Loading ...2010 Farm Awards
By Capitol Avenue Club | September 2, 2010
Hitter of the Year: Freddie Freeman — Became the second hitter this year to crack the MLB active roster before his 20th birthday yesterday. He’s been by far the best hitter in the system this year. I don’t suspect he’ll play in the minor leagues any more unless he’s on a rehab assignment, so his parting gift from me is the hitter of the year award.
Honorable Mention: Matt Lipka — The 35th overall selection in this year’s draft signed quickly and got started in the GCL, hitting .302/.357/.401 in 210 PA’s with 20 SB in 23 attempts. He’s scuffled a bit since his promotion to Danville, but he’s only 18 years old and an excellent prospect. With 80 speed, he’s looking at being the first real leadoff hitter the Braves have developed since Rafael Furcal.
Pitcher of the Year: Julio Teheran — Teheran’s much anticipated full-season debut surpassed even the most lofty of expectations. Teheran made it all the way to AA as a 19-year old and hasn’t slowed down yet. One of the top pitching prospects in the game, he’ll almost certainly be on top of my Braves top-40 list in December.
Honorable Mention: Randall Delgado — Fantastic command, excellent 3-pitch mix, smooth delivery. He’d be the top pitching prospect in more systems than not, Teheran keeps him from achieving that label in Atlanta. Like Teheran, he’s made a successful transition to AA, though he’s a year older. He has an outside shot at making it to the big leagues before his 22nd birthday.
Most Improved Hitter: Mycal Jones — After hitting .125/.157/188 with a 29/3 K/BB ratio in 81 April AB’s, Jones has excelled with the bat, recently earning a promotion to AA. He’s a bit older, and like Lipka isn’t a smooth defender, but his bat has shown lots of promise and rates as one of the top two middle infield prospects in the system.
Honorable Mention: Jesus Sucre — Sucre has improved both on and off the field, going from an organizational scrub that can’t speak English to a legit back-up catcher prospect with plus makeup. He’s shown more power this year and hasn’t been trying to pull everything–something that has plagued him in the past. He still has a ways to go before he’ll be ready to back up Brian McCann, but by the time David Ross’s new contract is up, we may see The Sugar Jesus in Atlanta.
Most Improved Pitcher: Mike Minor — He added a few ticks onto his fastball and has improved his breaking pitches which has some scouts calling his ceiling that of a #2 starter. He’s probably more of a #3, but his improvement and ascension to the majors during his first full season should not be ignored.
Honorable Mention: Brandon Beachy — The out-of-nowhere, reliever convert has shocked the prospect-following world with his dominant campaign. His pitchability is off the charts and he has major league stuff. He’s dominated AAA as a starter after dominating AA as both a starter and reliever, and if he’s pitching this well next year he’ll make the big league team out of Spring Training.
Rolaids Relief Award: Craig Kimbrel — This was pretty much the easiest one to pick. By far the best relief prospect in the system, the only thing that’s keeping him from being an elite closer in MLB is the inability to throw strikes. Two plus-plus pitches and excellent mound presence, he could end up being very, very good.
Best Tools Awards
Hit: Freddie Freeman
Power: Cody Johnson
Run: Matt Lipka
OF Arm: Ramon Flores
INF Arm: Andrelton Simmons
C Arm: Christian Bethancourt
OF Fielder: Hector Garcia
INF Fielder: Andrelton Simmons
C Fielder: Christian Bethancourt
Fastball: Julio Teheran
Curveball: David Filak
Slider: Craig Kimbrel
Changeup: Tie–Mike Minor and Chris Masters (palmball)
Command: Randall Delgado
Control: Brett Oberholtzer
Mound Presence: Craig Kimbrel
Topics: Atlanta Braves | No Comments »
Tuesday Tidbit–Freddie Freeman
By Capitol Avenue Club | August 31, 2010
It seems like Freddie Freeman will join the team in the first wave of September callups on Wednesday. I don’t suppose it’s the worst thing in the world to go ahead and start his service time clock if they’re hell bent on using him as their every day 1B in 2011 (as they should be), but I do wish they’d waited until the minor league season is over. His development is not done. Of course, this is true for nearly every prospect that makes his major league debut and true for several years thereafter, but right now the number one priority for the organization with respect to Freeman needs to be ‘getting him ready to play every day in 2011′. A few (six) more days of playing every day couldn’t hurt and I don’t imagine Freeman will help the team enough to justify the six lost starts plus extra service time. Freeman will still be eligible to play in the Arizona Fall League, and I do hope the organization elects to send him there. Any extra bit of development will be crucial for the team’s chances in 2011.
I wouldn’t count on Freeman doing a whole lot down the stretch. Sure, he’s currently a better hitter than many (not all) of the pinch-hitting options available, but he’s also probably going to get himself out a lot. He’ll show some good things, and show some things that need work. More than anything he’ll simply get used to playing in the major leagues, something the organization seems to be placing a bit more emphasis on these days (see calling Mike Minor up a few days before his scheduled start).
Bottom line, this move might help the team in 2010 and almost certainly doesn’t hurt, but they can’t afford to not have a productive Freddie Freeman in 2011. I’m not sure if this decision helps or hurts that cause.
Topics: Atlanta Braves | 45 Comments »
Brandon Beachy Scouting Report
By Capitol Avenue Club | August 29, 2010
It’s hard to find a more interesting story in all of minor league baseball than that of Brandon Beachy. Signed as a non-drafted free agent out of Indiana Wesleyan University in 2008, Beachy spent the first two years of his professional career splitting time between starting and relieving, largely flying under the radar due to a non-existent pedigree and middling strikeout rates in the lower minors. He got a call up to AA at the end of 2009 with an eye on 2010, but only pitched 1 inning for the Mississippi Braves that year. This year he started the year out of the Mississippi bullpen, where he posted a 2.54 FIP (49 K’s, 14 BB’s, 1 HR) in 40 innings. At that point, the blogosphere started to notice, and almost on cue he was moved to the Mississippi rotation, where in 6 starts he was even more dominant, posting a 2.14 FIP (51 K’s, 8 BB’s, 2 HR) in 35 and 1/3 innings. His all around excellence at Mississippi–specifically in the rotation–earned him a call up to class AAA Gwinnett, where he’d posted a 2.67 ERA, a 0.98 WHIP, and a 35-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio entering today’s game (being used as a starter). So a non-drafted free agent reliever convert becomes a dominant starter at AAA after just a bit more than two years of professional baseball, you probably wouldn’t find a story like this anywhere but with the Braves.
In this regard, the reliever convert, out of nowhere aspect of his story, he reminds me a lot of Kris Medlen. Physically, he couldn’t be any more different than Medlen. Listed at 6’3″, 215 LB, Beachy looks more like an Olympic swimmer than a baseball player. The best word I can use to describe him would be ‘strong’, the best two would be ‘incredibly strong’. With ripped biceps and forearms, broad shoulders, and slim hips, his physicality is somewhat reminiscent of current Brave Kyle Farnsworth. He has very little body fat and he’s one of the more impressive physical specimens I’ve seen.
His upper body strength allows him to generate plus velocity without sacrificing movement or utilizing much hip/shoulder separation. His fastball sat 89-90 in the first inning, then 91-93–touching 94 when he needed to–for the rest of the outing. His fastball had some sink and fade, but it wasn’t a true sinker by any means. It wasn’t a terribly hot day, but he did a very good job of holding his velocity and movement throughout his six frames. His best pitch is his fastball, but his repertoire also includes a solid-average change up and a fringe-average curve ball.
The change up featured pristine fastball separation at 81-84 MPH and had some fade. He had no trouble spotting it and used it as an effective out pitch both in the zone and below the knees. He generated several swing-and-misses with the change and relied on it heavily during the middle innings when his fastball/curve ball weren’t all there.
His curve ball comes in at 76-79. He threw two versions of the pitch, one featuring heavy bite that he used almost exclusively as a chase pitch, and one that didn’t move nearly as much but he was able to command much better. The hitters were mostly able to pick up on the 12-6 version of his curve. He uses a lot of hand/wrist action to generate the break, and I wonder if it will be a useful weapon against major leaguers. The other one featured a good amount of deception, but lacked the type of bite or velocity that would typically characterize a legitimate swing-and-miss pitch.
Regarding his mechanics, I don’t like them one bit. His delivery is, in a word, inefficient. It features a long initial stride (good), but beyond that he generates almost all of his velocity from his arm, rather than properly rotating his hips and shoulders in sequence. There’s little separation between the phases of his delivery, which means he has to use a lot of arm effort to throw as hard as he does. The arm strength is definitely there, but it doesn’t have to be this way. By more profoundly separating the phases of his delivery he could throw just as hard–if not harder–and decrease his risk of arm injuries. Still, there’s nothing in his delivery that will prohibit him from being successful in the major leagues. Many players have had extremely successful careers with inefficient deliveries like Beachy’s.
His command was generally good and he did a good job of throwing strikes all day, despite being squeezed some of the time and being victimized by awful defense (Luis Bolivar being the primary culprit). He’s a fly ball pitcher, but not overly so, and he helped his cause a lot today by inducing several pop ups. He worked quickly and maintained an intimidating presence on the mound, never letting the shoddy defense or a bad pitch get to him.
All things considered, I think we’re looking at a #4 starter, here. If the curve ball improves, he could probably be a #3 or a #2, but right now the sum of his abilities gives him a great shot at being a productive back-end starter despite the lack of a true swing-and-miss offering. He’s the type of player fans will like a lot, in that he won’t beat himself and seems like a hard worker with excellent make up. Much like Medlen, he hasn’t worked up to 200 innings a season yet. He’s currently at 113 and 1/3 on the year, which shatters his pro career high. If he can’t build up his stamina enough to go for 200 innings a year, he’ll probably have to settle for a middle-relief role, because he doesn’t have late-game stuff at the moment. I don’t think durability will be as much of a problem for Beachy as it has been for Kris Medlen, because Beachy has a significant advantage in both size and strength. Regardless, Beachy is a great story and another illustration of the Braves’ miracle-working player development department, they certainly deserve a standing round of applause for this one.
Topics: Atlanta Braves | 37 Comments »
Odd tidbit
By Capitol Avenue Club | August 27, 2010
Quite frankly I’m shocked by this:
“The Diamondbacks were one of the most active sellers in late July. But they are taking a different approach ahead of Tuesday’s deadline to set postseason rosters.
One Arizona executive said there is “still a chance” the club will make a move, but described the probability of a deal as “unlikely at this point.”
The Diamondbacks’ best remaining trade chips may be infielders Adam LaRoche and Kelly Johnson. Both players have cleared waivers, according to major-league sources.“ (emphasis mine)
Adam LaRoche clearing waivers doesn’t seem that strange to me, but Kelly Johnson–the guy with a 119 adjusted OPS and having a fine defensive season at 2B–clearing waivers makes little sense to me, especially considering the fact that he’s owed just shy of $500,000 for the rest of the year and isn’t guaranteed a single penny beyond that. In fact, I failed to discuss the possibility of the Braves re acquiring KJ because I thought the possibility of him making it to the Braves, yet alone clearing waivers entirely, was so unlikely. How wrong I was.
Could the Braves use Kelly Johnson? Yes. Matt Diaz is hitting .237/.287/.426. Melky Cabrera is hitting .260/.319/.370. Since May 26, Eric Hinske has hit .202/.303/.347 with 51 strikeouts in 173 AB’s. Nate McLouth isn’t hitting much in AAA. It’s no secret the Braves need to get more from their left fielders. Kelly Johnson can play left field. So can Omar Infante. I see no reason why acquiring Kelly Johnson and playing him at 2B with Infante in LF or playing KJ in LF with Infante at 2B would hurt the team, or even why it wouldn’t help the team.
It’s a matter of cost at this point. If the Braves do have $500,000 left in their budget (doubt they do), it’s unlikely they’ll want to part with anything of value to re acquire a player they essentially released last off season–right or wrong. Given this and the fact that the Diamondbacks probably don’t intend to move him in the first place, it probably won’t happen. It’s too bad, because I’d really like to see him in the line up again.
Blog policy:
Topics: Atlanta Braves | 18 Comments »
Wednesday Post
By Capitol Avenue Club | August 25, 2010
People seem to have noticed that Omar Infante is having an excellent year at the plate, hitting .349/.379/.455 through yesterday’s games. It’s going to be difficult for me to write about this without offending someone, but that’s usually the case and hasn’t ever stopped me before.
For one, it was still a horrible All-Star selection. No matter what he’s done in the second half or does for the rest of the second half, it will have been a horrible All-Star selection. At the time of the selection, Omar Infante was not a starter, not even good enough to start on his own team. The notion that a player not good enough to start on his own team is good enough to make the All-Star team is silly to me.
The title of Rob’s article linked above is “Nobody’s laughing at Omar Infante”. This is true and it was true before he went on his second half tear. The criticism of the decision was never about Omar Infante the person or the baseball player, it was about Charlie Manuel’s inability to properly construct a roster. By the way, I can think of 3 or 4 equally dumb things he did, like carrying only 1 left handed pitcher, carrying only 2 catchers (did 2008 teach us nothing?), and picking Ryan Howard over Joey Votto. For some reason–probably because neither his then current level of performance or anything in his past warranted the selection–Omar Infante was chosen as the prime example of Charlie Manuel’s ineptitude. I can’t really complain, but that wasn’t the only dumb thing Cholly did, and it’s this–Charlie Manuel’s seemingly non-existent roster-construction skills–that we’re really talking about when we say, “Omar Infante: All-Star”, and chuckle.
As for the non-meaningless aspects of the discussion surrounding Omar Infante, I’ll say he’s a career .275/.319/.399 hitter and I seriously doubt this torrid pace is anywhere close to sustainable. Really, I’m not convinced this is anything other than a severely exaggerated BABIP spike (BABIP: .393*, xBABIP: .328). He’s striking out slightly less than he has in his career, but he’s walking less and not hitting as many extra-base hits. I expect his production going forward to resemble the career line more than his current line.
*Outrageously unsustainable. For instance, Chipper Jones–one of the great hitters of our generation and a career .306/.405/.536 hitter–has never posted a BABIP that high in a single season. His highest ever was in 2008, when he posted a .383 BABIP. That was the year he hit .364 and won the batting title. I know some people don’t like to make judgments based on BABIP, but it’s safe to say Infante’s BABIP is not sustainable. Period.
That’s not to discount what he’s done or to say he’s useless. In fact, the contrary is true, and the Braves are extremely lucky to have such an excellent back-up infielder to step into a full-time role with Chipper done for the year. I can’t imagine the horror of watching Brooks Conrad or Diory Hernandez play every day. Omar Infante is very, very good at his job (being a bench player). There are ways to reward players who are very good at their jobs without putting them in the same conversation with a crop of future hall of famers. It may sound bad to say Omar Infante doesn’t deserve the all star selection, but it’s true. I won’t subject myself to the moral panic surrounding the polarizing issue. I can say he doesn’t deserve the all star selection and still say he’s a very good utility player. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to.
One final point, it’s not Omar Infante’s fault he got something he didn’t deserve*, and he has nothing to apologize for.
*Reminds me of one of my favorite Clint Eastwood/The Wire quotes: ‘deserve’s got nothing to do with it’.
Somewhat related. I haven’t looked at this too closely, but it’s not clear to me that Alex Gonzalez should be the starting SS next year with Omar Infante on the bench. It’s not an issue in 2010, with Chipper out the organization needs both of them to play every day. But in 2011 presumably with Chipper playing 3B and Prado playing 2B every day, the Braves could play Omar Infante at SS and use Alex Gonzalez as a pinch-hitting power threat with a crappy on base average and super-sub, similar to the way they used Omar Infante in 2010 before Chipper’s injury. I’m getting rather sick of Alex Gonzalez hacking at every spherical object thrown in his general direction.
Troy Glaus hit a home run for Gwinnett last night, but made two errors and another misplay playing 3B………… With September looming, I highly recommend reading this primer on the Braves potential September Callups from Joe at Braves Heart………… I forgot to mention this and I wanted to go on at length about it, but if you scroll through the BA Draft Blog you’ll get the correct impression that the organization has been unbelievably stingy with respect to draft spending the past few years and it’s even more exaggerated this year. I could rant for several paragraphs, but I’ll just say it’s unacceptable. That’s how organizations turn into crap.
Topics: Atlanta Braves | 35 Comments »
Lee’s Value to the Braves
By Capitol Avenue Club | August 19, 2010
Let’s quantify this thing.
First of all, Lee is probably a 1-win upgrade for the Braves over the regular season’s final six weeks. Seeing as the Braves are a team with a good chance to make the post season but aren’t locks, the marginal value of the additional win is very high, something like $5 million. So, the on-field value of his contract is $5 million, minus his salary (half of which, or $1.7 million, the Braves are responsible for), plus the cost of a replacement level player (~$100,000) or about $3.4 million.
Nine days ago, Derrek Lee was on the border between Type A and Type B free agent classification. He’s since hit 4 home runs, and at this point I think he has about a 50/50 shot at being a Type A free agent. If the Braves offer Lee arbitration after the season, he’ll either accept or decline and sign elsewhere. If he accepts, he’ll be given a 1 year contract at a salary to be determined later via mutual agreement or at the discretion of an arbitration panel. I estimate he’ll make about $14 million in arbitration. He could probably secure more guaranteed money in a multi-year deal on the open market, but he wouldn’t be able to top the $14 million in average annual value. So, the possibility that he accepts arbitration is certainly there.
If Lee did accept arbitration, I’m sure the Braves would do exactly what they did with Rafael Soriano–immediately trade him for nothing of consequence simply to get his salary off the books and clear a space for Freddie Freeman to play every day. Unlike Soriano, the Braves might have to eat some money, perhaps $2 million, to trade Lee. So, they’re looking at the risk of eating $2 million (NOT the risk of paying his entire salary) versus the reward of the draft pick (or pair of draft picks).
Since they’ll know whether Lee is a Type A or Type B free agent after the season, they’ll be able to factor that into their calculations, so I’ll consider both possibilities. We’ll say the pair of picks are worth $5 million and the single pick is worth $2 million. From here, calculating the break even point is a simple algebra problem that you probably did at some point in high school (or possibly middle school, they’re teaching these things so early these days).
It’s a binary situation, either Lee accepts arbitration or he doesn’t. So the probability of the two events must add up to one. At the break even point, the probability of him declining times the reward plus the probability of him declining times the risk must equal zero. Thus, we have two simultaneous equations with two variables, meaning we can easily solve for the two variables. The one we’re interested in is the probability of him declining and signing elsewhere.
By my calculations if Lee is a type A free agent, the Braves should offer him arbitration if there is at least a 28.6 percent chance he declines to sign elsewhere. If Lee is a type B free agent, the Braves should offer him arbitration if there’s a better than 50 percent chance he’ll decline to sign elsewhere. I don’t know the thinking of Lee and his representation, but it seems like a pretty good bet to offer him arbitration regardless of his classification, but almost certainly if he is a type A.
The intent of this article is to discuss Lee’s intrinsic value to the Braves, not to ramble about arbitration politics, so enough about that. Like I said, I think the compensated free agent status has some value to the Braves, but not the $5 million like it would for a Cliff Lee or Mark Teixeira. To account for the fact that the Braves might not be in a position to benefit by offering him arbitration, we’ll assess the value of the potential draft pick(s) at $2 million, meaning Lee’s contract is worth about $5.4 million to the Braves:
The Braves parted with three “C” pitching prospects, 2 of them 22 or younger, one of them 23 or older. The value of the package:
Seems like a pretty even trade to me.
Topics: Atlanta Braves | 36 Comments »
Transaction Analysis: D-Lee
By Capitol Avenue Club | August 18, 2010
Atlanta Braves
Acquired 1B Derrek Lee and cash considerations from the Chicago Cubs for RHP Robinson Lopez, RHP Tyrelle Harris, and LHP Jeffrey Lorick.
Place Troy Glaus on the 15-day disabled list.
Troy Glaus is a 33 year old right handed hitter with a career 119 OPS+. Derrek Lee is a 34 year old right handed hitter with a career 122 OPS+. Glaus walks a bit more and strikes out a bit more, but they’ve been more or less the same offensive player in terms of value (from a rate standpoint) for their entire careers. Derrek Lee enters today (and he’s not playing today, more on that later) hitting .251/.335/.416. Troy Glaus enters today hitting .239/.343/.406. Considering the park effects, it doesn’t seem like much of an upgrade on the surface. Two mid-30′s first basemen having poor (by their standards and the league’s standards for first basemen) offensive seasons.
However, Derrek Lee has hit much better in the second half than he did in the first half. Through his first 85 games, he hit .233/.329/.366. In 24 games since he’s hit .313/.356/.583. I’m not a fan of arbitrary endpoints, but I think it is noteworthy that he’s been hitting well as of late and hit 4 HR in his last 3 games. Glaus has done the opposite. After hitting .254/.361/.441 in the first half (85 games), he’s hit .196/.294/.301 in 30 second half games. Presumably the Braves have a pretty good idea of which one is closer to the truth, and they obviously think Lee will be an upgrade. I can’t think of any reason they would be wrong, Lee will probably be an upgrade.
But then again, Lee hasn’t played in a few days because of a bulging disk in his back. How, exactly, will he rebound from this injury? Anyone’s guess. It’s quite a gamble from here, but of course I don’t know everything the teams making this deal do. Also, handing the medical staff another project in the middle of a pennant race, since they’ve done such wonderful work with the likes of Jason Heyward, Jordan Schafer, and Glaus himself, seems like a very bad idea.
Still, there’s a pretty good chance Lee helps the team down the stretch, more than Eric Hinske, Troy Glaus, Barbaro Canizares, or Freddie Freeman could. The cash simply makes Lee’s contract palatable for the organization’s payroll, and had a lot to do with the quality of the players the Cubs got in return.
Speaking of which, the Cubs get three legitimate prospects. The best of the trio is Robinson Lopez, a 6’2″ right-hander with an extremely live arm and a very projectable frame. His results at class A Rome have been disappointing, but it’s important to remember he’s only 19 years old and this is his first full season. I still hold him in very high regard. The other two are relievers. Lorick, the left hander, was a 20th round pick out of the University of Virginia in last year’s draft. He’s not the typical refined prospect you see from a 4-year college, but he has some late-game potential. Harris was taken one round before Lorick in the same draft. He throws hard and he’s had a successful first full pro season, making it all the way to AA. He’s got a huge frame (6’4″, 235 LB), and like Lorick has some late-game potential.
I think the Cubs did very well to get Lopez and two interesting relief prospects, even if they had to pay some to get them. Still, this deal probably makes the Braves better, and the middle of a pennant race isn’t the time to worry about giving up a lottery ticket and some Carolina League relievers.
One more thing, if the organization had put Troy Glaus on the DL a month ago, they’d probably still have their three prospects and a productive first baseman. Though it’s possibly just a string of bad luck for some otherwise competent people, I have to wonder if the team’s medical staff knows what the hell they’re doing after several significant screw ups the past few years.
Topics: Atlanta Braves | 68 Comments »
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