Patrick Kivlehan in the Arizona Fall League
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If you're not super gung-ho about the minors, you might not be familiar with Patrick Kivlehan's story:
| Age | Remark | Slash Line |
| 18, 19, 20, 21 | Football player only | |
| 22 | Tried out for NCAA team | .390/.480/.700 |
| 23 | Class A+ minors ball (High Desert) | .320/.380/.530 |
| 24 | AA high minor leagues ("nearly" MLB) | .300/.380/.485 |
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I don't even know how to comment on the above situation.
Here is an article about his "tryout" with Rutgers baseball. They thought Kivlehan could help with pinch-running, because of his football speed -- exactly as if the Mariners brought on Ricardo Lockette. Kivlehan's walk-on resulted in his becoming the Big East Player of the Year. Let me read that sentence again.
Supposing Lockette pinch-ran for a couple games, then picked up a bat and simply hit like Mike Trout, winning the league MVP?
You'd run a DNA check. Maybe the Andromedans have a triple helix.
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The only thing that even begins to help me process this situation, anyway, is Bo Jackson's baseball career. Bo was a star in the NFL, and he decided to play baseball, calling it a "hobby" for his off-season NFL time. Seriously, he shut up critics by saying he was entitled to a "hobby" just like everybody else, and simply stepped into the major leagues as a quality center / left fielder. (Granted, he had 184 AB's minors warmup.)
We'll say, by the way, that Bo Jackson didn't really have MLB-quality strike zone recog, or MLB hand-eye coordination. He just had blurry-fast hands, just used a See Ball Hit Ball approach, and somehow his talent simply transcended baseball. ... Most of his damage came on average fastballs, anywhere in the zone (like Vlad Guerrero, in the sense that Vlad didn't care about pitch location). Bo's lack of refinement didn't help pitchers much.
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If it were Dr. D, he might be thinking of Patrick Kivlehan as a center fielder, like Bo was (or would have been, if not for Willie Wilson). Whatever; he's also a natural, graceful third baseman (and therefore first baseman).
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Here is a video on him. The swing is almost mystifyingly ballplayer-like, compact, and clean, though he carries his weight rather high. For a player in his template, Dr. D /cosigns that swing As Is. With gusto. Tons of power with very little load.
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He had 101 RBI last year and (of course he is) he's off to a big start in the AFL this year. You can still watch baseball this month, you know. The AFL website is robust and has GameDay, with Pitch F/X.
Though some analysts pooh-pooh the AFL, or at least the results from it, Dr. D doesn't. It's a select league, a type of semi-All-Star league, and you can certainly tell that the Mariners' eyes are WIIIIIIDDDDDE open about Mr. Kivlehan.
Go back to 2005, for example, and the batting leaders out of the AFL included:
- Stephen Drew
- Andre Ethier
- Kendrys Morales
- Matt Kemp
- Howie Kendrick
- Nick Markakis
- Jarrod Saltalamacchia
- Billy Butler
- Denard Span
Slugging .550 in the AFL does not mean "that guy is going to be a star." It really doesn't. But if you have a special talent, a big result in the AFL is a perfectly legit way to recognize him.
Kivlehan's first 21 at-bats, for what it's worth, he's .240/.360/.570 with 3 walks and 2 BB's. Here is the AFL stat page. We're not using the AFL to discover Patrick Kivlehan, you understand. It's the only baseball you can watch right now, right? ...
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Even if you don't follow the minors much, you'll enjoy this MLB.com rundown of the Mariners' top 20 minor leaguers. The list is really shaken up this year. Patrick Kivlehan is #6, and he's only that low because the M's have guys like D.J. Peterson and Alex Jackson (high 1st rounders) and Austin Wilson (the guy nabbed after Jackson) in front of him.
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All that was a preamble. Here's what we wanted to get to, the real live element of Tomorrow's News Today in the Mariner blog-o-sphere, that being Gordon's prophecies on minor leaguers.
Here is an old Gordon Gross comment on Patrick Kivlehan, this done two (2) years ago, at Spec's MarinerStalk. Right after his single college season combined with his partial season at Everett. Take it as a sample of the way Gordon has banged a spoon on a pie plate for Kivlehan throughout.
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His HBP isn't random, and his low walk rate isn't permanent. HBP is, oftentimes, a product of where you stand on the plate. Kivlehan basically dares pitchers to throw inside, because he simply doesn't care about getting hit with a baseball. He was on special teams at Rutgers, flying downhill at 100 MPH to slam his body against other behemoths like a crash test dummy - what's a little fastball in the ribs compared to that?
And Kivlehan's walks-to-Ks by month:
June - 0:17 (58 PAs)
July - 6:36 (123 PAs)
August - 13:38 (131 PAs)
I believe Kivlehan had ONE lonely, solitary walk against his first 35 Ks. If my memory is correct, that would put him at 18 walks against his last 56 Ks, or a batting eye of .33. Not the worst thing in the world for a guy who a year before hadn't so much as touched a bat in half a decade.
The thing to watch with Kivlehan is progress, not his raw statline. Treat him like a 17 year old from the Dominican instead of a college senior and it'll be easier to understand his numbers. He's basically Gabby Guerrero experience-wise, except he's fully grown into his Real Man body. Which makes his winning the NWL MVP to follow his Big East POY award really impressive.
He scared people in the Northwest league. Yes, the Ks are a problem, and while his walks climbed his Ks did not drop. He won't walk like Jim Thome to offset those huge K rates. But the guy has a gorgeous power swing and sinks his weight into the ground beautifully. In that it IS like a righty version of a Thome swing from when he was young. And while his Ks will probably remain high, nothing says they have to be THAT high. He's had 3 months with a wood bat, following 3 months with a composite bat, following... nothing whatsover since he was a teen. He's making it up as he goes against professional pitchers and college grads who have been facing well-prepared hitters for years.
If this is his rearguard action, how much better might he get with a thousand ABs under his belt to see some pitches and fully harness his beautiful swing? THAT is why some of us love him so much: he has nearly unlimited potential as a power bat, and we have so few power bats that it's hard not to smile when seeing one in the system.
He runs like the wind (or maybe like a charging bison, but he's hella fast), so an outfield slot is something that should give him plus range on a corner. His ISO was .200+. He had a very high BABIP, but part of that is because he hits the ball so HARD.
Bo Jackson had a .25 batting eye and a 32% K rate, but he did okay. Physical freaks are weird like that.
I'm truly looking forward to seeing 450+ at-bats from Kivlehan in a full-season league, and seeing what he can do with them. Maybe it'll prove out that he can't hit a curve, or his batting average plummets, or he loses his power, or his eyes fall out, or he gets a flesh-eating disease.
Or maybe he's just an older version of Bubba Starling, and when he gets to the bigs he might be that corner power threat we've been looking for.
Not enough information yet. Let's get some more, starting next month. :-)
~G
- See more at: http://marinerstalk.com/article/marinerstalk40-33-patrick-kivlehan-3b#st...
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Remember, now, the Mariners were the team that was most open-minded about Patrick Kivlehan. Good on them.
Enjoy,
Jeff