The fifth ingrediant that James should have included but did not was topspin vs. backspin. And yes, that does matter. Raul Ibanez is an extreme topspin hitter. He's not an extreme grounball hitter, but his LD and FB tend to have topspin...that is very different physics and comes with different expectations for HR/Fly and BABIP than someone like Russell Branyan and his deep backspin.
BTW, USSMariner had a good article on Peguero's real hitting problem - that being that in the big leagues, he's working so hard to stay back on off-speed that he is way late on fastballs and swinging through them. If he doesn't shorten the trigger on his swing so he can get to the strike zone faster...this will never go away and he'll never succeed. Period.
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Spectator with an intruiging 3-parter about Peguero's intrigue. We were so happy with his series that we wanted to kick Spectator's excellent can down the playground a little ways.
Hold it - that didn't come out quite right -
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Spec outlines 4x kinds of power hitters for us and asks, "Into which sector do we put Carlos Peguero?" We're flattered that amigos are applying our ... um, James' ... habit of sorting players into templates. But let's kick that excellent can down the road by proposing a 5th template.
In Bill James' groundbreaking February 2009 article, "What I Have Learned About Fly Balls and Such," he proposes a brand-new paradigm for understanding hitters. He starts with,
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What makes hitters different, one from another is:
1) How HARD they hit the ball,
2) How often they swing and miss,
3) How many pitches they take, and
4) How often they pull the ball.
You might ask, what about groundball/flyball. There are a few guys, like Ichiro, to consider, but other than that it's not a key factor - at least, not nearly as important as people think. Grounder/flyball ratio can be fairly important for pitchers. Not much for hitters, though.
And he points out that really what you're looking for, is hitters who pull the ball hard in the air, as often as possible.
There is one exception to this rule: Ryan Howard. Howard is an outlier: for him, and him alone, a fly ball hit ANYWHERE is (was) the same thing as a pulled fly ball. For all intents and purposes, a Ryan Howard fly ball to left-center was the same as a fly ball to straightaway right.
This applied ONLY to Howard, and was the "secret ingredient" to his unexpected success. (Locally, Howard was mocked unmercifully when in the minor leagues.) Like Ichiro "broke" xAVG formulas, single-handedly forcing saberdweebs to reinvent their formulas, Howard single-handedly rewrote fly ball rules.
Now this same "secret ingredient" may apply to Carlos Peguero.
James continues:
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There is tremendous variation, among hitters, in what happens when they hit a fly ball. There is relatively little variation in batting average among hitters when they hit a ground ball, and there is relatively little variation in batting average among hitters when they hit a line drive. There is tremendous variation in batting average among hitters when they hit a fly ball. Ryan Howard hits .450 when he hits the ball in the air, with most of the hits being home runs. Juan Pierre hits .120, and most of the hits are singles and doubles. Lots of guys hit less than .150 on balls hit in the air. It’s a big difference.
For this reason, fly balls are, in a sense, the dominant element in the triangle. Everybody hits .240 when they hit a ground ball, more or less, and everybody hits .725 when they hit a line drive. But when they hit the ball in the air, everybody’s got his own number—so it is that number that gives shape to the player’s overall ability.
When they hit a ball in the air and pull it, a lot of the big hitters hit .500, .600, even .700. Of course, they don’t pull it all that often. What makes Howard unique is that he hits the ball out of the park very regularly to all fields. Nobody else does.
Most hitters actually hit more ground balls than fly balls—not a lot more, but a few. The vast majority of hitters, for every ten balls in play, hit four ground balls, two line drives and four fly balls—the 4-2-4 ratio. Some of the guys who chop down on the ball, like Juan Pierre and Willy Taveras, are 6-2-2, and some of the guys who really uppercut are 3-2-5. Almost all of the good hitters are 4-2-4; the “fly ball” minority among them are guys who hit 4.2 or 4.3 fly balls per ten balls in play. If all you mean by the term “fly ball hitter” is guys who hit more fly balls than average, obviously there are are hitters like that. The average is about 37-39%; you can call anybody who hits 40-46% a fly ball hitter, I guess.
But not everybody that you might think of as a fly ball hitter meets even that standard. Richie Sexson? He hits more ground balls than fly balls. Always has. Even in 2003, when he hit 45 homers, he hit far more ground balls than flies (215-154). Andruw Jones, the year he hit 51 homers, hit 202 ground balls, 202 fly balls, and 77 line drives. A lot of guys who hit 30, 40 homers still hit more ground balls than fly balls.
So does Ryan Howard. When I first saw Ryan Howard, I thought that he was the second coming of David Ortiz. They have obvious similarities as players—but when you profile them as hitters, they’re actually not even similar. Very, very different. David is something of a fly ball hitter—45% fly balls. Howard fly ball percentage is actually a little low. Ortiz doesn’t strike out a lot, by the standards of modern hitters. Howard does.
But Ryan Howard hits the ball so phenomenally hard—and remember, we’re contrasting him with David Ortiz, who can crush a baseball himself—but Howard hits the ball so hard that he doesn’t need to pull it to get it to go out. In his career, he’s hit 66 home runs to the opposite field, 57 to center, 54 to right. David hits six times as many homers to right field as he does to left—actually a little more than six. Radically different hitters—different strikeout rates, different ground ball rates, different pull rates, different bat speed.
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Ryan Howard had a lousy minor league batting eye, and he developed late, and he started MLB with a lousy batting eye. He started walking 100 times a year just through the terror factor.
Howard became his own template, because his freakish strength made him an outlier.
We all agree that Carlos Peguero will probably wash out. But suppose his chance to become Ryan Howard is 20%? What then? Howard finished top-10 MVP for six seasons in a row. Josh Hamilton never did that.
People kept Randy Johnson around for one reason only. His physical freakishness created the possibility of a HOF scenario. I was there. That's why they kept him around.
If you think there's ANY reasonable chance of Carlos Peguero tightening his strike zone, you've got to give him every chance you can.
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Comments
It's an In or Out scenario with CPeg. He has nothing left to prove at AAA. in '11 and '12 he hit .299/.365/.560 in Tacoma, with amazing consistency. His Eye even improved from15/82 to 29/103. He struck out in 32% of his PA's during both seasons.
I suppose you could Tacoma him again, demanding/hoping that the K's drop to "acceptable" levels, I suppose.
But he will go down there and mash again, improving his K's a small amount, and then there you are. You're back to right where you are now. I imagine that there is very little chance he breaks camp with the Big Boys, but there is something so dang intriguing about him that it would be an interesting decision, as easily defended at a Bay or Raul decision.
But you would have to play him, invest in the strong call. And therein lies the rub: Who sits if he's fulltime? OF is set, but Smoak might just be in the way. If Smoak struggles for a month, CPEG might be the first guy we call. An OF injury might result in the same thing.
To keep him when camp breaks isn't the safe "old-time baseball" call, but it might be a good one.
moe
There's no harm in repeating AAA again, unless it hurts his feelings (or your depth is so strong he's taking up space where more intruiguing players ought to be). He's significantly flawed. That's what the high minors are for. Exploring intruigue and refining flaws.
Look I’m not a hitting expert, and if I were I would probably be someplace warm, working with hitters during spring training – instead of shoveling out after a Chicago snow storm.
But I know two things:
1. When Peguero hits the ball in the air, he usually hits it much harder and it goes much further than most professional baseball players can hit a baseball.
2. A year ago an obit had already been written for Saunders baseball career, but all he needed was some rubber bands, a heavy bat, and a swimming noodle to resurrect his career. (Saunders admitted that, several other Hitting coaches had explained how to correctly approach hitting a baseball. But it was not until he hooked up with Bard, who said the same things as the other coaches but just in a different way, did it all begin to click).
N.B. Saunders Minor League numbers looked pretty good.
It seems to me that Peguero, is diligently working to improve his approach just like Saunders is also working to ensure he can stay consistent with his new approach - thru the use of a swimming noodle. So why throw in the towel on a player whose prodigious power does not come a long very often, just because watching him whiff has been an emotionally painful experience. The M’s have a long history of tossing away players before they can mature into a full-fledged major leaguer: Ibanez, Morse, Choo, Morrow… And if memory serves me right, King Felix also had his struggles for a year or two (especially with his pitch selection/sequence) before he finally became his dominant self.
It is not often a player like a Trout come a long that splashes onto the scene with instant success – and without needing to travel up that learning curve. Even at the major league level player development takes time and patience, which includes when players fail at the major league level but show tools that indicate they may be able to impact the game – give them a chance to hone their skills (with a new/improved approach) at the minor league level. I know I want instant gratification when it comes to a prospect achieving success when they arrive in Seattle but all too often it takes that extra time, because they have now reached the apex of competition that not only have the detailed scouting report which details a player’s weaknesses but the opposing players have the necessary skill level to execute a plan of attack to exploit these weaknesses.
So now are young players (e.g. Peguero, Smoak, Ackley, …) need to not only use their physical ability but also have the mental ability and discipline to make the necessary adjustments, will they be allowed the time to make these adjustments???
for Howard is insanely low which is a big part of his fly balls being more productive. The average player has around 10% IFFB and Howard sits at 1.8% career. Peguero is at 12.2% in only 212 PAso doesn't say that's exactly what he is in that way, just that it's not likely he is sub 5% even. He hasn't been quite the hitter Howard was from age 24 on considering especially Howard has a .940 MiL OPS while Peguero is at .848. Peguero has struck out more than Howard through the same age with less power production so I don't think it's likely he reaches that peak. It is possible, but then he doesn't have to to be valuable anyway. I think 85+% of Howard would be pretty welcomed.
If he's really working on his approach he can do that at AAA, so I don't think out is a necessary option. From everything I'm reading, he needs to improve his bat launch to get to fastballs better and there have been some mechanical adjustments made along those lines. 90+ mph exists enough at AAA that he can definitely work on that there if he's not ready. One point made was that none of his MLB HR have been hit off fastballs, which is really both good and bad news.