As-Cab---is he the future Omar?

by cursedcleveland on Jul 10, 2007 12:50 AM EDT

The situations are (while not completely) similar. We got both Omar and AsCab from the Mariners for next to nothing. Both players were known for their extremely talented defense and glove work but both prospects had questions about whether or not they could hit consistantly at the ML level. We know what Omarriffic did and it looks like AsCab has really turned a corner this year. At just 21 years of age AsCab is really hitting the ball well at AA and is showing ecouraging signs

His power numbers are way up above his minor league average, 7 HRs, 20 doubles, and. 482 Slg. His OPS is very good at 880, again well above his career marks. And probably most encouraging and significant is his 37/34 BB/KK ratio. I really want to see this kid in Cleveland in the near future but realize at 21 he's likely a year, probably two, away.

My question is two fold. Is this maturation and increased production for real? And two, what grade would he get now? He was a C+ to start the year. Loved to hear your thoughts!

Let's make it an Indian summer!

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Comments

B/B+

I don't think his offense will ever be great but he'll be consistent at the plate and paired with a very good glove, it will make him one of the more valuable shortstops and a guy that will have a good MLB career. hopefully.

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by was385 on Jul 10, 2007 12:49 AM EDT reply actions

my thoughts

As long as people call him As-Cab or Crab-Ass or whatever I hope he does terrible. lol

You know what? If a guy doesn't have a nickname use their name. It works. :)))

by pedrophile on Jul 10, 2007 12:54 AM EDT reply actions

Hilarious

thank you my friend

Curtis Granderson fan

by jrose643 on Jul 10, 2007 1:00 AM EDT up reply actions

np de nada.

by pedrophile on Jul 10, 2007 1:12 AM EDT up reply actions

aye

Agreed.

by Rayman @ Minor League Ball on Jul 10, 2007 1:04 AM EDT up reply actions

C'mon

As-Cab is cool. Plus I misspell his name ten different ways

by cursedcleveland on Jul 10, 2007 1:10 AM EDT up reply actions

Crab-Ass it is :))

by pedrophile on Jul 10, 2007 1:11 AM EDT up reply actions

Better than Grab-Ass

by cursedcleveland on Jul 10, 2007 1:21 AM EDT up reply actions

hmm

I like that one also :)

by pedrophile on Jul 10, 2007 2:07 AM EDT up reply actions

+1

dude, the guy is already named asdrubal! how cool is that? and are there any other asdrubals? (answer: no.)

i sometimes flippantly refer to him as "asdrubal the casdrubal" but that's a pretty obscure reference. also, it's not very short as nicknames go.

by jpahk on Jul 10, 2007 1:18 AM EDT up reply actions

Response

B+/A- type prospect, depending on how much power you think he hits for. Elite defense at premium position. I don't think there's a chance in hell of him OPSing .880 in the majors but I think he can spend a lot of years with an OPS around .780-.800. Combine that with his glove and you've got a guy who could end up playing in All Star games.

We'll have to see how his bat holds up against better competition, and I suspect he'll end up moving to 2B with Peralta in Cleveland for the foreseeable future, but I don't think there's a better middle infield prospect in the minors.

by mrkupe on Jul 10, 2007 12:58 AM EDT reply actions

Not sure I agree with the last statement...

But I would put him #2, with Brignac #1. Brignac's power potential is too much for me to drop him below Asdrubal.

Is Crab-Ass' speed for real? He's 21 of 28 so far this year, but only attempted 21 times all of last year. I tend to be a bit skeptical when a prospect's stolen bases really jump like they have this year. How does his speed and base-running grade out? Are they good enough to steal 15 - 20 bases in the majors?

by guru4u on Jul 10, 2007 10:56 AM EDT up reply actions

Response

Brignac is still the #1 middle infielder for a lot of people. Just not for me.

I think Cabrera will be a better hitter for average, hitting in the area of .275-.295, with Brignac around .260-.280 generally speaking. Brignac has a clear edge in power, should hit for above average pop for a shortstop. Cabrera has better plate discipline, although Brignac should be respectable there. Cabrera's defense (GG caliber) blows Brignac's (acceptable but not more than that) out of the water.

I think reasonable projections for both players would be along the lines of .290/.360/.420 for Cabrera, .270/.340/.450 for Brignac . . .I think most would take Cabrera's higher OBP, but it's close to a push. When you add in Cabrera's defensive value, though, he gets the edge. It's not a HUGE edge, mind you, but it's a pretty clearly defined difference for me.

by mrkupe on Jul 10, 2007 11:11 AM EDT up reply actions

Response part 2

And of course I forgot to address your actual question, my bad. Cabrera's speed grades out as average or perhaps just slightly above average. He's been batting 2nd for Akron, though, so perhaps the Indians see him as a top of the lineup guy and want him to work on developing his baserunning skills.

12-15 a year doesn't seem like a stretch to me.

by mrkupe on Jul 10, 2007 11:19 AM EDT up reply actions

Cabrera's speed/bat

There was an interview with Doug Mirabella not long ago regarding Cabrera that probably was only seen by diehard Indian fans. He made it clear that they are grooming him for the 2 spot and feel he is ideally suited for that spot. There has been a minor change in his elbow position which has improved his ability to drive the ball. He also acknowledged that, while still not a burner, his speed had improved somewhat through "natural maturation". Mirabella also said they were not committed to promoting him to Buffalo this year which I viewed with some skepticism.

by sdtribefan on Jul 10, 2007 1:08 PM EDT up reply actions

I agree with your assessment of Cabrera!

Hello mrkupe,

I agree with your analysis of Cabrera, and I agree with you that I think he could steal anywhere from 10-20 SBs a year, as I certainly think Cabrera has shown enough baserunning ability in the Minors to do that, at least.

I too also see him as a top-of-the-order, #2 guy; Cabrera has been batting in the #2 hole regularly (sound similar to Omar? :-) I could definitely see him plugging into that #2 hole very nicely one day for the Indians.

One thing I disagree with you though is on where Cabrera will likely play; I still think he'll more likely be the Indians' future SS than 2B for 2 main reasons:

If Peralta remains, I can see why you'd think that he would remain at SS, being that he would be the veteran. However, Peralta did play some 3B in the Minor Leagues, and his bat certainly would play at the position. Meanwhile, Cabrera's maximum value would be as a SS, and his defense would be a decent to good upgrade over Peralta's. Combine that with the fact that there is more question over whether Marte will become an established regular at 3B, and I could certainly see Jhonny shifting over to 3B to accommodate Cabrera.
It's possible Jhonny could become trade bait, possibly for a young top-of-the-rotation type starter or maybe a young OF power bat within the next few years; obviously, if Peralta is traded away, Cabrera will likely become the successor to Peralta at SS (and that's probably the only way the Indians would consider trading Peralta - knowing that Cabrera was ready to take over at SS, similarly to how they knew Peralta was ready to take over at SS when they allowed Vizquel to leave as a FA.)

Just my 2 cents. :-)

Take care and have a great day!

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Jul 11, 2007 9:08 AM EDT up reply actions

Cabrera

I also admire mrkupe's assessment of Cabrera. I also agree with your comments except that I do not rule out the possibility that Peralta would become a replacement at 2B for Barfield or the OFer that could be better than anything the Tribe could trade for. Peralta's hitting stats would not embarrass a ML OF nor his arm.

by sdtribefan on Jul 11, 2007 5:47 PM EDT up reply actions

An analysis of Cabrera vs. other AL SSs like

Tejada, Omar, and Peralta.

Hello sdtribefan and everyone,

APV of LetsGoTribe put together this interesting analysis of Cabrera's progression through the Minors as compared to Miguel Tejada, Omar Vizquel, Jhonny Peralta, and John McDonald. You can see it here.

sdtribefan - I'm not saying that Peralta couldn't handle 2B nor couldn't become the Indians' future 2B, but as was mentioned in that link above, Peralta's arm would be more valuable at 3B than at 2B, and Peralta has 3B experience in the Minors, but not 2B experience. In addition, as jakesinger777 mentioned, Peralta's ability to play 2B may not be as easily translatable as we might think just because he plays a decent SS.

As you can also see from that thread, we too thought of the Peralta in RF idea; that's an intriguing thought, though I don't know if Jhonny would have the range to play RF, since some have questioned his range at SS. It's certainly an idea that could merit consideration though if guys like Francisco, Gutierrez, Barton, Brown, Snyder, any FA or trade acquistions, etc. can't handle RF in the next few years for whatever reason (offensively or defensively.)

Just my 2 cents. :-)

Take care and have a great day!

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Jul 11, 2007 8:32 PM EDT up reply actions

Cabrera forecast

Nice stuff, indiansfan. APV did a lot of work. If I wasn't so lazy, I think I would expand the work to include Orlando Cabrera who could be most similar in many ways. I am hoping our boy is in Buffalo by the end of the week.

by sdtribefan on Jul 12, 2007 7:06 AM EDT up reply actions

O-Cab

I'll add him in the comments...

by APV @ Minor League Ball on Jul 12, 2007 10:23 AM EDT up reply actions

APV now has, and did another nice job with it -

you may want to check it out if you haven't already. :-)

Take care and have a great day!

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Jul 12, 2007 7:49 PM EDT up reply actions

a-bal

If he can go .880 in AA at 21, then he could eventually do it in ML. Well, a lot of it is hit rate. Could definitely exceed 800 though.

by wobatus on Jul 10, 2007 1:56 PM EDT up reply actions

B- now B if he sustains it all year

The M's pushed him to see if he could beat out Yuni who they committed a lot of money to for who was already 23 years old. He failed the uber-test so they moved him figuring they had glove first prospects like Navarro anyways.

His BABIP is a little high and just eye-balled the LD% but it looked average so he might be getting a little lucky. He is definitely impressing so far though. I answered the 2nd question, the answer to the first IMO is that most of it is maturation and "real" with a little playing over the head

by Trenchtown on Jul 10, 2007 1:00 AM EDT reply actions

Looked at it yesterday

His LD% is very low like 9% if I remember right, so he is hitting a lot of groundballs and flyballs

by Kanst42 on Jul 10, 2007 8:50 AM EDT up reply actions

must not have looked at it right

ML splits has his BABIP at .360 and I am too lazy to calculate it out for myself but if that is true that he is only at 9% then the fluke factor goes WAY up. Because I saw him in Tacoma and he doesn't have beat out infield dribblers speed at all.

If what you say is true, then Asdrubal Cabrera is dead to me

by Trenchtown on Jul 10, 2007 7:09 PM EDT up reply actions

Not sure if im calculating it right

But MLSplits list his batted ball data as:
Groundballs:120
Line Drive: 22
Fly Ball: 88
Popup's: 6
B (maybe bunts?): 3
U (no clue what that stands for): 3

So I added those up which equals 242, if you divide 22 by 242 you get a line drive percentage of 9.09%

I dont know if that 242 is right though, it says he has 266 AB, and 31 K's so I would assume he had put 235 balls in play?

I dont know what I am calculating wrong, but either way his line drive rate is low

by Kanst42 on Jul 11, 2007 11:28 AM EDT up reply actions