Change of Scenery Has Resulted in Anthony Prato’s Career-Best Hitting Stretch

Great article!  Enough to convince me that Spears needs to be promoted to help the big league club score more runs and strike out fewer times......

This development highlights just how deep this franchise is with infielders, and why Urshela, Arraez, Encarnacio-Strand and Steer were considered expendable for pitching.....Yake also looks like he is coming into his own!  Farmer and Solano have been solid signings, but it appears we don't have to feel pressured to hang onto them with Prato, Helman, Martin, and one could also add Lewis still at this point as well Miranda to make an impact on the Twins future.

Thanks for the info on Prato and his development/resurgence.

He may or may not be ready now or soon to be a true major leaguer.  But certainly one take away from this article is how Prato is just another young player who comes to the Saints and finds his bat.  One take away is the job that Spears and Gardenhire are doing.

Good write up.  I've been watching Prato for a while now.  My gut tells me this is still a flash in the pan - but we shall see.  I'd love to give the hitting coach credit.  But then I look at what Martin and Miranda are doing and I think "not so fast".  IDK what to think.

Michael Helman was another UT guy who seemed to come out of nowhere and start mashing.  Assuming one of those two can maintain anything close to what they were doing at AAA, they certainly can push guys like Farmer, Castro, Gordon off the roster.

I wonder if including that his BAPiP in AA was .217 and in AAA is .398 would have added some useful context to the article beyond change of scenery. These kind of in season variances happen often even when the scenery has stayed the same. It can give the appearance a player has improved significantly.

There is reason to be hopeful about Prato but patience is in order here. 

On 8/1/2023 at 10:16 AM, Kenny Powers said:

Good write up.  I've been watching Prato for a while now.  My gut tells me this is still a flash in the pan - but we shall see.  I'd love to give the hitting coach credit.  But then I look at what Martin and Miranda are doing and I think "not so fast".  IDK what to think.

Michael Helman was another UT guy who seemed to come out of nowhere and start mashing.  Assuming one of those two can maintain anything close to what they were doing at AAA, they certainly can push guys like Farmer, Castro, Gordon off the roster.

I think one piece of context that’s often missed is that the league wide OPS is over .800 for the intl league and era is over 5. He’s been great and there’s credit to be given, but all these AAA guys have great OPS’ for a reason. Hitting stats in this league are just so bloated every year 

On 7/31/2023 at 2:44 PM, Althebum82 said:

Great article!  Enough to convince me that Spears needs to be promoted to help the big league club score more runs and strike out fewer times......

Exactly what I was going to say. Promote Spears! Miranda was terrible when he went down and he kept improving until he was called back up. Martin got a very late start and started slow, but has also been improving of late.

On 8/3/2023 at 12:54 AM, Mike Sixel said:

So, he plays third and LF .... And isn't up? 

He's having a great year, and I'd love to see what he can do.

He has had a great two months but the year is pretty ordinary. His OPS for the year is .831. That sounds really good until you realize the run scoring context in the IL is really high this year. The average OPS in the IL is .802. That really gives us distorted perception of both hitters and pitchers.

Combining both his performance in the AAA and AA he is about 8% better than league average by OPS. For comparison the league ERA is the IL in about 23% greater than Randy Dobnak. Relative to league Dobnak is performing better than Chris Williams by a little and the full season of Prato by more. I would no be advocating for Dobnak’s return though relative to league he is doing better than Williams and Prato over the season.

What if we ignore the abysmal performance in AA across 129 at bats? Prato’s BABIP in AA was .217 after all. Maybe it was just bad luck. That leave us with the outstanding OPS in AAA across 124 at bats. If we want to ignore the AA due to BABIP should we also ignore his AAA performance due to a BABIP of .382?

As a whole, Prato’s season follows his career of a better than league average batter at the minor league level. I don’t think it would be wise to cut a partial sample in half and then throw out the bad part due to a low BABIP but make decisions based on the other part in spite of the high BABIP.

I would hope the Twins aren’t looking at numbers like OPS at all. They need such a large sample to stabilize. The pitch level data and statcast data I can’t see has to tell a better story for the whole season. The Twins must have seen something encouraging in that AA data in spite of his abysmal OPS start to the year in AA. They could have brought someone else up.

Prato has given them further reasons to be encouraged and worthy of consideration of an addition to the 40 man roster in the off season.