Reviewing More Sleepers

by John Sickels on Jun 19, 2010 9:00 PM EDT

Continuing to review the pre-season sleeper list.

Connor Hoehn, RHP, Oakland Athletics: 3.45 ERA for Kane County in the Midwest League, 61/20 K/BB in 44 innings, 27 hits. Outstanding K/IP and H/IP ratios stand out as big positives.

T.J. House, LHP, Cleveland Indians: 3.30 ERA with 65/35 K/BB in 71 innings for Kinston in the Carolina League, 70 hits allowed, 1.76 GO/AO. Needs to lower his walks a bit, but having a good year.

Jiwan James, OF, Philadelphia Phillies: Toolsy outfielder hitting .249/.296/.356 with 14 steals, 16 walks, 65 strikeouts in 67 games...obvious strike zone issues. Has been hot in June, .309/.329/.471.

Steven Johnson, RHP, San Francisco Giants: Back to Baltimore system. 3-4, 4.65 with 67/38 K/BB in 70 innings for Double-A Bowie, 57 hits allowed, 13 homers and a 0.47 GO/AO. Strikeout rate is good, but imperfect command and strong fly ball tendency is a bad combo.

James Jones, OF, Seattle Mariners: Toolsy outfielder hitting a mere .202/.317/.357 for Class A Clinton in the Midwest League, 33 walks, 60 strikeouts in 213 at-bats. He's drawing walks and has stolen 13 bases, but other offensive attributes have been weak.

Josh Judy, RHP, Cleveland Indians: 15 innings so far for Triple-A Columbus, 4.11 ERA but a sharp 19/3 K/BB. I still see him as a good sleeper relief prospect.

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BABIP of .245 for a guy with good speed. Jones is getting unlucky.

Always trust the stats that reveal the skill sets. The slash lines are misleading.

Fans are typically idiots.

by The Typical Idiot Fan on Jun 20, 2010 4:22 AM EDT reply actions

Solid point

His luck-adjusted BABIP comes in at .313, which would give him a .243/.355/.413 line on the year.

His line drive rate is really, really low, which is a big part of why his BABIP is so low, but even so, he should be getting more hits on groundballs and line drives than he’s been getting, particularly given his speed and athleticism. I mean, his batted ball profile in terms of GB/FB/LD is essentially identical to 2009.

There’s essentially one difference between ‘09 Jones and ’10 Jones: infield flies. In 2009, Jones got some good luck, but he also popped up in the infield just 3.8% of the time, compared to 17.5% of the time this season. When you already have a low line drive rate, you can’t really afford to have nearly a fifth of your fly balls immediately become worthless.

I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy

by Satchel Price on Jun 20, 2010 1:06 PM EDT up reply actions