Quote:
Originally Posted by Screwball
Very interesting stuff, Scrap. I'm curious, do you think Heisey can be an .800 (+?) OPS bat in CF for the Reds?
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Yeah, I do. I've only seen him five games (and one of those was one at-bat), so it's not like I have a good handle on everything, but, from what I've seen, he's got a plus glove and a very good arm-- though he short arms everything. It's almost like he's throwing a football. Doesn't look natural and easy, but it gets there on a line and he's extremely accurate.) His range isn't in Stubbs' class, but he takes excellent routes in CF, so he covers above average ground.
Offensively, he's not got all that much natural power and almost zero loft. It's a short, quick stroke with more line drive power than anything else. No one on the Red team has a stroke like this, either. If I had to compare his swing to someone's, I'd probably say mid-career, early 80's Reds/Yankee Griffey, Sr. Short, compact, quick-- great bat on ball skills. Above average pitch recognition skills, though he occasionally chases offspeed low and away. (Most of the time, he'll be able to waste the pitch, but he can be struck out.)
Very good speed. (Tried bunting for a hit last night, but a poor attempt.) What's more, he has good baseball instincts. Smart on the bases. Stole a base last game I attended and could have stolen it standing up, he had such a good jump. One small thing-- he gets great secondary leads. Huge secondary leads. That's something I wish Stubbs would do as well. Take advantage of that speed a bit more.
Overall, Heisey looks like a solid bet to OPS around 800 in the bigs. He can certainly play CF adequately, if not better. He's just an all-around baseball rat. He knows the game. (Much like Todd Frazier, IMO-- with much less natural talent.) I'd guess Heisey's peak season as 310/400/450 and his average will probably go around 275/350/425. Expect solid to above average intangibles due to high baseball IQ; that might bump him a notch or two overall as well offensively.