Giants Top 20 Prospects, Position Players

Prospecting has never been my strong suit. I’ve always considered myself informed, but withdrawn from the Russian roulette game known as prospect mavenry. But, as my Giants fandom only gets worse (or better, depending on your point of view, I suppose) I decided to take my first-ever stab at making some sort of prospect list.

A few housekeeping items: I have decided to make two different lists, one for pitchers and one for hitters. This is the hitters list; the pitchers list will follow shortly. I chose to focus on the available professional statistics for many of the prospects that follow and weighed less on the scouting side of things; the obvious exceptions are those prospects with little or no professional experience (Gary Brown, Jarrett Parker). Still, I rank Brown and Parker lower than just about everybody else, with the caveat that they can move up this list very quickly if they start with a bang. I also weigh the most recent season’s statistics much heavier than any previous season.

With that out of the way, let’s get started. The top 5 catching prospects:

1. Tommy Joseph (18, A)
2. Hector Sanchez (20, A)
3. Johnny Monell (24, A+)
4. Dan Burkhart (21, A-)
5. Joe Staley (21, Rk)

Comments: LTP takes the top spot among catchers despite a poor season in Single-A Augusta. The caveat to his .236/.290/.401 season? He was only 18 years old, very young for full season A-ball. His .175 ISO looks good, but is K/BB is downright scary (116/26). Joseph has time on his hands, and should improve this season. Hector Sanchez was also young for A-ball (20 y.o.) and has displayed decent disciple. He is also the superior backstop. Monell spent the year in high-A San Jose. He was pretty old for the league (24) and put up a pretty decent line (.273/.350/.487 with 19 HRs and 25 doubles) but apparently needs work behind the dish. We’ll see how he handles AA. Burkhart is somewhat of an enigma (only 70 PAs) but after him the system is pretty shallow.

Top 5 First Basemen:

1. Brandon Belt (22, A+, AA, AAA)
2. Andy D’Alessio (25, AA)
3. Luke Anders (23, A)
4. Brett Pill (25, AAA)
5. Sundrendy Windster (21, Rk)

Comments: Belt’s season has been very well documented so I won’t go into much more detail here other than point out that he led all Giants minor leaguers with 23 HRs this season to go with 43 doubles. Not a whole lot else to get excited about except the intriguing Sundrendy Windster, who, in addition to having the greatest name in professional baseball, boasted a .311/.416/.594 line in ~130 PAs in rookie ball this year. Keep your eye on him.

Top 5 Second Baseman:
1. Charlie Culberson (21, A+)
2. Brock Bond (24, AAA)
3. Ryan Cavan (23, A)
4. Nick Noonan (21, AA)
5. Carlos Willoughby (21, Rk)

Comments: Culberson had quite the breakout year this year in high-A, putting up a line of .290/.340/.457 after finally finding a position. He seems to have something of a clank-mitt so we’ll see if he sticks at second base. He also tore up the Arizona Fall League and is considerably younger than I assumed (He’s only 22). The only thing I have to say about Bond is ZOMG that OBP and K/BB!! He’ll probably see some time in the majors this year. Ryan Cavan is a guy that not many people are talking about, but had a great season this year in Augusta (.283/.352/.451 with 17 HRs and 34 2Bs). He’s another guy to keep an eye on. Noonan needs to bounce back from injuries he suffered last season before I rank him higher. Willoughby is a great down-list sleeper. He had a great season in rookie ball (.295/.372/.432 with 23 SBs to only 4 CS) and has a reputation as a speedy middle infielder with not a lot of power.

Top 5 Third Baseman:

1. Jose Flores (22, A+)
2. Conor Gillaspie (22, AA)
3. Chris Dominguez (23, A)
4. Drew Biery (24, A+)
5. Wes Hobson (22, Rk)

Comments: Why is no one talking about Jose Flores? In his age-22 season in high-A, he hit .331/.381/.457 with an average walk rate and low K rate. I like him to surprise next year. Gillaspie had a bit of a down year last year, but is still on track to challenge for the major league job in 2012. Is Chris Dominguez the second coming of Mark Reynolds? In HRs and Ks, perhaps, but he doesn’t walk enough to justify a K rate around 25%. He did finish second amongst Giants minor leaguers with 21 HRs. Nothing else to look at after those three.

Top 5 Shortstops:

1. Ehire Adrianza (20, A+)
2. Brandon Crawford (23, AA)
3. Ryan Lormand (24, A+, AA, AAA)
4. Juan Martinez (23, A)
5. Carter Jurica (21, A-)

Comments: Yuck. Not a darn thing after all-glove/no-hit twins Adrianza and Crawford. Crawford (Bruin Pride, yo), who will almost certainly see Major League time this season, hit .243/.337/.375 at Richmond this season. At least that walk rate looks alright. Adrianza is three years younger than Crawford and hit .256/.333/.348 in San Jose. He’s got a slightly better glove than Crawford and is faster (33 SBs), those factors plus age gives him the number one spot by a nose. No one else worth mentioning here.
Top 5 Left Fielders: (Note: I understand that minor league OF positions are largely meaningless, but I needed to split them up somehow. Players are divided by the position at which they played the most games in 2010.)

1. Thomas Neal (22, AA)
2. James Simmons (24, A+)
3. Wendell Fairley (22, A+)
4. Nick Liles (22, A)
5. Ryan Scoma (22, A-)

Comments: Neal didn’t so much take a step back in 2010 as he did take a step sideways (or tread water, if you prefer). He hit .291/.359/.440, and the only beef I have with his performance is that I would like to see more power out of a left fielder. Simmons was quite old for high-A this year (24) but showed pretty good power (.186 ISO). Fairley took a huge step back this year after being reasonably highly touted last year. He joined the OPB>SLG club (.362 OBP, .343 SLG). Scoma just missed my top-5 sleepers list. He showed pretty fantastic patience in low-A this year, and just needs to develop some power before becoming a legit prospect.

Top 5 Center Fielders:

1. Francisco Peguero (22, A+)
2. Chuckie Jones (17, Rk)
3. Gary Brown (21, Rk)
4. Jarrett Parker (21, Rk)
5. Juan Perez (23, A+)

Comments: Peguero experienced a pretty significant breakout this year, with a line of .329/.353/.488 in high-A. He also stole 40 bags in San Jose. Unless he figures out how to take a walk, he figures to be a “slap in on the ground and run like hell” kind of hitter. The projection system ZiPS, rather bizarrely, has him as an average major leaguer right now. Re: Chuckie Jones, I know he probably won’t play center (more likely right) but he did play there the most this season. He hit .279/.360/.461 in 165 ABs in Rookie ball this year, as a 17 year-old. With any luck, he’ll have a good year this year and will shoot up the prospect charts. Brown and Parker come as a package deal: toolsy college outfielders without much (or, in Parker’s case, any) professional experience. I admit to just kind of sticking them in here, I’d like to see a few hundred PAs before making any kind of analysis. Brown’s lack of walks in college isn’t a great sign, though. Juan Perez was 23 in A+ last season, and hit .298/.337/.472. The K/BB ain’t great, but give him a year in AA and we’ll see where we stand.

Top 5 Right Fielders:

1. Roger Kieschnick (23, AA)
2. Rafael Rodriguez (17, A-, Rk)
3. Ryan Lollis (23, A)
4. Jose Medina (23, A-)
5. Clay Timpner (27, AA)
Comments: Kieschnick had something of a lost season after a year marred by back injuries. There really isn’t a whole lot in the system as far as right fielders, however, so he holds on to the top spot. We’ll see how he rebounds from injury. Rodriguez is only 17, so hopefully he’ll be able to build on last season in Rookie ball (.301/.323/.398). Lollis is intriguing, he was 23 in Augusta last year and hit .288/.345/.380. I’d like to see more power, but the above average walk rate and average K/BB rate show promise. The only interesting things about Medina and Timpner are their walk rates.

So there you have it. Here are my top 20 position players:

1. Brandon Belt, 1B
2. Francisco Peguero, OF
3. Chuckie Jones, OF
4. Tommy Joseph, C
5. Gary Brown, OF
6. Thomas Neal, OF
7. Jose Flores, 3B
8. Ehire Adrianza, SS
9. Charlie Culberson, 2B
10. Conor Gillaspie, 3B
11. Brandon Crawford, SS
12. Brock Bond, 2B
13. Chris Dominguez, 3B
14. Jarrett Parker, OF
15. Hector Sanchez, C
16. Juan Perez, OF
17. Ryan Cavan, 2B
18. Nick Noonan, 2B
19. Roger Kieschnick, OF
20. Carlos Willoughby, 2B

Comments: I am probably unnaturally high on Jose Flores, Ryan Cavan, and Carlos Willoughby, and unnaturally low on Brandon Crawford. Also, I’m really high on the Teenage Dreams: Jones and Joseph. As you can see, the system is pretty strong with second basemen and outfielders, and pretty weak on shortstops.

My top 5 sleepers (guys most likely to take the leap this year):
1. Jose Flores, 3B
2. Juan Perez, OF
3. Ryan Cavan, 2B
4. Chris Lofton, OF
5. Sundrendy Windster, 1B

Comments: I’ve commented on most of these guys already, but the CF class is so deep I had Chris Lofton ranked as our 7th best centerfielder. He hit .268/.350/.343 in low class-A Salem-Keizer as a 20 year old, to go along with 15 steals with only 5 caught stealing. He strikes out too much, but his walk rate is pretty good. If he can develop even a little bit of power than he can really make a move up the board.

So that’s my list. Feel free to leave some suggestions.

Matt Cain: a PITCHf/x look into his xFIP-defying ways

As you probably saw, yesterday saw not one, not two, but three articles about Matt Cain and his xFIP-defying superpowers. It started with Paapfly’s post “Matt Cain ignores xFIP, again and again”, then got picked up by FanGraphs’ Dave Cameron, Tom Tango, and SBNation’s own (!!) Rob Neyer.

First, some statistics. For his career Matt Cain is the owner of 3.45 ERA, which is fantastic. His FIP, which strips luck and fielding out of the equation, gives him a slight bump to 3.84, which is still quite good. xFIP adjusts the home run per fly ball rate to the league average of 10.6%, which hurts Cain. A lot. His 7.0% career mark is a full 33% below the league average. The theory behind xFIP is that the HR/FB ratio is a statistic that a pitcher cannot control, and as such it fluctuates year to year, much like BABIP. The thing with Cain is, over the course of his career (almost 1,100 IP), that rate hasn’t fluctuated. In fact, it has stayed remarkably constant. Here are his HR/FB ratios since 2006, his first full season as a starter: 7.1%, 5.5%, 6.8%, 8.4%, 7.4%. Still, Cain has largely been dismissed as a fluke or merely lucky, just the other day Baseball Prospectus writer Bill Baer called Cain “one of the most overrated pitchers in baseball.” Baer continued to cite Cain’s home ballpark, and its well-known penchant for suppressing homers. But, as Paapfly points out, Cain’s career home/road splits simply don’t show it. His home HR/FB ratio is 6.7%, on the road, its 7.4%. That’s a result, but not much of one.

Let’s try to tackle this problem using PITCHf/x. Some basics: Cain throws five pitches: a four-seam fastball that sits 91-92 and touches 95, a curveball that sits around 77 and has about 7 inches of downward break, a changeup that sits around 85 and breaks inward to a RHB, a slider that sits 85, and a seldom-used two seam fastball that sits 92-93. He throws his fastball most often, about 58% of all pitches. His most effective pitch, according to FanGraphs linear weights, is either his four-seamer or his changeup, both coming in at just over a run above average per 100 pitches. He decreased the usage of his slider this year, favoring the changeup.

By looking at Cain’s PITCHf/x splits, when can glean some assumptions out of the data. The first obvious thing one notices is that Cain likes to stay away. This makes sense: Cain’s fastball has at best average velocity, and off-speed pitches are generally more effective on the outside part of the plate because a hitter has more trouble turning on one.

Another thing that struck me is Cain’s pitch splits by batter handedness. He throws his changeup 23.2% of the time to lefties, and only 8.7% of the time to righties. On the other hand, he throws his slider 16.1% of the time to righties, while only 2.1% of the time to lefties, even less than he throws his two seamer. His curveball and two-seamer usage are in the same ballpark, regardless of batter handedness.

All of this makes intuitive sense. Cain’s changeup breaks about 7 inches toward his pitching arm side, or away from a left handed batter. Meanwhile, his slider is relatively flat, but looking at his heat map, he throws it almost exclusively low and away from a righty. This illustrates the way he uses what is probably his worst pitch to his advantage: it remains very hard to hit a low-and-away slider over the fence. The changeup heat map shows the same thing: Cain throws it exclusively low and away to lefties.

Cain's slider vs. RHB:

And his changeup vs. LHB:

Now, on to the comparisons. Dave Cameron made some comparisons to pitchers with similarly low HR/FB rates, and found that even for pitchers that kept their HR/FB low for four consecutive seasons, as Cain has, their HR/FB rose about 2% in the next two seasons. As commenter DrBGiantsFan pointed out, Cameron’s sample was primarily pitchers that were just reaching and flying past their peaks. Paapfly responded to Cameron’s post, and part of that post pointed out that Cain also has a very high infield fly ball percentage, at 12.9% in his career. Cameron and Paapfly use Roy Oswalt as the best Cain comparison, but I think I’ve found one better: Jered Weaver of the California Angels. Look at their batted ball percentages: flyballs: 48.5% Weaver, 45.3% Cain; infield fly balls: 13.1% Weaver, 12.9% Cain, home run per fly ball: 7.9% Weaver, 7.0% Cain. Both pitchers have high flyball and infield fly percentages, but don’t give up very many homeruns.

Briefly, Weaver is a right-handed pitcher with a five-pitch arsenal. He throws the same five pitches as Cain, but he uses his two-seamer and his slider far more often. An analysis of the his handedness splits shows what you were probably expected: he throws his slider 31.2% of the time against righties, but only 5.1% of the time against lefties. Conversely, he throws his changeup on 8.1% of the time against righties, but 18.9% of the time against lefties.

The similarity to Cain’s splits is striking. Unlike Cain, Weaver also mixes up his curveball according to batter handedness: 25.3% of the time against lefties, but only 0.2% of the time against righties. That’s right, Weaver threw exactly 3 curveballs to righties this year. Meanwhile, looking at Weaver’s heat maps confirm their similarities.

Weaver's slider against RHB:
And his changeup vs. LHB:

So what does it all mean? Weaver and Cain approach each at bat similarly, and each get the same results: locate the fastball away, mix it up with sliders away to righties and changeups away to lefties, with the occasional curveball and two seamer. Each gets a lot of pop-ups, a lot of fly balls, and not a lot of home runs. I think this can be attributed to their superior command: both walk very few batters: Weaver, 2.17 per 9, Cain, 2.43 per 9 in 2010.

Pitches that are breaking away from the batter are very hard to hit for home runs, but are very easy to hit lazily into the opposite field. Weaver and Cain are both adept at locating their pitches exactly where its hardest to hit strongly, and therefore induce a lot of weak pop flies to the opposite field. After the PITCHf/x analysis, I am convinced this is a repeatable skill for both Cain and Weaver, provided they continue their strike-throwing ways.