So... is it yet time consider J.D. Martinez a legit prospect?
by kyuss94 on Aug 20, 2010 5:38 PM EDT
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PrintThe Astros farm lacks very much to be excited about past Jordan Lyles and a few others (though next year could be far better with the first full seasons from DeShields and Foltynewicz), and Martinez has been the only player at any level that has really stood out at the plate. He put himself on the radar last year after posting a .348/.399/.598 line between two clubs, and has continued to put up video game-like stats at A and AA this season. I thought that he'd hit a wall when called up to Corpus Christi, and he had appeared to after putting up a .262/.318/.361 line in his 61 July ABs there, but he has exploded to the tune of .406/.466/.578 in August. I realize that he came from a tiny school and was a bit old for SAL earlier this year, but with a career BA over .350, OPS near 1.000 and decent HR totals, can we stop calling him a fluke? Could he be a top 100 prospect at this point?
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Personally
I don’t quite see him as a top 100 prospect right now. Since he’s been called up, he’s facing his first real test against age appropriate competition, and he’s doing well, after a very short adjustment period. But a lot of his success is due to a really high BABIP at every level, which is nearly .400. He’s not a big time walker, so he’s pretty heavily reliant on that BABIP. But he does walk some (a little over 8% of PA on the year), and he’s never struck out a ton. He’s shown solid power at the low levels, mostly doubles power, but he’s shown a little less power so far at AA.
I think he’s a very strong B- right now, which is clearly outside the top 100, but if he continues improving his AA numbers and finishes the year strong, I think he’ll probably get a full B from me, and at that point he’ll have a good shot to make the top 100.
Also
He’s definitely a real prospect and not a fluke. That doesn’t mean he’ll be a star or even that he’s a lock to be a regular. But he’s proven that he can hit.
by auclairkeithbc on Aug 20, 2010 7:32 PM EDT up reply actions
Maybe I just don't know enough about BABIP
But with a batting average of .350+, won’t his BABIP sort of automatically near .400? I may be totally off base there, I’m not sure. I’d agree with what you said, I also think top 100 right now is a stretch, But I really didn’t expect to see him hitting just under .340 at AA after ~150 at bats. He has been a pleasant surprise.
Well
HRs count toward AVG but not BABIP. Basically, your HR/(HR+K) is your batting average on balls not put in play. So if that is higher than your BABIP somehow, your AVG will also be higher. Carlos Lee has a .248 average, and a .246 BABIP. Pujols has a .314 average and a .302 BABIP. Same for Kurt Suzuki and Aaron Hill. Vlad has an equal AVG and BABIP. I think that’s the full list. So it’s rare.
Equally as rare, and more importantly, are players that have a BABIP over .372 in the majors (there are 5 total).
by auclairkeithbc on Aug 20, 2010 8:28 PM EDT up reply actions
I see. Interesting.
But what I’m saying is that when Martinez has a BABIP of .372 it doesn’t mean as much, because that’s only 12 points above his BA. Like, one of the players with a BABIP over .372 is Hamilton (.391), whose average is closest to Martinez of anyone in the bigs. It’s not like Chris Johnson’s .405 BABIP vs. .340 BA. I always looked more at the difference between BABIP and BA moreso than the actual number, is that the wrong way to interpret it? When his BABIP is only 17 points over his batting average, is he really getting that lucky?
Looks like I misunderstood
Fangraphs lists his BABIP as around .400 across Lexington and Corpus this year. Still similar to Hamilton’s .391 but does suggest more luck.
BABIP - Key is sustainability
The key to reading BABIP is whether a player can sustain that level of production for the long haul. It all comes down to the fact that the more ABs a player has the more we know about him. Martinez has had 800+ PA in the minors. At his individual stops his BABIP has varied from .350 to .440 . . . which suggests that at these levels of competition he may be able to sustain a .400 BABIP . . . which is definitely atypical. Albert Pujols career BABIP is .315 . . . which is very close to the “rule of thumb” for MLB of everyone is going to level out at around .300 BABIP. That’s why Austin Jackson is not believed to be able to keep up his current level of production over the long haul. His K’s are far more than his HR and that mean to sustain his current .300 BA he needs a .423 BABIP . . . which would mean that once he hit the majors he actually was able to RAISE his BABIP from the minors by nearly 75 points. That’s the definition of unsustainable in many evaluators eyes and has had many folks calling out for Jackson to fall off a statistical cliff soon. Yet, there he is. I would expect that if Martinez continues his current level of advancement and follows common trends to the other thousands of players that are out there then he would project to be a solid starter as a floor. That alone would make him a legit prospect, but not necessarily a top 100. If he can sustain a .400 BABIP for much longer, people are going to have to rethink that stance. The things that worry scouts and evaluators right now is that when he made the AA jump to age appropriate competition, his K rate went up by 6% and his ISO went down 100 points, while the other metrics stayed steady which says that pitchers only get better from here upward and it puts an alarm to watch out for in their minds.
You can't compare BABIP marks from the minors and the majors
The quality of defenses is VERY different between even Triple-A and MLB.
Bryan Smith at FanGraphs did some research, and the average BABIP marks from each league were given for 2007-2009:
Midwest (A): .350
South Atlantic (A): .354
California (A+): .365
Carolina (A+): .341
Florida State (A+): .343
Eastern (AA): .336
Southern (AA): .339
Texas (AA): .341
International (AAA): .334
Pacific (AAA): .343
MLB: .301
I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy
by Satchel Price on Aug 21, 2010 10:53 AM EDT up reply actions
Am I missing something?
Why are those so different than what DER points to on this study? Shouldn’t BABIP approximately be 1-DER?
Honestly I'm not that familiar with the differences in how the two studies were conducted
I know that Bryan Smith’s study uses five years, while Justin Inaz’s study uses three years. I made a mistake when I mentioned above that Smith’s study used 2007-2009, that was actually Inaz’s study.
Smith did include this caveat before putting his numbers out there, though:
I should note these figures will be slightly inflated, as it just seems impossible to weed out batted ball errors from the total figure. Still, that would only have an incremental effect on these numbers, which show that fielding gets better as you move up the ladder and get more experienced defenders behind you.
Based on Inaz’s study, that “incremental effect” would seem to be far more substantial than Smith is suggesting. Since I haven’t crunched the numbers myself, nor am I really capable of doing so, I can’t really say which set of data is more accurate.
I tend to believe that Inaz’s numbers are more accurate given the astoundingly high BABIP marks produced in Smith’s study, but to be honest I actually forgot that Inaz did DER calculations in his study before you brought it up right now. Which is kind of sad, considering we do write for the same site fairly often.
I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy
by Satchel Price on Aug 23, 2010 6:46 PM EDT up reply actions
Thanks for the clarification
There definitely seems to be something wrong with Smith’s numbers. I did some calculations to solve for K/AB based on all the other numbers available from the two studies and CAL batters would need to strike out about 30% of their at bats for Smith’s numbers to be right. Using Inaz’s numbers its a much more reasonable 23%.
Yeah, I wonder if anyone's pointed this out to Bryan before
I know that his general point from that series didn’t really have to do with the exact figures; he was merely trying to show that defensive efficiency increases as you move up the ladder.
But if his numbers are as off as Inaz’s study suggests, then well, that’s just a bit disheartening.
I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy
by Satchel Price on Aug 24, 2010 2:53 PM EDT up reply actions
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