I'm thinkin...
But yes, there were People who thought Tui was gonna be a monster. There were those that thought Clement was as well. I've always had "Thou shalt not draft a non-Mauer catcher with a top-5 pick" listed as a commandment even if he DOES have the chest of a water-buffalo. At least with Tui it was a third-round pick, and I don't care about the money we signed him for.
There wasn't a great player to be had in those rounds. Between where we drafted Tui in the 3rd and the end of the 6th, we could have had Chris Iannetta and sort of solved our catcher problem, somewhat, or grabbed Ben Zobrist to play 2nd base in his late 20s.
Seriously, it was a bad draft. We could have had Luke French in the 8th or Carp in the 9th. Dexter Fowler from the Rockies was there in the 14th. In the 16th you get to Mark Reynolds, and he's the first guy with more than 2 WAR since Zobrist, I think.
It's a wasteland in those rounds. I don't mind taking a chance on Tui. I'm glad we did. But I guarantee you if Jack had been the GM earlier Tui would have gotten traded while he still had shiny-prospect status.
That's the one thing that really makes me happy about Jack so far - when he decides you won't play for him, you're gone if you can get him anything he wants. And he's quick about it. I don't expect any rotting Tuis and Clements under his watch. It helps to maximize your faulty picks as well as your good ones.
And I want to wring as much our of our farm system as we can.
Pimentel, Morla, Morban, C. Peguero, Mario Martinez...those are all whiff-tastic latin guys with talent. I'm hoping Castillo and E. Peguero (who will now be EP to distinguish himself from the "Other" Peguero) can be a bit different.
And better. Better is good. But it's so early right now that all you can say is, "yep, he has talent." Whether he can harness it or not is a different matter.
Fingers crossed.
~G
Hey,
I'm no birther...but how tight are the DR folks on birth certificates. He doesn't have the build or the swing of the 16 year olds I've seen. And being a 30-year high school teacher I've seen a bunch....Lots of D-1 guys and one 2nd round pick.
He "looks" 18 or 19.
Just wondering...He may well be a wunderkind. But he looks older.
moe
The DR was NOT good about birth certificates and such. The Nats had a hitter a couple of years ago who was found to be 23 instead of 19 or some such. He was signed in 05 or 06, though.
Teams have gotten much better. It's not perfect, but most of the top guys are well verified. Too much egg on the face to spend 3 million on a 19 year old instead of a 16 year old. The Nats are the last team I can think of to go through that, and they got suckered (or were complicit and corrupt, depending on what you believe).
Nobody else believed he was that age or worth what they paid for him. We have some of the best, longest-term scouting in the region who have contacts everywhere to help them sniff out that sort of thing. We do more in Venezuela now, but Engle in particular has been around the DR for a couple of decades.
The Nats were just getting into it as they'd shunned the international guys for a while, IIRC, and they believed a guy who was a friend of Bowden's.
I'm not that concerned about it. LeBron didn't look 18 either. Some guys just get a man's body at a boy's age. Engle's been doing this FOREVER and hasn't been snookered like that yet.
I don't think this is the first time. I'd be more concerned with his handlers pumping him full of steroids so he could make all that cash than with his age not being legit.
For the time being, I choose to believe the kid is just what he says he is, and what the scouts say he is.
It's the Christmas spirit, I think. ;)
And in the spirit of getting a great prospect instead of a guy with age descrepancies, this was A-Rod at 17:
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/multimedia/photo_gallery/0902/mlb.alex.rodrig...
He doesn't look 17 either.
~G
Fair's fair, m'man... Tui was an adopt-a-player and (so far) he hasn't paid off...
Take it out of my Lincecums and Ichiros... :- )
He looked 30 at 18. Could not believe his body -- not that he was athletic, but the proportions and sculpture of it. Seemed like his middle was stronger than his pecs. I got yer 'lateral strength' right here, Mickey...
Supposedly the Mariners were on Peguero since he was 12, so that's got to help, right? A 16-year-old can't convince scouts he's 12, can he? Maybe the Little League board, but not the M's guys...