What Can You Change?

[Bourgeois Zee]

Fangraphs' Ben Clemons, in an article from today, focused on the importance of exit velocity as a tool. (That's good news for the Reds, fwiw-- nearly everyone in the pipeline, seemingly, hits the ball hard-- EDLC, Hinds, Cerda, Vellojin, Hendrick, et al.) While that was interesting, what caught my eye-- and would make an interesting discussion point-- is the other tools he analyzes.

His plan, from the arcticle:

More specifically, I took a sample of players with at least 100 batted balls in two consecutive seasons. I sampled from 2015 to ’22, which gave me seven year-pairs, though the ones involving 2020 were light on qualifying players thanks to the abbreviated season. From there, I asked a simple question: how much did each player’s 95th-percentile exit velocity change from one year to the next?

He compared that 95th-percentile to others like MaxEV, Avg EV, LASD, Chase%, Contact%, Z-Contact%, BB%, K%, and wRC+.

Interestingly, 11.4% of major leaguers improved their K% substantially. 21.3% of MLBers improved their BB%. 12.3% improved their Z-Contact%, etc. In short, according to Clemons' numbers, players can develop patience or contact more easily than power. Which, to me, was shocking. I had always assumed the opposite.

This would seem to bode well not just for De La Cruz, but for nearly all of the Reds top prospects. It gives me some hope that those guys like Hinds, Cerda, et al., can develop. It also gives me pause on McLain.

Thoughts?

[krazzy]

I picked Cerda to be my breakout player this season. There is not reason a player that walks as much as he does has such a high strikeout rate. He must be able to see the ball.

[RED VAN HOT]

Fangraphs' Ben Clemons, in an article from today, focused on the importance of exit velocity as a tool. (That's good news for the Reds, fwiw-- nearly everyone in the pipeline, seemingly, hits the ball hard-- EDLC, Hinds, Cerda, Vellojin, Hendrick, et al.) While that was interesting, what caught my eye-- and would make an interesting discussion point-- is the other tools he analyzes.

His plan, from the arcticle:



He compared that 95th-percentile to others like MaxEV, Avg EV, LASD, Chase%, Contact%, Z-Contact%, BB%, K%, and wRC+.

Interestingly, 11.4% of major leaguers improved their K% substantially. 21.3% of MLBers improved their BB%. 12.3% improved their Z-Contact%, etc. In short, according to Clemons' numbers, players can develop patience or contact more easily than power. Which, to me, was shocking. I had always assumed the opposite.

This would seem to bode well not just for De La Cruz, but for nearly all of the Reds top prospects. It gives me some hope that those guys like Hinds, Cerda, et al., can develop. It also gives me pause on McLain.

Thoughts?

In another text I wondered if the Reds were emphasizing power over contact in the lower minors. I worried about the over 30% K rates of certain players. The idea was that they could concentrate on contact at AAA and ML levels. It appears that this is a somewhat valid strategy.