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The plate discipline issue/question is more fundamental and affects all of the other issues: BB%, OBP, power/ISO, barrel%, and even BABIP. Unfortunately, the defensive liabilities appear to be more of a given within some reasonable range of outcomes. He’s probably a DH/1B, and that raises the bar even higher on what he has to be as a hitter.
Yes, he was definitely a character. Just saying he was a lot more (ie, better) than just a .300 hitter. Historically underrated as a hitter.
When he hits .300 in the Big Leagues, I’ll proclaim him as the second coming of Kruk. Baseball couuld use another Kruk…Haha!
1TD, I know you’re just joking, but Kruk had a career 14.1% BB-rate, .397 OBP, .341 BABIP, and 134 OPS+. He was a super-disciplined on-base machine. About the only thing he and Burleson have in common is they’re both a bit portly and don’t strike out a lot.
RBK, I doubt if ST stats are meaningless to the guy making out the lineup. At least, early in the season.
If ST stats were “meaningful to the guy making out the lineup,” Arenado and Goldschmidt would be batting 7th and 8th this coming Thursday. How much would you be willing to wager on that being the case?
And if ST stats are meaningful, why aren’t you advocating for Carpenter to start at DH rather than Burleson?
t8ball12, despite Burleson’s .375 BA in ST, you don’t seem to be too high on him. Do you feel Burleson deserves to start against the RHP in the opener?
SSS ST stats are essentially meaningless, but since you continue to emphasize them:
Carpenter: 1.073 OPS
Burleson: .988 OPSNeither Carpenter nor Burleson “deserves” to start: one has a good resume that unfortunately is now quite out of date, and the other has no resume. Marmol will allocate PAs to one or the other based on who he thinks will give the team the best chance to win that day. There is no “deserve.”
So Mr RBK, if I’m reading this correct, scouts see him as a platoon/duper-sub type?
Thanks as that was the information I was looking for. Let’s hope he exceeds those expectations.
Fingers crossed. In time, he could be a solid hitter at the next level. But it would be irresponsible for the Cardinals to assume he’s some sort of “sure thing” who is perfectly interchangeable with semi-established players like Donovan at this point. Patience is a virtue, let’s give him some time.
Mr T8ball I’ve yet to see Saggese play. In your mind is he a legit starting second sacker prospect or more of a utility guy moving forward?
I work during the day and have yet to see him play.
Mr. Albert: FWIW, here are Fangraphs’ most up-to-date scouting grades for Saggese:
Category/CV/FV
Hit: 45/55
Game Power: 35/45
Raw Power: 45/50
Speed: 45/40
Field: 40/45
FV (overall): 40+30 = “Up & Down”
40 = “Bench player”
45 = “Low End Reg/Platoon”
50 = “Avg Everyday Player”
55 = “Above Avg Regular”
60 = “All Star”Obviously, players deviate up and down from these projections all the time, so take the grades for what they’re worth–there are other scouting reports out there (including Brian’s), I just happened to have this one handy to give you at least a little bit of context.
Here are the metrics I mentioned in case you don’t have them:
Player/O-swing%/BB%/OBP/ISO/OPS+/wRC+
Nootbaar: 18.5%/14.3%/.367/.157/115/118
Burleson: 35.9%/6.6%/.300/.146/87/89Last year, Nootbaar and Burleson actually had pretty similar isolated power numbers (Nootbaar’s power was down from the .221 ISO he posted in 2021), but Nootbaar simply got on base at a much higher rate. As importantly, his higher OBP is/was built on a more solid foundation of good plate discipline, which is more stable/repeatable year to year than other metrics like BABIP.
As for K%: ultimately, an out is an out. You don’t get penalized extra for a K versus a routine GB to 2B or a routine FO to RF. The objective of the game is to maximize production while minimizing outs; it is not to simply minimize one particular type of out at the expense of all else.
Burly doesn’t have Nootbaar’s defense and speed. But I really feel he has as much hitting ability as Nootbaar.
Look at their O-swing%s, BB%s, OBPs, and ISOs, and you will see why one is much more valuable than the other. Being a good offensive player isn’t just about swinging the bat, it’s also about discerning when not to. The goal is to maximize production per out consumed/burned, and Burleson simply burns through a lot more outs per unit of production than Nootbaar.
In a clutch RBI situation against a brilliant RHP. I’m taking Burly, right now, over anybody on the team.
Burleson situational splits (OPS):
Bases empty: .732
Men on base: .639
RISP: .554
2-out, RISP: .322
Late and close: .518
High leverage: .351He’s actually been *worse* in clutch situations.
If they extend Goldschmidt, they’ll prob have over $60mm of payroll allocated to two aging players who aren’t locks to produce even $45mm of WAR. For a mid-market team, that seems like a bad risk/reward bet when you have young, semi-established players making close to minimum who play the same positions. They’re basically stuck with Arenado, so Goldschmidt’s pending FA is the only readily available near-term release valve.
You were just extolling Burleson’s virtues based on a whole 470 PAs in AAA…
And I’m not comparing results, which are volatile in smaller samples, but rather certain peripheral metrics, which tend to stabilize much more quickly. Further, the main point of my prior post(s) was that Burleson is going to have to *change* his offensive game in order to be more productive, which apparently you now agree with since you’re suggesting some of these metrics could change (I agree, though some of them are stubborn characteristics for most players).
1toughdominican, the advanced metrics strongly corroborate your eye-test:
In only 386.1 innings in the OF last year:
-4 DRS
-2.3 UZR
-7 OAAHe was a BIG liability in the field. I suppose some people may believe losing 15 pounds will suddenly make him at least a competent defender, but I’m skeptical. -15 pounds aren’t going to make him run much faster, and they won’t help him take better routes to the ball. He’s going to have to put in a lot of work to improve the situation.
Great. On what do you base that prediction? Anything in particular you can point to? Stats? Peripherals? Statcast data? What are you predicting his BABIP will be in 2024 (and why?), since his offensive production is almost entirely dependent on it?
Comparing Molina with almost 2,000 major league plate appearances by the time he was 25 to Burleson who has around 400?
My post speaks for itself: it compares their hitting *profiles* as high-chase%/high-contact%/low-BB%/ low-selectivity hitters. And it does so in the context of trying to explain why a low K% in the abstract doesn’t tell you much, and why the particular profile I highlighted usually doesn’t result in particularly good offensive production unless you have a consistently outlier-level BABIP.
Comparing those *specific* aspects of two hitting profiles is not the same thing as comparing two players overall or comparing their careers–in fact, I explicitly noted in the post that it was an “illustration of [a] point.” I’m sure you understand all of that Cranny, so I’m not clear what motivates your rather odd, inapposite comment above.
“Relics” give a franchise its identity (aka they sell tickets)! 😉
Brian, I think ownership agrees with you. However, I would argue *winning* gives a franchise its identity, and winning is a byproduct in large part of having great players who play great in your team’s uniform. But I think in the new economic landscape of MLB, with much wider dispersion and skew of local revenues, the harder question going forward is can a franchise that now consistently ranks slightly below median (and therefore well below average) in payroll afford the luxury of these legacy contracts and still “compete every year,” as ownership and the FO like to say. I am not sure, I think the “model” is stressed, but the decisions of the organization often seem to reflect some degree of fear that their fan base will abandon them if they even mouth the words “soft-reset/rebuild.” Perhaps they’re right about that (they certainly should know the views of the base better than anyone), but sometimes I think they don’t give their fans enough credit.
Goldschmidt presents another interesting test case: even if one thinks he’s going to be decent for the next 2-3 years and generate 2-3 WAR per year (a generous forecast above ZIPS), are they better off paying close to FA market prices for those 3 wins, or handing the baton to the next generation and hoping to get 2-3 WAR from one of the young guys making close to MLB minimum? Pretty sure I know what the Rays would do (they probably would have done it last year at the trade deadline), but it’s not clear at all what the Cardinals will do. They don’t seem to have a clear identity.
Just trying to understand the logic (or lack thereof) and apparent inconsistency of this thread. You’re entitled to your opinions, but you’re not entitled to unquestioned agreement.
So it’s cosmically significant and thread-worthy when Rom does well in one spring outing, but irrelevant and barely worth mentioning when he does poorly? Seems rather inconsistent and one-sided.
What did you think of his “Tudoresque” “savvy” last night? Where’s all the analysis attributing cosmic significance to *this* spring training game?
I thought this was a good comparison; Molina and Burleson both had 1 Big League triple by the age of 25…
Must have been generous scorekeepers . . .
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
