Lincoln's First 2009 Draft Board

[amr120402]

I go to school at IU and had no idea we had a good catcher. I will for sure be going to some games this spring to check him out and give you guys some feedback on how he looks.

[LHamilton]

Awesometown, a lot of response. Let me try and tackle these questions as best I can. Just to let y'all know, Adam and I are planning a podcast on this subject for tomorrow so any question you'd like answered there feel free to post.

Lincoln, no Ryan Jackson? What's your thoughts on him?

Jackson's a good player. He's a solid defensive player, unforntuantely he wasn't all that productive last year. He had a .359 wOBA* -- average for '09 guys is .404 -- he hit for no power .136 IsoP and just 27% XBH%, he makes good contact 9% K but walks even less 8.36%. Unless he has a monster year, which he may, he's more of a 3rd or 4th round guy.

Where do you see Blake Smith from Cal going?

Smith has good tools, power/speed, and was pretty productive last year, .421 wOBA*. Unfortunately he can not control the strike zone, 23.55% K and 6.6% BB. No college hitter since 2001, as far back as I have data, has turned into a good pro with K/BB splits anywhere near that bad. That said, I could see a team making a mistake and reaching for him early.

but im curious about the omission of Robbie Shields.
I realize hes at a small school and could drop fairly quickly but a lot of scouts really like this kid.

Shields was just a pretty good player at Southern Florida, nothing spectacular. He hit .348/.424/.571, was 6 for 9 stealing bases, struck out 12% of the time and walked less often than that. Good numbers but not stats that spell stardom when they're on a mediocre D-II team.

Shields generated a lot of buzz in the Cape where he was the rage of the league for all of 43 at bats. I think people are freaking out of a tiny sample size and not realizing that Shields is what he is, a solid player without any plus skills.

Any draft board this early is subject to plenty of change as you mentioned, but a few guys that we differ on are Phegley, den Dekker, Kyle Gibson and Shields.
I'm not sure Phegley is rising at this point. Reports are that he has looked stiff behind the plate and has added bulk.
If he goes 7 or above, that would be the shock of the draft for me.
Den Dekker is a nice player and a guy that I think is more of a 2nd rounder at best for me. I don't think he will ever be a star, but will move quickly, provide some speed, but power and plate discipline won't be his strong suits. Again, quality player but not a first rounder in my opinion.
Kyle Gibson not in the top 34 is very surprising to me. I am interested to hear why you believe he will fall that far.
Shields is another guy that I could easily see being taken late in the first round. How far off your list was he?
Once again, just some observations and questions to see where you stand on these guys and why...

Just so everyone knows, this list is NOT a forecast of where I think guys will go. These rankings are just my opinion on how guys should be ranked, not how they are at baseball america.

If Phegley hits as well as he did last year and can be adequate defensively, he's a top 10 pick.

Den Dekker is more of a second round guy for me too, but this is a pretty shallow draft class and I'll take him over most of the unproven high schoolers at this point in time.

As for Gibson....

I figured that his would be my most controversial ranking. I know Gibson is gernally regarded as a top 5 or certainly top 10 prospect but I wouldn't take him in the first 2 rounds, maybe more.

Scouting reports talk about his easy mechanics as a tall and fall pitcher. Mechanics aren't easy if you don't use your legs and Kyle Gibson doesn't use his legs. Pitching mechanics are all about creating an effiecent kinetic chain and he doesn't generate energy from his base.

He slightly hyperabducts his elbow - something Missouri pitchers love to do - adding force to a key joint and creating timing problems which lead to his arm being dragged by his body...the shoulder has got to absorb all that extra stress.

I'd put him in the group with Crow and Volz or even Alex White but his stuff isn't in the same category as those guys either. Those guys have the stuff to be elite level short inning relievers and Gibson has a high 80's fastball and average slider and no change - that's not typical closer stuff.

He's been productive and has a good frame, which makes you think there's projection in there. Unless he radically over hauls his throwing motion or suddenly gains 7-10 mph on his fastball, he's a bad investment.

DJ LeMahieu SS, LSU , Chris Dominguez 3B, Louisville, Mike Minor Vanderbilt will all be drafted before many on this list after #20.

Aaron Crow is going to be drafted much higher then #9 with him having zero leverage this time around and before Tanner.....Unlike Wade Townsend him not signing had very little to do with his health.

DJ LeMahieu posted the lowest wOBA* of any highly regarded sophomore in 2008, .310 . He hit for no power, .120 IsoP despite playing in a massive hitters park and didn't walk, 7%. I don't see how that fits the Indians, A's or Montgomery Biscuts. He's got some tools, but if he doesn't produce he's just late round filler.

Dominguez in an interesting player. He's got some big time tools, legit light tower power, but he swings and misses too much. He K'ed about 17% of the time last year, but that did represent a great deal of improvement. If he shaves a few points of that K rate and walks a little more often I could see him in the first round. But he has to show that improvement first.

Minor was on my HM list and not any higher because I have slight questions about his ultimate upside. I see him as a #3 starter, mediocre stuff with good control guy. I want to see more of him this spring, I haven't seen enough of him to comment on his mechanics, but I could see him shooting up these rankings.

Crow may be, and almost definately would, taken higher than I have him if the draft were today. That doesn't mean he should be though. I don't see him staying healthy enough to be a starter long term.

[Summer Ball]

Excellant work. I am impressed. Overall, I agree with your picks. Good work.

[flscout]

Also, just a minor note ...Stephen Strasburg is the correct spelling.

[Mike Rogers]

I understand the contact concerns with Dominguez, but what really separates him, statistically, from Pedro Alvarez, Lincoln?

Chirs Dominguez in 2008:
.464 adjusted wOBA
.323 adjusted IsoP
16.3% K rate
8.0% BB rate
7.6 on my speed score (average is 5, 10 is good)

Pedro Alvarez in 2007:
.524 adj wOBA
.323 adj IsoP
20.6% K rate
12.7% BB rate
2.4 on my speed score.

If you assume something like 320 PA's in a college season (Alvarez had 315 in 07; Dominguez had 288 in 08), the 4.7% difference in their BB rate equates out to 15 BB's. Obviously Alvarez is better and his adjusted wOBA from 07 shows that (and he still posted .458 in 2008 for Vandy), but is Dominguez really that far behind him, statistically speaking?

[bkmhoxx]

I had Gibson hitting 91-92 last year against Kansas. He touched 93 a time or two.
His slider was sick in that game as well.

[visgc]

Aside from Oliver, all the college starters on your list (+Gibson) get dinged for their poor mechanics, but none of the college relievers or highschool pitchers share the contagious malady.

Or is it that you're just less concearned about the highschoolers because they'll be joining big league instruction at a young age and less concearned about the relivers because their fewer innings?

Have you had a chance to review video of the highschool arms to examine their mechanics?

Thanks for the list.

[Mike Rogers]

My guess is that video on the college pitchers is more prevalent where as for HS arms there's really just the Aflac game which I remember Lincoln saying he's watched a couple of times.

[LHamilton]

Aside from Oliver, all the college starters on your list (+Gibson) get dinged for their poor mechanics, but none of the college relievers or highschool pitchers share the contagious malady.

Or is it that you're just less concearned about the highschoolers because they'll be joining big league instruction at a young age and less concearned about the relivers because their fewer innings?

Have you had a chance to review video of the highschool arms to examine their mechanics?

Thanks for the list.

Well it's kind of a selection bias thing, I'm not going to put a high schooler with bad mechanics in the first round -- a la, Garret Cole last year.

I did TiVo the AFLAC game and watch it over and over. There's a fair amount of AFLAC footage on youtube, here's Tyler Matzek for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzYZZy3Z ... re=related -- you can see a bunch of others on the side, related videos box. Jacob Turner's arm action is a little long and Matt Purke's arm angle is pretty low but of the for sure HS starters on the list I haven't seen major red flags in any of their deliverys.

I like Brad Boxberger's motion and I actually kind of like Scheppers motion, he's got good arm action and slight problem on his follow thru. He had a shoulder injury, but I've never gotten clear word on what actually happened.

I understand the contact concerns with Dominguez, but what really separates him, statistically, from Pedro Alvarez, Lincoln?

Chirs Dominguez in 2008:
.464 adjusted wOBA
.323 adjusted IsoP
16.3% K rate
8.0% BB rate
7.6 on my speed score (average is 5, 10 is good)

Pedro Alvarez in 2007:
.524 adj wOBA
.323 adj IsoP
20.6% K rate
12.7% BB rate
2.4 on my speed score.

If you assume something like 320 PA's in a college season (Alvarez had 315 in 07; Dominguez had 288 in 08), the 4.7% difference in their BB rate equates out to 15 BB's. Obviously Alvarez is better and his adjusted wOBA from 07 shows that (and he still posted .458 in 2008 for Vandy), but is Dominguez really that far behind him, statistically speaking?

I like this question and I think you could say that Dominguez and Alvarez have roughly similar cielings so the comp is a fun one.

Putting aside differences in scouting reports, Alvarez is a couple tiers above Dominguez at the same stage of development. The biggest reason is because the 4.7% difference is much bigger than it may seem. While 4.7% may count to only 15 walks in a college season, it's close to 40 over the course of an MLB season -- which is the difference between Soriano and Ryan Howard in walks. The other is due to the distribution of walks among college hitters. For all sophomores in my system the average walk rate is about 10% with a standard deviation of about 2.5%. That means that there's 2 standard deviations seperating them. That's the difference between a 40 scouting grade and a 60 if this were power we'd be talking about a guy who could hit 15 home runs vs a guy who could hit 30+.

Add in their freshman year stats were Alvarez had a crazy BB rate, 19%, and Dominguez struck out 48,000 times, and you get a little bit better idea of true ability level.

[Mike Rogers]

I like this question and I think you could say that Dominguez and Alvarez have roughly similar cielings so the comp is a fun one.

Putting aside differences in scouting reports, Alvarez is a couple tiers above Dominguez at the same stage of development. The biggest reason is because the 4.7% difference is much bigger than it may seem. While 4.7% may count to only 15 walks in a college season, it's close to 40 over the course of an MLB season -- which is the difference between Soriano and Ryan Howard in walks. The other is due to the distribution of walks among college hitters. For all sophomores in my system the average walk rate is about 10% with a standard deviation of about 2.5%. That means that there's 2 standard deviations seperating them. That's the difference between a 40 scouting grade and a 60 if this were power we'd be talking about a guy who could hit 15 home runs vs a guy who could hit 30+.

Add in their freshman year stats were Alvarez had a crazy BB rate, 19%, and Dominguez struck out 48,000 times, and you get a little bit better idea of true ability level.

Just got home but thought I'd come here to see if that podcast was up, but I'll wait and download it in a couple days.

As for your post: Nice tidbit on the soph walk rate! I don't have anything like that. That's a great idea that I just may 'borrow.'

Very convincing argument. I'm just a big Dominguez fan even with his contact struggles and less patience than Alvarez. I'm glad that this thread got made and look forward to following your big board though the spring, as well as throwing out some questions like these to you.

[Adam Foster]

http://www.projectprospect.com/audio/24

[Mike Rogers]

Well, that just kept me up longer than I had anticipated being up for. I enjoyed it, though. Would've like to have been able to jump in there, sorry about that, Adam. I'm jonesing to get Lincoln to talk about AJ Pollock -- we differ on him as a draft prospect. I have not come up with a top 30 yet (on the to-do list at some point), but I'm decently certain that I wouldn't have Pollock inside of it at the moment.

[LHamilton]

Well, that just kept me up longer than I had anticipated being up for. I enjoyed it, though. Would've like to have been able to jump in there, sorry about that, Adam. I'm jonesing to get Lincoln to talk about AJ Pollock -- we differ on him as a draft prospect. I have not come up with a top 30 yet (on the to-do list at some point), but I'm decently certain that I wouldn't have Pollock inside of it at the moment.

What don't you like about Pollock? Where would you have him slotted, roughly, right now?

[flscout]

While we wait for Lincoln's responses, here's a Kyle Gibson scouting video. It's from the Cape Cod League (2007, right?). A fastball of 85-90 is burnt into the video. I was just reading from a couple sources that he projected to add velocity as his body physically matures. Does anyone know how hard he was throwing last weekend?

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I have not heard a report on Gibson's velo against Nevada, but if all goes according to plan I will get to see him next weekend.

On the other side, Gibson looked impressive in his own right. The 6-foot-6 junior righthander gave up just two runs on five hits with eight strikeouts and no walks. His inability to hold baserunners close at first base led to both runs as Arizona State’s Matt Newman and Abe Ruiz both stole second base and scored as a result, for the only two runs given up by Gibson. His fastball sat at 90-92 mph in the early innings and dipped into the upper 80s as the game went on. He showed plus secondary stuff, racking up five strikeouts with his slider (82-84 mph with late, hard break). He used his changeup effectively to neutralize the Sun Devils’ lefthanded hitters, enticing weak ground balls along with two strikeouts. Arizona State’s hitters did make him pay when he left his fastball up in the zone. As a result, the Mizzou righthander threw more offspeed pitches after one time through ASU’s lineup. Gibson kept his poise and pitched seven strong innings for the Tigers.

From BA regarding the matchup against Leake.

[Mike Rogers]

Well, that just kept me up longer than I had anticipated being up for. I enjoyed it, though. Would've like to have been able to jump in there, sorry about that, Adam. I'm jonesing to get Lincoln to talk about AJ Pollock -- we differ on him as a draft prospect. I have not come up with a top 30 yet (on the to-do list at some point), but I'm decently certain that I wouldn't have Pollock inside of it at the moment.

What don't you like about Pollock? Where would you have him slotted, roughly, right now?

I would think somewhere in the middle-2nd round, maybe later. In my mind, some form of a poor-man's-Dustin Ackley for the lack of a better way to describe it.

He cut his K rate in half from 07 to 08, but it was at the expense of his BB's. I don't know if this was a concerted effort on his part, or if it was just an evolution of his game, but for someone with minimal power on the collegiate level, he needs to be up over the 12-14% BB plateau in my mind to hold value. I had him with adjusted wOBA's of .381 in 2007 and .402 in 2008. Granted, it's the big east and he's in a slight pitchers park (95 TPF from 05-08), but I'm not so sure that he's a top 30 college hitter in this draft, let alone top 30 draft prospect.

If he can get back to his BB rates of 2007 and keep his K% stagnant or without a big jump, then I'll definitely reconsider/join you in your praise for him. Thus far, though, he's one of the few I've found that we disagree a good amount on, statistically.

I do have the next 3 days off, so I'm going to put some time into updating some 2009 numbers and forming some semblance of a college hitters big board (don't have an overwhelming base of knowledge on the prep players/cannot diagnose big problems mechanically in pitchers/hitters like you can), which will help me be able to be more concrete in my placement of players.