David Laurila’s Sunday Notes excerpt from the weekend is a Stat Scout’s dream. Ryan Noda obviously has a decent chance to be the next Kevin Youkilis and a non-zero chance to be the next Joey Votto, so you should fall in love with him.
Stat Scouting ™ is an important skill for a baseball blogger. The typical process is:
Identify player(s) with intriguing statistics who don’t really show up on the normal prospect lists;
Build a surrounding narrative out of cherry-picked actual scouting reports and peripheral information;
Make some over-the-top and irresponsible comparisons;
Profit!
In what will probably be a recurring exercise, let’s Stat Scout some dudes on the Blue Jays farm.
The method here is essentially to sort minor league teams and leagues by both production (think wRC+ or FIP), statistical indicators like K-BB% and ISO, and other things we know are objectively important like age vs. level. Then we pull names off the top of the pile and haphazardly research what underlies their production. The point here isn’t to repeat flattering information about the prospects we’re all already excited about, so we’ll also be ignoring list-toppers like Vlad and Bo; as well as guys already getting enough attention due to their statistics like Kevin Smith and Biggio. We’re trying to dig deeper here.
Low-A Ball
Josh Winckowski
Winckowski started 13 games for the C’s and in all of Low A he ranked 2nd for “qualified pitchers” in both K-BB% (19.4%) and FIP (2.77). He was the 6th youngest qualified pitcher in Low A; Winckowski was drafted out of Estero High School in the 2016 draft. He also ranked 6th highest in groundball percentage in Low A, with a 54.4% mark. These are really good numbers.
A Naples News story provides some relevant info about Winckowski: apparently his fastball touched 96 this year and sits in the low 90s, and he also tosses a slider and a changeup. There is a Youtube video of this guy from July, and his mechanics and body seem normal and, importantly, not underwhelming. At 6’3 and 185 he has some room to grow, which is good.
If you sort all Low A pitchers with at least 30 IP, instead of just “qualified pitchers”, you’ll see some more highly ranked pitchers than Winckowski who posted obviously better numbers before graduating to A ball (one example being Hans Crouse, a 2017 second rounder by Texas). But you’ll also see a C’s teammate of Winckowski’s topping the K-BB% list, a 24 year old reliever named…
Justin Watts
His 29.4% K-BB mark lead Low A pitchers with at least 30 IP but if you look at previous seasons it’s not exactly rare for a few arms to do something like that. Watts was a 37th rounder last summer out of a Division 2 school. I did find one old draft year article stating that his fastball is 90-91 mph and he pairs it with a swing-and-miss slider. There are two Youtube videos - catcher views of the fastball - and to my wholly untrained eye there juuuuuust might be some RPMs on that thing.
Watts will probably fail as he climbs the ladder, but if we see more numbers it will be worth digging into the additional information that will, at that point, actually be available.
Joey Murray
If you check out every short-season pitcher with just 20 IP or more, 2018 8th round draftee Joey Murray ranks 7th with a very nice 37.1 K%. He missed more bats than Justin Watts while walking hitters a bit more often, but Murray did it while being 21 years old, so much more age appropriate for the league than Watts.
I remember reports from the draft comping Murray to Yusmeiro Petit, saying that he could surprise people due to an “invisible” fastball. Maybe that was evident in Vancouver this year.
A Ball
Maximo Castillo
MAXIMO! was the youngest "qualified" pitcher in A Ball this year. His production numbers don’t jump off the page (12.9 K-BB%; 4.04 FIP) but at least he’s still on that first page when you sort the level by qualified pitchers on FanGraphs. The numbers that do jump off the page are the 131.1 IP and his age – 19 years old. A lot of the familiar young players you see in A Ball when you drop the IP cut-off did not pitch nearly as many innings as Castillo this year (Brusdar Graterol, MacKenzie Gore, Luis Patino, Hunter Greene, DL Hall, and Deivi Garcia being some examples).
For what it’s worth, in way less innings last year Castillo’s numbers were fantastic, leading to him skipping low-A entirely in 2018. I don’t know if throwing so many innings at this stage of his development is necessarily a good thing, but I do know that it’s a thing that Maximo did, and I kind of want to give him some brownie points for it.
Speaking of desserts, Maximo is listed at over 250 pounds. Reports on his stuff seem very up and down – I’ve read first hand reports of his velocity being around 91 (or even worse), and other sources that either saw more or project more. Mark Hulet in a pre-2018 fantasy article said in passing that he had #3 SP upside. This seems like a guy who could grab some helium if he buys into the right kind of conditioning program.
High-A Ball
Patrick Murphy
Murphy was top 2 out of all qualified A+ pitchers in ERA, FIP, and xFIP. His K-BB% of about 14% was decent but not exciting, and his age (23) was just okay for the level. He limited runs on the strength of an elite GB%, which was nearly at the 60% mark and 2nd for qualified arms at the entire level. Murphy has had, like, 6 major pitching surgeries as a prospect, which sucks, but as David Laurila noted a month ago he stayed healthy this year and added a ton of velocity, even hitting 100 this season.
On your Blue Jays prospect list you might want to go ahead and leapfrog him over former first rounder TJ Zeuch, who posted demonstrably worse numbers during his stay at Dunedin last year. Another important data point is the fact that the Blue Jays protected Murph from the Rule 5 by adding him to the 40 man – we should take this as a clear sign that there is something here.
Yennsy Diaz
This is probably a familiar name, because you don’t forget a name like Yennsy. If we drop our sort criterion from “qualified” pitchers to those that threw at least 80 innings in A+, we get a list of nearly 120 names. Yennsy appears at 21st in FIP (3.37) and a very exciting 10th best for age – he was only 21 all season long. The rest of his numbers were more mediocre than standout, but holding his own in a SP role at his age in A+ bodes well for a potential relief future in the majors.
The videos available on Youtube and past scouting reports align with this projection; Yennsy has reportedly touched 97 in a SP role with a very quick arm, and various past reports say sporadically lukewarm things about the changeup and breaking ball, so he’s at least not hopeless in the offspeed department. Like Murph, Yennsy was added to the 40 man roster this offseason so I am kind of cheating here – the team is already signalling that he’s kind of a dude.
Jackson McClelland
If we lower the A+ IP cutoff all the way to 30 IP to bring in the relievers, we can find this guy at 70th in K-BB% out of about 450 names on the list. The 80th percentile isn’t great, and McClelland’s promotion to AA lead to some obvious control problems, but the peripheral information is why he is on this list.
Listen - I know a guy who knows a guy who once talked to his parents at a game. The scoop is, McClelland added 5+ mph this past season after a change in his delivery to throw more across his body. That’s wild! 2080’s John Eshleman graded the fastball velocity as double-plus this fall but wasn’t convinced by anything else in the package to project the FV to be better than middle relief; and Toronto might agree because they left him exposed to the Rule 5, where he went unselected.
Still, with 70 grade juice Jackson just needs to find that one more ingredient to unlock a nice little bullpen future.
AA
Travis Bergen
This LHRP got scooped from Toronto in the Rule 5. He nearly lead all of AA in ERA with a sparkly 0.50 figure. This was supported by a solid K-BB% of 23.1%, ranking 35th out of nearly 470 pitchers in AA with at least 30 IP, and a FIP of 2.66 which slotted into the similar range. Scouting reports on the stuff seem boring, but we are Stat Scouting here so those don’t matter much. Besides, a LOOGY really only needs fringe stuff and a unique angle to live in the big leagues.
You have to like Bergen’s chances of sticking on a roster as a Rule 5 pick - certainly more than fellow Rule 5 pick Jordan Romano, who does not jump off the Stat Scouting leaderboards and instead seems mediocre in every respect while being disappointingly old. Romano is a trap prospect.
AAA
Trent Thornton
Sorting AAA by “qualified” pitchers seems dumb, but I did it anyway. Trent Thornton ranked 4th out of that group in K-BB% and his age also lines up well, at 13th. Of course, looking at qualified pitchers' ages is probably even more dumb because you want your AAA prospects to get promoted, not stick around.
I’ve seen the merits of Thornton since his acquisition though – he has always limited walks and the actual scouts say he has bat-missing stuff – so I think he projects favourably in some major league capacity, even if it’s not as a true starting pitcher.
Rookie Ball
Eric Pardinho
You already know all about this kid so I’ll save words here, but if you look for statistical standouts in domestic Rookie ball, rest assured he is there. The K-BB% is near the very top of the list and his age is pretty insane.
Stay tuned for the Stat Scouting the Farm - Hitters list!
Cover image source: Marshall Dunlap on Flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/151753088@N03/43752739471
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