that Ackley would be a star :-) . . .
If you have time, I'm curious as to:
What We Know About (2011 Version) Mike Carp after 8 games and
What We Know About Greg Halman after 12 games
Carp has a BABIP of .357 and BA of .217? He's not putting any balls into play, because he's not making contact with anything? The .357 OBP looks right, but everything else looks haywire. 78.4% zone contact is right near the bottom, and not what I would expect. Is he going to be able to turn that around? I was psyched for Carp to be a solid offensive contributor.
Halman is making more contact than we had a right to expect, given his history, but it appears that his outside-the-zone contact is still low (43.8%, or lower than Olivo's), while his zone contact is 90.5%. I'm not an expert on these things, but from eyeballing the charts, that appears to be a very unusual pattern. Can he sustain anything like that, given that his approach appears to be different from what we've seen before?
I'm totally OK with another high-risk, high-reward bat (in addition to Olivo), if he brings the glove (which he does) and speed (which he does) and most of the rest of the lineup can chug along with consistent OBP (we're getting there).
1. We know that he's a freakazoid.
2. We know that he has 80 HIT, 65 PWR, 65 SPD, 55 defense and that he'll be among the league leaders in walks.
3. We know that he is Edgar Martinez, plus LH, plus SPD, plus MI defense.
4. We know that he is an ML All-Star, a young franchise player, a player that you perhaps would not trade for any other player in baseball.
5. We know that he is going to be productive, immediately, this year, this month, this week.
6. We know that he is a Freddy Garcia-type psychopath with (1) zero respect for the games of the established major leaguers he is competing with, and (2) an ARod-type manipulation of the media and the MLB financial system.
7. And we know that Zduriencik's Grand Plan is officially off the ground.
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SSI will tell you, Mr. Scout my good friend, exactly why we say this so early, and you can tell us exactly why we are premature. How's that for square?
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=== HIT Ability: 80 ("plus-plus-plus") ==
This refers to a batter's ability to cover pitches, especially difficult pitches, especially with two strikes. It refers to his ability to square up tough pitches not just to put them in play, but to hit them for line drives.
Rod Carew, Pete Rose, Ichiro, Wade Boggs.
HIT doesn't refer to BB rate, as such, but a good eye at the plate tends to raise HIT ability, the way good velocity tends to raise strikeouts. Ichiro and Vlad are notable exceptions: Ichiro has 80 HIT, but does not have a particularly good EYE.
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Dustin Ackley faced 40-odd pitches in his first series, swung at 18 of them, and guess how many he swung at and missed?
That's right. He missed none of them. The next pitch that Dustin Ackley swings at and misses will be his first.
The 18 swings, as best I can recall them:
- A single ... a ringing triple one hop off the wall ... and a no-doubter HR
- Four near-doubles ... two lashed barely foul, a hot shot 5-3, a hot shot 3u
- Two humpback-liner fly balls
- Three groundouts
- Six other foul balls
That's versus Roy Oswalt, Cole Hamels, and another Phillie who locked every other Mariner down, gentlemen.
You want to tell me how Edgar Martinez, in his prime, or Ichiro, take 18 swings against those pitchers, and square the ball up better than Ackley did? And yet here is Ackley stepping in there blind and doing it.
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As far as batspeed and quickness ... consider the triple against Cole Hamels.
The pitch was on an 0-2 count (both calls blown by the ump, according to GameDay). Hamels on 0-2, gave Ackley his best fastball, up the ladder, at the letters. In fact this pitch was too high, a ball, also.
d a few guys lower than 70 (Olivo is currently last in the majors at 65% contact).
But suppose an NBA rookie came up and hit his first 18 free throws. I don't suppose you'd say "I want to see more," before you decided whether he was a shooter.
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=== PWR: 65 ===
Or more. Ackley is going to slug .500 (translated, anyway).
We have talked elsewhere about the insane bat wrap, which is the very longest in baseball. Simple physics tells you that --- > a longer swing path creates --- > higher bat acceleration.
And we've talked about his "stride-with-hands-back" rubber band.
The miracle is that Ackley can be so quick, swinging a 1-wood. Everybody would like to wrap the bat as far as Ackley does. Almost nobody can make it work.
It's genuinely strange, the intersection of Ackley's swing length and his 80 HIT ability. Do you understand why SSI says, without hyperbole, that he is a "freakazoid" ?
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From a sabermetric standpoint, Ackley has already demonstrated 65 PWR. Including out-slugging Tony Sanchez in the ACC.
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From a GM's standpoint: on the radio, before Ackley's first game, Jack Zduriencik was emphatic that Ackley would hit for power in the majors. (He said, sooner or later.)
We mention that because a lot of folks will feel better hearing it from Jack. ;- )
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Comments
He appears to have completely fallen off the cliff again offensively. His first few weeks back he had some bad luck (.220 BABIP), but his eye was solid (3 BB/4 K) and he popped 2 doubles and a HR. It looked like he could easily turn things the right direction. Instead, zilch. 1 XBH, 1 BB, 5 K in his last 8 games. Haven't heard anything more about health issues, but is he running out of gas? Does he need to be a part-time player until further notice?
It's gotta be tough to be a guy like Carp and go from knowing every single day you are in the lineup, vs. coming to the big leagues and knowing every single at bat will be scrutinized to determine whether you will remain in the lineup. And, with an old pro like Cust cooling his heels right behind you. The SSS is not only in effect, but the psychology behind it is adding tremendous stress.
With Carp and Halman, nobody is handing them the bat and telling them "You're our guy - go out there and have fun. I don't care if you start off 0-21, you're my (left fielder-dh-CF)." Quite the opposite - they saw what happened to Mike Wilson after a small handful of ABs.
We're happy the entitlement period is over, but there is a downside - and a reason why there's an entitlement mentality to begin with - to allow players to find a comfort level in which they can perform.
The hope is that one of Halman, Carp (or maybe Peguero) can stick. More likely none of them stick as regulars, but one can stick as a part-time/bench player.
Halman is the most encouraging, although there are some questionmarks. Halman will start seeing less strikes. Hes seeing 53.9 pitches in the zone and that will go down. His BABIP is .500. He has a 13.5 SwS%, but the O-Swing% is one 34% which is very encouraging early on. 61.9 GB% less promising for his continued power. If he continue to stop swinging at outside pitches, he could be a suprise.
Carp has a sky-high K% right now, but that mostly because hes seeing a lot of called strikes. Even so, the contact rate continues to be poor so he has to start hitting for power. Not a lot of defensive value, so the 2bs/Hrs needs to come more frequently.
Peguero's upside is RL, so I'm not very high on him.
Honestly, the most likely scenario is that none of these three pan out as regulars.. Halman is the most promising though IMO. Hes worth a shot to see if he can continue to maintain a competent O-Swing% as pitchers stop throwing him as many strikes. He only needs to hit a little with that defense.
Carp maybe as a platoon bat, but he has to start hitting some XBHs.
Halman is exciting to me despite the SwS% because:
a) He's faced almost exclusively top-flight pitching
b) he has a clear gameplan and is executing it
c) He's driving even his groudners and singles hard to the right side and up the middle.
d) he's covered pitches in all parts of the strike zone well considering who he's faced.
Seriously though...look at the pitchers he's faced and then tell me you're worried about the SwS% :)
Need to get that up on your blog, Matty... now THAT would be a stat and a half... :- )
I'm not real precious about "normalizing" stats, but every time I look at the hair-fine discipline stats, I wonder, what if this guy has faced BTA or below-average pitching?!
And at this point in his career, I'm back to questioning the usual suspects ... in this case, Suspect A being the long-term effect that Safeco has on a RH hitter of Guti's template.
Hate to say it, but my fear is for Guti to spiral down until he changes teams.
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That said, he could still be one whale of a jobshare guy (60% or more of his starts on the road).
Or if he ever re-established value ... that contract is way below market...
I personally am that kind of guy, one who does much better when given a pat on the back and a comfort zone.
But the A's, and Wedge, have instilled a fear-of-failure that has paid off, no?
Are the stomach issues still a problem?
Ya, Halman I think has the best shot of sticking as a regular (among those 3) just due to the rediculous power and athleticism in the OF. He only needs 'a little' plate discipline to be a factor.
Halman's O-Swing% is pretty reasonable so we can see if he can keep it up once he gets less strikes to hit. Right now hes doing a good job of hitting stikes and letting balls go by (in comparison to before).
:groan:
Unfortunately, there's just no way to know. The available info is so minimal and imprecise any comment would be wild speculation. Even with good info, though, these problems can be unpredictable.
It's really impossible to say with the information available. I can't make any assessments that would not be pure speculation. The released info is minimal and imprecise, but in cases like this even with full info it is really hard to make any kind of specific predictions.
Maybe he caught TB from Carlos!
Also, as an aside I have noticed that my posts from my Android smart phone don't seem to make it through.
I'm sure this will be another head-slapper once it's explained, but what is this RL of which you speak ("Peguero's upside is RL...")?
Viel thanks,
Mark