Each Monday for the next month, I’m going to profile the hitters from each minor league team. I tried this out during the middle of the season based on data from last year and found the exercise to be interesting, if not entirely illuminating. The chart focuses on two things: getting on base and hitting for power. I wish that I could say evaluating prospects is just that simple but I doubt erik and I would have that much to write if it was. The hitters for each team are based on who ended the year on that team. I’m using aggregate data for the year to try and increase the sample size so some players may have data ranging all the way from the GCL to QC in this instance. There are risks and rewards with using the increased sample set (questions on level of competition, park factors, etc) but you’ll just have to live with it.
We’re trying to be discerning about which prospects are really performing well so I’ve set the bars high for the 4 quadrants. The dividing line on the X-axis is having an OBP over .350, so if a player is on the right side of the graph they’ve achieved that. This doesn’t account for batters who are slap hitters versus those that are well rounded with good walk rates. Players can have outlandish BABIPs and wind up looking good as well. The 2D format is limited but it does serve as a nice litmus test for our prospects. On the Y-axis is ISO and the dividing marker there is .150. Showing ISO early and often in the minors is what you want from a prospect and it’s a much clearer cut number than the nuances that sit behind a high OBP. Players in the upper right quadrant profile as the best prospects.
I’ve labeled hitters who strike out in more than 25% of their PAs with red markers and less than 10% with green markers. I’m not obsessive about strikeouts but extremes in that department can be indicative of future struggles or successes.
Click on the thumbnail and then “All Sizes” for larger viewing options.
Notes:
- Steve Hill looks awfully good on this graph. It’s a shame he’s been spending so much time in LF because his bat at C could be quite a find. Unfortunately his BABIP was crazy high (>.400) so the OBP is probably the illusion of luck. The power is real though.
- Nick Derba is another nice catching prospect, which the system seems full of as of late. He walks like crazy so his OBP isn’t AVG driven. He’s got very low LD%, which will need to increase if he intends to hit for average and doubles at the higher levels.
- Jaime Landin has excellent contact rates in addition to walking in over 10% of his plate appearances.
- Some small improvements by Tyler Henleyand he could be in that upper right quadrant. He’s a bit undersized so power probably won’t be his calling card but he put up respectable numbers for someone drafted this June.
- Willian Sandoval should probably just be released.
Raw Data:
| Name | Age | AVG | OBP | SLG | ISO | BB% | K% |
| Nicholas Derba | 22 | 0.268 | 0.387 | 0.388 | 0.120 | 15.4 | 20.7 |
| Arnoldi Cruz | 21 | 0.299 | 0.347 | 0.451 | 0.152 | 6.9 | 13.5 |
| Daniel Descalso | 20 | 0.268 | 0.346 | 0.336 | 0.068 | 9.4 | 13.4 |
| Tim Dorn | 24 | 0.196 | 0.324 | 0.337 | 0.141 | 14.8 | 30.5 |
| Jose Garcia | 19 | 0.264 | 0.345 | 0.333 | 0.069 | 10.3 | 15.4 |
| Steve Hill | 22 | 0.320 | 0.355 | 0.513 | 0.193 | 4.4 | 20.0 |
| Jaime Landin | 23 | 0.273 | 0.366 | 0.405 | 0.132 | 11.7 | 8.3 |
| Christian Lopez | 20 | 0.219 | 0.301 | 0.299 | 0.080 | 10.1 | 27.4 |
| Oliver Marmol | 21 | 0.212 | 0.314 | 0.255 | 0.043 | 9.9 | 17.3 |
| Christian Reyes | 21 | 0.273 | 0.312 | 0.406 | 0.133 | 5.0 | 23.6 |
| Willian Sandoval | 21 | 0.162 | 0.199 | 0.191 | 0.029 | 3.8 | 20.0 |
| Jared Schweitzer | 23 | 0.290 | 0.364 | 0.450 | 0.160 | 8.3 | 15.7 |
| Antonio DeJesus | 21 | 0.238 | 0.385 | 0.275 | 0.037 | 16.0 | 16.8 |
| Tyler Henley | 22 | 0.236 | 0.336 | 0.371 | 0.135 | 9.1 | 18.3 |
| Daryl Jones | 20 | 0.217 | 0.304 | 0.296 | 0.079 | 8.9 | 20.4 |
| Jose Ramirez | 22 | 0.219 | 0.304 | 0.275 | 0.056 | 9.0 | 19.8 |
(All stats via MILB.com. Player names are linked to FirstInning)
Filed under: Visualizing Hitters
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
That is one wacky group. Dorn is almost a 3TO hero if he could hit more homers. Hill’s performance seems awfully fluky given his walk rate, maybe he’s nick stavinoha 2. and dejesus…you have to think his ba will climb some with that eye, that’s just weirdness.
Is it just me or does Arni look really solid on this chart? He hits for average with power takes walks and doesn’t strike out to much. He looks very balanced. Now if we could get some defensive stats on him and he showed a great glove I would really get excited about this guy. Any chance he will start at A or AA next year?
Cruz looked fantastic at the lower levels. His numbers took a hit at Quad Cities and I think he needs to spend some more time there although the Cardinals could be aggressive with him and move him to Palm Beach.
RB–bb ref now has minor league stats, including range factor per game. arni had a rf of 2.63. for a ref point, rolen had a 2.78 rf/g and nl avg was 2.27. that would indicate to me cruz is an above avg 3b.
That chart is going to make my obsession for Henley grow. I’m telling you he is the next Dykstra.
i barely trust defensive statistics at the big league level, let alone the minor league level. i think the best tool for evaluating a player defensively is a set of eyes.
as for henley, i still think the best comp is skip schumaker with a little more pop.
Henley is this year’s Jon Jay. Not a very big sample size and people are going to over-hype him in the offseason.
FGC,
range factor is a pretty flawed stat, to say the very least. but without seeing the player, that’s all we got. i like defensive stats like RZR and UZR, as well as John Dewan’s +/- system in the fielding bible…as well as lean mostly on what i see.
Just voted for Channel Cats, they have a very nice lead with 48%, and the Swing was 2nd with like a 28% I believe. Looks like we’re going to be rooting on the Channels next year
The poll for the name of the team is just a portion of the final decision but here are the standings as of this morning:
Quad City River Bandits 36.3%
Quad City Channel Cats 24.9%
Quad City Talons 24.0%
Swing of the Quad Cities 6.4%
Quad City Current 5.9%
Quad City River Eagles 2.6%
I admit that my hopes for Henley are higher than the average person. I’m telling you now though, when I watched his games for Rice he was the sparkplug of that team. The Skip comparison is probably accurate, but Henley is a gamer that once you watch him play will make you root for him. Henley does have more pop than Jay has.
AZ, good stuff, as usual.
At the risk of piling more work on you, can you add a column for line drive rates? These discussions always spark conversation about BABIP, which is in turn irrelevant without inclusion of LD%.
Sidd — the problem is that I gather the aggregate data directly from MILB because they already have it done there, which doesn’t have any of the fancy stats (that I prefer, of course). I may try to compile the data from FirstInning, but that means more spreadsheet work for me. I’ll see how easy it is when I work on Palm Beach. . .