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One way or the other, it’s nice to see Burleson hitting like he has this spring. I’d like to see more power from him.
Burlyman, you have been asked before. If you don’t stop with the posts attacking others, you will lose your privileges here. New posters are welcome, but only if you follow the posted rules. If you don’t leave your prior baggage at the door, you are going to leave the mods with no choice. We don’t want to have to go there. The rules are clear for everyone.
I like Burleson because he’s hit well through the minors…but as we saw with someone like Matt Adams, it may not always translate. If he continues to work hard and get into the kind of shape he needs to, he’ll have a shot to keep himself at the big league level. The glove will have to play somehow, though.
Let’s take a little closer look at Burleson, instead of just having personal opinions about him.
He was drafted in the 2nd round by the Cardinals in 2020 out of East Carolina University. Although limited to only 17 games for the Pirates because of the pandemic that season, he slashed .375/.440/.547/.987. Hit 3 home runs.
His first professional season, 2021, was a whirlwind. After only 11 games at high A Peoria, he was promoted to AA Springfield. After 63 games there with a .822 OPS, he was promoted again to AAA Memphis where he played 45 games to finish the season. Three levels in his first season. Very few Cardinal prospects that I remember have ended up at the AAA level after only 74 professional games.
Then in 2022, he was allowed to stabilize and settle into Memphis for most of the season. He had a great season, slashing .331/.372/.502/.905, with 20 home runs and 87 RBI in only
109 games. He was so impressive that he was promoted to the Cardinals for
16 games in September.In 2023, he spot played for the major league team throughout the season as he adjusted to Major league pitching.
So he should now have his feet on the ground, and after just under 400 major league plate appearances under his belt, be pretty well set for a good 2024.
I like Burley a lot, if the Goldy situation was figured out (aka that Goldy is moving on) he would be a definite “hold”. With Walker, VS2, Noot, Edman, etc he’s a prime example of “best used as a trade piece”. Same with Baker actually even though the return wouldn’t be close to the same.
Chase “Crash” Davis is one I’m going to follow very closely this year as well.
Both Burleson and Saggese have similar profiles and similar expectations.
(I hate to see anyone get blocked. But I’m glad Brian maintains the standards here. I’m sure Burlyman doesn’t act around everybody the way he has acted here. Maybe he’ll switch gears and come back.)
Both Burleson and Saggese have similar profiles and similar expectations.
For their bats, perhaps. But therein lies the problem: Saggese is a middle infielder whom most scouting reports view as an average to perhaps slightly below average fielder at a premium defensive position, while Burleson is an entirely one-dimensional, bat-only player who is a significant liability in the field. The bar for Burleson’s offensive production is (and should/must be) much higher.
It seems like Burleson, with his emphasis on losing weight and increasing speed could be okay in left field. And he also might become a fairly decent first baseman.
In only 386.1 innings in the OF last year, Burleson had -4 DRS, -2.3 UZR, and -7 OAA. In other words, the advanced metrics strongly corroborated the “eye-test”: he was really bad. It is no wonder the Cardinals informed him that he couldn’t be trusted in the field. Will 15 pounds make that much of a difference? Color me skeptical.
And if he moves to 1B, it’s basically the same issue I highlighted previously about being a DH: if you’re going to be a bat-only 1B, you have to hit a *lot* better than a John Mabry-type (90 OPS+) in order to justify playing time. He would need to be in *at least* the 110-120 OPS+ territory, arguably higher.
Burleson’s slash line at AAA –
.306/.356/.482/.842
24 home runs and 109 RBI in 154 games. And that was really mostly in his second professional season. I wouldn’t hang my hat on his major league record after only 400 plate
appearances. Just my opinion. And I also think he will be able to handle LF and 1B. He may not look like it, but he’s an athlete.Of all out young hitters Burleson is the one most likely to blossom into an MLB hitting star! Not as much power as Gorman but way more contact and average! I just hope he becomes a star for us and not someone else!
Burleson’s slash line at AAA –
.306/.356/.482/.842
24 home runs and 109 RBI in 154 games. And that was really mostly in his second professional season. I wouldn’t hang my hat on his major league record after only 400 plate
appearances. Just my opinion. And I also think he will be able to handle LF and 1B. He may not look like it, but he’s an athlete.Re Burleson’s fielding ability, I’ll stick with the data and what the Cardinals told him in his exit interview.
Re his hitting, I wouldn’t hang my hat on basically one season in AAA, either. In his 2022 AAA campaign, which constitutes the bulk of the numbers you cite, he had a .350 BABIP. He hasn’t come remotely close to replicating that at any other level. As we all know, he’s not a selective hitter and doesn’t walk much, so BABIP is pretty much everything for his offensive production. Do you think he’ll be a consistent .330-.350 BABIP type at the MLB level (he’s currently sitting at .255)? That’s basically prime Paul Goldschmidt territory.
To be clear, I’m not basing my views on just 400 PAs in MLB, I’m basing them on the peripherals and process: a >35% O-swing%, 3.5 P/PA, a pedestrian BB%, a 26% barrel rate, and ISO/power numbers that don’t compensate for those other measures. Further, if you look at the average “translation” of Memphis stats to the MLB level for recent Cardinals players, the falloff averages between 100-200 pts of OPS. So far, Burleson’s falloff has been right in that range.
His offensive game is going to have to change for him to stick as a regular precisely because he doesn’t have anything else to fall back on. He needs to work deeper counts, stop swinging at bad pitches, take more walks, and get on base at a higher % (i.e., burn fewer outs per unit of production). Hopefully, with greater plate discipline, his power numbers will also improve. Can he do all of that? We will see . . .
“Of all out young hitters Burleson is the one most likely to blossom into an MLB hitting star!” Wow, that’s a bold endorsement of Burly. And you’re right on. He has the hitting skills to be really good. If he gets regular ABs, I’m hoping he develops into a 20 HRs type, at least. He’ll get plenty of doubles. He just needs to launch more home runs.
If you look at Burley’s spray chart, he hits it to all fields. This sets him apart from lefties like Matt Adams and Matt Carpenter, both of whom were victimized by pitching and defensive strategies. But his power comes on the pull side. His homers are to right. But a whole lot of ground outs go to the pull side also. So I think that to be successful, he has to be a singles/doubles hitter spraying it around. Given his defensive limitation, I do not know if that kind of hitting profile will fly. It would take a high BA at least. But I think a bat first corner outfielder is expected to be a power bat. As I have previously said, I think if he goes for power, trying to pull everything, he turns into the next Matt Adams.
Burleson has shown occasional home run power to left and center. He just needs more of it, in general.
It is real unusual for a left handed batter to have much opo power. The elites maybe, but not with regular players. You can look at Donovan’s spray chart and see just the same thing. Sprays it around but the homers are all to right. And a lot of ground outs to the right side. He is more successful slapping it somewhere else, and I think Burly is the same.
Although he’s had quite a few chances, his PA’s have been somewhat scattered. He should get some consistent looks in the batter’s box during the first 40 or so games, so April and May will be his best chance to display the sort of hitter he is. Hopefully he’ll generate the type of offensive production that it’ll take to establish himself in the Big Leagues. He simply has to push baserunners across HP to set his career in motion.
He’s 19th percentile in chase rate. And that doesn’t include the pitcher’s pitches in the zone that he chases even when he’s ahead in the count. He has plus contact skill, but it often works against him because he makes a lot of contact on bad pitches that he can’t do anything with.
He’s like a left-handed Yadier Molina, minus the elite fielding at a premium defensive position.
In 972 minor league plate appearances, he only struck out 169 times (17%). Gotta like that contact rate for a guy who hit 42 home runs in those 972 plate appearances.
He has always had a low K% (and a correspondingly low BB%–they’re related). But the objective of the game isn’t to not strike out, and it’s generally harder to K (or BB) when you don’t see enough pitches to reach many 2-strike counts.
E.g., Yadier Molina: 10.8% K%, 6.3% BB%
I see what you’re driving at, but Molina collected over 2100 hits in his career and at times seemed more difficult to K than was Pujols. Molina also amassed over 1800 Big League PA’s by the age of 25. I don’t really think Burleson can in any way be placed alongside Molina.
Sure do like that .331 BA and .372 OBP at Memphis in 2022 over 109 games.
Well, you probably shouldn’t “hang your hat” on a single season in AAA, especially one built on a .350 BABIP, a figure he’s hasn’t come close to reaching at any other level. We all know he isn’t a selective hitter and doesn’t walk much, so his production is almost entirely a function of BABIP. What do you think is a sustainable BABIP for him at the MLB level? Do you think .330-350 is his “true” baseline (that’s a prime-Goldschmidt level)?
So far, his MLB BABIP is .255. I think that number is likely to go higher over a larger sample. But he’s slow, and his barrel rate was 26th percentile, so it’s hard for me to imagine that number going up 80-100 pts unless he gets extremely lucky.
Just for kicks, here’s an admittedly imperfect illustration of the point:
Player/K%/BB%/O-swing%/Pitches-per-PA/OBP/OPS+
Molina: 10.8%/6.3%/33.8%/3.54/.327/96
Burleson: 13.5%/7%/35.2%/3.57/.295/83Similar basic profiles: high chase-rate, good bat-to-ball skill, fewer pitches seen, quicker outcomes, low K-rate, but correspondingly low BB-rate (and OBP).
I think Burleson’s BABIP will normalize over a larger sample, which should lift his OBP and OPS+. The question is how much (i.e., what is his “true” baseline BABIP). I suspect it’s less than .300, but materially higher than his current .255. We will see.
Of course, it goes without saying that Molina’s offensive stats have to be viewed in context: he was also an elite fielder at arguably the most important and demanding defensive position on the field
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