How Much Trade Value Did the Rays Give Up in the 2022 Draft?

 While the Rangers shocked everyone by taking Kumar Rocker 3rd overall, the Rays made their own puzzling decision by taking Xavier Isaac, a high school first baseman ranked 113 by Pipeline and unranked by FanGraphs, in the first round. At the time of the pick, I assumed the Rays were planning on cutting an under slot deal for Isaac in the first, and going after another expensive prep player later. Instead, the Rays paid him full slot value and drafted mostly college players the rest of the draft. It’s hard to give a complete scouting report on Isaac; he was injured for the entire showcase circuit, but what I would like to focus on is how much did the Rays sacrifice (or gain) in trade value by making this pick. There are two ways to get value out of a drafted player, either by the player making the major leagues, or whatever you get out of trading the prospect. In this analysis, I want to focus on the latter, because the Rays have consistently been in the playoff hunt and will at least consider trading prospects to improve the major league team, so drafting with trade value in mind is fairly practical.

To start, I want to lay out what the Rays got on the first day of the draft. I will be quoting the prospects’ value in terms of FV given by FanGraphs. 

Round (Pick)	Name	FV (FanGraphs)
1 (29)	Xavier Isaac	35+
2 (65)	Brock Jones	35+
CB-B (70)	Chandler Simpson	40
CB-B (71)	Ryan Cermak	35+

In comparison, the 30-45 range on the FanGraphs board was valued as 45 FV, so the Rays passed up on drafting a good player to go off the board and select Isaac. One thing to note is that Eric seems to be a bit colder on Jones and Cermak than industry consensus, and therefore the Rays draft looks fairly weak. 

Let’s look at the 2022 trade deadline and see what type of players the Rays could get with 2 40 FV’s and 2 35+ FV’s (rounding up on Jones) and compare that to what they could get with a 45 FV, 2 40 FV’s and a 35+ FV. Looking at how FanGraphs broke down the deadline, with the 45 FV, the Rays could get someone like Gallo, a fallen star with an expiring contract, and a couple relievers/platoon bats with the rest of the class, or packaged 45 and the 40’s for Tyler Mahle, a mid rotation starter with 1.5 years of control left. In comparison, the best the Rays could have done with the current class is get a player like Syndergaard, a 4th starter on an expiring contract or Jorge Lopez, a pop up reliever this year who has been dominant, but probably settles into a 7th-8th inning role. As you can see, while measuring trade value is inexact, based on these assumptions there is a large difference in trade value that the Rays gave up to select Isaac.

Now, if Isaac has a strong first half of the 2023 season, the pre draft rankings on Isaac do not matter, especially since teams did not have much to evaluate off of and will be updating their beliefs quicker than usual on him. However, I think the opposite is in play here as well, where if Isaac is just mediocre or below average, teams will write him off quicker than usual. 

To give a hypothetical example, imagine a draft prospect’s rankings from each team as a distribution, so that for a 45 FV prospect, most teams rate the prospect as a 45 FV. Now imagine you are running a team. You are picking 15th, and can choose between Player A, the consensus 15th best player, and Player B, the consensus 50th best player. If you choose A, you are right in the middle of the distribution, whereas if you choose B, you are on the far right of the tail. When you are on the far right of the tail, very few teams want to trade for B for the same amount of value that you think he is worth, whereas that is not the case with A. Furthermore, it’s hard to benefit from variance when you take player B over A. For instance, if player B has a breakout performance, it brings the mean consensus rating to where the right tail used to be, and unless there are a few teams that suddenly value him higher than you pre draft, you haven’t gained any trade value from the breakout performance. In contrast, if player A breaks out and consensus rating increases, you get that increased value since you drafted him at consensus value.

In summary, it’s very difficult for the Rays to do well by drafting Xavier Isaac. A lot of things have to work out well for them to do better than the median value of the slot. However, if there’s one team that has made many people look stupid, it’s the Rays, and so I look forward to see how this plays out in the future and what there is to learn if this works out.

Sources:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ranking-the-prospects-traded-during-the-2022-deadline/

"Does Difference in Expected Spin Axis Affect Distance of Batted Balls for Sinkers?"

Full article

https://rpubs.com/dgerth5/936108

Statistical Inference vs Statcast Models

Since I am currently working on a Stuff model (done in Stan, and hopefully publishing a writeup in their case studies documentation), I have been thinking a lot about the philosophical differences in models that are done with Statcast data versus models built with game level data.

In general, I feel like there is an implicit assumption that models built from Statcast data are always going to be better than ones built with just statistics. I think that viewpoint typically makes sense. Statcast data is more granular, which makes it more feasible to give individuals credit. Fielding statistics as a whole have benefited from Statcast data. It's really hard to properly attribute skill to fielders without granular level data, and new statistics such as Catch Probability and OAA are really impressive pieces of work that show how important Statcast data is and how much we were missing it beforehand.

However, I want to push back on the idea that Statcast models are always better than statistical models. I think this can be especially true in pitching, which may be surprising. Two places where Statcast models can be beat by a well calibrated statistical model is in deception and pitch mix interaction. Deception is something inherently visual and means different things to different people, which makes it hard to quantify. Furthermore we run the risk of overfitting to small data based on this, which can make the overconfident in their perceived edge against others and lead to ruin.

Asking if you want a good stats only model versus a good Statcast model is like the beer or tacos question. You want both, and ideally want them to converge to the same prediction. However, acknowledging the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches and not defaulting to one approach is beneficial in the long run.

Losing Your Edge in Games Where You Can't Go Broke (and How Successful Teams Start Losing)

Every month, Kyle Boddy releases his/Driveline's internal xERA and Stuff farm system rankings, which have been very informative. The leaders are pretty much who you would expect, it's some version of the Dodgers, Rays, Astros, Yankees, or Baltimore, and some usual suspects like the Royals and Rockies at the bottom. What I find striking is that the A's and the Cardinals are consistently near the bottom of the list. Some teams have been penalized by either promotion or trades (or in the Astros case, forfeiting draft picks), which is not the fault of the organization per say, but the A's and Cardinals do not have this excuse. 

What I find so fascinating about this is that the A's and the Cardinals were at the top of the game in cutting edge analytics. Everyone knows about the A's and Moneyball, and the Cardinals were one of the first teams join the A's in having an analytics based approach. Adopting analytics and being bold was wildly successful for them, as the Cardinals won a couple World Series titles and the A's were very successful despite cheapskate ownership. Now, they seem to have fallen behind by not emphasizing new player development initiatives, which is where the cutting edge of baseball analytics is right now. One example is that Boddy notes how the A's have an extremely fastball heavy approach, which is an old school philosophy that is falling by the wayside. For the Cardinals, drafting Michael McGreevy in the first round feels like a pick that would have been sharp in 2005, but now that we have more than surface level college stats and can look at things such as spin rate and vertical movement, probably is not a great first round pick.

In professional gambling, it's extremely easy to know when you have lost your edge. You lose all your money. In professional baseball, it's not that black and white. In fact, it's super easy to ignore the warning signs by looking at surface level stats and dismissing criticism by saying Twitter isn't real. That's fine. The Cardinals are above .500 and the A's are explicitly rebuilding right now, so from a results based mindset things do not look too bad. This level of apathy can linger for a long time, far longer in comparison to a professional gambler losing his or her edge.

Hopefully both teams can reclaim their boldness and get out of the cellar of minor league xERA. As early adopters, the A's and Cardinals face a problem that many large businesses have the first time they reach growth slumps. It will be interesting to see if they can regain their startup magic.

Setting Informative Priors for Bayesian Mixed Effects Models

 https://rpubs.com/dgerth5/924572

Overoptimizing Drafts

As we head into the 2022 Draft, I have been thinking about draft trends and how different the hot new pitch archetype has changed over the past couple years. Nowadays, you can't scroll through baseball Twitter without someone talking about "sweep," but this was not always the case. A few years ago, pitching Twitter was fired up about guys throwing 4 seamers up in the zone, and having a 12-6 or gyro slider to go along with it. This was a very successful strategy, and still is. However, now that we know how good an east-west pitcher can be and how they can be developed effectively, there is less emphasis on drafting the vertically oriented guy. Passing over a guy with a ton of SSW on his sinker just because he doesn't have a carrying fastball is a bad idea, but the public did not have this data a few years ago and thus overreacted (slightly) on traits that could be measured easily and performed well.

My point in writing out this out is to say optimizing your draft for what is popular now does not guarantee future success. If you did nothing but draft pitchers with rising 4 seam shapes and vertical breaking balls, you would have done fairly well. However, if in the later rounds you were debating between a mediocre present stuff vertical oriented pitcher versus a slightly better present stuff east-west pitcher, and you take the vertical pitcher on the assumption that the prototype is more projectable, that probably was the wrong decision, given how good player development has gotten in developing horizontal stuff. Note that I am not suggesting we go back to the days of drafting guys with 88 MPH generic sinkers. These guys are not good.

The easy part is drafting someone and the hard part is maximizing their development. It is a fair point that if a team was not drafting vertically oriented pitchers, they were not also thinking about sweeping sliders or SSW on a sinker and generally did not know how to develop it. The main lesson is to draft the player, not the prototype. If you draft a player because he fits the in vogue prototype, not because you have faith in his tools or a development plan tailor made for him (and lets face it, most teams don't), you might get lucky and get a solid player, but eventually you will get adverse selected by teams pushing the envelope and drafting players based on what they think the game will be in a few years. It's hard to do this well, but the only way to have a robust drafting and developing strategy.

A Bayesian Comparison of Bond ETF Volatility

Off topic post on bond ETF's and comparing their volatilities:

https://rpubs.com/dgerth5/922557

Who are the Unluckiest Catchers?

I made my first post on RPubs. A quick piece on "unlucky" catchers estimated using mixed effects models. The article is below: 

https://rpubs.com/dgerth5/919614

Amateur Portfolio Example

In a previous article, I wrote on how I start to think about risk for domestic and international amateur classes, and how decisions in one can affect the other and what makes for the best porfolio. That is linked below. In this article, I want to run through a hypothetical scenario to illustrate what the distributions of two portfolios would look like given certain parameters for what a safe and risky player is for domestic and international players.

To start, I want to define the outcome space for a player. Here, I am saying that a player can either produce 0, 1, or 2 WAR per year, and there is a set of probabilities of being each WAR type given the player type you are. The four player types are "Risky-International", "Risky-Domestic", "Safe-International", "Safe-Domestic." I attached a picture of the probabilities and the corresponding expected values for each player type below. Note the premiums for risky portfolios. Since the risky portfolio is risky, I want there to be a premium for choosing it. Here I chose 10%. Then for the player level, I divided it up equally for each player, and found probabilities that lead to the desired expected value per player.

The next step was choosing portfolio types to sim through. For this example, I wanted to compare a "safe-safe" portfolio and a "risky-risky" portfolio. This means that we should expect to have a mean average WAR of 10% more with the risky portfolio than the safe, but we may prefer the safe one if it provides us with more depth pieces/1 WAR types. This is what the distributional outlay looks like:

This is about what we expected. In 10,000 simulations, the safe portfolio has a slight edge in avoiding outcomes with 0 WAR, and also provides more instances of 1, 2, and 3 WAR, but doesn't provide as many whale portfolios with 4+ WAR as the risky one does.

It's important to note that these are fictionalized distribution probabilities and that we can't draw any real life conclusions from them. I chose to do a toy model instead because I do not have the proper data to make international predictions, and opted for simplicity with the domestic side. In the next article, I will give a more in depth analysis of this example and examine when you may prefer one over the other.

Previous article:

https://davidgerth.blogspot.com/2022/06/setting-up-international-free-agency.html

Riley Kelly-RHP-Tustin HS (California)

Riley Kelly is a spring pop up prospect in California, which is a unique demographic given how many scouting resources are allocated to the state. Going into his senior year of high school, he had zero college offers and was sitting 84-87 while being the quarterback of the football team. After quitting football, he's now sitting 88-92, is committed to UC Irvine, and has had tons of scouts and AGM's in attendance for his games. It will be interesting to see how teams value his skillset and background and if anyone will give him enough to forgo college, and if he makes it to campus, will he go into the transfer portal at some point, because his recruiting timeline was so short.

Physically, Kelly is a big guy, currently 6'4" 200, high waisted with broad shoulders and solid through the chest. He has some physical projection left, but is fairly physically mature for someone who is on the younger side of the class (18.2 on draft day). A few outlets classify him as an above average athlete which I think is wrong (assuming there's some bias of football -> athlete here); he's more of a fringe athlete for me. My general concern on the athleticism side is how limited the rotation in the hips is and a lack of scap retraction. These are not glaring concerns and I am mostly looking past them due to the stuff, but are worth noting for player development purposes. On the delivery side, it's fairly clean. Medium leg lift, crossfire delivery that closes off front half slow at start of delivery but gets down the mound well, average arm speed. Throws from a 3/4 arm slot, which in combination with the crossfire delivery add some deception. Overall, a solid set of mechanics, with my only concerns coming from the athleticism side with the lack of hip and shoulder mobility.

The conversation about Kelly pitch mix starts with his curveball, which is easily plus presently and might be the best curve in this years class. It sits 76-80 with a spin rate in the 2900-3100 range, with late two plane break and a ton of movement. Will occasionally get loopy, but most times it is a power pitch that is nearly impossible to make contact with. He pairs the curve with a fastball that lacks velocity (87-91) but makes up for it by having high spin rates and generally good shape. Kelly has around 2400-2600 RPM on the fastball and thus can work up in the zone with it, but he throws from a steeper angle that makes it slightly less effective, but still projecting this to be a plus pitch. Right now there really isn't a third pitch, he showed a changeup in warmups (83 MPH, 1200 RPM) that had some fade, but does not use it in game. He is effective at killing spin which makes me want to project on it, and the present 20 grade on it reflects more on where his development path currently is and how little his usage is. I'm triple projecting here because I think that it says a lot that he can throw high spin rate stuff, and also a low spin rate change. Kelly has solid command over his pitches for a high schooler, with most likely fringe average command at peak. One issue command wise he will run into is how much movement the curveball has makes it nearly impossible to consistently throw it in the zone. This is a good problem to have, but just something to note.

In summary, Kelly is an exciting prospect. The physical tools that some late bloomers have aren't really there, but the pure baseball skills that matter more are clearly present. Clear starter traits dependent on developing a third pitch. Fallback role as a high leverage reliever. Not really sure where his bonus demands may lie, the college commitment is presumably not that strong, would think a 500-700k offer would be enough. 

Pitch	Velocity	Present	Future
Fastball	88-92 T93	50	60
Changeup	83	20	45
Curveball	76-80	60	70
Slider
Control		30	45

Source for the background info:

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/jaden-noot-riley-kelly-continue-draft-rises-with-strong-outings/

Jake Madden-RHP-Northwest Florida Junior College

Jake Madden is one of the better pitchers in this year's junior college class. Originally hailing from Pennsylvania, he is currently at Northwest Florida Junior College and is committed to Alabama next spring. With the college pitching class the way it is, guys like Madden have gotten more consideration than normal, and in this case it is well deserved. 

Madden is a tall, lanky righty (6'6" 185) with long limbs and on mound athleticism. Throws from a semi-windup with a lower 3/4 arm slot. He isn't able to work up in the zone the way that some L3/4 shorter pitchers are due to his height. He generates power effectively, with a deep back leg drop and moves down the mound quickly and matches his rapid arm speed. It's a fairly aggressive delivery with some head whack. On the surface level it implies bullpen in the future, but he is under control throughout and doesn't have much more reliever risk than your average high school/JUCO arm.

From a repertoire perspective, Madden is a pure power pitcher. I saw him throw against Chipola, where he sat 93-97 for the first 35 pitches, then was 90-94 for the rest of the outing (about 75 pitches). It has above average arm side run, which is expected from the low 3/4 arm slot. It's not going to miss a ton of bats due to shape, but has potential to rack up ground balls. While it may not be the traditionalist's favorite changeup, I really like it. It's a power changeup, sitting about 5-6 ticks off of the fastball, that plays off the FB well with above average vertical movement differential. Should be able to get K's against lefties with it. The slider is fringy to me right now but he has the arm slot and feel for spin to throw a good one. The slider shape is ok to me, mostly two plane break with sharpness but inconsistent in bite and movement profile. When the slider is off, it will be more of a gyro slider than a true two plane slider, and when this happens it looks more like a lack of feel than something he is going for. I don't like jumping on trends, but he seems like a good candidate for a more sweeping slider given his arm slot. 

Command wise, it is about what you would expect from a guy his size and age. His feel for location is scatter shot right now, but shows enough feel for the fastball and changeup arm side right now that there is potential for him to throw enough strikes to be a 5 and dive starter.

In summary, this is a power arm with starter traits. The median projection is most likely a short inning reliever because of his loud stuff and mechanics, but he shows enough athleticism and control for me to want to prove that he can't start, rather than just assume he cannot. 

Pitch	Velocity	Present	Future
Fastball	91-94 T97	55	60
Changeup	85-91	50	60
Curveball
Slider	84-88	40	50
Control		30	40

Adam Maier-RHP-Oregon

Adam Maier was the subject of my first blogpost I wrote here. Now that we've reached the end of the season, I wanted to recap how that prediction looked, and also give a full report on his skillset. Earlier this year, I wrote: 

"It’s a stretch to say Maier is a first round arm, but he has one of the best sliders in the class to go along with a couple above average offerings. He’s a ¾ arm slot sinker guy with a fairly aggressive arm action but has enough command to start. Changeup has late fade and tumble, it’s a good out pitch against lefties. Has been up to 97, but velo dropped quick during his starts in the Cape, so this is something to watch. I have him projected as a #4 starter with high leverage reliever utility if the velocity doesn’t sustain. The teams that are more progressive in their pitch sequencing (letting Maier throw 40%+ sliders) should be in on him early and I think would be a great fit for him."

Unfortunately, Maier got hurt at the start of the season and was not able to show off his stuff the way he needed to for him to be a first round pick. From a track record perspective, he has a difficult story. He started his career at the University of British Columbia in 2020, where his first season was cut short due to Covid and his 2021 season was cancelled. The only pitching he did in 2021 was on the Cape, where he threw 25.2 innings with a 4.56 ERA and a 27/9 K/BB ratio. This spring with Oregon, he threw only 15.2 innings for a 4.02 ERA and 19/6 K/BB ratio. It is a thin statistical track record to go off of, which should make him line up very differently from board to board.

From a stuff perspective, nothing really changed from the preseason report. To summarize, he has a heavy sinker that does not miss a ton of bats, but gets a ton of ground balls (68% per Synergy). The concern that he is not able to hold velocity deep into a start remains due to his injury, and this piece of the puzzle is the biggest question mark for him. His slider sits in the 2900-3100 RPM range and is one of the best sliders in all of college baseball. The movement profile on the pitch is a bit "old-school," as it has a ton of vertical break as opposed to the new sweeper sliders. It's a true plus pitch now that projects to be double plus as he throws harder. Maier's changeup isn't as impressive as the slider but it has heavy tumble and fade and is plus in it's own right. It's frustrating looking through Maier's pitch usage chart, where he is throwing 65% fastballs and only 25% sliders and 7% changeups. While I like his fastball, this is clearly a case of a head coach having zero clue what he is doing, and once he gets into pro ball I expect that this will change to something more like 45%/35%/20% FB/SL/CH usage, and I think this poor pitch choice is why Maier's H/9 is not as dominant as one might expect from an arsenal such as his.

The one new aspect that I wanted to touch on was a cutter that was not in the original report. Per Synergy, he hadn't thrown it while he was on the Cape, but did this past spring. Maier only through 5 cutters this spring, so I hesitated to include it in the report, but since it is a pitch that fits well into his arsenal and the general pitching landscape is trending towards the pitch, I think it's worth bringing up. It's a present 30 for me right now, not a ton of feel for the pitch but with slight downer shape similar to the slider. The cutter won't be an impact pitch for him, but having something similar as his slider but harder makes it difficult for the hitter to sit on his slider and gives the cutter big league utility, which is why I am double projecting here.

In summary, I think Maier has a lot of outs to be a starter due to repertoire depth and reaches the bar for command. He may be able to be fast tracked to the big leagues if he is put in a reliever only role, which may not be a terrible idea due to his injury concerns, but it would sacrifice a lot of potential that is impossible to get back. Maier has three present average pitches or above with potential to be plus, and an intriguing cutter.  The medical issues are a legit concern, but I would take Maier over guys like Prielipp and Whisenhunt, who for some reason are rated far higher by many boards despite similar concerns over missed time (less of a concern with Whisenhunt).

Role: #4 starter, with fallback as high leverage reliever

Pitch	Velocity	Present	Future
Fastball	89-93 T97	50	60
Changeup	82-86	45	60
Cutter	84-88	30	50
Slider	78-82	60	70
Control		40	45

Random Notes on Draft Prospects Part Two (Cam Collier, Jett Williams, Brandon Barreira, Carter Young, Zach Neto, Jackson Ferris)

Cam Collier

Cam is one of those guys whose feel for hitting really stands out. He has quick bat speed and plus raw power that he’s able to tap into given the advanced hit tool. Collier doesn’t sell out for power, it’s a fairly flat bat path that enables him to hit the ball anywhere in the zone. His swing can be a little funky at times; he has really low hands and works inside out which limits his pull power, but his feel for hitting is very advanced and is something that I want to bet on.

Defensively, he’s physically maxed out right now and I haven’t seen enough video of him to really say if he will stick at third or if he requires a move to 1B. His defense really isn’t a calling card for this profile though and he’ll hit enough for either position, so I am not worried, and it doesn’t detract from his overall value.

He reclassified to be in this draft by graduating high school early and then enrolling in Chipola JC for this season, making him one of the youngest players in the class. That said, he is an early physical developer and thus isn’t as projectable physically as it may seem from an age perspective.

In summary, Collier is a prime example of someone not just with tools but real baseball skills, and everything about him screams big leaguer. I haven’t seen enough of Jackson Holiday to really make a comparison, but I may end up having Collier over Holiday even though Holiday has the clear positional advantage.

Jett Williams

Williams is an undersized guy at 5’8 180 but with one of my favorite swings in the class. Plus bat speed with a compact swing that has some loft and can reach all parts of the zone. He has average raw power but is able to tap into all of it due to bat path and plate awareness. Plus runner that will be able to stick at shortstop, super twitchy athlete. His ceiling maybe capped due to his stature, but I’m not discounting him here, he feels like a guy whose game power outplays his raw. Jett slots in right behind Holliday and Collier in that second tier of high school hitters behind the big 3 (Jones/Green/Johnson). Really excited about him, think there is a lot of positive traits here.

Brandon Barreira

With Lesko going down with TJ, Barreira might be the first pitcher drafted, and I can see why. He has the best command, a deep repertoire, and a nice frame, but I struggle to see a true plus pitch, and I think the fastball shape is pretty generic. The slider has the best shape of the offspeed, a two plane breaker with late movement and good depth, and I think his changeup plays well shape wise with the fastball. But again, despite the premium velocity I don’t see Barreira missing a ton of bats with his fastball given the current shape and arm slot. Delivery is a bit stiff, lands upright and relies a lot on arm strength. There’s positives here, but nothing that screams top ten pick and I would let him go to college.

Carter Young

Young has taken a small step forward approach wise, with his walk rate improving a few ticks with the K% holding steady at 30%, but the cons outweigh the positives at this point. His approach is well below average, aided by a very steep swing that leads to a ton of strikeouts. It’s worth noting here that there is a difference between Jud Fabian and Carter Young, despite their similarities as big school hitters with funky swings. Like Fabian, Young has a steeper swing, but Fabian only had 1 year running a near 30% K%, whereas Young has 3, and Fabian ran a higher walk rate by about 5%. I’ve been trying to stay away from looking at stats here, but I think it’s important to contextualize the visual look of the swing. It's a 30 bat, with some power but he won’t be able to tap into it. Defensively, he has great actions and is probably the only college infielder that can play shortstop, so there is value, I just think that so much has to go right here for him to even be a viable bench infielder that it’s hard for me to see him as a top 1-2 round player.

Zach Neto

Ton of moving parts going on during the swing but makes hard contact consistently so no real issues there for me. Above average approach that took a step forward this season. I am a little concerned with the steepness in the swing, hasn’t been an issue in small school baseball but may take a little to adjust in pro ball. Performed on the Cape though, so not as concerned. Defensively, he’s not a great athlete and is a fringe shortstop, think he ends up at third due to an above average arm. Obviously there’s more pressure on the bat, but Neto is a nice player that fits in the Top 50.

Jackson Ferris

Ferris reminds me of Maddux Bruns from last season, though with 55-60 stuff rather than 60-70 stuff. Ferris has the prototypical high school pitcher frame, strong physical build with sloping shoulders. He throws from a high ¾ arm slot and has a plus fastball with ride up in the zone, clocking in around 90-94 T97, and a 12-6 curve with plus depth, but loses feel for it at times and thus loses its sharpness. Throws a change occasionally, but not featured much. I really like Ferris, and while he may take more player development help than the other HS pitchers, if matched with the right team (like the Dodgers) he could explode. 

Random Notes on Top Draft Prospects Part One (Elijah Green, Druw Jones, Brooks Lee, Jace Jung)

I've been collecting notes on draft prospects for this year, and I figured I might as well released them. Since I am moving and starting a new job I'm not sure I'll have my rankings as deep as I'd like, but I'll do my best. My plan is to release a set of rankings before the draft, and then hopefully put together a couple posts on specific demographics I am interested in. On to the notes:

Elijah Green

Green is a classic physical toolsy high schooler. He has light tower raw, a bazooka arm and a plus runner, all while being an insane physical specimen at 6’3” 225 lbs. Similar to a lot of these type of players, there’s serious hit tool concerns. Per FanGraphs, he has more swing and miss than balls in play during the showcase circuit. This is a clear problem, but this feels more of a swing path issue rather than a pitch recognition problem, and so I can live with it. From a visual standpoint, his swing is steep and looks like he will have issues with pitches up in the zone but I’m trusting that the team that drafts him can modify his swing to be at least passable up in the zone, and I think there is enough precedent and good hitting coaches who can do this. From my point of view, which is mainly watching video and clips and then reading about how the player did, it’s hard to evaluate hit tools well and players like this I will always have a hard time properly evaluating from my desk. Most of what I have seen has been comments about the bat path though, so I think it’s safe to assume he has fairly good plate discipline, so if the fixable bat path issue gets figured out, he’s going to go off. Best case scenario, Green will make multiple All Star appearances and be one of the dominant players in the league, but there is a ton of variance here and I understand if a team doesn’t want to allocate a large portion of their bonus pool with so much variance. That said, teams with confidence in their PD staff will be rewarded for taking a risk.

Side note: One thing I’ve gotten a little annoyed with is the people putting Green in the 9-15 range based on the hit tool. I think that if you have this much concern about the hit tool, he should be in the 30-40 range (wherever Kendall/Fabian 2020 went). If you think he has some chance to hit, there is no reason not to put him in the top 3-5. There’s no middle ground here in my opinion.

Jace Jung

I think there may be some prospect fatigue here between him and his brother before him. Simply put, Jung is one of the best hitters in college baseball presently, along plus power. It’s not super flashy, he just has excellent feel for hitting and there’s not a whole lot more to say about him. The only blemish is his subpar numbers on the Cape, but it was only 8 games so I don’t really care. Jung is the best hitter in college baseball and deserves to be a top 5 pick, even though he projects as a 2B/3B.

Druw Jones

I was pretty locked in on Termarr being my number one guy, but Druw Jones’s defense gives him an edge for me here, as he will be a plus defender at a premium position. His athleticism and arm (plus) are so impressive that he may get a tryout at shortstop in pro ball. At the plate, there’s no real weaknesses here, as he has plus power, swing decisions, and bat speed. There’s not a whole lot to write out, he’s just extremely impressive. One thing in particular I like about him is that he’s able to tap into his raw power on pitches at the top of the zone due to his bat path being relatively flat. This lets him hit with power against pitches anywhere in the zone. There’s a little stiffness in the swing, but he has the best raw tools in this class and deserves that number one spot.

Brooks Lee

Coming into this season I was cautiously optimistic on Lee. Coming out of high school in 2019, Lee was a highly touted power-driven shortstop. He missed 2020 due to Covid, and then last season had a solid season with a worrisome BB/K ratio, that carried on through his summer on the Cape. Things have gotten better on that front this season and he’s been able to keep the power output, where he is one of the nation’s leaders in average exit velocity. I think I am a little lower on the hit tool than consensus, but it does seem like he has a flexible swing that can cover the upper third of the zone and tap into his power.

Defensively, I’m projecting Lee as a third baseman. Lee is barrel chested and completely filled out physically at 6’2”, 205 lbs. This isn’t a shortstop body. He has a plus arm but just doesn’t have the mobility for short, and with his injury history I am bearish on it getting better. That’s ok though because he still will be able to be an above average defender at third.

He makes good swing decisions and has some pop, but I think he'll end up in the 15-30 range on my board.

Matt Wood-C-Penn State

Bats/Throws: L/R

Ht/Wt: 71/195

Age on Draft: 21.4

Matt Wood is a junior catcher at Penn State university, where he had a solid sophomore season as his first year starting behind the plate, and then added power this year, hitting 12 HR with a .379/.480/.667 slash line and a 36/26 BB/K ratio in 249 PA. He has been a strong statistical performer in a cold weather state, which merits conversation for a Day Two pick.

Offensively, Wood really sticks out for his feel for hitting. He rarely chases, and makes consistent hard contact when he swings. These two traits don't always go together, which makes Wood's bat especially unique. It's a simple swing that works to all fields. Has average bat speed, some lift in the swing to tap into power but is able to make the most of it. Able to cover the entire plate, above average pitch recognition and shows ability to hit offspeed. His raw power is fringe average, and he can get into it due to the bat to ball skills, but Wood is more of a gap to gap hitter than a true power hitting catcher. It's not a super sexy profile, but his bat to ball skills and pitch recognition are impressive and will make an impact in the big leagues.

On the defense side, no tool really stands out here. He's a solid average receiver with an average arm, with 1.9-2.0 pop times. Wood can stick behind the plate with no issues, but he's not going to provide surplus value behind the plate in either today's game or in robo-ump game. His defensive value will be whatever the value of the average catcher is when he gets called up. Wood runs fairly well and is a solid athlete, which gives him an chance at adding some positional utility and increase his overall value. I would be interested to see if he could handle some third base or corner outfield.

Physically, he's somewhat undersized but has a thick built fit to play behind the plate. No real phyiscal projection here, which limits projection of the raw power, but combining the plus bat to ball skills and his present 40 raw it isn't an issue.

In summary, Wood has a plus hit tool and is good enough behind the plate to provide legitimate big league utility. Has enough power to do damage, but it's a hit over power profile. Depending on how teams value the catcher position in three years will decide where he lines up on a teams' big board, but I'd rather have Wood and his skillset than a similar college middle infielder with fringe power that seems to go around this area. He has some round up attributes (cold weather, lefty bat) that give him more upside.

Role: Lefty bat off the bench with defensive utility, low end platoon regular catcher. 

Tool	Present	Future
Hit	35	60
Power	30	40
-Raw Power	45	45
Run	40	40
Defense	45	50
Throw	50	50

Setting Up the Amateur Portfolio Problem

As mentioned in the Evergreen Research Post, I have been thinking about how to incorporate decisions made in international free agency to the domestic amateur draft and vice versa. For me, the best way to solve this problem is to make a toy model portfolio, comparing the different possible portfolios and run simulations. Then, we can compare and contrast the risk profiles of each, and determine which one is best. In my opinion, there's no optimal way to do this, and depends on where the team is at. If the major league team is bad and the minor league system is a mess, you may have a higher appetite for risk to get a superstar. If the major league team is good and you want to build depth, having a portfolio geared more towards college performers might make sense.

Below, I am going to define what makes a "safe" or "risky" portfolio for both domestic and international classes.

Domestic

For our domestic portfolio, I only want to consider the first 3 rounds. This is where most of the WAR from a given draft class comes from.

A "safe" portfolio is one where the team only selects college players, and a "risky" portfolio is one where the team only selects high schoolers. I understand that there are higher floor high schoolers and toolsy low floor college guys, but for sake of simplicity I want to keep it at this.

International

It's obvious but all sixteen year olds are risky, so I am defining the "safe" portfolio to be one where the team spreads its signing bonus pool over 5 fringy players, and the "risky" portfolio to be one where the teams spreads its bonus pool over 2 good players. I think these definitions accurately describe what most teams end up doing.

Research Plans

I wanted to use this entry as an evergreen page of what type of research I am working or topics I am thinking about. Going into job interviews last year, I was not really sure what to expect. I had spent a lot of type working on more abstract ideas and live scouting reports, which are nice, but most lower level jobs require high levels of technical competence, which I was lacking. So I have shifted away from that stuff and have been spending most of my free time trying to get competent in various machine learning packages (xgboost, Catboost, etc) and Bayesian statistics and programming in Stan. The latter is fun and rewarding, but takes a lot of time to get competent with, whereas the machine learning stuff is a little less interesting to me, but pretty easy to bootstrap. That being said, I haven't put aside my scouting (you can see various scouting reports here already, though they are more flowery than what a real scouting report looks like) and I am still doing more in depth research. In no particular order, here is my list of current projects:

1) Bayesian Stuff Model: There's no shortage of Stuff+ models nowadays, but I wanted to try to make something that was fully Bayesian, and also returned estimated swing result distributions (given a swing, it will either be S&M, GB, FB, etc.) rather than a single number. I like the distributions more than a unitless number because I think it's more instructive to see what happens if you add 1 MPH of velocity to your fastball. With a standard Stuff+ model, it will say something like Stuff+ went up 5, which isn't that informative in my opinion. The model I am designing says that if your fastball increases by 1 MPH, your swinging strike rate increases by X%, ground ball rate decreases by Y%, etc. This is done in Stan, which is very time intensive from a programming and a run-the-model stanpoint, and since I want to run it through a Shiny app it's pretty tricky. This is my white whale project.

2) Integrating Domestic Amateur and International Draft Portfolios: I really like considering the domestic amateur draft as a subset of your overall amateur pool. For instance, if you draft three risky high schoolers with your first three picks, this doesn't happen in a vacuum. Your entire international class is also high variance, and thus your youth intake for the season is very high risk. Every team has roughly the same allotment of international talent, and so maybe it's fine to treat domestic and international separate, but I'm curious to see if there's something here that inform how to draft domestically given an international pool and vice versa.

Top Early Round Money-Saving College Hitters

Given how much talent there is in the high school ranks this year, it is particularly important to think about ways to give your draft pool the most upside possible. One strategy is to draft a college player underslot, and use the savings to accumulate high schoolers above slot later in the draft. This is a tricky thing to do properly, because you do not want to punt on your first round pick, which is where most of the value comes from, and you also can't fully predict which high schoolers there will be to choose from in the later rounds. I wanted to write about a couple of the top college hitters outside the first round on most big boards that should be in contention for a first round pick as a money saver. I'm ranking these players based on two components, overall potential and round up traits. Something that would be considered an "round up" trait is being a cold weather hitter, where they have less reps and in theory are slightly behind the development curve in comparison to guys in the south. These traits give the overall draft pool some of the positive convexity you get when drafting a standard first round talent. The players listed here are roughly in the 40-80 range of most public big boards.

Josh Kasevich-Oregon

The prototypical college shortstop is very boring, but Kasevich is exciting. Kasevich brings a plus hit tool and above average raw to the table while being a capable defender at short, but hasn't shown his power in game. Kasevich has some late bloomer traits that make him interesting and have me rounding up on his power. Taking a cursory look at his spray chart, he's gone from an oppo hitter to more of a pull hitter, indicating that he can make adjustments. I have him with a first round grade, but industry consensus has him more of a second rounder.

Max Wagner-Clemson

His report is already on the site so I won't get into him too much, but he is a cold weather bat with some specifically interesting traits (impressive ability to do damage on pitches up in the zone) that give him intriguing upside. Lack of experience outside of this year is scary.

Dalton Rushing-Louisville

Rushing isn't a great defender behind the plate, but with the ABS coming at the time when he'd make his big league debut I'm not so concerned. He was hidden behind Henry Davis so he does not have much of a track record, but he performed well on the Cape and continued to a strong junior season. He has a hulking frame and has plus raw power, that he has no issue tapping in to because of his average hit tool. Most guys that look like him have contact problems, and while he runs a strikeout percentage that is a little hot (20%), he has a good approach at the plate. It's a good set of tools and while there may not be a ton of defensive value to bank on, you are getting a power hitter with real feel to hit

Sterlin Thompson-Florida

I might be cheating here as Pipeline has him #27, but I've seen him more in the 35-50 range so I'm including him here. Thompson has a good feel for hitting with enticing raw power that hasn't fully been developed yet. No real defensive home, has played 2B/3B/COF, don't love his actions in the dirt so most likely in the oufield for me. No real round up traits here as he is a Florida kid, but it's a hit over power profile in a power hitter frame so I think there is exciting upside here that hasn't shown up in the box score.

Cayden Wallace-Arkansas

Wallace played a full freshman season, unlike Max Wagner, and did fairly well hitting .279 with 14 HR, but ran a high K%. Wallace is a fringy hitter with big power and a physically filled out frame and a plus arm. Wallace and Wagner have pretty much the same profile, but I think there is more certainty that Wallace is a fringe hitter whereas Wagner has more variance.

Max Wagner-Clemson-3B

Age at Draft (2022): 21.0

Max Wagner is a draft eligible sophomore who has benefited from MLB pushing the draft back into July. Instead of being old for the 2023 draft, he is relatively young for the 2022 draft (though obviously teams control for the age/college year differential). Wagner was a relative unknown for most of the scouting community. I was on him rather early, but only because Max and I are from Green Bay and I like paying attention to local draft prospects, not because I am a scouting wizard who foresaw the season he was going to have. After a rough freshman season, Wagner exploded with a .369/.496/.852 slash line with 27 HR’s and a 45/51 BB/K rate. He has now put himself in draft conversation, with some extra leverage of having another draft year.

Offensively, the conversation starts with his power, where he has plus raw power and will most likely hit into all of it. He has above average bat speed and is able to elevate. One particularly impressive thing with Wagner is how strong he is at hitting pitches up in the zone. This is a trait that will suit him well in pro ball, as he is able to catch up to those rising fastballs that most hitters have issues with. The concern with Wagner right now is his K%, which is around 25%. This is undeniably high and why it makes it hard to justify a high draft pick on him but given this is his first true college year and he has a non-catastrophic chase rate (21%, Synergy), I’m willing to bet on this getting better, at least from an analytical standpoint. From a visual evaluation look, even though he may strike out a little too much, he more than makes up for it from a quality of contact standpoint due to an impressive bat path. There are a lot of positive traits here and I do not want to nitpick.

As a quick aside, on the point where he crushes pitches high in the zone, I wonder how long that will create a significant edge. We’ve been seeing more and more teams moving in on the sinker/cutter/slider arsenal pitchers, whereas in the last four years it was the vertical fastball/curve repertoire being in vogue. I still think the four seamer up is the dominant strategy, but it’s always worth thinking about where pitching strategy is going

Defensively, he’s a fringe athlete that is filled out physically, so he’s a tweener 3B who will most likely get exposed to first over the course of his career. During his prime, I project him to be able to handle the hot corner, as he has a solid arm and makes the routine plays, but this is a bat first profile. Of course, scouting fielders from video is tricky, even if Synergy is quite good, so I could be underrating his fielding ability, but based on the body type and my looks I’m comfortable in putting a fringe average grade on his defense.

Overall, Max is not just a flash in the pan college hitter. He has plus raw power to go along with a well-defined bat path and plate discipline. There are some strikeout issues that bring down the pure hit tool grade, but nothing that concerns me all that much. Being a cold weather bat, there is some chance of the hit tool improving substantially more than expected. With the glut of talented high schoolers this year, seeing if you can save money with Wagner by drafting him in the first round and targeting some of the high schoolers later is a strategy worth considering, and would give your draft portfolio some unusual upside when drafting a college hitter early.

FV: 40+

Bonus Rec: 1,500,000-1,750,000

Tool Breakdown:

Tool	Present	Future
Hit	30	45
Power	30	60
-Raw Power	55	60
Run	40	40
Throw	50	55