Article: September Call Ups: Bring Me Canario

[Jason Ross]

2 hours ago, Brandon Glick said:

This is an awesome analysis and a great point about Canario's skillset. 

What I want to be sure is clear is that IF Canario were to come up, he would be HEAVILY match-up protected, much in the same way Wisdom has been the last 2+ months. He'd almost never be in the lineup against righties, and lefties with good changeups (a pitch Canario has struggled with for some time) would probably keep him on the bench too. 

Calling up the 28th man in September during a playoff race isn't about finding the next every day starter - it's about finding someone who fills a very specific need on a roster already built to compete. There are plenty of options at Iowa, PCA among them. But if the issue with PCA (in general) is that he's redundant on a team with great outfield defense and good speed, Canario fits the mold being a slugger with a great eye. 

Yeah, like I said, I can see the argument.  I'm not sure I'm on that side of the argument (though it has merits).  Mostly showing the bat-to-ball skills here remain...questionable regardless of the good results.  I'm more of a "process" person when I scout MiLB talents (where and when possible) and less of a "result" driven person (though sometimes it's just a necessity).  The process behind Canario is going about his impressive results scare me.  Though I could see an argument as to why he might have a handful of useful PA's in him between now and the playoffs at the MLB level as well.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

4 hours ago, CubinNY said:

He should change his handle to "No Context Kyle"

Context is just a method for importing bias 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

4 hours ago, Derek_Lee_Truther said:

I actually sort of changed my mind since yesterday. I did a deeper dive on him and he's crushing it right now.

Coming back from a devastating injury, he was always gonna struggle. But in the last 12 games his OPS is over .900. He's back to where he was at the end of last year. And that was a damn good player.

In that park, in that league, an over .900 ops makes you a barely above average AAA hitter.  Which makes you a bad MLB hitter.

[CubinNY]

39 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

In that park, in that league, an over .900 ops makes you a barely above average AAA hitter.  Which makes you a bad MLB hitter.

You appear to use context when it suits you, lol.

[Rcal10]

5 hours ago, Brandon Glick said:

 

This is mostly what I've been getting at - Canario still has a ton of development left in the minors, but he's hitting right now. The Cubs chose to buy at the deadline and need to reinforce this team however they can, even if their chances of winning the world series remain marginally slim. If Canario is the hottest hitter in the system in two weeks time, and the lineup is continuing to be desperate for power, there's a case to be made for someone with his skillset as a bench/platoon option. 

But the line up isn’t desperate for power. Since the ASB they are second in baseball in home runs. Over the long haul, maybe they could use more power. But right now they don’t. IMO PCA add away more than Canario. Honestly with Morel struggling and the clock striking midnight on Tauchman, I would love to see PCA up and in the line up now. 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

1 hour ago, CubinNY said:

You appear to use context when it suits you, lol.

It's about consistency.

When most people say "context," what they mean is an ad hoc rule for splitting the data they want from the data they don't want to reach the conclusion they want.  "This player may look bad, but if you only look at exactly this set of information and exclude the other information for reasons that don't apply to any other situation and I decided are relevant for this case, then it's actually good."  


 

Edited August 24, 2023 by Hairyducked Idiot

[Transmogrified Tiger]

1 hour ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

In that park, in that league, an over .900 ops makes you a barely above average AAA hitter.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

15 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

The IL has a collective OPS of .801 and Iowa has a historical park factor of about 110. Iowa Cubs hitters are collectively OPSing .845 and their pitchers have a team ERA of 5.37.  The best team OPS the Colorado Rockies ever put up in Coors Fields' launchiest days was a .837.  

Just looking at raw OPS is going to massively overrate hitters playing at Iowa, especally when you aren't even looking at raw OPS but selecting an arbitrary endpoint to maximize the OPS you're looking at.  

If you really squint and fudge, it's almost always within reason to argue that anyone employed to play professional baseball at the AAA level could probably do a credible job filling the last roster spot on an MLB team for a month.  

But that's what we're doing here. We're squinting and fudging to make a case for a guy because pixels gotta be spilled and because it's fun to make cases for guys. He's not better than Matt Mervis, or Jared Young, or Yonathan Perlaza, or Mastrobuoni, or PCA.  He's indistinguishable from Bote or Slaughter or Vasquez.  

Edited August 24, 2023 by Hairyducked Idiot

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I'm very disappointed that plug-in MLE calculators are no longer a thing on the internet, apparently.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

7 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

The IL has a collective OPS of .801 and Iowa has a historical park factor of about 110. Iowa Cubs hitters are collectively OPSing .845 and their pitchers have a team ERA of 5.37.  The best team OPS the Colorado Rockies ever put up in Coors Fields' launchiest days was a .837.

The IL as it's currently constructed is 2 years old, and the last time the I-Cubs had an above league average team OPS was in 2016.  Maybe a coincidence the last time they had good prospects they had a good offense!  But let's read the thing being responded to again.

 

Quote

In that park, in that league, an over .900 ops makes you a barely above average AAA hitter.

 

Don't think so.  Doesn't mean the rest of your takeaway isn't true, prospects fail and the jump from AAA to MLB is a huge one.  To reiterate, I do not want Canario called up nor do I think he's more than a 4th OF at the MLB level.  But if we're gonna antagonize folks about falling in love with prospects under the guise of objectivity, maybe suggesting that 'actually, crushing AAA pitching is pedestrian' is the wrong tact.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

1 minute ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

The IL as it's currently constructed is 2 years old, and the last time the I-Cubs had an above league average team OPS was in 2016.  Maybe a coincidence the last time they had good prospects they had a good offense!  But let's read the thing being responded to again.

 

 

Don't think so.  Doesn't mean the rest of your takeaway isn't true, prospects fail and the jump from AAA to MLB is a huge one.  To reiterate, I do not want Canario called up nor do I think he's more than a 4th OF at the MLB level.  But if we're gonna antagonize folks about falling in love with prospects under the guise of objectivity, maybe suggesting that 'actually, crushing AAA pitching is pedestrian' is the wrong tact.

Nope, still right.  Crushing is relative to league and park.  In a league where everyone is OPSing .800, in a hitters park, a .900 OPS isn't "crushing."

[Transmogrified Tiger]

5 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

Nope, still right.  Crushing is relative to league and park.  In a league where everyone is OPSing .800, in a hitters park, a .900 OPS isn't "crushing."

Choosing to die on the hills that Principal Park is Coors-ian hitters paradise and out-OPSing league average by 100 points isn't good enough is definitely a choice.  Godspeed.

[Brandon Glick]

2 hours ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

In that park, in that league, an over .900 ops makes you a barely above average AAA hitter.  Which makes you a bad MLB hitter.

This is a take I can't defend. What do you want the guy to do? Post a 1.500 OPS? Hit a home run every single game? By wRC+, he's been 40% better than the average than the average hitter across all of Triple A (park adjusted) for a month.

Source: 

Again, he's far from a finished product. But this kid can clearly hit the ball. A 1.000 OPS coming off multiple major injuries speaks to his potential. 

[Brandon Glick]

2 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

But the line up isn’t desperate for power. Since the ASB they are second in baseball in home runs. Over the long haul, maybe they could use more power. But right now they don’t. IMO PCA add away more than Canario. Honestly with Morel struggling and the clock striking midnight on Tauchman, I would love to see PCA up and in the line up now. 

Yes, they've been on something of a hot stretch with the long ball, but a lot of those have come in blowouts (and against opposing position players). And there isn't one guy in the lineup right now, perhaps besides Bellinger, who I think you legitimately believe can hit one out any time he steps to the plate. 

PCA is absolutely the top choice. There shouldn't be a question there. But if the 40-man crunch is tighter than we realize, Canario would get a longer look than most think. 

[Brandon Glick]

23 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Choosing to die on the hills that Principal Park is Coors-ian hitters paradise and out-OPSing league average by 100 points isn't good enough is definitely a choice.  Godspeed.

I guarantee you right now that if you promised the Rockies every single one of their hitters next season would post an OPS 100 points over league average, they would take that in a heartbeat and laugh all the way out the door. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

Canario has another homer tonight already 

[Brandon Glick]

Sharing this because it shamelessly feeds the narrative:

 

 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

48 minutes ago, Brandon Glick said:

This is a take I can't defend. What do you want the guy to do? Post a 1.500 OPS? Hit a home run every single game? By wRC+, he's been 40% better than the average than the average hitter across all of Triple A (park adjusted) for a month.

Source: 

Again, he's far from a finished product. But this kid can clearly hit the ball. A 1.000 OPS coming off multiple major injuries speaks to his potential. 

What does being a finished product have to do with it?  We're talking about calling him up for a roster spot right now, not his prospect status.

All the games count. The games before the last 21 were also official minor league baseball games that count on his record.  There's no reason to pick out his last 21 games other than to make him look better, it's motivated reasoning.

What more do I want him to do? Not be 7th on his AAA team in OPS (min. 100 PAs).  

[Hairyducked Idiot]

43 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Canario has another homer tonight already 

OK then this game will probably count on his stats. If he hadn't, it might not have.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

1 hour ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Choosing to die on the hills that Principal Park is Coors-ian hitters paradise and out-OPSing league average by 100 points isn't good enough is definitely a choice.  Godspeed.

Good enough for what?

Good enough to continue his employment? Good enough for his parents to be proud of him? Absolutely.

But if that's your standard for good enough for a major-league roster spot, we're gonna need to expand to 50 teams to fit all the newly qualified major leaguers.  Especially since we're not even talking about what he's *actually* hitting, we're talking about what he's hitting in a sample specifically selected ad hoc because it puts him in the best light.

Edited August 25, 2023 by Hairyducked Idiot

[Hairyducked Idiot]

 

1 hour ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Choosing to die on the hills that Principal Park is Coors-ian hitters paradise and out-OPSing league average by 100 points isn't good enough is definitely a choice.  Godspeed.

Iowa Cubs have an .868 team OPS at home vs ,821 on the road.  I don't see OPS against in any easy to find site, but the Iowa Cubs pitching staff has an ERA of 5.51 at home and 5.20 on the road.  Both numbers indicate home park inflating offense by about 6%.

The IL average OPS is .801. The MLB average OPS this season is .731.  So league average is ~9.5% higher in this league vs. the majors.

So even if the international League were *exactly* the same difficulty as the major leagues, an Iowa Cub would need to be putting up an .848 OPS to demonstrate that they would be a league average hitter in the majors.  

But of course, MLB is quite a bit harder than the majors, as Matt Mervis found out.

Here's a list of every player who has had at least 50 PAs for both the Iowa Cubs and Chicago Cubs in 2023, what they OPS'd in Iowa and what they OPS'd in MLB

Miguel Amaya .929 to .771 (-17%)
Nick Madrigal 1.192 to .710 (-40%)
Mike Tauchman .870 to .775 (-11%)
Christopher Morel 1.156 to .808 (-30%)
Miles Mastrobuoni .921 to ,565 (-38%)
Matt Mervis .958 to .531 (-45%)

If someone wants to take the time to weight that by PAs be my guest, but in the raw that's an average decline of 30%.

So even if he *were* OPSing .900 (which again, he isn't, that's an arbitrary endpoint), that would make him project to about a .630 OPS in the majors.

I'm sure it's fun to think the Cubs are just *so* good as an orgainzation that they have literally a dozen guys in Iowa who could hit in the majors right now but we don't have room for, the reality is it's just a park/league combination giving everyone superficial slash lines.

Of course, the flip side of this is that I've probably been too hard on pitchers like Wicks.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

No one's saying that OPSing .900 in AAA means MLB success ya goober, you tried parlaying that idea into the claim that OPSing .900+ is a "barely above average AAA hitter", which you've subsequently proven incorrect yourself with your hand-derived (and still overstated since *leagues* consistently perform better at home due to non-park related factors) park factor and statement of the league's average OPS.

[Tryptamine]

Oh look, we're back at the unless AAA hitter is putting up 1.300 OPS they suck and aren't worth a roster spot.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

17 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

No one's saying that OPSing .900 in AAA means MLB success ya goober, you tried parlaying that idea into the claim that OPSing .900+ is a "barely above average AAA hitter", which you've subsequently proven incorrect yourself with your hand-derived (and still overstated since *leagues* consistently perform better at home due to non-park related factors) park factor and statement of the league's average OPS.

It's 100% correct.  .800 league OPS, 6% park inflation means you need an .848 OPS just to be league average.  .900 would be barely above average.

I'm just not even close to incorrect on this one.

Edited August 25, 2023 by Hairyducked Idiot

[Hairyducked Idiot]

15 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

Oh look, we're back at the unless AAA hitter is putting up 1.300 OPS they suck and aren't worth a roster spot.

Well some of them play good defense, that could help their case.