BA minor league player of the yr
by Asfan4ever723 on Sep 11, 2009 3:14 PM EDT
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http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/prospect-hot-sheet/2009/268861.html
Team: high Class A Myrtle Beach (Carolina) / Double-A Mississippi (Southern) / Triple-A Gwinnett (International)
Age: 20
Why He's Here: .323/.408/.555 (117-for-362), 17 HR, 25 2B, 4 3B, 63 RBIs, 51 BB, 51 SO, 10-for-11 SB
The Scoop: When Jason Heyward was in high school, scouts struggled to get a good read on the Atlanta prep prodigy. Opposing teams pitched around him, and his coach struggled to throw a good batting practice, which meant a crosschecker or scouting director could fly in, watch a Heyward game and leave without really ever getting a chance to see what he could do.
The Braves were thrilled that other teams weren't getting a good look. Heyward slipped past 13 teams, giving Atlanta a chance to develop another hometown star with their first pick in the 2007 draft. Ever since then, Heyward has lived up to every expectation. He dominated low Class A Rome in 2008, but he was even better in 2009. Heyward can run, he can hit for power and he can hit for average. But as his Myrtle Beach manager Rocket Wheeler explained, his defense is the part of the game that is underrated.
"He's an outstanding player. He has a plus arm, he makes diving catches and he has great instincts on the bases when he runs. He's the complete package."
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Shocking
"There's only one cure for what's wrong with all of us pitchers, and that's to take a year off. Then, after you've gone a year without throwing, quit altogether." -Jim Palmer
not player of year
Not that Heyward isn’t the likely eventual winner for player of the year, but this was just the final hot sheet for the year, not the player of the year award.
Just to be clear
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/minors/awards/player-of-the-year/2009/268862.html
Or is Kendry perhaps the one who needs to sit?
Well I guess Delmon Young and Frank Thomas are defensive studs. Who knew?
I never checked the year-by-year winners before you made your claim but it’s easy enough to check. Since 1981, when BA started naming a minor league player of the year half of the position players who have won have been guys who were dominant hitters but no better than middling defensively and sometimes quite poor. Among the winners:
- Mike Marshall
- Ron Kittle
- Jose Canseco
- Greg Jefferies
- Frank Thomas
- Manny Ramirez
- Paul Konerko
- Delmon Young
While there have been winners who were superior defenders — Eric Chavez and Andruw Jones, for example — your assertion just doesn’t hold water.
Yeah, um...
It’s easy to call guys like Ramirez and Canseco and Young defensive busts in retrospect. When they’re prospects, the fact that they’re playing the outfield at all gets them put in an entirely different category than 1B/DH’s. Go back and read the minor league scouting reports on Delmon – nobody ever thought he would be a butcher in the field. I wasn’t following the minors when Manny was coming up, but I suspect his scouting reports read the same way.
The other way of reading the past minor league players of the year is that despite the fact that 1B/DH’s routinely put up the best offensive lines in the minors, only 3 of them have ever been named BA’s player of the year in nearly 30 years of rankings, and it’s been 12 years since the last one. BA doesn’t necessarily only name up-the-middle guys as POTY, but I stand by my statement that when they’re looking at guys with similar lines, they’ll choose the one with defensive versatility.
Oh...
and even those 3 first basemen don’t really count.
Marshall played almost 800 games in the outfield as a major leaguer compared with 180 games as a first baseman. Not exactly your standard 1B/DH type.
Konerko is listed as a 1B on BA’s page because that’s what he played in the majors, but the year he won player of the year, he played predominantly third base. He ended up settling in as a pretty good defensive first baseman. Again, not a guy scouts would have been calling a future DH while he was in the minors.
Frank Thomas is the only true “statue” player listed there, and the year he won player of the year he had a 60-game major league debut in which he OPS’d .983. His 240 plate appearances would have disqualified him today. BA gave Thomas the award 20 years ago because it was clear that he was already one of the best hitters alive. There wasn’t much forecasting involved in that decision.
You can't have it both ways
First you argue Marshall, who played first base exclusively when he won minor league player of the year, should not be considered a first baseman because he played a lot of major league games in the outfield.
Then you argue Konerko shouldn’t be considered a first baseman simply because he there almost the entirety of his major league career.
Which one is it?
In 28 years of the award, a position player has won 21 times including
- Greg Jefferies won twice and he was a butcher at second base at the time — I’m a big Mets fan and he won strictly for his hitting in the minors.
- Manny Ramirez was just as spacey an outfielder then as now, was scared to go back on balls and couldn’t hit a cutoff man to save his life (as a minor leaguer)
- Frank Thomas was a statue, as you say.
- As for Konerko, they were running out of position to try. It’s true they tried him at 3B the year he won and he was terrible; the only time a major league team tried him there was in 2000 when the White Sox tried in Spring Training and quickly gave up. While he ended up being a decent first baseman, when he won the award, he was Montero times two — he couldn’t field as a catcher of a third baseman.
- Mike Marshall was a first baseman when he won. He played a lot in the outfield later in his career not because he was good there but because his chronically bad back prevented him from playing first.
- Ron Kittle started off in the minors with the White Sox as a DH; while he later played left field he had an injury issue that left him less than adequate.
- Canseco and Young each had on impressive defensive attribute (speed and arm, respectively) but both struggled in the minors as well s the majors in the outfield)
So that’s nine out of 21 position winners (Jefferies twice) who either struggled defensively or played first base. That’s more than the number of stellar fielders who have won. A lot more.
As for Montero and talks of him as a future DH, that’s simply because of questions of whether he will stick at catcher bit because 1B is not available on the Yankees for obvious reason. While no one can say of he could play 1B well since its a moot point, it is wrong to say he is a future DH as if he can’t play any defensive position.
edit . . .
that’s NOT simply because of questions of whether he will stick at catcher BUT because 1B is not available on the Yankees for obvious reasons.
Not having it any way...
Marshall and Konerko weren’t defensive statues. They were relatively athletic guys. Konerko settled in as a 1B, and a good one. Montero just doesn’t have the footwork or quickness to think he can handle any position except DH. Marshall was athletic enough to move to the outfield. I don’t know anything about his minor league 1B defense, but I don’t think any team would have tried it had he been completely immobile.
Jeffries might have been a butcher at second base, but he was also at second base – as in, he had 4 spots to go down the defensive spectrum. That’s versatility. Same with Manny. He had the tools to be ok in the outfield, but was spacey. He could have handled a switch to 1B, but ultimately demanded to stay in the field, and teams were happy to oblige.
I’m looking at the same list, and I see a lot of people who were never defensive whizzes (nobody’s saying that’s what it takes), but only one true statue, who didn’t win the award until he was already one of the best major league hitters alive. I don’t see Montero’s season as anywhere near as impressive.
Konerko is definitely a statue
Terrible fielder since day 1. No ahtleticism AT ALL.
The only reason he ever played 1B is b/c he happened to be playing next to perhaps the one guy in baseball who was worse (Big Hurt).
BUT, I dont think one more statue guy really changes your point. AND even though Konerko was slow and clumsy, Montero at 19 is still worse.
Plus, Konerko’s numbers were better than Montero’s. Konerko was raking and walking at rates exceeding Montero’s by a pretty decent margin when he won. Montero isnt at that age yet, isnt doing it at as high a level, and a a good portion of the argument is ARL based – and while its certainly worth a lot, they dont typically give player of the year for ARL reasons. Konerko was also advanced ARL and played between AA and AAA at age 20, so that’s about where Montero is.
UZR disagrees.
Konerko hovered around league average defense his entire career, with one outlier in 2004. Over the last 7 seasons, he’s been a grand total of 7 runs below average with the glove, or pretty much smack dab league average.
But that's besides the point.
The issue — the only issue as it relates to this discussion — was how Konerko was perceived defensively WHEN HE WON minor league player of the year. Those who picked him didn’t know that 15 years into the future, looking back at his major league career, he might be deemed an average fielding first baseman. All they knew was that he had been tried at catcher and failed and then had been tried at third base and was pretty awful, He was Jesus Montero times two — a great bat who couldn’t play two position decently.
Getting back to you original point, I think it’s fair to say that defensive value can be a deciding factor when BA picks from prospects who are otherwise pretty even with the stick. But the record of the award also shows that with some frequency one player has enough of an advantage as a hitter that he’s picked despite defensive mediocrity or struggles.
The point...
was never that mediocre defensive players can’t/won’t win the player of the year. It was that looking at BA’s history, you really need an overwhelming case before they’ll give it to a clubfooted 1B/DH-type player. I don’t think Konerko stands as much of an exception to that. The team thought he might be athletic enough to play 3rd, from which it usually follows he’s not much of a risk to wind up at DH. Nobody’s even talking about hiding Montero in LF, it’s 1B (ruled out due to team situation) or DH or nothing. I really think the only player in the history of the award who compares to that kind of situation is Frank Thomas, and he was already an established major leaguer when he won the award.
Weak defense = still in contention, particularly for people who are at least moderately athletic. NO defense = you really, really need to be miles ahead of the competition with the bat. I don’t see Montero as that much better than Heyward (and I was one of Heyward’s biggest detractors coming into the year) (and by detractor I mean I thought he belonged somewhere in the 8-12 range instead of top 5).
BA Definition of a POY from a 2008 chat
Q: Jay from Madison asks:
What does it mean to be player of the year? Is it the minor leaguer you think will have the best MLB career or the guy who put up the best numbers this past year? If the later, then some nonprospects would enter the discussion, no? Please help me understand. Much thanks
A: John Manuel: As good a question as any for this to end on for me. We define Minor League Player of the Year as the best performance by a prospect. You’ve got to be a prospect first; Terry Tiffee gets jobbed here, I suppose, but he wasn’t going to be a factor for us. You have to be a guy who profiles as a big league regular for a championship-caliber club. From that pool we’re looking for the best performance, factoring in age, level of play, ballpark factors, etc., all the same stats people use to evaluate performance. Wieters satisfied every category. It was a pretty easy choice.
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/minors/awards/player-of-the-year/2008/266834.html
Or is Kendry perhaps the one who needs to sit?
Carter in Playoffs
Going apeshit. Uh oh. He’s going off. What a great year he has had.
yes
including the last game of the regular season, that’s five straight games with a homerun.
by richieabernathy on Sep 13, 2009 12:38 PM EDT up reply actions
hey, Ike Davis
Number 19 on the final hot sheet, which is the hot sheet for the season. And Kirk Nieuwenhuis made the helium section. I also see on the September 4 hot sheet Reuben Tejada got a nice mention for leading EL in putouts at 19 and picking up his hitting in August.
The Mets could certainly use these three guys who all picked it up this year.
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