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Malcom Nunez hit more homers in 164 at-bats than 10 different DSL teams did.
He hit more homers than the combined totals of the two DSL Royals teams in 4,399 AB’s.“Bottom line is there is a lot to be excited about.”
Not according to Fangraphs. They don’t think there’s anything at all to be excited about. They rank Nunez 28th in what they consider a below average St. Louis farm system. Their writeup includes nothing about Nunez winning his league Triple Crown, much less the fact that he did so while missing nearly 40% of the season.
Also nothing about how Nunez dominated the Cuban youth leagues, and also dominated competitions on behalf of Cuba against his international age peers. (You know, the kind of stuff that made Bryce Harper a Sports Illustrated cover boy in High School.) A guy who hits .415 and has a “cannon arm” or “huge arm” depending on who you read, gets a 55 grade from Fangraphs on his hit tool, and a 55 for throwing. Really odd. But here, you can read them in their own words:
“Already to be taken with a healthy grain of salt, DSL numbers are often faulty when the prospect in question is more physically mature than his peers, and the hefty Nuñez is a classic case. He will likely need to move to first base, perhaps even while he’s still in the minors, putting a ton of pressure on his admittedly prodigious bat to fully actualize. There’s not much physical projection here, so the raw power Nuñez currently has is pretty close to what he’ll have at peak, meaning the bat-to-ball component is what will drive his stock going forward.”
A lot of half-truths and nonsense to wade through there. First, DSL numbers are often faulty when the prospects are older than their peers. Age is the key, not the physique. It is actually a good thing to be strong. Always a good thing.
Nunez is not “hefty.” Nunez is powerful for his age, not unlike Nolan Gorman, with a strong base.
Shifting from 3rd base to first base would not put a ton of pressure on his bat. Over the past three years the average MLB 1st baseman posted an OPS just 26 points higher than the average 3rd baseman. Now, fifteen or twenty years ago there was indeed a much bigger gap between the two. Specifically, from 1997-2002 the gap was over 80 points per year of OPS, separating the hot and cold corners. But no more.
There is no such thing as a 17-year-old who is “pretty close” to their power peak. There never has been and never will be. This baloney reminds me of Baseball America’s dismissive writings about Jack Flaherty, when they omitted him from their Midwest League top 20 list a few years back.
They said Flaherty was “not projectable” because he grew up in California and played a lot of travel ball. Of course that was complete malarkey, as 99.9% of teenage pitchers who are 6′ 4″ and 195 pounds have plenty of time to grow, and room to grow. And no surprise whatsoever, Jack has filled out over the past three years and added 2 or 3 ticks to his fastball.
Anyway, back to Nunez. Based on their rankings from last year, when 321 players were graded 45’s and above, and 739 guys were graded 40 and above, the estimated Fangraphs ranking for Malcom Nunez right now would be roughly 630th, as he’s in the bottom third of the Redbird grade 40 prospects.
Well it could be worse. At least he’s not Joerlin De Los Santos. Per Fangraphs, Nunez is merely too strong. De Los Santos is both too strong AND too fast, so he’s graded much, much lower than Nunez. I’ll bet you never knew that strength and speed were such liabilities for ballplayers, huh?
Joe Posnanski sounds confused.
The museum portion of the Hall Of Fame does indeed already tell the complete, sprawling, flawed, sometimes ugly story of baseball. I’m lucky enough to have been to Cooperstown, and they don’t hide the steroid era in the basement under lock and key.
We needn’t bestow baseball’s highest honor on a handful of extremely successful drug cheats in order to acknowledge all of baseball’s complex history. I see it this way: No one in their right mind has suggested that Marion Jones be inducted in the Track and Field Hall of Fame, or Lance Armstrong be inducted in the Biking Hall Of Fame. (Yes, such places do exist.) These individuals are rightly viewed as a disgrace to their sport — and sports in general. There has never at any moment been a debate about this.
And yet, plenty of otherwise reasonable people drape themselves in misplaced sentimentality and pine to see baseball’s most effective drug cheats honored alongside Mays and Mantle, Koufax and Gibson, Brock and Broglio. (Oops, that’s right. Broglio didn’t quite get there. Sorry, Cub fans.)
“RR, Fowler’s hard contact % was actually up last season and his k% in ’18 was sitting right on his career avg. Doesn’t sound like a guy getting dominated.
You showed OPS from your research to show “results”. I want to mention a .120 pt career BA drop, on balls in play in ’18, that I believe led to those OPS results. I doubt Fowler could repeat his 2018, even if he tried.”
First, thanks for responding, JJ. And please call me Bob. (That’s goes for everybody here, please.)
I’m glad you mentioned the very modern metric of “hard contact %” because I’ve been meaning to cite Dexter Fowler’s terrible underlying contact numbers in 2018, but then forgot and never got around to it. I apologize if I’m about to simply repeat something that’s already been said in this thread.Out of 332 qualified batters, Dexter Fowler ranked all the way down at 287th in average exit velocity, and 285th in frequency of barreling the baseball. So for me there’s no compelling reason to think he was particularly unlucky in 2018. Quite the contrary. Link to stats: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_leaderboard
Now, I do agree wholeheartedly that Dexter won’t be as awful in 2019 at the plate — in part because John Mabry has been let go and the new hitting coaches are bound to be better. Specifically, I would guess that Fowler will have an OPS in the low-mid .700’s, which would be a massive bounceback, and still leave him a liability as an everyday player due to his dismal defense.
Somewhere between replacement level and a 1-win guy per 600 PA’s, is what I’d guess Dex will be. Again, a huge improvement over 2018, but nevertheless still unplayable when you’re trying to make the postseason. I have nothing against Fowler in absolute terms; if the Cards didn’t have a 23-year-old outfielder who slugged .700 in AAA last year, I’d be fine with giving the 33-year-old Fowler another 150-200 plate appearances to see what’s left in the tank. But the Cards actually DO have such an outfielder, and young guys need consistent playing time to thrive and grow.
Thanks for the response, but with all due respect C-2016, I think we are simply arguing at cross purposes.
That’s because I am only contending that the Heyward trade worked out spectacularly well from the Cardinal point of view, and that therefore there’s absolutely no reason whatsoever for any fans here or anybody within the Redbird organization itself to regret said trade. And thus there’s no real reason to avoid a repeat in the future. I’m not arguing motives, intentions, or even front office acumen. Only arguing results.
The Birds got a great year of production from Jason, a year they needed every single bit of, and they got it for cheap dollars, and afterwards they got a high draft pick who’s looking REAL good so far as a pro. And the Cubs lost a high draft pick, and overpaid by tens of millions for a player who has melted down from Frosty to a snowball.
If you want to argue that the Braves did very well also, because they got an excellent season from Shelby before flipping him to Arizona, then I agree 100%, no question. The Braves did do very well. But to me that in no way undercuts how terrific the deal has turned out for St. Louis.
The Cubs are the dumb front office in all of this Heyward talk. Just as the Cards are the dumb one when it comes to Dexter Fowler. (Also by the way, I think you’re going to like Dakota Hudson for a long time. Usual health provisos apply.)
At any rate, even if the Cards can get Goldschmidt for a reasonable cost in prospects, I would not love the deal — because I don’t want Carp moving back to third base. But I do think it would probably upgrade the club by a couple of wins, for a year. And if you make the trade, then you should let Goldy go next winter, and take the high draft pick. Because you’ll pay through the nose for past production if you keep him into his late 30’s.
The question is, exactly whom would you trade, for Goldy?
“I would assume the Cardinals have limited Cabrera’s winter league innings, but he has been dynamite in relief so far.”
I agree, C-27, about keeping a starter a starter when possible. And as a Genesis Cabrera skeptic, my curiosity is nevertheless piqued — but I only see a couple of AA/AAA relief appearances, other than maybe postseason. Did you mean that he’s been mowing them down out of the bullpen in winter ball? Thanks for any insights or stats!
Also, and this comment is directed toward no one in particular, I want to belatedly mention a couple of facts about prospect #32 from a few days back, Leandro Cedeno.
In 2018 there were 2,172 minor leaguers with at least 200 plate appearances. Just 25 of them posted an OPS over 1.000, and only 8 of those batters were NOT old for their leagues. One of those 8 was Leandro Cedeno, my #15 Cardinal prospect, and roughly the 250th best prospect in the game, for me.
Fangraphs disagrees. They considering Cedeno entirely irrelevant, giving him no grade at all, which leaves him somewhere outside of their top 1,000 or so prospects. They do list a handful of the ungraded Cardinal farmhands, like Terry Fuller and Patrick Wisdom and Johan Mieses, as “power-only profiles.” But they inexplicably lump Cedeno in with those guys, despite Leandro’s exceptional batting line this year of .336/.419/.592.
You can say that a .336 hitter is “power-only” if you want. It makes you look stupid, but you can say it. But if you wish to be taken seriously as a prospect evaluator, I believe you absolutely DO need to provide some rationale. The thing is, they have zero comments about Cedeno in their Cardinal overview. Nada. A teenager with a 1.000 OPS, and nothing to say. (I count 17 other similar examples of weirdness from Fangraphs re Redbird prospects. It would get pretty tedious to list them all, but in the future I’ll mention some of them as the situation calls for.)
First thing, let’s see Why Dexter can’t hit.
Baseball-Reference has divided the batting records of all hitters into three categories of opposing pitcher: power, average, and finesse. Until he hit his early 30’s, Dexter Fowler did okay against all three types of pitcher. In fact, he was almost exactly the same against each category, with an OPS in the .760’s or .770’s versus each type.
Then at age 31 in 2017 he struggled against the power pitchers, posting a .635 OPS.
And at 32 in 2018 he collapsed completely v. power arms, with just a lowly .443 OPS.
So what should we expect from him at age 33? It seems to me that the Cardinal front office must at least consider the possibility that Fowler is now un-usable at the MLB level, period. He’s not a defensive sub, and he gripes when he doesn’t start, so he can’t be your 4th outfielder. His so-called batting “improvements” after the firing of Matheny/Mabry included an OPS still well under .700, and that is unplayable at even 5th outfielder, since Fowler is already a defensive liability and getting slower every day.
It’s great that Fowler was a good teammate toward Bader, full marks for that. But as of several weeks ago Dexter quite publicly continued to blame Matheny and not himself for his inability to hit his weight in 2018. In the well-worn modern parlance, Fowler has never “owned” his awful 2018 season. And to me, that is unprofessional. So because of the on-and-off field stuff, they can’t release him fast enough for my tastes.
And it costs nothing to replace him! No need to spend a third of a billion dollars on Bryce Harper; just put Tyler O’Neill in right field. Problem solved. Jose Martinez, Jose Adoilis Garcia, maybe Yairo Munoz or even Lane Thomas. Some combination of those guys can likely cover the responsibilities of the 4th & 5th outfielder.
I must be missing something.
The Cards traded Shelby Miller for Heyward. Miller in the 4 years since has thrown a total of just 344 innings and compiled an 11-35 record with a 4.36 ERA, for 2.7 Baseball-Reference WAR (just over 4 WAR at Fangraphs). He has cost $14M.5 in salary. So that’s Miller. Nobody can seriously wish he’d been in St. Louis, accruing less than 1 WAR per year.
On the other hand, in his one season for St. Louis, Jason Heyward had 6.6 WAR per B-Ref, or 5.6 at Fangraphs. In other words, irrefutably a great, great season. A good bat in right field, excellent baserunning, and, well, we all saw the Clemente range and Colavito arm.
And for that truly outstanding Heyward season, the Cards paid less than 8 million bucks. So the trade was a freaking steal. (And furthermore, the Cards needed every one of those wins, as they finished just 2 games ahead of the Pirates, and 3 in front of the Cubs.)
And then the Cards got Dakota Hudson with the draft pick! And what happened to Heyward? The despised rival Cubs threw away nearly $200M by signing him, and lost their own high draft pick in the bargain! This is the kind of thing a Cardinal fan asks Santa for.
I submit that the Heyward trade merely in and of itself, and especially with all that came after — the draft picks gained and lost, Heyward’s collapse in Chicago — is one of the Redbird front office triumphs of the past thirty or forty years. And it’s supposed to be a source of regret?
Did I want Heyward retained, after his exceptional 2015 season? Yup, you bet I did. And I sure HATED losing him to the Cubs. But I was wrong. Or maybe I was sorta right, and Heyward’s bat would not have collapsed had he remained in St. Louis. We’ll never know. But the actual, factual results of the trade have been spectacular in just about every possible way!
(As much as I ridicule John Mabry, he absolutely gets credit for Jedd Gyorko’s blossoming in St. Louis, and at least partial credit for Heyward’s solid season at the plate. Heyward didn’t have a “breakout” in St. Louis, but Mabry certainly coaxed much much more out of the J-Hey Kid than the Cubs coaches have managed to do.)
“Bob, you dont see O’Neill has top 100?”
Fair question, CC. I was using the MLB rookie guidelines, for both O’Neill and Carson Kelly. That’s why neither appeared on my list.
Here are the Davenport 6-year mean MLB projections (per 600 plate appearances) for Tyler O’Neill, plus three of the most well-known young prospects:
2019 O’Neill 3.6 WAR, Victor Robles 3.4, Vlad Guerrero Jr. 3.1, Eloy Jimenez 2.8
2020 O’Neill 3.9, Robles 3.8, Vlad 3.3, Eloy 3.1
2021 O’Neill 4.0, Robles 4.0, Vlad 3.7, Eloy 3.3
2022 Robles 4.2, Vlad 3.9, O’Neill 3.7, Eloy 3.5
2023 Robles 4.4, Vlad 4.2, O’Neill 3.7, Eloy 3.6
2024 Vlad 4.6, Robles 3.8, Eloy 3.8, O’Neill 3.2
You can see why I don’t want to wait, when it comes to O’Neill. The computer says play him right now. While Davenport’s algorithms obviously have a crush on Tiny Kingman, just like every other prospect ranker I would not consider O’Neill to be at the same level as the other three.
But unlike the other sources, I do consider him fairly close, CC. I would have ranked Tyler somewhere in the 20-25 range probably. Definitely the #1 Cardinal prospect if eligible. His career track record is quite comparable to Eloy, a consensus top 5 prospect, once you include O’Neill’s defense & baserunning advantages. (For me Eloy is top 10, not top 5.)
It’s really a fascinating foursome. Robles has the best balance of skills, but has been hurt, and appears to lack anything even approaching the power potential of the other three. Vlad is a crazy-talented hitter, maybe another Miguel Cabrera. But he also has Cabrera’s age 35 physique. At age 19. And Eloy is a big stick, might be a Triple Crown threat some day. But also might be genuinely, truly bad in the outfield, a liability so severe that he must be moved from even a corner slot by age 25. O’Neill could be Canadian Khris Davis, but with better baserunning and glovework.
You’re welcome, Brian. It’s baseball. Try and STOP me from rambling on about baseball! (Helsey got hurt, and I don’t like Cabrera’s command. I’m fond of Reyes and Hudson — Alex Reyes hadn’t shown such superior streikezone control like he did in his rehab starts, since way back in his final month of Low-A ball, when he posted a 38/6 K/BB in 25 innings — and I think Angel Rondon looked real good when I saw him, still throwing 93/94 in the 6th inning. But you’re right, I don’t generally like the StL pitching right now. In terms of raw upside, the farmhand hitters are the best in memory. But more organizational balance would be better.)
“I suspect that if you went through the prospects in the other 29 systems at the depth in which you analyze Cardinals, you would find dozens more Uriases out there – overlooked gems (following your process).”
Depending on how one chooses to define “overlooked,” there are indeed quite a few out there — but the important point is that they are NOT distributed evenly across all organizations. Not by a long shot.
I know, because last winter I performed that very exercise, examining for the first time all position prospects grade C or better at John Sickels’ website. It was 949 batters. And I checked each one, their raw track records in terms of hitting and defense, and if available their Davenport computer model projections, and also KATOH when possible.
Some teams had many such gems, while other organizations (sorry, Marlins and Angels) were virtually bereft. By the way, according to Clay Davenport’s computer back then, Elehuris Montero already projected as an excellent hitter, a 3-win first baseman in his prime, if he played scratch defense at the position.
“To the best of my recollection, Garcia was never in a national top 100, nor should he have been. I hope Urias does better than that and he could. Scouting and projecting is about informed guesses. There is no right or wrong until the players reach their summit.”
Actually, that’s the funny thing about Greg Garcia. He’s been worth about 3-3.5 WAR for his career, which is coincidentally precisely how productive the average grade 50 position prospect has been over his first 6 or 7 MLB seasons, according to the very recent Craig Edwards Fangraphs study. (A grade 50 is someone ranked anywhere between 50th and 150th or so, per Fangraphs. So the average grade 50 would thus be ranked as a borderline top 100. So it would appear that Greg should have been ranked as a borderline top 100 after all. Maybe right after his excellent AA season, when at age 22 he posted a .408 on base percentage and a 137 wRC+)
Here’s a link to the Edwards study that contains the analysis: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/an-update-to-prospect-valuation/
Thanks for the response, Brian.
But I don’t think I said that the ceiling for Ramon Urias was MLB reserve. What I said (or meant to say anyway) was that I thought his likeliest MLB contribution would specifically be at the level of Greg Garcia, circa 2015-17. Sorry if I misled you. The internet: where misunderstandings go to flourish.At any rate, Greg Garcia for those 3 years was worth 3.3 WAR at BPro, 2.7 at Fangraphs, and 3.1 at B-Ref. Not a ton of raw WAR of course, but that was accumulated just one full season’s worth of plate appearances, or a little more. That’s an excellent bench guy or borderline starter on a playoff team. I think that’s what he’ll probably be.
The ceiling for Urias on the other hand would be to maintain that level of 2.5-3.0 WAR performance over an entire season, for 3-5 years. In other words a nice solid Jon Jay/David Freese/Allen Craig level of starting major leaguer, someone who’ll potentially accrue 12-15 WAR in his career. Something of that nature. That level of reasonable potential indicates a top 100 type, or on the border.
Or to put it another way, Keston Hiura is a second baseman and consensus top prospect. fangraphs just gave him a grade 60 yesterday, and last year they gave out only 23 grades of 60 or higher. Hiura’s pro career as a whole gives him a fine Davenport Peak projection of .275/.322/.462.
Ramon Urias (mostly a 2B) has a Davenport Peak slash of .264/.336/.417, equivalent to .264/.322/.442. So Hiura is projected roughly half a win better on offense. But the thing of it is, per Davenport’s website Urias projects to be much the superior keystone defender.
So much so that their 2019 projections for MLB are 2.6 WAR per 600 PA’s for Urias, and barely 1 WAR for Hiura. And remember, I’m not personally arguing in any way, shape, or form that Urias is remotely as good a prospect as Hiura. (Even though Davenport’s computer model obviously has Urias distinctly better than Hiura.)
Nope. All I’m saying is that Urias is a borderline top 100. I am being extremely pessimistic, relative to Davenport’s projection for Ramon — a projection based on everything, Triple-A, Double-A, the Mexican League seasons.
Remember in school when they said “show your math”? There’s my math, good sir.
Here’s how I rank the top Redbird prospects, with (estimated) national rankings in parentheses. Oh, but before I do this, let’s briefly recap a few former Cardinal prospects who were never at any time on anyone’s top 100 list at BA, BPro, MLB.com, Keith Law, or Fangraphs. That would be Yadi Molina, Matt Carpenter, Lance Lynn, Dan Haren, Tommy Pham, Allen Craig, Jon Jay, Harrison Bader, David Freese, Jordan Hicks, Dakota Hudson (so far), and Paul DeJong. That’s top-of-my-head, so I apologize to anyone I’ve forgotten. In any case, Brian, you can see why a long time ago I ceased deferring to professional prospect “experts.” They are nearly valueless when it comes to Cardinal prospects. The track record for the experts stinks.
Alex Reyes (35)
Elehuris Montero (40)
Dakota Hudson (50)
Nolan Gorman (55)
Andrew Knizner (65)
Dylan Carlson (90)
Ramon Urias (100)
Malcom Nunez (100)For me the fun part is the articulating — or defending, if you prefer — of these rankings, and all other prospect rankings, Cardinals or otherwise. (Keston Hiura for me is top 40 for instance, not top 20.) So please feel free to inquire about any of the above, or any others who couldn’t crack the top 100 or thereabouts.
Most insightful, even-handed, and entertaining prospect coverage on the internet. (Except of course for Cardinal coverage, where the gold standard is right here.)
Forget the high-profile places like MLB.com, BA, BPro, and Fangraphs. Rob Ozga for the amateur players and Sickels for the professionals — they’re the best around.
If DeJong moves to third base, he just duplicates Gyorko. Here are their 2016-2018 numbers:
DeJong .263/.319/.482 for a 111 wRC+
Gyorko .259/.331/.463 for a 111 wRC+And here’s Brandon Crawford over those same 3 years: .261/.325/.409 and a paltry 94 wRC+
For the hot corner, if you can’t get a guy with true star potential (like Donaldson would have been) then I say just go with Jedd Gyorko. Even with his HR’s declining, he’s still been a slightly above average bat every single year with the Cards. He’s fine, boring, solid. As good as or better than Mike Moustakas at the plate, and in the field, and on the bases. Better on the bases, in fact.
If Jedd only plays 125-130 games, that’s hardly a scandal. Fowler has averaged 126 for his career, and Bryce Harper just 132. No one says they aren’t full-time players.
When a team’s going great, the fans naturally tend to overvalue their individual players. Average guys seem good, good guys look great. And so it’s predictable, inevitable that the opposite happens when a team is disappointing their fans — like the Cards have done lately. Everyone from Matt Carpenter to Carlos Martinez now has very vocal internet critics, if not enemies. Everyone in the organization is a liability somehow, everyone’s to blame for the 3-year playoff drought. We’re fans, and we’re stupid.
I have Ramon Urias as a borderline top 100 overall prospect, and 7th/8th among Cardinals, neck and neck with Malcom Nunez. Struggled at AAA, but truly dominated AA — and in his first shot at American professional competition.
I think he’s going to hit, and the defense & baserunning shouldn’t be a liability. Although his batting will take a much different shape from Greg Garcia’s, I think Ramon will provide overall value roughly equivalent to Greg’s excellent 2015-2017 self. And a future great bench player warrants a borderline top 100 slot.
Nice extended blurb from the Commish today, about a Urias’ 3-homer game on Wednesday. Link: https://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/cardinal-beat/cardinals-mighty-mite-ramon-urias-smacks-three-homers-in-mexican/article_3dc9926b-fcd7-572d-8db0-ee90166e3183.html
“Fowler is a negative influence and poor example for the younger players. The Cards need to find a way to trade him, even if they have to give up several mid level prospects in the deal.”
I would partly concur, cranny. Certainly Fowler’s unprofessional whining about being benched last year sets a poor example. But the front office caving to him in a sense, while firing Matheny, might be a worse signal to the team in general. (Psst, Mabry was the problem, folks, not the manager. Well, Mabry plus the rotten free agents of the past two years. Even Miles Mikolas, Bud Norris, and Final Boss couldn’t counterbalance the horror of Fowler, Holland, Gregerson, and Cecil. That toxic quartet is very likely going to wind up collectively giving the team negative WAR at a total cost of about $140,000,000.)
But Fowler, who was ridiculed repeatedly in the Post-Dispatch and elsewhere for being the “last to arrive, first to leave” the ballpark, was the last to arrive for a reason. He was last because he was taking extra time every single day working on his own with a personal trainer before coming to the ballpark. Ironic ain’t it, that it was his dedication that created the illusion that he didn’t work hard enough?
No need to trade him, no need to give any prospects away. Just do what the Red Sox did with Fat Panda. Dump him and don’t look back. Put Tyler O’Neill in right field, take your 35-40 homers, and smile, smile, smile.
JMartinez for Taylor Rogers for openers.
Amen, C-27. A well above average DH who makes very little money, for an excellent non-closer bullpen arm who also makes no dough? That sounds just about right.
Rogers had struggled v. righties before last year, but in 2018 he allowed them just a .643 OPS. And lefty bats had 110 plate appearances, and zero extra base hits.
Thanks for posting those clips, Brian. I know those two competed against each other quite a bit in high school, including the summer showcase stuff. Obviously buddies.
Since this thread has been rejuvenated, I figured I’d take the opportunity to articulate a bit better why I have Redbird 3rd base prospect Elehuris Montero so highly ranked among all prospects.
“Top 40 overall for Montero? That’s aggressive.”
Pads was quite correct when he made this observation back in August. Top 40 will certainly seem aggressive, compared to other outlets. So it demands explaining on my part. Here goes.
Hitting performance is all relative, and what Montero did at age 19 in the Midwest League was pretty rare stuff. Specifically, he posted a wRC+ of 156 this year. For proper context, here’s a chronological list of every other Midwest League teenager who’s registered a 150 wRC+ or better this decade (min. 200 plate appearances):
Mike Trout, Wil Myers, Oscar Taveras, Javy Baez, Corey Seager, Byron Buxton, Bobby Bradley, Eloy Jimenez, Fernando Tatis Jr., Bo Bichette, and Vlad Guerrero Jr.. Nice roll call, huh?
So Elehuris Montero was just the 12th teenage batter this decade to meet that lofty 150 wRC+ standard. After their Midwest League seasons, the other 11 prospects were ranked 24th on average at Baseball America, and unsurprisingly all of them were top 100 prospects. Throw out the high and low (Buxton #1, Bradley #93) and the average ranking rises to 19th.
But that’s admittedly misleading, since some of the above 11, like Byron Buxton for instance, were already considered top prospects before they played a game in the Midwest League. To find Montero’s true peer group, we must compare him to the players who were unranked prior to their MWL seasons. That would be these seven: Bichette, Tatis, Myers, Jimenez, Bradley, Taveras, and Seager.
Like Montero, the non-top 100 guys all had positives and negatives before their triumphant MWL performances. (Montero was a modest bonus baby when he signed at 16 — no great scouting pedigree. But on the other hand, the year before thrashing the MWL he was an all-star in the Gulf Coast League. So he didn’t come from nowhere. Not by a long shot.)
So if we use the seven other prospects as a frame of reference, what do we get? Their average rank at Baseball America following their MWL seasons was 35th. If you want to argue that those seven offer more in the way of defense/baserunning than Montero, and therefore aren’t his true peers, well, the numbers don’t back that assertion up.
The Baseball Prospectus WAR numbers, which include baserunning and glovework, place Montero’s MWL season slightly above the other seven on average, with Montero at 6.4 WAR per 600 PA’s, and the others just a hair under 6.0. So I consider it only reasonable to place him in that peer group, and rank him in the top 35-40 overall prospects. But I can offer a bit more support — for both Montero’s bat and glove.
Montero as a pro has committed too many errors, and his error/DP ratio is marginal. But his range appears to be above average, as his annual defensive runs saved are in fact very solid, every year, per the Baseball Prospectus site:
2015 +7 runs in 57 games
2016 +3 runs in 61 games
2017 +3 runs in 52 games
2018 +3 runs in 103 Peoria games
2018 +1 in just 24 Palm Beach tiltsFive stops, five positive run values. So, error totals notwithstanding, when confronted with the above numbers it’s pretty hard to argue that he’s been a poor defender. And maybe he’s actually good!
And if all that weren’t enough, here’s another positive marker for success. Ele’s plate discipline at Peoria was markedly stronger down the stretch, as was his power.
First half: .307/.359/.483 with a 16/56 BB/K, excellent for a teen in the MWL, but blah strikezone control.
Second half: .347/.416/.604 with a 17/25 BB/K, great numbers for anyone of any age at any level or league.And finally, he played in a Midwest League pitcher’s park this season. Montero’s road OPS was 55 points higher than home at Peoria, so even his outstanding numbers may be underestimating his current true talent.
So top 40, absolutely. Good chance to be an above average regular. Stardom not impossible.
Bob, I disagree about Holland. He only signed for 1 year so his signing was not a risk.
One year certainly made it less of a risk, Forschy. But I feel like history shows that when someone is signed for a substantial amount of dough — let’s say, anything over 5-6% of player payroll for the season — there are always two risks.
One, the club will feel the need to keep using him past the point of good sense, because of the contract commitment. The time to cut Holland was late May, somewhere within his streak of four straight terrible appearances. (Or of course they could have just fixed him. Like Washington and Lilliquist did, immediately.) After late May I think Holland allowed something like 15 runs, 10 earned, in 13 innings. That contract-driven patience cost the Cards roughly one game in the standings.
And two, due to the dough, the club will be limited in the range of moves they can make later in the season, if the need arises. Let’s say for the sake of discussion that the Cards never signed Holland. That theoretically would have left a Holland-sized chunk of money to invest at the trade deadline, on someone like Cole Hamels for example, if the Cards thought they saw something fixable. Or any other hitter or pitcher who seemed like he could help, obviously.
The Bud Norris contract came with no risk. Final Boss, very little risk. Even Miles Mikolas had only a modicum of risk, despite being a multi-year deal for a starting pitcher — because the AAV money was modest. But Holland had meaningful risk. (And the next 3 or 4 times Derrick Goold says “There’s no such thing as a bad one-year contract” in one of his chats, someone please remind him of Greg Holland. Oh, and the high draft pick flushed away. And the half a million in international amateur bonus money. Arrrgh.
Is it really so bleeping difficult to trade for a relief pitcher or two? Find another Mujica, Mo. (And make room for him by cutting Gregerson and Cecil already, for heaven’s sake.)
Yeah, I guess I should have said intact at the top. I’d like to know the overall numbers, C.C.. But at any rate, Redbird drafting, their trades, and their international amateur acquisitions over the past few years are still each very strong, maybe even elite. And the recent free agents out of Japan (I know, it’s just a couple of guys) have worked out tremendously.
As for youth and the future, the Cards led the National League this year in rookie hitter WAR and they also led in rookie pitcher WAR. (Fangrphs WAR.) I doubt that such a combo happens very often. Specifically, they had 8.6 WAR from rooks, and the rest of the N.L. Central combined for 4.1. The N.L. average was just 2.8 per team, so the Birds more than tripled it.
And despite those graduations, they still have a lot left — very likely more teenage position player talent in the minors than any organization. In fact, I guarantee it’s more than any other organization, if we count all the guys who were 19 for the 2018 season, like Elehuris Montero, Dylan Carlson, and supersleeper prospect bat Leandro Cedeno. The pitching is down, perhaps way down, but in total the farm is in excellent shape, albeit oddly shaped.
Internal talent, majors & minors, is not the trouble. It just feels to me that the front office has lost its self-discipline of the recent past, and a fraction of good judgement. And that’s resulted in some self-immolation. They’ve been “hole-patching” instead of acquiring whole players. Imagine that you need more speed? Trade for Bourjos, who can’t hit. Oops, now you need power? Trade for Brandon Moss, who can’t do anything else. Need relief help? Sign a slew of free agents who are too old, too expensive, or require far too many years of contract.
Think you need a leadoff hitter, because Carpenter has too much power? Spend lavishly on career mediocrity Dexter Fowler, on the wrong side of 30, coming off a fluke year — maybe he’ll let you look at his World Series ring! And he’ll play centerfield for 3 or 4 years, because obviously that kid Bader can’t be trusted. Sure he’s been dominating the minors ever since he was drafted, but everybody knows you shouldn’t scout those darn statlines.
With both Kyle Lohse and Lance Lynn, the team was disciplined, smart. (They still understood some first principles, by not re-signing Lance Lynn. So all is not lost.) They did not used to give a 2-3 WAR performer a star-length contract after turning 30 years old. With Fowler and Cecil, they lost their minds, and more than a little. If you’re the Cardinals you cannot pay mere regulars as though they were stars. Some teams can. The Cards cannot.
(Which is why the cockeyed Hosmer/Moustakas rumors were so maddening a year ago, and why they’re STILL insane now, when it comes to Moose. He’s Gyorko. Or maybe Gyorko-lite. Let him go somewhere else. I don’t care if he hits righty, lefty, or standing on his head. You don’t get extra credit for having so-called “balance” in your lineup. By OPS+ the Red Sox best 4 hitters were all righty this year, the Yankees 5 best were all righty, and the Astros’ best were Bregman, Altuve, Springer, Tyler White, and Yuri Gurriel. All 5 of them righties. And that doesn’t even include Carlos Correa. You think those monster lineups’ front offices are losing sleep over a lack of “balance” in their offense? Don’t bet on it.)
Twelve months ago the StL front office fired the good coach (Lilliquist) and kept the crap one (Mabry). One half of that error was rectified in July, and, no surprise at all, the team played much, much better. Scored a LOT more runs per game (5.1 runs per game without Mabry, versus 4.4 with him). And the bats of Pham and Voit sure seemed glad to get out of town, didn’t they? Also, get off my lawn.
But really, the talent is already here to win 94-96 games, if a couple of excellent relievers are added. That’s it. Well, maybe three relievers. Of course, they can’t add three or even two relievers because of the dead roster spots being so graciously preserved for Malcontent Fowler, Washed Up Cecil, and No Velocity Gregerson. So as long as the front office is stubborn, they’re trapped.
Okay so that wasn’t the most eloquent screed I ever wrote. But it felt pretty good anyway.
“Heyward, Leake, Fowler, Cecil, Gregerson, Ozuna are an indictment of this organization. If they were trying to suck they couldn’t do a better job. Whoever is in charge in the Front Office is lousy at what they do. I think we’ll have to get used to third place for many years.”
Grading the above moves, I’d give Leake and Ozuna a C- or D+, because who would have thought that Leake would be stupid and stubborn enough to not let Yadi call his pitches for him? I liked the Leake signing in general, because of Yadi, the move from Great American Bandbox to Busch Stadium, and Leake’s relative youthfulness, solid velocity, and good health history. I hated the Ozuna signing because they were buying a guy coming off of a huge career year that was unlike anything that had come before. (Just like with Fowler.)
I’ve beaten the Fowler signing to death repeatedly. It’s an F- for Fowler and I wish there were a lower grade.
Cecil I was ambivalent, but it was clearly too many years from the start. And both Gregerson and Holland were very, very risky given their ages and significant evidence of decline already — esp. velocity. All three relievers get a straight D.
But Heyward? The Cards got a great year from him, for almost no burden on the payroll (less than 10 million bucks for a 6-win season), and then afterwards they got a high draft pick as compensation when he left via free agency…after which his hitting declined immediately, and now his bloated contract is hurting the hated Cubs! What more do you want than that?! That’s like Ralphie’s essay grade in A Christmas Story: A+++++++ for Heyward.
The front office has done a terrible job with free agency over the past 2-3 years. But they did get Mikolas and Final Boss from Japan, and did trade Jon Jay for three good years of Gyorko and counting. And the Tyler O’Neill/Marco Gonzales trade could pay large dividends if Tiny Kingman gets the chance to start 20+ times a month.
The brilliant Redbird front office of 2008-2015 is still largely intact. They just need to get back to the disciplined ways of those years. No long contracts for relievers, or players on the wrong side of 30 unless they have value to the organization off the field, and you know them very well. (Waino, Yadi of course.) No big four- or five-year deals for 2-3 WAR free agents, especially older ones. Be smart, not splashy. Be the Brewers of the last twelve months. You know, when the Brewers were emulating the Cardinals.
“Machado and Harper are generational talents.”
If they improve, they certainly might be. But now, I don’t see the supporting evidence as persuasive.
Since Matt Carpenter became a fulltime major leaguer in 2013, here are the top 10 MLB position players according to Fangraphs:1) Trout…54.0 WAR
2) Donaldson…35.6
3) Goldy…32.9
4) Betts…30.5
5) Billy Barty…29.4
6) Votto…29.0
7) Generational Talent Machado…29.0
8) McCutchen…28.8
9) Freeman…28.5
10) Matt Carpenter…27.2
GAP
13) Generational Talent Harper…26.3Mildly interesting to see more “corner guys” than up-the-middle types. If there’s a lesson here, it’s apparently Hitting Trumps Fielding. Also, four of the ten were never on a top 100 prospect list, and two more were never in Baseball America’s top 40. In other words, 60% of the greatest players of the last six years were never considered elite prospects by the presumptive experts at Baseball America. (To be fair, the other prospect graders didn’t perform much better than BA.)
If Mookie’s total feels too low, bear in mind that he only had a couple hundred trips to the plate prior to 2015. Pro-rate his numbers and he’s neck-and-neck with Donaldson for 2nd best player of the past six seasons. In any case, regardless of what Scott Boras or other hyperbolists say, for me Bryce Harper and Manny Machado are not yet particularly close to generational talents.
Are they both great players, and on a Hall Of Fame path? Absolutely, in no small part because they started so freaking young. But Hall Of Famer alone doesn’t cut it — a dozen or so Hall Of Famers emerge from every “baseball generation,” i.e., each 5-7 year period. Mike Trout is a generational talent. So is Kershaw. Betts might be already. Maybe Maximus Scherzer, if he can keep excelling for 4 or 5 more seasons. But Harper & Machado need to be better than they’ve been, to gain that label. For me.
“P.S. I will acknowledge that I found several of his (Hummel’s) other answers a bit unusual. For example, he said he only cares about 2019 and not beyond. Seems very narrow-minded and could easily lead to some sub-optimal conclusions.”
Yeah, that was weird. A recall a famous GM, John Schuerholz maybe, saying once that a good GM during decision making is usually weighting the seasons: 50% next year, 30% the year after that, 10% the year after that, and another 10% for all subsequent seasons combined, beyond the next three. Of course that’s just a rough estimate.
But far worse than that, The Commish conflated his comedians! Everyone knows that “Take my wife, please” was Henny Youngman, not Rodney Dangerfield. Dangerfield was “When I was born, I was so ugly the doctor slapped my mother.”
“At this time last year, he looked to be even with Bader. Before camp, I even projected O’Neill would make the team. Then O’Neill was twice injured in Jupiter and hardly played. Bader seized the opening and off he went.
Then during the season, O’Neill went on St. Louis’ DL twice – separate stints in July and August. How can he be trusted to start if he cannot stay on the field?”It is too bad that Tyler wasn’t healthier in 2018. Like yourself, Brian, it felt to me like he was prohibitively injury-prone. But then I checked the numbers, and between AAA and MLB he did play 125 games in 2018. For context, Dexter Fowler has averaged 126 for his career, and Bryce Harper 132. They’re certainly considered full-time players — if somewhat brittle ones.
And I would also add that Tyler played nearly 95% of his team’s games in both 2016 and 2017, in Double-A and Triple-A. So I would argue that while there’s some recent evidence of fragility, there’s at least equal evidence of very good durability as well. So I’m not worried. Yet.
Speaking of frail outfielders, Larry Walker, Reggie Sanders, and Jim Edmonds all arrived in St. Louis with track records of breaking down physically. (Edmonds had averaged just 119 games over his previous 5 years, Walker 127, and Sanders 126.) But of course they were all obviously talented enough that it was clearly worthwhile making a commitment to them, playing them 25 times a month as long as they stayed healthy. While they’re highly unlikely to ever be as outstanding as that trio, I’d like the Cards to play Bader and O’Neill as long as they’re healthy too. Bader’s glove and O’Neill’s bat make for tantalizing upsides.
I’m not sure exactly how damning the Hummel chat remarks were. Here are the quotes, lifted straight from his chat (emphases mine):
“Have I missed something? When is $23 million low risk? You’re not paying anybody but Bryce Harper more than Yadier Molina for one season and certainly not Donaldson.”
“The Atlanta Braves have jumped the shark and signed former Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson to a one-year, $23 million contract.
Many will ask why the Cardinals didn’t do this.
Some answers:
He is going to be 33 next season and missed two-thirds of this season with calf and shoulder injuries.
He is not a lefthanded hitter.
Nobody on the Cardinals should make more money than Yadier Molina, unless Bryce Harper is signed. Donaldson never has played in the National League. There is an adjustment period.
Donaldson had one single and one walk for Cleveland in three playoff games. That is why the Indians acquired him — the playoffs.”Now, I could be way off base. But to me, those bolded comments above look much more like statements of personal opinion from the Commish, rather than insider-knowledge echoes of club policy/strategy. I’d say that Rick just hates the idea of an injured outsider from another organization coming in and being better paid than the Hall Of Fame bound face of the franchise. Which makes sense from a staunchly traditional baseball man’s point of view.
(That rather “traditional” point of view also prompted Rick to call the Cardinal defense “the worst in the league” during his chat. No team is worst in the league, if they’re perhaps the single strongest defense in baseball up the middle. Molina, Wong, and Bader could each have rightly won Gold Gloves. And DeJong has been average or better defensively at short.)
Rick has repeatedly and enthusiastically expressed his scorn for Donaldson’s playoff performance with Cleveland. (What was it, ten at-bats?) And if he believes the Braves have “jumped the shark” with the Donaldson deal, he probably doesn’t agree about precisely how great Donaldson was until very recently. From 2013-2017 Donaldson registered a 5-year stretch more valuable than any active player has had, over any half decade, except for Trout & Kershaw. And maybe Mookie’s past 5 seasons. Much better than Harper’s best 5-year stretch.
Please don’t anybody construe my observations as belittling of the Commish. He is a treasure, and I hope he works for another 20 years. He’s a fine writer, a more than patient chat host, and he possesses a wealth of hardball knowledge very few can match. When he retires we’ll all be the poorer for it.
We had Mark Reynolds once. Do we need him again? lol
He (O’Neill) needs to make more contact regardless and quit whiffing as much.I’m glad you mentioned Mark Reynolds, Booyah. Reynolds has only had one year where his strikeouts were counterbalanced enough by his power, to where he was actually a very good hitter. That was way back in 2009, when he posted an excellent 127 OPS+. Most years, in fact every other year, I would NOT want Reynolds in my starting lineup. Okay for thunder off the bench, but that’s it.
Tyler O’Neill doesn’t figure to be Mark Reynolds, though. Tyler was doing in AA at age 20 what Reynolds didn’t do until he was 22 and 23 years old. And O’Neill has more defensive and baserunning talent as well. There are no mediocre major leaguers with a track record like O’Neill’s. Not that I know of.
You can’t lump all the high-strikeout guys together, all the guys who ever led the league in whiffs. If you did, then Mark Reynolds and Pedro Avarez would be lumped in with Jim Thome and Kris Bryant and Jay Buhner and Gorman Thomas and Duke Snider and Jimmy Foxx and Babe Ruth.
I hate strikeouts, too. Swear it. But it’s counterproductive to fixate on them to the exclusion of other more important aspects of a player.
Bob,
He has also struck out 168 times in those 514 at-bats. That is actually better than what I thought. That is, however, a strikeout percentage of 33%. If he plays everyday and gets 600 at-bats he is going to strikeout around 200 times. That isn’t good. It wasn’t too long ago it was embarrassing to strikeout.Strikeouts for hitters are like errors for fielders. They are ugly. They frustrate. We watch millionaire athletes do things we didn’t do as high school ballplayers — or not very much anyway — and it confounds us. Strikeouts and errors undermine the pleasure we take from watching baseball, the aesthetics of the sport. But that’s not the same as saying that they are of primary importance. A factor, no doubt. But not a primary one, when evaluating a hitter or fielder.
Or to put it another way, Rat. Would you want O’Neill starting in your outfield if he fanned 220 times a year, but batted .250 with 45 homers, solid defense, and good baserunning? I would without a moment’s hesitation, because of the production. Look at the doughnut, not the hole.
Or to put it yet another way, there’s a guy who was a lot like O’Neill, I’ll bet you remember him quite well. I’ll withhold the name momentarily and just describe the production, the shape of it.
For the five years 1978-1982, he struck out 106 more times than any other hitter in the sport, he batted only .245, and was okay but nothing special as an outfielder. Sounds kind of useless, right? And yet he was worth 4 WAR per year, the 20th best total in the majors over those 5 years. Because he slugged over .500 and had the 2nd-most homers behind Michael Jack Schmidt (Who did indeed “jack” a few over the years).
For those five years Gorman Thomas was a terrific player, even though he struck out A LOT. The doughnut was delicious & nutritious, despite a larger than average hole. O’Neill could be that kind of talent. It’s what he was throughout the minors.
