1
Those ratings are based on the numbers. They are really pretty useless. They're far from scouting grades. Ackley stole a fair number of bases and hit some gappers in his college career, so has a good "speed" rating.
Pepper, 8.20.09
=== Hall and Tatis ===
San-man with an outstanding post on Hall, comp'ing him to Fernando Tatis. Here's his baseball card.
One of the things I like the very best about MC/DOV/SSI, is guys pointing out comps, and the 5-degree differences in angles that those comps take. I could do it all day long. :- )
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Tatis' little resurrection in 2006, 08, in partial seasons, happens a lot. Just as a loose example, ahem Matty, you could take Scott Speizio's bounce with the Cards. Speizio looked dead, staked through the heart, and ashes scattered in the ocean, but there was actually baseball skill left in the bottom of the urn.
Speizio finished up on an astounding 3-for-47 with us, but went to the cards and posted a 120 OPS+ in half a season.
Nothing weird about an ex-star* (*yeah, I know, so no quibbles pokey) changing scenery and having a good 200-300 AB's for somebody.
This is a point I'd overlooked, that even if an ex-star isn't going to return to being a great player, he can capture some nice performance in a certain time and a certain place, against certain pitchers, by getting hungry and tweaking his approach.
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=== Ackley a Can't Miss ? ===
An MC-er reminds, "there is no such thing as a can't-miss prospect," to which Kelly's terse reply is, "There is no such thing as a can't-miss veteran" ...
This is one of the basic insights with which Bill James revolutionized baseball thought: that minor league stats predict performance about as well as major league stats do.
It's true that (let's just say) 40% of minor leaguers won't hit their DOWN-ADJUSTED major league stats in the next year -- but it's also true that about 40% of major leaguers won't, either. This fundamental insight unlocked an entire wing of sabermetrics.
Bill Hall, after 2006, seemed much more likely to reproduce his performance, than (say) Michael Saunders seemed likely to reproduce his (adjusted) PCL performance in a new league (the AL). But not really.
After you realize that many, many MLB'ers do not repeat themselves, the little edge of scariness goes away, with respect to players like Tim Lincecum, Stephen Strasburg, Dustin Ackley, Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, etc.
Each winter, we chat about contracts for pitchers, and Japanese imports, and NL crossovers, as though we can't get into a particular player unless he's a guarantee.
Like Kelly says, there are no guarantees, except Ichiro. :- )
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=== Ackley's Speed ===
Spectator links us up to another interesting video:
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"Olerud with wheels" -- watch him beat out an infield hit at the 0:39 mark here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06fjAWUbrqw. John Olerud ain't doing that.
I have no idea how reliable the little ratings at the Baseball Cube are, but here they are (they're on a scale of 100):
Ackely: Power 75; Speed 72; Contact 97; Patience 84
Olerud: Power 77; Speed 1; Contact 84; Patience 93
Ventura: Power 85; Speed 11; Contact 72; Patience 92
Brett: Power 72; Speed 39; Contact 95; Patience 57
Gwynn: Power 41; Speed 68; Contact 100; Patience 33
Utley: Power 92; Speed 55; Contact 57; Patience 48
The scouting reports all say plus speed or plus-plus speed. Gwynn routinely stole 30+ bags until age 30, and never struck out, but he never drew walks like Ackely has shown. Utley strikes out a ton more than Ackely ought to.
Maybe the guy is just a freak that can't be comped.
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I don't think there's a thing wrong with M's fans spending the winter wallowing in the possibilities, any more than there would have been in doing so with (say) Tim Lincecum. The super-prospects are one of the reasons we follow baseball.
If somebody wants to chime in with a "Hey, I don't expect as much from him as you do," fine, but on this one let's leave out the "no cheering in the press box" paradigm. None of us are writing for the New York Times here. :- )
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Anyway, the speed: Ackley himself talks about his own desire to play OF because that's where he can use his athleticism. They ask him about his game, and he doesn't talk about his swing. He talks about his legs.
What in the world would John Olerud have been, if he'd had Ichiro's speed? Well, for one thing, his .363 season would have been a .400 season.
If there were ever a prospect where you were going to dream about a .400 year, wouldn't this be the guy? (Then again, if Ichiro can't do it, I guess it can't be done... yet, 20-25 homers added to a high BABIP would make a difference.)
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On Baker's blog, Ackley's coach called him by far the best player he'd ever coached, and as good as there had ever been in the league, including Teixeira and all the rest of them.
If Ackley had been drafted by the Angels, would we be shaking in our boots about their maybe having landed the next Fred Lynn?
Yeah, I think so.
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
2
I don't know about useless :- ) -- they're based on results -- but they're far short of scouting grades, definitely.
I wouldn't use the Baseball Cube grades to prove anything, but at-a-glance they do illustrate Ackley's remarkable bat control and his all-around game. They don't demonstrate that he has more patience than Brett, or anything like that, agreed.
3
Ichiro can't hit .400 because he's not selective enough to hit .400. It has little to do with his lack of HRs. Ackley is Ichiro minus a step in speed, Ichiro minus maybe ten points in BABIP (that's nearly a wash when you include the extra homers) and Ichiro plus 40 walks. Those 40 walks make him more likely to hit .400 than Ichiro...than Brett...than Gwynn and those infield hits make him more likely to hit .400 than Olerud.
That doesn't mean he will hit .400. The probabilities are insanely low for even the best players.
Still...I am very excited about Ack...and I think he can contribute to fixing our offensive woes next season.
4
Speaking of batting .400 and Ichiro - Here's an interesting COMP. How about Joe Mauer?
5
would Ackley's homers more than, or less than, cancel the BABIP difference? Am too lazy to do the math right now :- ) but suspect it would more than cancel the diff...
At any rate, your point about the BB ... add the HR ... and it's hard to imagine a better bet to post a .400 OBP, right?
6
And is bigger by a wide enough margin that I'd consider them different types of players. Mauer is considerably bigger than Russ Branyan; Ackley is a 185-lb dude who runs like Ichiro, or so they say.
So in terms of template I'd skip that one... but...
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Where the two comp beautifully, is that they both came out of college head-and-shoulders above the rest of the nation, and for the same reason: the gorgeous swings, backed by results.
Mauer was considered a slam-dunk can't-miss star, a man among boys, and that's in fact how it worked out.
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Objectively speaking, Mauer was even a more-heralded prospect than Ackley is, though. But it is fair to apply the same logic to Ackley. Hey, that is exactly what Jack Zduriencik is in fact doing.
7
He does have Muaer's reverse BB/K (more BB than K)...but he's noticeably more patient that Super-Joe IMHO. I don't know if he's going to hit the ball as consistently hard as Mauer does when healthy...but...he'll almost certainly be more healthy than mauer a larger portion of the time.
As for whether the HRs will more than cancel that BABIP diff. or less than cancel...it depends on how many dingers he hits and how many times he Ks.
I picture Ackley as an 90 K/80 BB hitter in full time play if he hits his midline MLB projection and that comes with 25 dings. If Ackley has a .320 career BABIP in the bigs (not an unreasonable projection for a hard line drive hitting relatively speedy outfielder with a good eye) he'd need 29 homers to hit .320 full time (assuming 90 Ks). So that would make him a .315 hitter or something. Ichiro will out-BABIP him for career...of that I'm almost certain. But if he has an Ichiro-class BABIP, he'll EASILY outhit Ichiro (very very unlikely)
8
...was the fact that he was a gold glove defensive CATCHER.
Catchers are way WAAAAYYY more valuable to a team than left fielders (and somewhat more valuable than CFers even) if they hit exactly the same.
9
Didn't Mauer come straight out of HS?
I hate to ask this, but how does Ackley comp with the early Jeremy Reed as a prospect? Similar template, no?
10
Ackley has projectable power...Reed never did. Ackley has a ++ eye, Reed had low K/BB but never was scouted as being unusually tough to pitch to and work counts with. Ackley has a quick, compact swing...Reed has always had a longish swing and slider-speed bat. Ackley has a very still head and great pre-swing load, Reed was always an arm-swinger and his head always pulls off the ball (and probably always did).
They're about as similar as Branyan and Bonds...they share a common attribute...good at making contact (Branyan and Bonds have about the same power. :) )
11
But as a pure hitter he was predicted, by the best in the biz, to win AL batting titles before he ever played in the majors. He came up with Edgar-like reverse BB/K ratios and the golden swing and etc etc.
You can't really come up as a higher-rated hitter than Mauer did, unless you're ARod.
12
I've done this a bunch of times, think back and remember Mauer as a college player, and have guys go ... UH ... and then I'll go right back and forget it next year.
Mauer was so accomplished, so young, that I just think college. Ah well.
13
with my compadre Matt here.
Jeremy Reed IMHO is an excellent counter-example of the golden LH OBP machine who comes up and is just missing that certain this or that -- in Reed's case, power, like Matty says, and also some reflexes. Reed had to cheat at the plate a fair amount.
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The fact is that Ackley could fail in the majors, and if so it wouldn't look a lot different from Reed's failure...
M's fans can take solace in the fact that Reed was never AS pedigreed as Ackley is (no UNC coaches saying he was the best there ever was) and Reed's swing was never as leveraged as Ackley's is.
Reed's swing was fairly static, as we said at the time, where as Ackley's positively breathes life.
14
He did come up with reverse BB/K...but he did neither as frequently as Edgar did...and yes that matters. He was a highly prized hitter, no doubt...but a highly prized hitter in pretty much the same physicla toolset as Ackley. Batting titles, not monster HRs or OBP titles.
15
I didn't like Reed as a prospect when he was with us. His swing just wasn't very fast-twitched and there wasn't any pop in that bat. His speed was above-average, but he wasn't a burner. When you're cheating on fastballs as a 23 year old then theres a problem.
Ackley's swing puts Reed's to shame. He has a much quicker bat, more power, more speed, and much better performances at his stage of development.
Ackley's senior year: .417/.517/.763
Reed's senior year: .339/.431/.477
16
I think Reed points out the limitation of fixating solely on the walk and K, and forgetting to look at the larger picture.
While walks (and OBP) are an end to themselves, I view PATIENCE as a means to an end. The end is actually getting better pitches to swing at. Extreme example is Dunn, stalking gophers, and fanning an awful lot, but also walking an awful lot.
A more nuanced take is Abreu -- walks a lot -- hits for good, (but not incredible) power, and maintains solid BA as well.
Reed's early lines - even in college - were light on isolated power. His ISO was 150ish, pretty much from the get-go. His minor league line was pushed HARD by BA, (.321), which made BOTH his OBP and Slugging look better than they really were. When his .320 minor league BA turned into a .260 major league BA, he lost 120 points of OPS. (Let's make that O O P S. :-)
Well, it would've -- except he ALSO lost 50 ADDITIONAL points off his ISO. Turns out he was stalking pitches in the minors ... and ONLY had a 150 ISO. THAT is a guy with limited upside.
17
Stalking pitches and doing something with them, that's the Jay Buhner / Bobby Abreu / Adam Dunn / Russ Branyan "dynamic" at-bat as I like to call it.
Hitting coaches would just call it going up there with a plan.
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Jeremy Reed is a very tough man, by all accounts, but his swing was always static (not that much acceleration through the ball). Ackley looks like he accelerates through the ball very well to me.