David Bote is a Golden God and Deserves His Own Thread

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I've been cowardly waiting for Bote to not kill the ball for a game to express a similar sentiment. He can have all the exit velocity he wants, I'm not going to feel one bit upset about any starts that Russell, Baez, Happ, or Zobrist get over him. They're better. Doesn't mean he's not potentially useful in a deluxe LaStella sorta way, but the league is going to adjust back and he's very likely to be the guy he's been in MiLB even post-swing adjustment, which is not a first division starter.

[Derwood]

I'd like him to go full Max Muncy for the rest of the season

[Banedon]

I've been cowardly waiting for Bote to not kill the ball for a game to express a similar sentiment. He can have all the exit velocity he wants, I'm not going to feel one bit upset about any starts that Russell, Baez, Happ, or Zobrist get over him. They're better. Doesn't mean he's not potentially useful in a deluxe LaStella sorta way, but the league is going to adjust back and he's very likely to be the guy he's been in MiLB even post-swing adjustment, which is not a first division starter.

 

I don't think anyone was suggesting that he get starts over Baez or Zobrist. But I wouldn't cry if he got to get some starts over Russell, with Baez at SS and Bote at 3B. He may not last, but ride the hot streak while you can. And Russell sure isn't on one.

[imb]

its like 90 at bats lol

[Bryants Disco Ball]

Still can’t believe some of you have doubts about him being a star.

 

This is just the start.

[Sammy Sofa]

its like 90 at bats lol

 

Back in the day this would have been the kind of thing everyone laughed and laughed at West Side Rooter/Little Lord Fontenot for. Now everyone is inexplicably desperate to have a Jake Fox of their very own.

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

I just assumed that the thread where Bote is referred to as a god would be a place that encouraged (rational) exhuberence. This obvious "hey everyone, did you notice its a SSS?!?" bs should go to Bryant thread or something.

[Cubswin11]

Here’s the article on the swing change, fwiw. It really wasn’t a change as much as adjusting his launch angle.

 

https://theathletic.com/328430/2018/04/25/launch-party-how-cubs-infielder-david-bote-finally-got-to-the-majors/

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Note to self: do an old board search for “Soler” and “exit velocity.”

[Sammy Sofa]

Note to self: do an old board search for “Soler” and “exit velocity.”

 

I tainted those results talking about something else entirely.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

 

he's a 25 year old non-prospect with 78 major league plate appearances, and there are posts about him moving bryant off third, wondering why everyone missed on him, calling him the next star, etc. i'm not saying he sucks or that he doesn't have value to the cubs. hopefully he can be a late bloomer and it's possible that he ends up as a derosa/zobrist type, it's just funny to see everyone losing their horsefeathers over him, when this is the type of place that should know not to get excited over a tiny sample size of plate appearances.

It's hard to fake hitting the ball hard and he's doing that better than anyone since he's been up and he's playing solid defense and clearly looks like he has a solid idea and approach at the plate. Yes of course it's ridiculous to think he will ever move Bryant off third but he's shown enough that he's probably one of the better 8 starting options on a given day with where the roster is at now. He's better than Tommy and better than Almora vs RHP and probably Happ vs LHP and at times a better option than Russell depending on the defense you want to run out.

 

did you see this post?

 

I just can't figure this guy out. 6 years toiling in the minors, never really doing that much. starts this year hot at iowa, comes up and looks like the next superstar.

 

baseball is littered with guys who do this and then end up turning back into nothing. i'm just wondering why a lot of people have already made the leap from "this guy is providing lots of value to use right now, and it's really helpful" to "this guy is a significant piece going forward"

 

but really the post was half joking in the first place, which is why i literally used the term doom boner at the start of it. it was an extremely noninflammatory post, so of course it got someone fired up.

 

I certainly wouldn't label him non-prospect after his 2017, AFL and 2018. Bote was 12th in BA's prospect list last offseason and 5th in their midseason list. He was 15th last offseason per MLB.com and 7th in MLB.com's midseason. Considering how late draft pick/late bloomers tend to rise much more slowly on national prospect lists, the midseason rankings are pretty impressive, even in a weak system.

 

His success and improvement in the minors has been tied to real adjustments. Whether that allows him to be a first division starter is a very fair question but I think he definitely needs to be inserted in the lineup more often right now with Bryant hurt since he's hitting well and providing good defense.

[minnesotacubsfan]

It's hard to fake hitting the ball hard and he's doing that better than anyone since he's been up and he's playing solid defense and clearly looks like he has a solid idea and approach at the plate. Yes of course it's ridiculous to think he will ever move Bryant off third but he's shown enough that he's probably one of the better 8 starting options on a given day with where the roster is at now. He's better than Tommy and better than Almora vs RHP and probably Happ vs LHP and at times a better option than Russell depending on the defense you want to run out.

 

did you see this post?

 

I just can't figure this guy out. 6 years toiling in the minors, never really doing that much. starts this year hot at iowa, comes up and looks like the next superstar.

 

baseball is littered with guys who do this and then end up turning back into nothing. i'm just wondering why a lot of people have already made the leap from "this guy is providing lots of value to use right now, and it's really helpful" to "this guy is a significant piece going forward"

 

but really the post was half joking in the first place, which is why i literally used the term doom boner at the start of it. it was an extremely noninflammatory post, so of course it got someone fired up.

Yeah I saw that post and responded that he made a noted swing change and is an exit velo god and some scouts really started taking note. And yeah I mostly agreed with you in my response. Nobody is fired up. Just pointed out that there's some things he's doing that's hard to fake/prove he might be more than a guy who disappears in a few weeks and he's also plenty valuable now and likely some sort of piece going forward.

 

The bolded part is what i was wondering. I know guys come up, hit the horsefeathers off the ball and disappear, but exit velocity seems like something that should be evident soon in his minor league career. Why now is it becoming such a big part of his success? He's not just slightly above average, hes setting the bar in that catagory. What adjustment makes that happen?

 

It also gives me some hope that it continues because it will likely continue to push his success. But no, he's not replacing Bryant. Hell of a trade chip tho.

[Cubswin11]

 

did you see this post?

 

 

 

baseball is littered with guys who do this and then end up turning back into nothing. i'm just wondering why a lot of people have already made the leap from "this guy is providing lots of value to use right now, and it's really helpful" to "this guy is a significant piece going forward"

 

but really the post was half joking in the first place, which is why i literally used the term doom boner at the start of it. it was an extremely noninflammatory post, so of course it got someone fired up.

Yeah I saw that post and responded that he made a noted swing change and is an exit velo god and some scouts really started taking note. And yeah I mostly agreed with you in my response. Nobody is fired up. Just pointed out that there's some things he's doing that's hard to fake/prove he might be more than a guy who disappears in a few weeks and he's also plenty valuable now and likely some sort of piece going forward.

 

The bolded part is what i was wondering. I know guys come up, hit the horsefeathers off the ball and disappear, but exit velocity seems like something that should be evident soon in his minor league career. Why now is it becoming such a big part of his success? He's not just slightly above average, hes setting the bar in that catagory. What adjustment makes that happen?

 

It also gives me some hope that it continues because it will likely continue to push his success. But no, he's not replacing Bryant. Hell of a trade chip tho.

Read the athletic article I posted. But basically he always hit the ball hard and was a big exit velo guy but he had a bad swing angle and hit too many grounders. They adjusted the swing a few degrees to get him to hit more line drives and fly balls is the jist of it thought.

[minnesotacubsfan]

Yeah I saw that post and responded that he made a noted swing change and is an exit velo god and some scouts really started taking note. And yeah I mostly agreed with you in my response. Nobody is fired up. Just pointed out that there's some things he's doing that's hard to fake/prove he might be more than a guy who disappears in a few weeks and he's also plenty valuable now and likely some sort of piece going forward.

 

The bolded part is what i was wondering. I know guys come up, hit the horsefeathers off the ball and disappear, but exit velocity seems like something that should be evident soon in his minor league career. Why now is it becoming such a big part of his success? He's not just slightly above average, hes setting the bar in that catagory. What adjustment makes that happen?

 

It also gives me some hope that it continues because it will likely continue to push his success. But no, he's not replacing Bryant. Hell of a trade chip tho.

Read the athletic article I posted. But basically he always hit the ball hard and was a big exit velo guy but he had a bad swing angle and hit too many grounders. They adjusted the swing a few degrees to get him to hit more line drives and fly balls is the jist of it thought.

 

yea, I found the article post after I replied. Thanks

[Aaron_Kennelly]

One of the things they talk about in that article is that Bote didn't change his swing very much. The focus was more on his swing path -- i.e., they wanted him to go out and get the ball instead of staying back and letting it travel in on him. A lot of the fly ball revolution adopters have talked about this. Eno Sarris wrote a good article about it at Fangraphs last year.

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/power-hitters-should-make-contact-out-in-front/

 

Bote's changes weren't really about changing his swing. The article mentions that the Cubs still wanted him to have a line drive swing. They didn't want to turn him into a fly ball hitter. A lot of guys that craft their swing for maximum loft are selling out for power -- think Luis Valbuena or Todd Frazier. Those swings lead to a lot of lazy fly balls at high launch angles. It also leads to low BABIPs.

 

Bote's main problem, the article says, was that he was just hitting everything straight into the ground. When you do that, it doesn't matter how hard you hit it. The Cubs wanted him to get his overall average launch angle up, while still focusing on hitting line drives.

 

If you look at the leaderboard on average launch angle on ground balls, Bote is up near the highest average launch angle. This is strange for guys with high GB%. Usually ground-ball hitters pound the ball straight into the ground more often. High launch angle fly-ball hitters also generally have higher ground-ball launch angles.

 

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&hfAB=&hfBBT=ground%5C.%5C.ball%7C&hfPR=&hfZ=&stadium=&hfBBL=&hfNewZones=&hfGT=R%7C&hfC=&hfSea=2018%7C&hfSit=&player_type=batter&hfOuts=&opponent=&pitcher_throws=&batter_stands=&hfSA=&game_date_gt=&game_date_lt=&hfInfield=&team=&position=&hfOutfield=&hfRO=&home_road=&hfFlag=&hfPull=&metric_1=&hfInn=&min_pitches=0&min_results=25&group_by=name&sort_col=launch_angle&player_event_sort=h_launch_speed&sort_order=desc&min_pas=0#results

 

A couple things are probably going on. One, his GB% is probably higher than it will be going forward. Secondly, Bote has had a really low standard deviation of launch angle. It's at 19.53 right now. The lowest for a full season in the Statcast era is 19.76. Again, this is something that isn't going to stay this way. But a low standard deviation of launch angle correlates inversely to BABIP. The smaller your spread of launch angles, the higher your BABIP is going to be. Bote isn't just hitting every ball hard. He's hitting everything close to his desired launch angle.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

I also think scouts missed the boat on Bote's other attributes as a prospect, too. Just looking at Fangraphs, they have him with a 45 for speed and 45 field. I think he might be a little better than that. He ranks second on the Cubs behind Baez in Statcast Sprint Speed and he looks pretty good defensively. It's not hard to see them sleeping on his athleticism because he was older and a late round pick that wasn't putting up good numbers on offense, either.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

The problem I have with Bote the launch angle enthusiast is that the narrative doesn't exactly track the results. They mention doing so last summer around the all-star break, but Bote was better earlier in the year. His Iowa performance is good(and he did improve his IsoP, although that's at least partly the PCL) but doesn't scream that he's a brand new player.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Everyone is constantly making small swing change adjustments. That's part of being a professional hitter. And then when those swing change adjustments happen to coincide with a hot streak, we get articles about how it's Changed Everything for that hitter.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Bote isn't just hitting every ball hard. He's hitting everything close to his desired launch angle.

 

That's a pretty textbook example of counting the same thing twice.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

From May 2016:

 

I think that Soler has been a little unlucky. His average exit velocity is 92.3mph, which is about the same as Rizzo's exit velocity. And his exit velocity has been stable - standard deviation is only 12.7mph. As a comparison, Harper's exit velocity is 91.7mph and standard deviation is 14.2mph.

 

He has not subsequently done a whole lot to warrant comparison to Rizzo or Harper.

 

This kind of analysis is the modern version of "But he hits .312 in day games on Tuesdays." There are so many peripherals now that if you keep digging, you can find one that you like about the guy. Maybe it's exit velocity, maybe it's LD%, maybe he's due some BABIP luck, maybe you like the K/BB ratio, maybe he's got an above-average Z-swing% (RIP alcantara 2beautiful4thisworld), maybe his contact rate is too big leagues to ignore. There's always something.

 

Maaaaybe David Bote is the next Ryan Theriot, and granted offensive output is so low these days that you basically just have to be not Rey Ordonez to be useful in the middle infield, but there was a time that stat-savvy fans knew what to make out of the guy with OK but not great numbers in AA and AAA who comes up and hits well for 82 plate appearances.

Edited August 9, 2018 by Hairyducked Idiot

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

Bote isn't just hitting every ball hard. He's hitting everything close to his desired launch angle.

 

That's a pretty textbook example of counting the same thing twice.

Sure, there is obvious overlap, but they are also clearly two different things. Do you call people out who cite Baez's OPS and WAR numbers in the same breath?

 

Can we all just agree that Bote is a really cool name?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Bote isn't just hitting every ball hard. He's hitting everything close to his desired launch angle.

 

That's a pretty textbook example of counting the same thing twice.

Sure, there is obvious overlap, but they are also clearly two different things. Do you call people out who cite Baez's OPS and WAR numbers in the same breath?

 

Can we all just agree that Bote is a really cool name?

 

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[Sammy Sofa]

HE WILL WEATHER THE STORM OF ADJUSTMENTS.

 

[Sammy Sofa]

From May 2016:

 

I think that Soler has been a little unlucky. His average exit velocity is 92.3mph, which is about the same as Rizzo's exit velocity. And his exit velocity has been stable - standard deviation is only 12.7mph. As a comparison, Harper's exit velocity is 91.7mph and standard deviation is 14.2mph.

 

He has not subsequently done a whole lot to warrant comparison to Rizzo or Harper.

 

This kind of analysis is the modern version of "But he hits .312 in day games on Tuesdays." There are so many peripherals now that if you keep digging, you can find one that you like about the guy. Maybe it's exit velocity, maybe it's LD%, maybe he's due some BABIP luck, maybe you like the K/BB ratio, maybe he's got an above-average Z-swing% (RIP alcantara 2beautiful4thisworld), maybe his contact rate is too big leagues to ignore. There's always something.

 

Maaaaybe David Bote is the next Ryan Theriot, and granted offensive output is so low these days that you basically just have to be not Rey Ordonez to be useful in the middle infield, but there was a time that stat-savvy fans knew what to make out of the guy with OK but not great numbers in AA and AAA who comes up and hits well for 82 plate appearances.

 

[Bertz]

Yeah I'm not super high on the predictive power of launch angle and exit velocity, despite the fact that you'd think they'd be incredible for that. Pre-statcast we'd handwave all sorts of small sample size stuff away as luck that's unlikely to repeat itself....and most of the time we'd be right. Now, you can be more semantically precise in noting whether or not it's luck. but it doesn't really change whether or not it's likely to persist.