BBA Honors Drew Waters

bravesfanMatt said:
I love how everyone says we should have trade x player before they lost value as if they knew they would lose value.
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I said it in the 2017 draft thread. I just hate drafting college players in the first round. If he is still rated highly we should trade him by the trade deadline. I bet there is a pitching coach out there who can get him going but I doubt he will ever be good for the Braves in the rotation.
 
Drew Waters is having a FASCINATING season. The K rate is getting better in the last two weeks (it’s around 20.5% in June), yet the BABIP to BA deal is still very bad if you consider it a factor. However, I thought about that and mentioned it with Acuna as he was getting promoted out of A+ (yes, his BABIP was not above .450, but it was .411 compared to a .287 BA with a massive strikeout rate), and I had egg all over my face within two weeks back in 2017.

It’s far too early to write off Kyle Wright as a massive bust, and frankly it’s insulting to compare him to Sean Gilmartin or Jason Hursh. He’s annoying though and I am starting to lean towards hopefully he’s gonna end up doing what he’s done the last two years again this year, then strongly consider trading him away and letting someone else deal with his mess. As others have said, Kyle Wright was going to be the #1 overall guy a couple years ago. IMHO, it was NOT, “NOT” him being overhyped as he has a couple pitches that do live up to this idea. However, he slid because he started off his draft year in college poorly. Then after starting it off poorly, he dominated for a stretch. It was rinse and repeat last year. He started out mediocrely, then finished out his minor league year with a 2.40 ERA in his last 75 innings. So, for this year, he’s done the exact same thing he’s done the last two years, dating back to college baseball. Start out a competitive season very poorly. And he might be coming out of it now and flipping back to being dominant as per usual for him (7.2 IP and 10 K his last outing), like he’s done the last two years too.

The Braves might feel differently, but that admittedly is aggravating. Part of why you see these shenanigans are likely related to him having unorthodox stuff and there being tinkering related to try to get him right when he’s off, but the material is absolutely there to be a 7-8 K/9 MOR starter (then wait, if my feeling and others is “that” is who he is at the most, then why was he thought of as a possible #1 pick going into 2017, maybe I lied and he was overhyped, but I do think it’s still pretty insulting to compare him to Hursh or Gilmartin, he does have at least 1 pitch that is plus imo, those two had none).
 
I know from what little I’ve seen of Wright he didn’t look that impressive and his advancement seems slow for a highly thought of college prospect.

Does anyone have any thoughts on what issues he might be having. He’s been healthy and should have been a relatively safe prospect.
 
Coredor said:
I know from what little I’ve seen of Wright he didn’t look that impressive and his advancement seems slow for a highly thought of college prospect.

Does anyone have any thoughts on what issues he might be having. He’s been healthy and should have been a relatively safe prospect.
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Slow advancement? He made the MLB in his first full professional season. I think the issues have been pinpointed in this thread. He’s a notorious slow starter and is typically lights out second half. I don’t know how you fix that. People are forgetting how absolutely dominant he was second half last year and in ST
 
Coredor said:
I know from what little I’ve seen of Wright he didn’t look that impressive and his advancement seems slow for a highly thought of college prospect.

Does anyone have any thoughts on what issues he might be having. He’s been healthy and should have been a relatively safe prospect.
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When I graded out his stuff after his time at the MLB level, it just wasn't as good as I hoped it would be based on the scouting reports. His pitches all seemed to blur the lines between 2 types of pitches, and it was hard to grade them.

Good but not great stuff coupled with below average command and execution isn't a very useful pitcher. I don't know what's going on in AAA, but it was clear he didn't have very good command in his short stint at the MLB level.

He's also not that young for a prospect anymore, and it's entirely plausible his stuff is starting to decline as he enters his mid-20s. Pitchers' careers are always a race between improving command vs declining stuff, and hopefully Wright isn't on the losing end of that race.

Hard to say much of anything without real data to parse.
 
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He’s not even 23, but I’ve always been skeptical of his ace potential.

he’ll probably settle in as a usable starter that people freak out over and insist that he should be in the pen.
 
Southcack77 said:
He’s not even 23, but I’ve always been skeptical of his ace potential.

he’ll probably settle in as a usable starter that people freak out over and insist that he should be in the pen.
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Wright is 23.7 years old.

He is the oldest Braves prospect in their Top 20.

He's certainly not old, but the "he's still young" comment is not carrying much weight anymore. The Braves control all of his 20s, and he is pretty much past the point of being an extension candidate already.

It's not outlandish to expect more from Wright than he is currently producing.
 
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Oops, grabbed the date of his mlb debut.

I think he’s young enough to where he could make an adjustment or add a pitch or something, but he’s probably just a back end rotation piece who might have some high moments.
 
Per platinum sombrero account:

“#Braves prospect Ian Anderson over his last 6 starts:

3-1
1.70 ERA | 2.30 FIP
11.19 K/9
2.68 BB/9
1.03 WHIP
.197 opponent BA

He just turned 21.”
 
Enscheff. You mentioned data availability. Do you know anything about the technology used for statcast data? I was wondering if it might eventually find it’s way to minor league stadiums. It could be very useful for scouting purposes. I imagine now it’s probably too expensive to implement but things have a way of becoming more wide spread over time.
 
Southcack77 said:
Per platinum sombrero account:

“#Braves prospect Ian Anderson over his last 6 starts:

3-1
1.70 ERA | 2.30 FIP
11.19 K/9
2.68 BB/9
1.03 WHIP
.197 opponent BA

He just turned 21.”
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We really need another top half of the rotation starter from all we invested during the rebuild. I haven’t seen him but he’s definitely impressive. Maybe he can be the guy.
 
Coredor said:
We really need another top half of the rotation starter from all we invested during the rebuild. I haven’t seen him but he’s definitely impressive. Maybe he can be the guy.
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I am still a believer in Fried and Folty. Fried can work on another pitch this off season then he can be special. Folty will rebound fine as the year goes on. Newk is still my dreamer. I liked his stuff since getting back and hope he continues to get shots. Touki and wilson are pen guys and need to embrace it.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
I am still a believer in Fried and Folty. Fried can work on another pitch this off season then he can be special. Folty will rebound fine as the year goes on. Newk is still my dreamer. I liked his stuff since getting back and hope he continues to get shots. Touki and wilson are pen guys and need to embrace it.
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Yeah I think those are all possible. I think they all have concerns. I just feel like it appears we hit big on Soroka. With all we invested in arms we need another big win or two. I’ll throw Gohara in there too. I have no idea if he’ll ever get healthy and put it together but I think we saw flashes of what he could be.
 
Coredor said:
Enscheff. You mentioned data availability. Do you know anything about the technology used for statcast data? I was wondering if it might eventually find it’s way to minor league stadiums. It could be very useful for scouting purposes. I imagine now it’s probably too expensive to implement but things have a way of becoming more wide spread over time.
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The tech is already in every MiLB stadium, and many college stadiums. The data from those machines just isn't available to us plebs in the public sphere. The best we can get is 2nd/3rd hand info where a scout/exec tells someone like FG a bit of data and they relay that info to us.
 
Enscheff said:
The tech is already in every MiLB stadium, and many college stadiums. The data from those machines just isn't available to us plebs in the public sphere. The best we can get is 2nd/3rd hand info where a scout/exec tells someone like FG a bit of data and they relay that info to us.
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That’s interesting to know. Thanks.
 
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