In the Weeds (Again) with Jud Fabian

Having done this fairly seriously for a few years now, and writing about the draft portfolio/roster construction for two, I think that Jud Fabian has been the trickiest player for me to evaluate and value. Earlier last month, I wrote a blog where I was extremely confident that he was a top 10 pick. Today, I am a less sure.

First, a quick update about his tools. Nothing about his upside has changed in a month; his plusses are still clear. Where I have gotten more concerned about is his K% and (this may sound unscientific) his batting average, which is concerningly low even if the stat is flawed. Looking at SEC numbers only, Fabian is currently hitting .162 with a 36% K%, which is quite concerning. In my original writeup, I was looking at his overall stat line, where he looks far better, and assuming it was roughly the same in SEC play, but clearly I was being too lazy. So while his strengths (power, defense, bat speed) are still evident, I was too optimistic on the improvement of his hit tool. However, I don't want to write him off completely, and so I want to try to think about what situations would justify a high Jud Fabian pick.

Bonus Pool Standpoint 

While I am not satisfied with my work on the Kelly Criterion, I think one part of the research that helped me was being able to think about variance in relation to bet/signing bonus size. Essentially, the higher the proportion of our bonus pool money spent on one player, the less variance we should want. This is pretty obvious, but within this framework it is essentially impossible to draft a high school pitcher within the first ten picks, a viewpoint that was not common pre-analytics revolution (and still isn't I guess, Jackson Jobe and Frank Mozzicato were both top ten picks last season). So, for first round picks we do not want to be taking gambles and in general should be taking "safe" players. Note that safe does not necessarily mean college player or have a 70 hit tool. I consider someone like James Triantos a safe draft pick because he has a plus hit tool (which is fairly sticky) to go along with average power and solid defense, so he has no real caps. 

When looking at Fabian through the "Kelly" lens, it's hard to make the case that offers the same or better upside with less variance than other players in the top half of the draft. At this point though, I think that players such as DeLaughter, Cross, and to some extent Dylan Beavers have just as high of an upside as Fabian while being less volatile, and would be more comfortable investing a high pick in them over Jud.

Team Specific PD

While Fabian is certainly a risky player, in some cases risky players can be less so due to a strong Player Development department, and can thus justify a high draft pick for Fabian. This is once again obvious, but very hard to quantify and if you have the right group now, there is no guarantee you will in the future as there is a lot of turnover in these positions. Looking through the usual suspects (LAD, HOU, etc), I don't evidence of them developing guys with concerning K%'s, with LAD most noticeably drafting one (Jeren Kendall) and whiffing on him. A more complete study than a cursory ten minute glance is in order though.