FG's Top 46 Recently Graduated Prospects

[thewupk]

what were their BABiP

//I also think Swanson will post regular 3 WAR seasons.

He also posted a K% less than what he did in the minors which is not something I would project for him right now. If that starts going north it will tank his hitting stats. It's worth noting that both Steamer and Zips project a K% between 18-20% which will put him as a below average hitter on the season.

[Carp]

Remember when Swanson posted 0.8 WAR in 38 games to end 2016. Stands to reason he will easily post 3+ WAR seasons going forward with a chance to be over 4 and a regular all-star.

I still believe this actually.

[Carp]

Am I doing something wrong? Let's test it. I looked at the past 50 years of MLB and searched for 20 year old rookies, who, like Albies, came up later in the season (your garbage time argument), amassed at least 200 PAs, and had a positive WAR. Not surprisingly, there were only 4 such players, all of whom, like Albies, were on teams who weren't in contention. The four players are Jeff Burroughs, Garry Templeton, Terry Puhl, and Carl Crawford. I extrapolated their age 20 WARs to 650 PAs and compared that to their peak WAR years and their career WARs.

For each ballplayer I listed Actual age 20 WAR, age 20 WAR extrapolated over 650 PAs, (Three highest WAR seasons) and career WAR.

Burroughs: 0.4, 1.3, (4.0, 3.6, 4.6) 17.6
Templeton: 0.9, 2.6 (3.6, 4.3, 4.5) 27.6
Puhl: 1.2, 2.9 (6.2, 3.6, 3.5) 28.3. Sidenote: Puhl missed large chunks of several seasons due to injuries.
Crawford: 1.0, 2.3 (7.0, 5.0, 4.9) 38.9

Now lets look at Ozzie: His age 20 actual WAR was 1.4, the highest of the comps. His extrapolated age 20 WAR was 3.7, the highest of the comps.

All of the comps had seasons with WARs higher, and in some cases significantly higher than their extrapolated age 20 comps. The peak WAR seasons for the comps averaged 2.6 times their extrapolated WAR, ranging from 1,73 times their extrapolated WAR (Templeton) to 3.53 (Burroughs). Their career WARs averaged 12.71 times their extrapolated age 20 WARs, ranging from 9.79 (Puhl) to 16.91 (Crawford) .

Plugging those ratios into Ozzie's extrapolated age 20 WAR of 3.7, if he matches the lowest peak WAR ratio of the 4, he will have a peak WAR season of 6.4. If he matches the average peak WAR ratio of the 4 he will hit a peak season of 9.62. If he matches the highest peak ratio of the 4, he would have a peak WAR season of 13.1 (not happening).

If he matches the lowest career WAR ratio of the comps, Ozzie would have a career WAR of 36.22 and if he matches the average, his career WAR will reach 47.0. If he matches the highest, he would post a career WAR of 62.6.

NOTE: None of these numbers are predictions, they are simply illustrations.

But again, I ask, looking at the historical data, is it so unreasonable to see Ozzie having seasons in the 6 WAR range?

JCarbo is on fyah!!

[Enscheff]

Am I doing something wrong? Let's test it. I looked at the past 50 years of MLB and searched for 20 year old rookies, who, like Albies, came up later in the season (your garbage time argument), amassed at least 200 PAs, and had a positive WAR. Not surprisingly, there were only 4 such players, all of whom, like Albies, were on teams who weren't in contention. The four players are Jeff Burroughs, Garry Templeton, Terry Puhl, and Carl Crawford. I extrapolated their age 20 WARs to 650 PAs and compared that to their peak WAR years and their career WARs.

For each ballplayer I listed Actual age 20 WAR, age 20 WAR extrapolated over 650 PAs, (Three highest WAR seasons) and career WAR.

Burroughs: 0.4, 1.3, (4.0, 3.6, 4.6) 17.6
Templeton: 0.9, 2.6 (3.6, 4.3, 4.5) 27.6
Puhl: 1.2, 2.9 (6.2, 3.6, 3.5) 28.3. Sidenote: Puhl missed large chunks of several seasons due to injuries.
Crawford: 1.0, 2.3 (7.0, 5.0, 4.9) 38.9

Now lets look at Ozzie: His age 20 actual WAR was 1.4, the highest of the comps. His extrapolated age 20 WAR was 3.7, the highest of the comps.

All of the comps had seasons with WARs higher, and in some cases significantly higher than their extrapolated age 20 comps. The peak WAR seasons for the comps averaged 2.6 times their extrapolated WAR, ranging from 1,73 times their extrapolated WAR (Templeton) to 3.53 (Burroughs). Their career WARs averaged 12.71 times their extrapolated age 20 WARs, ranging from 9.79 (Puhl) to 16.91 (Crawford) .

Plugging those ratios into Ozzie's extrapolated age 20 WAR of 3.7, if he matches the lowest peak WAR ratio of the 4, he will have a peak WAR season of 6.4. If he matches the average peak WAR ratio of the 4 he will hit a peak season of 9.62. If he matches the highest peak ratio of the 4, he would have a peak WAR season of 13.1 (not happening).

If he matches the lowest career WAR ratio of the comps, Ozzie would have a career WAR of 36.22 and if he matches the average, his career WAR will reach 47.0. If he matches the highest, he would post a career WAR of 62.6.

NOTE: None of these numbers are predictions, they are simply illustrations.

But again, I ask, looking at the historical data, is it so unreasonable to see Ozzie having seasons in the 6 WAR range?

Nice work. You just showed why Albies is a very good player. You just showed why everyone is projecting him to be a 4+ win guy. You just showed why we say his Top 5% outcome is a 6 win player.

And none of what you’ve shown contradicts anything I’ve been saying in this entire thread.

[Managuarantano's Volunteers]

Jcarbo, I hope you continue bringing this kind of stuff to ChopCountry. Always like seeing more player comparisons like Enscheff and others like to do

[JCarbo76]

what were their BABiP

//I also think Swanson will post regular 3 WAR seasons.

Ozzie’s BABIP was .316 in MLB. Not unsustainable by any means.

[bravesfanMatt]

Ozzie’s BABIP was .316 in MLB. Not unsustainable by any means.

That is low for his speed.

[thewupk]

Ozzie’s BABIP was .316 in MLB. Not unsustainable by any means.

what about his 14% K rate

[thewupk]

That is low for his speed.

Not really. His xBABIP was 289 in 2017.

[bravesfanMatt]

what about his 14% K rate

Both are low. Doubt he stays at 14%. But he should be higher than .320. Those will probably equalize

[bravesfanMatt]

Not really. His xBABIP was 289 in 2017.

That is an unproven stat with even fangraphs saying runner speed can cause issues. If you want to quote minor K rate then at least quote minors BABiP rate. Stay consistent in your argument. His BABiP is always over .340. Which I trust more than xBABiP.

[msstate7]

That is an unproven stat with even fangraphs saying runner speed can cause issues. If you want to quote minor K rate then at least quote minors BABiP rate. Stay consistent in your argument. His BABiP is always over .340. Which I trust more than xBABiP.

You know thewupk has to paint our guys in the worst possible light.

[bravesfanMatt]

Here is my take on Oz. I think he has a greater than 50% chance of being a ~4 WAR guy on a regular basis. I think him being a 6 WAR guy 4+ times in his career is probably in the 20% range. I think his skills are just too good. I have more faith in Oz right now than I do Acuna.

[bravesfanMatt]

You know thewupk has to paint our guys in the worst possible light.

You know I like to joke around. But in fairness to wupk, it is easy to play devils advocate here. Sometimes the unicorn farts get really bad and it is fun to bring them down a notch. A dose of reality is never bad.

Now I need to get back to my 2018 Braves World Series trip planning session please. Where is the best spot on Peachtree to watch the victory parade.

[thewupk]

That is an unproven stat with even fangraphs saying runner speed can cause issues. If you want to quote minor K rate then at least quote minors BABiP rate. Stay consistent in your argument. His BABiP is always over .340. Which I trust more than xBABiP.

Albies will not sustain a MLB BABIP over 340 in the majors unless he changes his hitting profile. xBABIP may not be perfect but it's getting better with the more data we have. Albies did not hit line drives at a high enough rate in 2017 to have a high BABIP.

Also K% is important because historically they increase once they hit the majors. Being in the mid teens for most of his pro career is good but I don't expect it to be in that same range as he first hits the majors. It will likely be closer to ~20% out of the gate. I suspect his BABIP will settle in the .300 to .320 range in the majors.

You know thewupk has to paint our guys in the worst possible light.

Hardly. I just look at stats and not try to get fooled by how things appear on the surface.

[Deester11]

Albies will not sustain a MLB BABIP over 340 in the majors unless he changes his hitting profile. xBABIP may not be perfect but it's getting better with the more data we have. Albies did not hit line drives at a high enough rate in 2017 to have a high BABIP.

Also K% is important because historically they increase once they hit the majors. Being in the mid teens for most of his pro career is good but I don't expect it to be in that same range as he first hits the majors. It will likely be closer to ~20% out of the gate. I suspect his BABIP will settle in the .300 to .320 range in the majors.



Hardly. I just look at stats and not try to get fooled by how things appear on the surface.

All of these numbers are mind numbing. But the one thing I’ve seen from Albies long before he was a thing was his uncanny ability to put the bat on the ball. His SO's MAY go up, but at some point I think he'll outperform

[Enscheff]

Albies will not sustain a MLB BABIP over 340 in the majors unless he changes his hitting profile. xBABIP may not be perfect but it's getting better with the more data we have. Albies did not hit line drives at a high enough rate in 2017 to have a high BABIP.

Also K% is important because historically they increase once they hit the majors. Being in the mid teens for most of his pro career is good but I don't expect it to be in that same range as he first hits the majors. It will likely be closer to ~20% out of the gate. I suspect his BABIP will settle in the .300 to .320 range in the majors.



Hardly. I just look at stats and not try to get fooled by how things appear on the surface.

Albies hit waaaaay too many fly balls when he first came up, as I noted a few weeks after he debuted. The issue was detailed here: http://www.chopcountry.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7271&highlight=Albies

That rash of fly outs completely tanked his BABIP, and then he started to correct the issue.

I have fairly high confidence that Albies will be able to sustain an above average BABIP at the MLB level once he gets his batted ball profile dialed in.

[thewupk]

Albies hit waaaaay too many fly balls when he first came up, as I noted a few weeks after he debuted. The issue was detailed here: http://www.chopcountry.com/forums/sh...ghlight=Albies

That rash of fly outs completely tanked his BABIP, and then he started to correct the issue.

I have fairly high confidence that Albies will be able to sustain an above average BABIP at the MLB level once he gets his batted ball profile dialed in.

Someone did a study on players that made the all-star game multiple times between 2010-2015 (55 players in total) and found that most of them had high minor league BABIPS but still on average saw it drop 25-30 points once they got to the majors. Ozzie had a 355 career BABIP in the minors so I could certainly see him follow that trend and hit around ~320+ That with an eventual mid teen K% will lead to some good results for the team.