The only batted ball rate that’s worth much from minor league data is GB%, since there’s an objective qualitative difference between a GB and a ball in the air.

And as he begins to catch up to the rest of the league in age (and thus physical development, i.e. POWER), he may very well develop a better ISO. Ozzman is right that you are discounting ARL in that regard.

and even more so in a league where it seems every week there is a game postponed due to rain.

But that doesn’t mean when you look at a minor leaguer with less than 400 PAs in his career that you can’t draw any conclusions about a BABIP that deviates so far from the mean. Havens career BABIP is about .276 in ~350 PAs (to be exact, its 60 hits in play out of 217 balls in play), which qualifies as a minor league BABIP that’s significantly below the mean. Its much more likely that number will move back closer to .300 than it will move below .276. It may never be .300, it may be .300 in some years and .280 in some years, that information isn’t available, but the one thing that is fairly unlikely is that it will stay at that level or below. He has too much power and patience, both of which also correlate to strong hitting ability, the former being a measure of strength and the latter being a measure of pitch selection, both of which should have a positive correlation to BABIP.

I won’t disagree with you there, I am going to the extreme to defend myself a bit since I feel like people are treating comparison as this sort of “holy grail” of minor league analysis, and its just not. Its a fun way of putting particular, marginally insightful context on players. I feel like I could go on a different thread and compare Gorkys Hernandez to Endy Chavez and get a similar reaction, even though there is some insight to be drawn from that type of comparison.

At the same time, you can’t use data you don’t have, and you can’t proxy for the unknown, so while we can use the lessons learned from “individual xBABIP” as a guideline, its just not data that’s available. Dan Johnson is an interesting example, because his BABIPs in the minors actually were above .300 (.315 career). He hit for high averages in the minors, but he also hit his ceiling before he translated that to the majors. Is that possible for Havens? Sure is. I’m not even talking about whether its likely or not. All I’m saying is that there is some evidence that Havens xBABIP is higher than .258 or even .276. I understand I don’t have more than marginally strong evidence for that claim, but I’m using all the data that’s available as far as I know and forming an opinion based on that, so why should I assume the evidence that I don’t have would contradict my claim? It might, it might enhance it, the point is its not available. All the “lack of evidence” or “lack of absolute strength of evidence” determines is the size of the grain of salt you or I should take my claims with, which is really where we’re differing.

All I’m saying is that its more likely that Havens BABIP regresses towards .300 than it is that it stays at .275 or below. That doesn’t mean that’s what’s going to happen, and it doesn’t mean that Havens has the skill of a .320 BABIP hitter, but I don’t think its unfair to make that assumption at this point in the analysis that Havens should be expected to move closer to .300 assuming he takes a reasonable development path. His BABIP was quite reasonable in the NYPL, it was his strikeout rate that held him back. Those have flip-flopped in the FSL to yield a similar low average. But the FSL also supresses BABIP, so you should expect it to be lowish anyway. Given this, and that I don’t mind making educated gambles, I’m willing to surmise that Havens will see a BABIP boost as he continues his minor league career, and that a BABIP drop is less indicative of process here than the contact rate improvement is. And in the end, that’s the only important claim I’m making. His improvement in contact rate tells us more than his drop in BABIP does.

I’ve been very careful not to specifically claim that Havens>Cardenas, since I’m well aware of my own selection bias. Over the last year and a half, I’ve followed Havens quite closely, since I am admittedly a Mets fan. Cardenas I have not, so yes, I have a selection bias, I’m aware of it, so I’m not making any claims of relative quality, only discussing the particulars in the contexts that I’m comfortable with, which with Havens includes waxing intellectual about his step-by-step progress, and with Cardenas includes looking at his numbers and various other discussions and forming vague opinions.

I’m not “cherry picking” anything. I’m discussing direct similarities in numbers between players with similar physical tools and similar amateur pedigrees. Does Cardenas share more similarities with Boggs than most other minor league middle infielders? I honestly couldn’t say off the top of my head, but I’d love to hear it if you could provide a convincing case. That doesn’t seem to be what you’re saying though, you seem to be making an ad absurd analogy rather than actually doing a similar kind of comparison to the one being discussed between Havens and Utley.

Since it was so unlikely that would happen, would that have to mean the lottery was fixed?

I just think this is a wonderful time for this:

And it’s a way to keep the gems on top and push the crap out of sight as quickly as possible.

In the past, a thread about how AN needs a new name never would’ve even been made.

But there is way to much non-baseball banter on the site now.

Makes no sense. At all.

The range of variance is huge, that’s the point. Its much more likely Albert Pujols strikes out 27 times in 85 ABs than it that he strikes out 270 times in 850 ABs. Neither are likely, but the order of magnitude is still massively important.

Then again, I’m not saying this because I think Havens strikeout rate in the NYPL was flukey, its worth treating as it is for sure, there’s no need to regress it. That argument I agree with, but being that it was last year, that it was a smaller sample size than this year, and that he’s substantially improved this year, its hard to put much weight into it. You definitely take what he’s doing right now as more meaningful in that regard. Just like you take it as a bad sign when a hitter moves up a level and sees his contact rate fall off significantly.

Comparison DOES NOT EQUAL congruence. Similarity does not imply equality. Yes, dissimilarity does imply non-equality, that is true, I admit that, freely, but that’s a different claim. I’m not saying Havens=Utley, or Havens will=Utley, or Havens is likely to = Utley. I’m just saying they’re players that are coming off of a similar skill base and similar performance, and therefore by looking at the various similarities and differences, we can better understand a player like Havens, where the raw data and even the sensory perceptions of him is limited (i.e. we don’t get to see him play on the teevee everyday).

I’m not disputing either of the following ideas:

1. It is unlikely that Reese Havens will produce a similar value at ages 24, 25, 26, 27, etc to what Chase Utley has.

2. With each successive year, the odds that Havens matches Utleys particular career path get lower.

But those are two separate statements that have nothing to do with looking at two players with similar tools and similar skills. Those two statements could be made about any comparison though. You might as well just change those statements to:

1. It is unlikely that [Prospect] will produce a similar value at ages 24, 25, 26, 27, etc to what [Star Player] has.

2. With each successive year, the odds that [Prospect] matches [Star Player]’s particular career path get lower.

They’re both still true. That doesn’t mean, even strictly for the benefit of the Cardenas vs. Havens discussion we can’t have the following line of thought:

1. I can think of players who became superstars that started off like Havens.
2. I can’t think of players who became superstars that started off like Cardenas.

Conclusion: Havens seems to have higher upside than Cardenas

Now, I can’t confirm or deny #2 here, which is why I haven’t really done much more than chime in on Havens. From what I can tell, that is, what I markers I know to look for and the nature of the discussion, it seems the big questions about Cardenas are power and defense. The HR/FB trending down is not good, but he still has time to correct it. If his defense is good, even without adding much power he should/could be a useful player on contact rate, decent walk rate, and sustainably high BABIP. However if the defense is poor, and he needs to move to a less demanding position, he may need to find that power to become a useful everyday player. On the other hand, if he plays good defense up the middle and hits for more power, then he probably has some star potential, though his current situation doesn’t really seem to favor this outcome.

Now, getting back to Havens, the real point with him is that his low batting average is fairly misleading. Its possible he’ll just always be a low BABIP guy, but most other factors seem to indicate that this is just one of those funky BABIP situations, where a number of weird factors have landed Havens quite far below the mean. Otherwise, he’s pretty much the complete package offensively. There aren’t any red flags (aside from health, but that’s a different discussion, though an important one as well), where Cardenas never flashed this kind of power and is trending down as well, never posted a 13% uBB%, and even if he’s capable of sustaining a BABIP above the mean its unsustainabley high right now.

Honestly, the two questions for me with Havens are contact and defense. At least this year, he’s made the kind of contact you’d expect a guy with power to make, (that is, a K% in the 15-18% range), and the same kind Utley makes/made. But that number is one that gets dangerous if it regresses in the upper levels, so its a big one to keep your eye on. More than an improvement in this area, it was a lack of regression that a big part of why Utley was able to translate his other already existing skills at higher levels, which when combined with a few power spikes in his mid 20s (and, of course, health), is a big reason he was able to become the star he is today.

As for Havens’ defense, I’m not even quite sure why everyone’s talking up his defense so much. My understanding was that he wasn’t quite hacking it at SS, but that the consensus was he’ll make a solid second baseman. I think we have to wait and see how he handles 2B, but assuming he’s an average to plus defender, then combined with his awesome offensive skillset, and praying for sustained health, he’s got some superstar, 5+ WAR potential, and he does seem more likely to reach the higher ends of the WAR spectrum than Cardenas.

Back on the other hand, Cardenas has already proven his mettle in Double-A, and he is a year younger. I’m not sure that necessarily gives him a higher “floor” persay than Havens, especially given his Triple-A struggles. But it may mean he’s significantly more likely to become an above average, non-superstar than Havens. These are all considerations to weigh, and its exactly why coming up with an interval system of grading prospects is kind of silly practice in the first place. But still, this is all discussion worth having and its really the important part of the process.

I’d love to discuss it with you, I’m sure it would be an interesting discussion.

Just stating that it’s hard to know if those guys – some confirmed PED guys and some unconfirmed – improved because of it. It just clouds the issue of how a guy can make the leaps those guys made, that’s all.

He’s more likely to become Utley than, say, Carl Crawford.

Btw, the body type thing is something that has me intrigued, so even though you didn’t really mention it here I’ll bring up something: Adam Kennedy is listed at 6’1, 190-195 (depending on the source).