Wrong and Right

[klaiggeb]

Roger commented the other day on how it appears I'm correct in my praise of Ryder Jones.

So I got to thinking; which young players that came up with the Giants have I backed in the past that worked out, and who didn't?

My 2 biggest screw ups were Burriss and Shierholtz. I was very high on Nate. Liked his swing and thought he could contend for a batting title.

He fell far short.

Burriss, I said, NEEDED to make changes. He NEEDED to shorten his swing, and use his speed like Maury Wills.

He never did.


Russ Ortiz I never liked because of his goofy throwing motion. I thought he'd struggle throwing strikes and wouldn't stick.

I was wrong.

I liked John Bowker's short, quick, swing.

I was wrong.



On the good side, after watching them play 10-12 games, I became HUGE proponents of Panik, Crawford, and Brian Wilson.

I also really was high on Matt Cain and Lincecum, albeit Timmy's delivery caused me huge concerns.


so I guess I'm a 'break even' guy on predicting prospects.


Which takes me to Ryder, Arroyo, Montcreif and Gomez.

I like all three, Ryder and Arroyo a LOT.

Montcreif and Gomez I believe with hit, but I have HUGE questions about both on defense.

We'll see.

boly

[Rog]

If I were to choose how well Ryder Jones would play, I would choose the utility level. It's not so much his .190 average, but that he's walked only once while striking out 15 times.

His hard-hit percentage is just 26%, which is below-average, and while the sample is small, his 23% infield fly ball rate is about the highest I've seen. His 14% line drive rate is extremely low.

In other words, he just isn't hitting the ball very hard. Over half his balls have been fly balls, which would be OK if he were hitting the ball hard and playing in more of a home run park. As it is, his .190 average -- while a little low -- doesn't seem like a fluke.

Ryder developed his power in AA and began to hit for average in AAA. Until the majors, he handled his last two promotions well.

Ryder does have eight hits in his last 22 at bats, so he's figuring it out a little. Included in those hits are a double and a home run.

But right now I would say he needs to show a lot more before I'll be sold. He's struck out once every four trips, which isn't horrible. But one walk in 58 at bats is. A 14% line drive rate is sad. Hitting the ball hard one out of every four times isn't good. And popping up two out every nine fly balls is horrid.

If Ryder were to continue to hit just over half fly balls and pop up two out of every nine of them, if he ever played a full season, he would very likely lead the league in pop ups. That's not the area one wants to lead in.

Thus far Ryder has hit poorly in almost every area. His best attribute is that he's still only 23.

[Rog]

Burriss, I said, NEEDED to make changes. He NEEDED to shorten his swing, and use his speed like Maury Wills.

He never did.


Rog -- I understand the concept and indeed Manny could have done a better JOB of hitting his ground balls, but he has hit three out of every five balls on the ground, which is the highest rate I've seen.

This is another indication of why the numbers are so important. Because there were time we WISHED Manny would hit the ball on the ground -- likely in key situations -- we failed to realize how often he DID hit the ball on the ground.

Let me know if you can find a hitter who hit the ball on the ground more often than Manny. I can't remember seeing a single one. Maury Wills? Maybe. It's truly hard to know without going through his game logs. Matty Alou? Possibly, but again we would have to go to a lot of work to find out.

As we have seen with Manny, our perceptions and memories often fail us. What Manny needed to do was hit more LINE DRIVES. He hit the ball on the ground four times as often as he hit a line drive. And for every five ground balls, he hit only two flies.

I said when Manny came up that he didn't hit with enough power to stick. I didn't have access to ground ball rates at that time, but much of the reason Manny didn't show power is that he hit so many grounders.

Surprisingly, Manny played in the majors as recently as last season. This year at age 32, he hitting .253 with a .557 OPS in AAA. If a batter hits .253, it's pretty hard for his OPS to be just .557. That means (virtually) no power and (virtually) no walks.

Manny has begun to hit a few more fly balls. But his ground ball rate remains highly elevated, and his line drive rate is significantly depressed.

I really liked Manny. Great guy. But the scouts should have seen that he had too much trouble hitting the ball in the air. Like Boly hoped, perhaps they believed he would hit the grounders more effectively, resulting in a much higher batting average.

Whatever they thought, they were incorrect. An analytics department would probably have helped them better see Manny's ground ball tendencies and what they likely meant.

It wasn't that Manny didn't hit enough ground balls. He hit more than anyone I know, and he was pretty effective in beating them out. He beat out 9% of his balls hit into the infield, which is only 1% lower than Hunter Pence. Manny's problem was that he didn't hit enough line drives. Nor did he hit the ball hard enough. Only one out of every seven times that Manny put the ball in play did he make hard contact.

The idea of Manny hitting more balls on the ground like Maury Wills did is a great concept. But it appears he hit them too softly to get them through and too hard to be able to beat them out more than 9% of the time.

Manny's 9% was good, but Maury's may have been spectacular. We know that the Dodgers hardened the area in front of home plate to allow him more time to get to first base and that the Giants drenched the area so that he couldn't.

I'd love to go back and see Maury's percentage of infield hits. I suspect it is one of the best in the live ball era. But I suspect that Manny's problem wasn't hitting the ball on the ground as much as it was hitting his grounders too HARD. Not hard and not soft. The dreaded medium-hit ball that usually results in an easy play.

I guess what gets me is that the perception that Manny didn't hit enough ground balls lingers, even though it was shown here years ago that he had a very HIGH rate of grounders.

Facts like these tend to shoot down the "I know what I saw" crowd. Perception isn't always reality, and memories often cloud. We tend to remember things somewhat as we want them to be, not necessarily as they were.



Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/4035/wrong-right?page=1#ixzz4px3ZVC8u

[klaiggeb]

Too few at bats for Ryder to make that statement yet, Rog.

I have a bigger concern about him: EVERYTHING he's hit has been to his pull side.

Not good.

Can he drive the ball the other way?

Haven't seen that yet.

boly

[Rog]

Ryder has indeed hit just one in five balls to left field. He's hit the ball to center field once every three times. That means he's pulled the ball just under half his at bats.

[Rog]

Too few at bats for Ryder to make that statement yet, Rog.


Rog -- At this point it's just an educated guess.




Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/4035/wrong-right?page=1#ixzz4pyCFCYGK

[Rog]

Ryder has hit the ball the other way more often in the minors. He did so about once every four times in Sacramento this season, and the two years before that he hit about one in three to left.

Since after his first season in the minors, he's pulled around half his balls each season.

[klaiggeb]

Pulled half the balls... that's what I was afraid of.

At the Big League level, IF he doesn't learn to go the other way... he'll have a John Bowker-like short career.

boly

[Rog]

By the way, when I say Jones looks like a bench player to me and that's it's merely an educated guess, one can get an idea of a player without even seeing him play -- if he knows how to interpret statistics.

As Boly said, I haven't really seen enough of Ryder to get a good idea of what he's all about, but much of what he is is there in black and white.

We know without even seeing him play or reading a scouting report that Ryder pulls the ball about half the time. We know that he doesn't walk a lot. We know he doesn't strike out too much, although he's far from a contact hitter. We know that he's been a modest hitter in the minors but seemingly put things together this season at Sacramento, hitting well enough not to have it fully discredited by the PCL's being a hitters' league.

We know he hasn't been overwhelmed by southpaw pitching. We know that his power has been improving to the point where it is no longer a pronounced weakness for a corner infielder.

If we look at a player's stats and the several scouting reports that are available on even minor league players, we can get a decent "look" at him before he even sets foot on a major league field.

We can probably know at least as much as we know after having watched him play for a couple of months without having that other knowledge.

If we let them, the scouts and the numbers will do a lot of work for us. They can allow us to study baseball, not just watch it.