Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 6-3-16

[Thrilho]

For comparison with my post above, here was Szczur's line for his first go round at AA and AAA in 2013-2014, where he finished up at the age of 25.

 

Matt Szczur: .273/.335/.344 .315 wOBA .071 ISO 7.8%BB/15.0%K

 

You figure Szczur is going to come back to earth from his .405 wOBA, but when he does what level are you expecting out of him? If you're expecting a big collapse back to 2015 MLB Szczur of the .222/.278/.333 slash line then I'd say Almora probably has more pedigree than to drop back that far. If you're saying 2016 Szczur with good defense in center then hurray!

 

But the other thing about Szczur and the concept of "guys like Szczur" is that we don't even know how great he is defensively. So far he's played only 90 of his 377 MLB innings in center, and he's got a -5.5 UZR/150 in those 377 innings. This year he's at a 35.8, last year was -22.6, so.... I guess the data is still evening out. But seems fair to say he might not be Almora in center.

 

I'd just want to know which version of Szczur is the guy you think Almora is likely to be and which players who bring greater value (considering defense) you'd prefer to have play for the Cubs.

 

I'm tired as a muh and also an idiot who can't fully articulate, but there's something intrisically wrong with that. 2016 Szczur is on pace for 150-200 PAs. That is great for Szczur and likely not even close to the best case Almora outcome for the organization. There's an opportunity cost to plugging an Almora, twice a top 40 prospect on BA's well researched preason top 100, into a similar role to Matt Szczur as any and every organization would value Almora significantly more.

 

Yeah, I know. Almora's probably not as good (offensively) as Szczur has been so far this or as bad as he was last year, but as you say here most organizations would value him significantly more. That was why I thought it was an odd comparison when you made it. If you think it's clear that most organizations would value Almora higher than Szczur then why say it's possible that the number 6 pick in the draft is another Szczur?

[Thrilho]

If the best the Cubs can do with their #6 overall pick and top 100 prospect is get a Matt Szczur out of him, they done goofed. There are many, many guys who can be Matt Szczur for a roster out there, including Matt Szczur. Russell and Baez get alot of their value from defense too, they still got onto the roster because they hit.

 

I didn't make it, just responded to it.

Okey dokey. Well, my point was that it's a not a great comparison, and it looks like we agree. So settled for the evening!

[CubsWin]

"Age 23-24 are peak power, speed, and defense seasons for a typical player..."

 

Is this true? I've never heard that anywhere. The following is from a Boston Globe article from 2015.

 

Since 1984, the greatest likelihood of finding a player worth 2.0 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) on offense, as defined by Baseball-Reference.com, peaks quite clearly between the ages of 26 and 28. Each of those three “seasons” accounts for roughly 10 percent of all the players who achieved 2.0 WAR of offense from 1984-2014. The ages 25-30 are bunched closely enough to that peak plateau to suggest a period in which players are most likely to perform at something close to the height of their abilities — the so-called prime years.

Has there been a new study showing such drastically different results?

 

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/hitters-no-longer-peak-only-decline/

Loved that. The removal of the PED-era from the sample explains a lot of the difference. Thanks, David. Really fascinating how the game is changing. Much of the change in the curve comes from players being better prepared when they're brought up.

 

But I still don't get the age 23-24 peak years. According to this study, the author concludes that players begin their decline at age 26. Am I missing something?

 

In the past few seasons, hitters no longer improve once they arrive in the majors. Instead, their performance is constant until they begin to decline, which, on average, is at 26 years old.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

I didn't say he was going to have Matt Szczur's role. I said that Matt Szczur has a role on this team when you started bring up how all of our part-time players were better than Almora. The point was, if Matt Szczur can have a role on this team, then Albert Almora can have a role on next year's team. I didn't say it would be the same role.

[Thrilho]

I just got up, but it looks like Duke has already made my point for me. He was talking about the role Almora would play. Szczur has a role, so Almora could have one. You were equating them as players. "If all they can get out of the 6th pick is a Szczur..." is the way you framed it, which to me would mean that Almora ends up as a Szczur level talent.

 

So yes, technically Duke did bring up Szczur's name first, but you were the one to take it to talent level comparisons. If you didn't mean to make that comparison or misconstrued Duke's post to think that he was making the comparison then cool. But just thought I'd clarify my post.

 

I'd normally just let this go, but since I'm guessing I'm in that group of people you wanted to punch themselves in the balls, I'm still just wondering. What's your alternative? I've seen you railing against these faceless people handing Almora the job, but I'm pretty sure I've never seen you posit another option. Is it JHey in center and some other guy in LF? Is there some young CF you have your eye on? Failing those things is there some value hurdle the future CF has to meet? A type of player you'd rather have? You know the minors and league pretty well, so I'm sure you've got some names.

[Thrilho]

Interesting spin to make me the one who dragged Szczur into the convo. If Matt Szczur can play a role on this team the logic should be that there is a wide, wide range of OF talent that can play a bench role on this team. Is Almora part of that pool? Sure, it's a big pool and the offensive standards are low enough if you bring it down to a Szczur sized role.

 

Heyward having a typical Heyward year offensively in CF is a top 3 CF in the NL IIRC and top handful in the majors, so Heyward's my dude for 2017 (as he was in 2016 before Fowler fell into their lap on a one year). There are a number of OFs, minor leaguers and low commit MLers, that I think can fill out the OF depth chart in 2017. That is a whole monstrous can of worms in itself and only further drags the argument away from the original point - that Almora would, far and away, be the worst bat this FO has called up from their farm to start or platoon for the Cubs.

 

Ok, I'll let go of who began the Szczur conversation, and just try to focus on the Almora-specific piece. For that top paragraph, if you're just talking about Almora playing a bench role for this team similar to Szczur's then yeah the offensive expectations are going to be low. Szczur has been back from injury since 5/21 and has started in 3 of 13 games, none in center. Made it into 9 by at least pinch hitting.

 

So if that's similar to the role you're envisioning for Almora then yeah there are a lot of guys who can do it. But for most people who have any real degree of confidence in Almora's ability that would pretty much only be a 2016 version of his playing time. When you talk about what you're getting out of a 6th pick in the draft you consider more than a 3 month rookie campaign.

 

So that was why I kept harping on the "if you only get a Szczur with the 6th pick in the draft..." thing. If you evaluate draft picks by their 6 years of MLB service time and Szczur is a second year player, then you'd need his whole projected to career to make an assessment of the pick. If you think Almora would be in a role similar to Szczur's with the 2016 Cubs for a significant portion of his career then you'd want to say that. But I don't get the sense you think Almora's likely long term outcome is 5th outfielder/25th man. So I was just trying to pin down what you meant.

 

Regarding JHey in center long term, I'd be down. I wanted him for center to start the offseason, wanted him for center when the Cards traded him, and still think he'd be great. If that's your preferred option over Almora then I get it. Having Bryant in the fold as a guy who can play elite corner outfield a few days a week really helps the team flexibility. Bryant/JHey would probably be good enough D to allow Schwarber to keep playing.

 

If you kept the team exactly the same, less Dex the only question would just be how many ABs does Almora get. He could be a 4th outfielder type with 300-500 PAs depending on output pretty easily for 2017. But even if he was on the low end of that I still probably wouldn't judge the draft pick too harshly yet. Or if he only had a .290-.300 wOBA at the age of 22-23, so long as he was providing pretty good defense, maintaining good contact rates, and steadily improving. It wouldn't be a light the world on fire thing, but I think you consider where he's going to be a couple years in the evaluation too.

[JennieGarthAlgar]

If the best the Cubs can do with their #6 overall pick and top 100 prospect is get a Matt Szczur out of him, they done goofed. There are many, many guys who can be Matt Szczur for a roster out there, including Matt Szczur. Russell and Baez get alot of their value from defense too, they still got onto the roster because they hit.

 

Well, that ship has already sailed. He's not on their level. We very well may have goofed. But there's nothing we can do about that now. He is what he is. That doesn't mean we can't still get something out of him.

 

Yeah, maybe we goofed when we took Almora over Russell. Good thing Theo knows how to Theo.