Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 8-26-15

[Cubswin11]

Not sure what's changed for Almora in approach. But, he's using left field a lot more. Early in the season it seemed everything was opposite-field/center-field, very little pull field, and one or two video clips I saw seemed to suggest a stance and weight transfer that corresponded. During the hot streak, he's gotten a lot more hits, including many of the extra base hits, to left field. And from the game logs, it's seemed that he's getting a lot more line drives.

 

Context: In some "top ten" lists, Gleyber has tended to be #1, and Almora has tended to be placed in the 5-10 range. Interestingly, Almora's season BABIP is still only .293. If Gleyber had Almora's .293 BABIP, he'd be hitting .229, and he'd not be ranked #1 by any of us. (105K/3HR is not normally conducive to a high batting average.)

 

That Almora's composite numbers involve a low BABIP probably suggests he may actually project more favorably than the numbers suggest, and that it may not be as hard for him to sustain or improve his numbers next year despite promotion to Iowa.

Almora puts the ball in play so much, something like 85% of the time, I think he's always going to have a relatively low BABIP.

[KingCubsFan]

.303/.370/.479 in the second half for Almora, with 15BB and 20 K's. He's in the top 3 for me, but I'm more bullish on him than most.

[craig]

One thing I've liked with Almora is that after he got so hot, but then cooled off, that he limited the "cold" stretch and now has pretty quickly seemed to get back into the groove. Every hitter has hots and colds. The good ones have ways to extend the hots, and to keep the cold periods short.