Braxton Davidson

[thewupk]

Good insight. I know I'm generalizing, but I have always thought that the OBP angle preached by Lewis in Moneyball was way too simplistic and has really been a disservice to many fans, especially when trying to gauge minor league players. People look at walk rates in the low minors and go gaga over guys who walk a lot and praise their discipline. It's pretty easy to be disciplined in Rookie Ball and Low A when half the pitchers in the league are throwing 58 foot breaking balls and have about as much luck locating their fastball as I would trying to court Ivanka Trump (she is top drawer baby and America is going to love her).

Good prospects hit strikes. Great prospects hit quality strikes. That is how the world works. That doesn't mean that guys who swing at everything should be hailed as sure things either, but if you don't hit strikes in baseball, you don't succeed. It is really that simple. Guys who take too many close pitches (or swing at bad pitches) get themselves into bad counts which leads to a great advantage for pitchers. I was a crappy baseball player and even I know that much. Even below average pitchers feast on hitters when it's a pitchers' count. That doesn't show up as much in the low minors as it does when hitters move up leagues and the quality of the pitching improves.

The challenge is there for Davidson. He obviously has some decent tools, but if he doesn't learn to be more aggressive early in the count, he's going to continue to scuffle.

I would agree with that. And honestly my whole stance is that in the minors you pretty much need to trust your scouts when evaluating players. Once your in the majors with a good enough sample size that primarily switches to stats for me. At some point the stats will paint a pretty clear picture of what a player will be. Now that's not to say a scout can't help find players with certain flaws that with some minor adjustments can be fixed but in general you are who you are.

I think the real issue with the OBP types in the minors is you have to look at K rate. In the majors you can get away with striking out a lot if you do enough of the other things well. In the minors if you are striking out a lot (especially at the lower levels) then the chances are high you will get dominated the higher you move up. Again that's where you need to trust your scouts as well.

 

[50PoundHead]

I would agree with that. And honestly my whole stance is that in the minors you pretty much need to trust your scouts when evaluating players. Once your in the majors with a good enough sample size that primarily switches to stats for me. At some point the stats will paint a pretty clear picture of what a player will be. Now that's not to say a scout can't help find players with certain flaws that with some minor adjustments can be fixed but in general you are who you are.

I think the real issue with the OBP types in the minors is you have to look at K rate. In the majors you can get away with striking out a lot if you do enough of the other things well. In the minors if you are striking out a lot (especially at the lower levels) then the chances are high you will get dominated the higher you move up. Again that's where you need to trust your scouts as well.

You're right. At the big league level, it's all risk/reward. You can strike out a ton if the ROI on contact is sufficient to offset the Ks.

I could go into my angle in great detail, but I think it boils down to the standard deviation of pitching quality at the lower levels of the minors is so large that it's relatively easier to take walks. You see a lot of big lug pitchers with mid-90s fastballs in the minors who can't locate their stuff for crap. That makes it easier for guys to keep their bats on their shoulders. But as pitching quality improves, hitters have to show that they can make meaningful contact because their walk rate is likely to dwindle. It's not an iron law, but walks tend to go down for most hitters as they rise and strikeouts tend to rise. It will certainly vary for different types of hitters, but I think generally it's true for most guys. Once you get to AA, you basically know what you have and then it's building on that. I will give Davidson somewhat of a break, because the Braves seem hellbent on promoting guys aggressively and he's young for High A, especially in the first half of the season.