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drivlikejehu

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Everything posted by drivlikejehu

  1. drivlikejehu
    Still no power. Given his age, not a good sign.
  2. drivlikejehu
    xFIP- by year: Milone 2011 - 119 2012 - 97 2013 - 105 2014 - 120 2015 - 118 Santana 2011 - 97 2012 - 108 2013 - 93 2014 - 94 2015 - TBD Not seeing the case for Milone. He put up #3 numbers for 2 seasons in Oakland, but from 2014 on he's been a 5th starter. Santana has been up and down but is clearly the superior pitcher. I would take Nolasco over Milone, but it's a little trickier since Nolasco keeps getting hurt and has a long track record of under-performing his peripherals.
  3. drivlikejehu
    I wonder if it's really productive to go down the path of politely calling out 'haters' (my translation) and implying that skeptics do not want Walker to succeed. That is just false... I'm not aware of anyone on here that has questioned any aspect of Walker as a person or professional. Nor am I aware of Twins fans here that hope prospects fail and damage the future of the big league club. You are also papering over how stark the reality is with Walker. It's not about belief in "some stats." I researched the issue and found no record of any player with anything close to Walker's plate discipline troubles in AA that went on to success. Walker would, at an absolute minimum, have to improve in that area more than anyone has in the past 15 years. Probably he would need one of the most dramatic improvements in the history of MLB. These are not exaggerations. I welcome empirical counter-points if you have any. The issue from a prospect standpoint is this - how can you assume Walker might make a borderline-impossible improvement without granting the same to other players? What if Hu started throwing 100 mph? That kind of wish-casting is not how prospects are evaluated.
  4. drivlikejehu
    One positive for Walker is that he has relatives/friends who are passionate enough to endlessly fill TD with praise of his exploits.
  5. drivlikejehu
    I had hoped it would be pretty obvious that was a joke. A FIP of 1.48 is absurdly low.
  6. drivlikejehu
    The Twins are looking past his 0.52 ERA and focusing on his bloated FIP of 1.48.
  7. drivlikejehu
    #ABWTrolling
  8. drivlikejehu
    I only consider how a tool will play in the Majors. Walker is like a long drive champ who can't actually play golf. It's kind of interesting but shouldn't cloud your analysis. Even if you want to give Turner some leeway, he's not the Twins #10 prospect. The Twins certainly wouldn't agree. No organization in baseball would rather have Turner than Hu, not to mention at least 20 other Twins prospects.
  9. drivlikejehu
    Some of those are hard to understand. I'll grant that opinions differ on Meyer. But Turner is not a good prospect at all. He's a younger Drew Butera. I don't see how he is top 30. Hu is clearly a better prospect than Harrison and Walker, in my opinion. Harrison isn't good defensively and hasn't shown power in games. Walker hits AA mistakes but lacks the plate discipline to succeed in the Majors. I have him in the 25-30 range. Gonsalves and Hu fit in the 6-10 range pretty comfortably.
  10. drivlikejehu
    Like I said, his numbers above A-ball are atrocious. He isn't an elite athlete. He doesn't have great power. He has horrible plate discipline. Those are not the traits of a successful MLB player. Nor are any of those things easy to improve upon. He is a huge long-shot to establish himself as a solid big leaguer.
  11. drivlikejehu
    Well where do you want them ranked, in the 20s? They aren't elite prospects but they are better than minor league relievers, or position players that can't actually hit, etc. The Twins system isn't as deep as some posters seem to think. Kepler has very little in common with Morneau as a hitter. Physical appearance maybe.
  12. drivlikejehu
    Well there are different definitions of success. To me, a 4th outfielder is not a success story for a former top prospect. And regardless of expectations, 4th outfielders are easy to find. Quality starting players are not easy to find. Batting skills are not always easy to improve. Plate discipline involves a lot of natural ability just like most things in sports... vision, reaction time, etc. No amount of hard work can really overcome deficiencies in key areas.
  13. drivlikejehu
    I don't agree about the likelihood that 2 of the 5 will succeed. Walker has almost no chance, Hicks is already a bust, Rosario has severe plate discipline problems, Harrison lacks range and power, Kepler lacks power. I do think 1 of the 5 will succeed, probably Kepler, with Hicks being a 4th OF and the other three washing out.
  14. drivlikejehu
    No.
  15. drivlikejehu
    Kepler is still a little ways off. The real issue is that the Twins and most fans dramatically overrate Rosario. It is essentially impossible to be successful with his current plate discipline and he's never had success above A-ball. So that will happen is that the Twins get rid of Arcia, Rosario goes bust, and then even if Kepler pans out they are short an outfielder.
  16. drivlikejehu
    It's really going to irritate me when the Twins give Arcia away for nothing and he almost immediately becomes a highly productive hitter. He's a much, much better bet than Vargas, long-term. I'd also take Arcia over Rosario without a second thought... hitters with plate discipline problems and average power rarely succeed.
  17. drivlikejehu
    The positional adjustment is killer. A good defensive corner outfielder is worth much, much more than the same offensive production for a good defensive 1B. If Kepler has a .750 - .800 OPS with good outfield defense, he's very valuable. If he has that OPS at first, he's below average even with excellent defense.
  18. drivlikejehu
    Kepler is only going to be a valuable MLB player in the outfield. Unless there's a health reason, it makes zero sense for him to be at 1B.
  19. drivlikejehu
    You can be encouraged by whatever you like. But the evidence is overwhelming - no AA player with plate discipline problems of this magnitude has gone on to success in the past 15 years. And probably much longer than that, except I didn't bother checking after I realized how awful the precedents were. These facts are not "trashing" Walker, but merely acknowledge the reality that plate discipline is an indispensable skill in baseball. It cannot be made up for with power, because MLB pitchers will use that weakness to avoid the power.
  20. drivlikejehu
    The counting stat argument has been repeated numerous times and already addressed. The talented players don't spend the entire year at one level. Adam Dunn would have led his leagues in production, but he was promoted instead. No one in baseball thinks Walker is a great prospect. It's not even a stats issue.
  21. drivlikejehu
    Well I did think it was an interesting question - has anyone like Walker ever gone on to MLB success? Examining data led me to the conclusion that Walker has almost no chance of panning out, except maybe as a 5th OF type. The data is what it is. If you don't like facts, don't read about them. So far as your views on when to post about a particular player... with all due respect, that's your business. I don't agree that I should only comment on the prospects I think are most likely to succeed.
  22. drivlikejehu
    I'm not going around starting threads on him. He has a handful of hardcore fans on here that constantly start threads or hijack others to praise him. He is getting about 20 times more attention in the forums than Kepler, who is a very interesting player having a nice, breakout year as well. Not to mention the other 20+ Twins minor leaguers that are far more likely to ultimately contribute at the MLB level. And that is the point of the minor leagues: to produce big league players. Being a great AA player is certainly more than most baseball players on the planet can achieve, but if someone isn't an MLB-caliber player it dramatically reduces the significance of his minor league performance.
  23. drivlikejehu
    Adam Dunn played half a season in Chattanooga when he was 21, two years younger than Walker. He hit .343/.449/.664. He struck out HALF as often, and walked TWICE as often. Good MLB players do not have the problems Walker does in AA. I did some looking, mentioned on this thread, and cannot find a single player with his issues that went on to success. The guy is a home run derby player, he cannot hit real pitching and is not a real prospect.
  24. drivlikejehu
    Some statistical follow-up: I went onto the Baseball Cube, which produces a limited range of historical minor league reports. I pulled the top 200 home run hitters (individual season) for all three AA leagues from 2001-2015, for a total of 600 player seasons (a player could have multiple entries if he repeated AA). That shockingly pasted right from html into google sheets. I added a few things for sorting and then pivoted the data. Right now, the gap between Walker's BB rate and K rate would be 598th out of 600. That is just mind boggling. The player-seasons I thought were most similar, give or take: Joe Dunigan, 2012 Brad Eldred, 2004 Rob Stratton, 2001 Steven Moya, 2014 Telvin Nash, 2014 Tommy Mendoca, 2011 John Rodriguez, 2001 Javier Baez, 2013 Peter O'Brien, 2014 The best overall comp I came up with is Brad Eldred. Severe plate discipline problems, good power. In 2003 he hit 28 homers in A-ball, in 2004 he hit 30 between hi-A and AA, and in 2005 he hit 40 between AA, AAA, and MLB. But he finished his MLB career with 90 games played, a .203 average, and a .675 OPS. I was actually surprised at how historically bad Walker's plate discipline is. Before I would have given him a 5% chance, but now I'm struggling with even those odds.
  25. drivlikejehu
    Right, but it's pretty easy to look back and see who panned out and who didn't. And what concerns me about Walker is that I can't find any precedent for a player with his profile going on to MLB success. Whereas, lesser prospects who have an across-the-board breakout in AA are easy to find, even the Twins alone had several you pointed out.
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