Baseball America has their top 20 prospects out for the Appalachian League of which Johnson City is a part. The list is heavy on Twins and Braves prospects but the Cardinals managed to capture the number 7 slot with their number 1 draft pick Peter Kozma. The only player from the 2007 draft ranked ahead of Kozma on the list was Devil Rays RHP Nick Barnese who was selected in the third round.
The scouting report on Kozma is much like what we’ve heard previously. He has “no glaring weaknesses” and “was one of the best defensive shortstops in the league”. The 12 errors appear to be, at least in part, a product of the fact that he gets to more balls than a typical SS. So where John Smith only can reach balls within 8 feet of him, Kozma can range 10 feet (totally made up numbers). This results in some very good plays but also some official scorer giving him an error on what would have just been an everyday hit if John Smith was the SS.
Kozma had a good walk rate in JC with 10% of his PAs resulting in a base on balls. He’ll need to continue that if he wants to be an average offensive shortstop since he’s limited to “some line-drive power”. That’s not a derogatory statement — just a factual one that utilizes BA’s scouting report.
Personally, I think BA went a little pitcher heavy by assigning half of the spots (including #1) to pitching prospects in a short-season league. But looking at the JC roster, the only name that I think might have deserved consideration would be Osvaldo Morales who wasn’t on the GCL list either. I don’t know how they decide which league to evaluate a player in when they jump levels but Morales was a stud offensively at the GCL level. The asterisk there being that he’s already at 1B and has nowhere to go on the defensive spectrum.
[Update] As noted in the comments by Hugo, BA has their “stat wrap” up for High-A. I really don’t know what to make of these stat wraps. They’re incredibly piecemeal and I don’t find them particularly informative. Allen Craig gets a big season award as well as the 4th best power+speed score (mainly based on his 21 HRs). I’m a big Craig booster and continue to hope he can stick at 3rd.
The pitchers have some good K rates (Degermen, Ottavino, Norrick) but their control and propensity for the walk prevents them from really being elite. I don’t think Degermen will ever overcome those control problems but I still have high hopes for Ottavino.
Filed under: Pete Kozma, analysis
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Glad to hear that about Kozma. I’d been hoping those were “errors of enthusiasm.”
Remember, too, that the Twins and the Braves use the Appy League as the Cardinals use the NY-Penn League. So both teams have more advanced players and that is the reason they win the league so often.
http://www.whiteyball.com
High A recap from BA http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/prospects/?p=603
Only real thing to mention is that Craig gets talked about and is listed as the 4th best Power/Speed prospect in the FSL and he was noted as having the second biggest season.
Liam - For clarification, that’s my interpretation not BA. They called him one of the best defensive shortstops with excellent range so I don’t know how he could be those things unless they were, as you termed it, errors of enthusiam.
It is good to hear that BA considers Kozma one of the better defensive SS. I’ve made a couple of comments about his high error numbers, this makes my anxiety go down. Hell it’s just nice to see that the Cards players are cracking these lists. I remember years where they wouldn’t get but maybe 1 player on any of these lists.
I have found it interesting that a significant number of the Cards top pitching prospects sport control problems, especially in guys that they have pegged as SPs. Hopefully the Cards pitching instructors manage to straighten this out since alot of these guys are our most talented pitchers. The pitchers get drafted and signed with these flaws, so the instruction staff better earn their salary and help these get their mechanics straightened out so they can attain future success as they progress through the system.
well the number is down from the 4 we had in the top 13 last year, but kozma did grab a pretty high ranking. he was the 2nd position player on the list behind only braves 2006 first rounder cody johnson who put up insane numbers. nothing to complain about there.
as for other guys who could have made the list, i asked a couple of questions about nick additon to see if his stuff was legit b/c he had excellent K/IP and K/BB numbers, but i didn’t get an answer. andres rosales did get a couple of mentions in the chat as the guy said he has major league upside and that he didn’t make the list b/c he “got squeezed” by a few others and didn’t spend much time in the league.
Scouts will sometimes ignore error totals because they are looking at his athleticism more than how polished he is, especially at Kozma’s age. He should become more consistent as he moves up through the system, because he has the tools to do so.
A few cases of this would include…..
Jay Bell made 53 errors at high-A ball in 1985, in only 102 games. In 1993, 1996 and 1997 Bell made 11, 10 and 10 errors respectively in what were essentially full seasons in the major leagues.
In 1994 A-Rod made 19 errors in 63 games in the Midwest League.
Jack Wilson, sometimes compared to Kozma in terms of athletic ability, made 16 errors in 60 games as a 20 y/o at Johnson City in 1998.
Finally, Adam Everett, who is an excellent (and under-rated) shortstop, made 9 errors in only 21 games as a 21 y/o in the NYPL in 1998.
So, in short, the scouting reports are a much better indicator of Kozma’s future, than the error numbers he put up this season.
great post chris. i think he will be fine defensively b/c all we have heard is how good he is in that aspect of the game. i think the thing that kind of gets overlooked b/c of the error totals is that he actually hit pretty well at johnson city considering the layoff. the .265 average isn’t great, but it isn’t bad either. he did a nice job of drawing walks and struck out only 1 time per 5 at bats. 8 doubles and 2 homers in 100 at bats is also pretty good pop for a guy we heard had no power.
Chris - Ignoring errors is a good idea regardless of who is doing it. They simply aren’t representative of defensive value.
I still wish we had defensive metrics for the minors. . .I need to look into whether some adaptation of DRA by Humphreys over at THT would be possible for the minors.
AZ-baseball ref now has minors stats, which include range factor. it’s not a good way to rate fielders, as I’m sure you know. Last year Jeff Sackmann had Batted Ball Adjusted Range Factor last year at mil splits, not sure if he’ll do the heavy lifting required to have it again this year.
ya. . . I’ve been meaning to check that out. Not that I’m a huge range factor fan but such is the state of minor league defensive metrics - sigh.