craig

Rosscup is now 16K/9 IP. In two of his outings, one of them a 2 inning job, he had none. So actually his 16K are in the other 6 innings. 6 innings, 16 out of the 18 outs by K? Pretty funny. Seems like when he's on he's on. I wonder what he gets the outs with?

Agree, it will be really interesting to see how it plays out. I don't think you can do the K/W without also including the HR's. His OBP/BA/OPS is lifted by the HR's, and I doubt he'll sustain his HR rate. (I don't expect him to hit 28 or more HR's this season...) 19K/73AB is a high K-rate (about like Jackson his first year in AA.) But 4HR per 19K offsets the K's and maintains good batting average and OBP. Despite all those K's, he's needed only a .340 BABIP to sustain his healthy .288 average, thanks to the HR's. But, if those HR's tail off while he maintains that kind of K-rate, his average will go down and his OBP will be back to normal. If he maintains his current K/BABIP rates and I multiply volume by 7 (18 games to 126 games), while only bumping his HR's to 10 instead of 28, he'd end with a .252 average, and lowish OBP. I doubt his HR-rate is sustainable, although I hope I'm wrong. My point, I guess, is that the increase in BB's has been neutralized by the increase in K's. My guess is he'll made adjustments to reduce the high K-rate, and sacrifice some of his new-found BB-rate. Either way, it will be really interesting to see how things settle out in the months ahead. An interesting note is that he's still predominantly a singles hitter. I like to see 30% of a prospects hits go for XB, or more. Last year, 73% of Alcantara's hits were singles. 76% singles this far. For context, Barney was a 73% singles guy last year. Heh, of course if he's 10SB/0CS, and I prorate that to 70SB/0CS, a lot of his walks/singles will be doubles! I think it would be REALLY cool if his current base-stealing binge was legit.

Alcantara with his daily error. 8 errors so far.

Vogelbach adds his 16th single. Marco Hernandez has 3K/1BB/2XBH in 50 AB. OPS is around .600, OBP below .300 again.

I love him so. SSS be damned. Heh heh. So, how likely is it that DH goes NL in the near future?

Kane up 5-0 after three. Vogelbach with two singles, average up to .321, although with no power. (15 singles, 2 XBH)

Loosen got a lot of K's last year, too, so he must have something that can make guys miss on a good day. At least minor league guys. I agree with toonster, I think Jokisch has a little more zip than Raley and certainly than Rusin. His results have been better than Raley, although if you just look at K/BB/HR rates, they look a lot the same. But Raley has always given up more hits: his minor-league H/9 is 11.1, Jokisch's is 8.3. I think it's unlikely to expect Jokisch to be particuarly good. But as long as he keeps getting guys out, I'm going to keep hoping that he'll end up being good.

Kane Cty is actually playing. No score in second, Johnson 3K/2H/1BB through two, one of the hits a Texas leaguer Martin probably should have caught. Contreras has quickly gotten a passed ball.

Alcantara has rebounded offensively, he's up to .288, plus with all the walks and steals. I'd wondered if he'd be overmatched in AA, and questioned if he should even be promoted, and when he'd gone down to .220 or whatever I'd been worried. But he's been hot lately. However, he made his 7th error already. Last year I thought hie error rate was scary, but nobody else seemed to mind. Now he's 7 errors in 14 (or 15?) games. Sooner or later he's got to cut back on the errors. A lot.

Gray goes 6, coach said something about protecting him or something, pulled him at 82 pitches. 10K/0BB/2 singles. Hit 100 several times, topped at 103.

3 more K's in the 3rd.

Loosen's K'd 3 in the first two innings. Nice to have him back.

Contreras is off to a nice start offensively, walks and power both looking nice, although of course Kane plays so rarely that it's way premature. But he's only caught a handful of games, already has 3 passed balls, and without actually paying good attention it seems like base-stealers are like 14-for-15 when he's been catching. I'd love to get some feedback from people who have been or will go to Kane games about how he looks defensively.

A good Bruno comp, as a hitter, might be Darwin Barney. Both are low-power guys who don't walk a lot. *Bruno K's more in low minors than Barney does in majors. *Barney hit 7 HR's/548 AB last year. Bruno has 3 HR's/301 AB at Boise/Daytona AB's. If anything those numbers actually favor Barney! So I don't see Bruno having a meaningfully superior amount of effective game HR power. And he's 5'9" and turning 23 this calendar year, so I don't anticipate much "filling out into more power" happening. Probably his present strength is pretty much what he'll have. *XB power; Bruno has 31 XBH per 111 hits (28%); Barney last year had 37 XBH per 139 hits (27%). So they look roughly similar there. *Both have tracked as low-walk guys. Bruno walked very rarely in college, although toonster has noted that his role may have contributed. Thus far his walk-rate has been decent (23 walks/301 AB), somewhat better than Barney (33 BB/548 AB) *Bruno has been a tremendous BABIP guy so far, .433, between Boise and Daytona. Barney was .273. Obviously both are probably anomalous. Obviously Barney doesn't seem like as upbeat a comp as Pedroia, but I don't mean that to be a downer on Bruno. An upgraded Barney could be a valuable player. If Barney added ten walks, an extra 2 HR's, and extra 5 doubles, and raised his BABIP from .273 to .330, none of those would greatly change the general profile of low-power-contact hitter, but a little better here and a little better there and you've got a pretty good hitter.

heh heh, to use a wish comp from old days, Pete Rose might be. Wasn't a power hitter, wasn't fast, wasn't real good defensively anywhere but was decent everywhere, thus he started at multiple positions over his career. But he was good at getting hits. At least, that's the caricature for Rose. That's probably ridiculously unfair to Rose, though. He did have power, with 15 or more HR's 3 times (in an era where HR's were down), and seven straight years with 10 or more HR's. 160 career HR's. He also stole 198 bases, as many as 20 in a season, ten seasons with at least ten steals. So maybe he was really a 4-5 tools guy rather than the one tool hit-but-nothing else guy of his legend. OK, this was a worthless post. But, I guess for Bruno it all depends on how much hitting he can do. If he can hit .300 and play acceptable defense, he's valuable and will have a long career, even if both Iso's are low.

Thanks, kyle. Very interesting data. I agree with you, it supports the concerns about Baez's K-rates.

Jokisch's results have been better than his reported stuff would suggest. He had pretty good K-rate at Daytona, and his ERA last year in AA was 2.9, although his K's were down. My recall is that he had a lot of excellent games, and a few clunkers. But my recall was also that I didn't think his profile was consistent; one game K's, then not; next game all groundouts; next game rather few. I'm kinda guessing he's a 4-pitch guy, and between fastball/cutter/change/curve, he goes with whichever seem best on a given day. I wonder if Jokisch isn't a guy who doesn't have anything special, but has a consistency to not throw many mistakes?

Thanks, interesting. I could imagine he could go either extreme on BABIP. Bat speed and all that, when he guesses right and actually hits the ball, you'd think he could be above average. Conversely, as a big-leg-kick guy I could see him being routinely off balance. As a guy who K's all the time because he can't actually make any contact, I could imagine a lot of the swings when he does make contact being weak contact. As a guess hitter when he guesses wrong I could again imagine being way off balance with weak contact. Hopefully he can work it all out. And perhaps being such an auto-out now might end up being better than doing like Jackson and waiting till he's 24 to even try to change things. So perhaps this is exactly the kind of haplessness that will prompt him to make changes that could help him.

Last year Silva was 92K/5HR, but still hit .296. This year he's 4K/3HR (at least according to milb.com). Was Baez a low BABIP guy last year too? Wouldn't be surprising if that's a chronic issue. One guy who isn't having any BABIP problems is Dr. Bruno. I think he's 19-for-39 on balls in play, with 5 walks. I think he was a really high BABIP guy at Boise as well. .435 BABIP there.

A quick move up to Iowa, followed by success including one or both of newfound power or plate discipline. I just need one of those and he doesn't need to move up that quickly. He is repeating AA but is age appropriate. ..What I'd like to see/find out about Ha - a) Well, let's start with the easiest thing - how good is that defense in CF? ... b) Can his discipline show something close to what it did in the 2nd half? So far, it isn't at the same level, but obviously it's too early. c) What kind of power can he show?... d) Can he be consistent offensively, .... Fringe prospects often have a hot week at some point during a season. If it's during April, when there aren't many other numbers to average, the stats catch the eye. But even with the hot month, he's shown no power and has K'd plenty (8K/0HR). So probably nothing really important happening here. But I think this is the kind of burst that can get him onto the "possible starter" landscape, in the "anti-awful" area. When looking for starters, I'm usually looking for asset guys. But DeJesus and Sappelt aren't long-term answers; Almora is years away at best; and Jackson is a long-shot off to a very poor start. So if Ha could emerge as a .275BA/.330 OBP guy with 5 HR's and .400 slugging, that might qualify for "could be starter" anti-awful role. Agree with each of your Q's, toonster. a) Is he a good CFer? Or is he more in the DeJesus/Sappelt or even Hairston class? c) I don't think the power question is that big; because I think it's a given that he'll not hit with power. Obviously there is still the issue of how awful/anti-awful it will be, though. Last year he slugged .385; year before .413. So I suppose one could go optimistic and wish for a .400-slugger with 5-9 HR's? b) Since he won't hit for power or many HR's, his offense needs IsoD. He was a very low-walk guy in A, but last year he took quite a few walks, and thus far 5 walks/38 AB is fine again. We'll see how that holds up. When he went from A-ball hacker to AA-walk-taker, that came at the typically big price in K's, power, and average. It will be interesting to see how he balances the value and the profits of taking walks this season. It sometimes takes a guy a while to find his equilibrium. d) Agree that the consistency is a question. Every hitter has his hot and cold periods, but often they improve some at reducing the length of the slumps, and extending the hot streaks. Hopefully we'll see some of that this year for Ha. Obviously his last week he's been on fire, and his season BABIP is around .500, so whatever he's got going now will flame out soon.

A quick move up to Iowa, followed by success including one or both of newfound power or plate discipline. I just need one of those and he doesn't need to move up that quickly. He is repeating AA but is age appropriate. ..What I'd like to see/find out about Ha - a) Well, let's start with the easiest thing - how good is that defense in CF? ... b) Can his discipline show something close to what it did in the 2nd half? So far, it isn't at the same level, but obviously it's too early. c) What kind of power can he show?... d) Can he be consistent offensively, .... Fringe prospects often have a hot week at some point during a season. If it's during April, when there aren't many other numbers to average, the stats catch the eye. But even with the hot month, he's shown no power and has K'd plenty (8K/0HR). So probably nothing really important happening here. But I think this is the kind of burst that can get him onto the "possible starter" landscape, in the "anti-awful" area. DeJesus and Sappelt aren't long-term answers; Almora is years away at best; and Jackson is a long-shot off to a very poor start. So if Ha could emerge as a .275BA/.330 OBP guy with 5 HR's and .400 slugging, that might qualify for "could be starter" anti-awful role. Agree with each of your Q's, toonster. a) Is he a good CFer? Or is he more in the DeJesus/Sappelt or even Hairston class? c) I don't think the power question is that big; because I think it's a given that he'll not hit with power. Obviously there is still the issue of how low it will be, though. Awful, or at least somewhat anti-awful? Last year he slugged .385; year before .413. So I suppose one could go optimistic and wish for a .400-slugger with 5-9 HR's? b) Since he won't hit for power or many HR's, his offense needs IsoD. He was a very low-walk guy in A, but last year he took quite a few walks, and 5 walks/38 AB is fine so far. We'll see. When he went from A-ball hacker to AA-walk-taker, that came at the typical price in K's, power, and average. It sometimes takes a guy a while to find his equilibrium; it will be interesting to see how he balances the profits versus the costs of taking walks this season. d) Agree that the consistency is a question. Every hitter has hot and cold periods, but often good ones learn to reduce the length of the slumps, and extending the hot streaks. Hopefully we'll see some of that this year for Ha. Obviously his last week he's been on fire, and his season BABIP is around .500, so whatever he's got going now will flame out soon. e) I'd add the contact/K question. 96K's in AA is a red flag for contact, and 96K/6HR is hard on BA and OBP. When over 20% of AB's are K-outs, it takes a whole lot of BABIP to maintain a good BA and OBP, especially without HR's. Less than 80% of his AB's were balls in play last year, and he was batting .058 on the 102 AB's that resulted in K's or HR's. (For example, If you bat .058 on 20% of your AB, you need to BABIP over .360 on the other 80% if you want to hit .300 overall....) The K-problem is both an obvious statistical concern, but it's also a scouting red-flag. K's typically go up with level, especially at the AAA and even more so big-league level. So a 20+% whiffer in AA is certainly at risk, especially without projecting a bunch of HR's to lift the BA, OBP, and OPS. To some degree I think a lot of the questions for Ha are similar to what would apply for Szczur. Is the defense anything to help him, or not? How awful will the power be? Can he sustain enough OBP to be anti-awful offensively? Is his K-rate going to kill his average and OBP, in the absence of any compensating HR power? I wonder if either of these guys will still look interesting when the season is done?

Yes and no. I don't think he's from Wichita, I think he's from a smaller community. He was the QB on his HS football team, the typical "best athlete in a small high school" guy who's the best at baseball and football, and probably basketball besides. As a football guy, his summer schedule was impacted by football practice. So in Kansas, spring maybe doesn't come that soon, and by July football practice is probably starting. His college scholarship was definitely for baseball, and he knew baseball was his after-high school sport. Too small for football.

http://www.thecubreporter.com/04132013/giants-sweep-cubs-fitch-park#more Loosen pitched 3 innings, good news. Conway had three clean innings, 40-some pitches. Rosario also pitched again, got into the 2nd inning. Baez 4 hits, no or little hitting from anybody else (Soler, Dunston, Golden, etc.) Oops, is that the wrong day and this was reported a day or two ago in a different thread? O well.

Baez now has a 3-game hitting streak, the first time he's had so long a streak since getting promoted to Daytona. He's up to .190 average and .239 OBP. He hasn't been able to go over .250OBP at either Daytona last year or in AFL last fall. So it wold be cool if he could sustain something and get over .200 BA/.250 OBP.

What's the story on him? He was terrible at Daytona, 42H/13BB/10K, totally hittable and no K-stuff at all. And then very bad at Peoria also. Did it turn out there was some injury thing associated to rationalize the poor year?