2.11.13 CACast: I’m A Tools… Fan
February 11, 2013 at 12:21 pm by Franklin Rabon under Atlanta Braves
Listen:
OR
Subscribe via iTunes in the sidebar to the right —–>
OR
Download this episode (right click and save)
Franklin, Ben, Mark and Ethan discuss the Braves hitting prospects in our top 40 prospects list:
5 Christian Bethancourt
8 Jose Peraza
9 Edward Salcedo
10 Todd Cunningham
11 Evan Gattis, aka “The Second Coming”
12 Joey Terdoslavich
13 Tommy La Stella
14 Matt Lipka
15 Bryan De La Rosa
17 Kyle Kubitza
25 Josh Elander
26 William Beckwith
27 Fernelys Sanchez
29 Justin Black
30 Carlos Franco
31 Connor Lien
32 Joe Leonard
34 Johan Camargo
36 Blake Brown
37 Ernesto Mejia
We also discuss wOBA, TrAv, Secondary Average, wRC+, ISO and BABIP in our sabermetric primer series.
Music:
Open – The Tom Collins – TKMT
Middle – Mavis Staples – Down In Mississippi
Close – Oasis – F’ing in the bushes (feat. Ethan Purser)
Loading ...
I wonder if we can track the outcome of players Ethan thinks will be good and those he doesn’t depending on whether he said “no” at the beginning of his answers or “yeah”….
pretty sure ethan’s responses of no or yes are decided by cosmic rays striking his synapses at random and unpredictable intervals.
I no know how 2 talk, u guyz.
its okay as long as you keep the listeners trippin’ over all the ‘spect knowledge you’re droppin’
I would like the say that while Gattis is an interesting prospect I feel like a lot of people overrate him because of his story.
that may be true , butt a LOT of it is that people tend to jump all over power. Even if it’s a small sample size.
They see a guy who creams a bunch of HR’s and they glaze over all the other stats. Defense, contact, K’s, AGE…etc
If Gattis was a speed/contact player and just entering AAA at 26, the fans would probably not be nearly as high on him.
You are right about that too.
“If Gattis was a speed/contact player and just entering AAA at 26, the fans would probably not be nearly as high on him.”
Unless his name was Constanza, then we would be starting him and looking at trading Heyward. :-P
We love the 30 year old rookie.
Gattis reminds me of the AJC fanbase freakout over Tyler Flowers a few years back. Guy jacks a few homers in winter ball, DOB writes a couple of stories about him and all of a sudden, he’s the second coming of Carlton Fisk.
When the Braves included him in the Vazquez trade to the White Sox, some fans were ready to run Frank Wren out of town.
yeah and white sox fans just want him to go away now. Wren basically turned Flowers into one year of near cy young level performance out of vazquez, plus paul maholm and reed johnson.
I have a question in regards to Single/Double/Triple/Home Run rates which I know is something Franklin has mentioned he looks at frequently. My question specifically is in regards to Brian McCann. I remember reading something back in 2011 when it took McCann a little while before he got his first Home Run that season. Some fans were worried about McCann’s lack of Home Runs, but what this article’s author was worried about was McCann’s Doubles Rate. He said it had been going down each season since 2008. I did the math, and it has been going down each season since 2008. In 2008, McCann hit a Double in 7.8% of his total Plate Appearances. In 2012, McCann only hit a Double in 2.8% of his total Plate Appearances. McCann’s Home Run rate however has stayed pretty consistent over the years since 2008. It probably took me a few too many words to get to my question, but here it is: What exactly can we take from this information in regards to McCann? Does it mean he’s losing some power? If so, why wouldn’t his Home Run rate be going down as well?
doubles power and home runs power are different things. doubles power is mostly an issue of making consistently solid contact. Home run power is an issue of hitting the ball really hard when you do make solid contact. With McCann, I think you’re seeing a combo of two factors at work. 1) He’s making slightly less solid contact but 2) when he does make solid contact he has more power.
Interesting. I’ve never thought of it that way before (Doubles power and Home Run power being two different things). So, he’s making less overall solid contact leading to a decline in Doubles, but still hitting the ball hard enough when he does make solid contact that it’s keeping his Home Run rate steady. Thanks, Franklin.
I think another thing to look at is the shift that McCann has been seeing more of throughout the years. Doubles power is often referred to as ‘gap power’ and there is not a 2B standing directly in that gap most of the time he hits. While this shift does take away from his power numbers and lowers his BABIP significantly, it makes for at least 3 extremely entertaining bunt-for-hit attempts from McCann per year, which adds way more value, if I’m not mistaken.
*There is NOW an 2B standing in that gap. How one letter can change things so drastically…
ARE WE GONNA GET THE INDIAN’S DRAFT PICK???
I think the Indians lose theirs and we get slotted somewhere at the end of the first round. I dont think we just get it.
we get the 31st pick for now. If/when Lohse signs we will get the 32nd pick. Under the new CBA, what pick a team gets has nothing whatsoever to do with which team signs the player (so long as the player gets signed).
NICE! still a very nice draft pick, yeah?
decent. its roughly what we would have had to begin with if we hadn’t signed BJ Upton (we had the 28th pick), so no real loss going from Bourn to Upton draftpick wise.
I just find it amusing that his average salary over the contract is less than what the Braves will pay either of the Uptons on average over the rest of their contracts. So much for the idea that the Braves couldn’t afford Bourn.
I don’t think anybody ever though we couldn’t afford Bourn, the idea was that we wouldn’t want to pay him in the 4th and 5th years of his contract, when he’d be a 33-34 year old speed player.
Maybe not on this blog, but in other places, like the DOB blog, that was the way it was presented. For example, this quote from an old DOB blog post.
Upton, 28, a former No. 2 overall draft pick by the Rays in 2002, is expected to command a five-year deal worth around $75 million, which would make him more affordable than Bourn, despite being a year younger. Indications are that Bourn’s asking price will be well above that.
Well, I do think the draft pick $$$ loss was a way bigger factor than anybody anticipated. Remember, its not the actual draft pick that teams care about now, its the money they’re allowed to spend on draft picks that gets subtracted that they care about. It’s telling that the team that signed Bourn was a team that had it’s first round pick protected, and had already lost their 2nd round pick too. I would imagine in future years Boras is going to start advising clients to take the qualifying offer more, to scare teams out of offering them.
But yeah, most people who really thought about Bourn v. Upton were pretty sure teams were going to be reluctant to give Bourn a 5 year deal for big money AND high draft pick money. But I think most people thought they’d end up getting fairly similar deals. Bourn taking that much less, plus not having the 5th year guaranteed (though for all intents and purposes it is guaranteed just so long as he doesn’t have a significant injury in his 4th year) was a pretty big surprise for almost everyone.
On side note: If any of you are on Twitter, do yourself a favor and follow Keith Law. That guy is the biggest smartass on the planet and loves to bait the idiots that bother him with retarded questions.
He may be an ass hat in real life, but he is a Troll King on the twitter.
I’m noticing you guys and gals are liking the direct download option. I’ll put that in all future podcast posts.
By the way, the topic for next week’s CACast is going to be the rotation, for all of you who are antsy to hear about the MLB club instead of prospects.
I think we’ve settled on every monday for the day we drop the CACast.
I’m going to do everything in my power to keep this one under an hour, haha.