Wladimir Balentien

by lonestar on May 8, 2007 4:02 PM EDT Comment 7 comments

Balentien was a C-rated prospect. It appears his plate discipline (newly found last year in the Texas League) is holding up at AAA Tacoma.

At age 22 (and in a very small sample size)his slash stats are .353/.424/.621/1.045.

His peripherals:

K/AB = 21/116 = .181
BB/AB = 13/AB = .112
BB/K = .619

What do you think?

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I Would...

Trade Scott Baker for him.

:-)

Sickels for President.

by StatFreakNYM on May 8, 2007 4:26 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

He's an interesting guy, he's shown power at every stop along the way, but he struggled with his plate discipline for a couple of years. Then last season as he made the transition to AA, he improved his walk rate substantially but his average plummeted from .291 in 2005 to .230 in 2006. He's shown every skill offensively at one point in time, and it seems he's finally putting them all together at once. He's been good against LHP and RHP, and at home and on the road. Hopefully he's on track to continue this production and be the hitter he's looked like he could be for a few years now.

"Aw, how could he (Jorge Orta) lose the ball in the sun, he's from Mexico."-Harry Caray

by gatling on May 8, 2007 4:55 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Not that endorse the following comparable...

but his stats resemble a young Ryan Howard, right down to the batting average explosion in AAA. However, Ryan Howard is somewhat of a freak in my opinion. How many hitters have their been who've struck out 180 times in a season and still managed to hit .300

by okteds on May 8, 2007 5:36 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

2

baseballanalysts.com looked at it yesterday.

by Trenchtown on May 8, 2007 7:52 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

If it helps

I can assure you that only the very best can put up #s like that at Tacoma. Im telling you. Its park factor is comparable to Petco. The guy can HIT.

casedog

by casejud on May 9, 2007 12:23 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

the park factors are nothing like Petco....

....and the park factor is distorted to make them APPEAR more similar.

Runs:
Petco 0.75
Tacoma 0.90

HR
Petco 0.709
Tacoma 0.74

H
Petco 0.876
Tacoma 0.97

2B
Petco 0.703
Tacoma 0.98

BB
Petco 0.751
Tacoma 0.96

So, yes, nothing alike. Petco = infinitely harder.

Except on homeruns, you say?

One problem -- and I've pointed it out on this site a million times: park factors are all league-relative, by necessity. Since Tacoma is in the circus known as the PCL, a park factor of "1.0" (which you would assume means "neutral") does NOT mean neutral; it means it plays like the average park in the PCL, which is filled with bandboxes.

In other words, PF of .70 in the NL >>> .74 in the PCL.

Just trying to stick to the facts here.

by bleedjaxblue on May 9, 2007 3:14 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Maybe you can explain this to me...

I look in the back of my baseball prospectus book and it says park factor for Petco...

2004 919
2005 921
2006 928 I look on the website for 2007 so far..
2007 930 It doesnt SAY but I assume it is relative to RUNS scored right? A .75 or 750 is pretty dang far from that so Id be interested in seeing where that came from BJB. Is BP prone to giving inaccurate stats or am I misunderstanding something?

BTW here's Tacoma's

2004 921
2005 914
2006 923

Pretty goddamned similar to Petco (relative to league) if you ask me. Your #s were more detailed but they still show up as the worst hitters parks in their league I imagine right? I think if they are both pitchers parks that qualifies them as at least SOMEWHAT similar buddy...not at all?

Your point about the PCL as a hitters league is a good one but, the same could be said about the National League in the sense that it has a LOT of hitters ballparks too plaus big league baseballs have more juice in em'. The main point is that Balentien's stats, relative to his league at least, are not inflated. It remains a tough place to put up numbers in half your games at.

casedog

by casejud on May 9, 2007 5:25 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs