Don’t know how relevant this will turn out to be, but Pablo put up an OPS in excess of 1.100 in the Venezuela Winter League. Believe it or not, he actually took more walks, too.

If Sandoval would have had a BABIP of .300, his average would have been about .283, not over .300. You’re right that he wouldn’t be the worst hitting catcher with a .283/.295/.428, but he wouldn’t be that much better than him if he either doesn’t start walking more, hit for the power he showed in the minors, or keep his BABIP high. He’s not a bad prospect, and might be a solid player, but I wouldn’t bet on him being much better than average

Despite his maddening propensity for swinging at pitches outside the zone, Pablo is a very good contact hitter.

What worries me though is typified by one pinch hit appearance by Pablo in which the pitches to him went strike one, strike two, strike three — even though none of the three pitches was in the strike zone. And that was from the left side, which is Pablo’s stronger leaning.

I realize most right-handed throwers who are switch hitters hit better from the right side, but despite his strong right throwing arm, Pablo is a natural southpaw who changed to being a right-hander so he could play more positions.

If you were pitching to Pablo, wouldn’t you try to throw a first-pitch strike and then avoid throwing him any more pitches in the strike zone at least until you reached three balls?

Pablo is one of the best bad-ball hitters around, but no one hits bad balls consistently as well as pitches in the strike zone. Plus, even if a batter is hitting balls just off the plate, he usually becomes more vulnerable to swinging at pitches more than a little off the plate.

Some VERY good points here, Martin. The guy who said he sees nothing special about Pablo isn’t particularly observant.

But I do see danger signs, despite the fine contact rate.

Let’s begin with first pitches. A vast 70.8% of first pitches to Pablo were strikes. With the possible exception of Greg Maddux, I don’t know of any pitcher who throws 70.8% of first pitches in the strike zone — or anything close to it. Even Maddux threw “only” 66.5% first-pitch strikes and has averaged only 65.1% over the past four seasons for which Fan Graphs has records.

Maddux would be considered excellent for his 65.1% first-pitch strikes. If so, how BAD is Pablo for his 70.8% first-pitch strike percentage? And rarely is he putting that first pitch into play. Only a fifth of his at bats were decided on the first pitch.

Since pitchers threw less than half their pitches (46.6%) in the strike zone to Pablo, he might be better off taking the first pitch. That said, Pablo hit only .275 after a first-pitch ball. He actually did his best hitting after 0-1, hitting a robust .382. We’re looking at a small sample though, and those results will almost certainly change over time, perhaps somewhat reversing themselves.

I think pitchers will learn more and more that there is little point in throwing many pitches in the strike zone to Pablo. Last season he swung at over half (53.8%) of pitches thrown to him outside the strike zone. Once a pitcher gets ahead of Pablo, why would he throw him a strike until he reached three balls in the count? In over 150 plate appearances, Pablo reached a three-ball count only six times.

Maybe pitchers, managers, scouts and pitching coaches aren’t as smart as I think they are (and I don’t think they’re geniuses), but why throw strikes to Pablo? He swings at over half the pitches outside the strike zone, which is likely a higher percentage that Barry Bonds swung at even including pitches IN the strike zone. In fact, according to Fan Graphs, Barry swung at only 36.0% of all pitches thrown his way in 2007. Pedro Sandoval in 2008 was 50% more likely to swing at a pitch OUTSIDE the strike zone than Barry Bonds was to swing at the average pitch in 2007.

Why would a pitcher throw the ball over the plate to Pablo? Especially if he were to get ahead of Pablo? Why not let Pablo get HIMSELF out?

Unfortunately I don’t have any figures on how Pablo actually fared on pitches outside the strike zone, but it is hard to imagine he hit them as well as pitches over the plate. Pablo’s 79.4% contact percentage on pitches outside the zone was exceptional — but it still meant that he missed 20.6% of pitches he swung at outside the zone, or nearly three times the fabulous 7.1% he missed when he swung at strikes. That isn’t absolute proof that Pablo hit pitches inside the strike zone clearly better than pitches outside it, but it certainly is indicative that is probably the case.

I guess if pitchers continue to be dumb and throw strikes to Pablo, he’ll continue to hit more than nine out of ten of such pitches he swings at. But why, oh why throw Pablo strikes — especially when the pitcher is ahead of him? At the very least, aren’t pitchers going to force Pablo to adjust?

Last season Pablo actually struck out less frequently in the majors than in AA, and he struck out less frequently in AA than in A ball. Just a guess on my part, but might that be because pitchers’ control improves overall as they rise through a chain? Did pitchers not strike out Pablo nearly as often in the majors as in A ball because they thre him too MANY strikes?

My thinking was that if Pablo cut back on his strikeouts as the season progressed at San Jose, perhaps he was indeed improving his ability to avoid striking out. And indeed there WAS improvement, as Pablo struck out once every 6.1 at bats in April, once every 7.3 trips in May, and once every 8.6 at bats in June. On the other hand, his line drive percentage dropped from 21.8% in April to 12.6% in May and 11.8% in June.

He continued to improve his avoidance of the strikeout in AA, striking out once every 4.8 trips in June, once every 8.1 times in July and a spectacular once every 20.5 (two strikeouts in 41 at bats) in August. There his line drive percentage was 13.3, 20.4 and 5.1%.

With the Giants, he fanned once every 9.3 trips in August and improved slightly to once every 11.1 at bats in September. Do you remember though, his pinch hitting appearance in the ninth inning of the penultimate day of the season when batting against the cagey Takahashi Saito in a 2-1 game with a chance to tie the game he struck out on three pitches, none of them in the strike zone? That is a pattern I fear we will see more and more of in the future.

I guess next year will be an interesting one to see if:

. The pitchers do indeed adjust to Pablo.

. If they do so, will he be able to counter-adjust?

My guess is that Pablo’s .345 of last season was a mirage but that he still should be close to a .300 hitter. He has more than a modicum of power, and that should improve for a couple of years as he matures (not that he isn’t a very big boy already). If he doesn’t improve his plate discipline, I think pitchers will be able to limit his power and to some extent his batting average. And naturally he won’t draw walks, really the only area in which he is quite subpar.

The Giants are a fair-hitting team except that they don’t get on base or hit for power (just try to bridge THAT sar-chasm). Pablo should help the latter, but unless he bats .325, he doesn’t appear likely to help the former.

but in the end I dont think he can maintain that AVG swinging at that many pitches out of the zone. Could he be a freak who hits like Vlad or Nomar? Sure, its possible… just extremely unlikely. Much more likely its a SSS issue, IMHO.

What do you know about Tuiasosopo? To me he is the key. If he’s ready to go, why WOULDN’T the Mariners trade Beltre? As you say, they aren’t likely to be at all competitive in 2009, so Adrian’s $12 million salary for the upcoming season is mostly an albatross for them.

Shouldn’t they be concentrating on getting as much for Adrian as they can and saving as much money as possible — so they can spend it on prospects, player development or on free agents after they have become more competitive?

From the Giants they would receive:

. Salary relief.

. A prospect or prospects.

. Potentially a higher draft choice as compensation for Winn, a player they could more afford to offer arbitration to than the more expensive Beltre, if they needed to so to ensure the compensation.

If Tuiasosopo would benefit from more seasoning, the Mariners should hold on to Adrian until near the deadline and hope he plays well enough to at least hold his trade value. If the Mariners can get more for Beltre than what I have proposed from the Giants, they should take it.

But if you’re basing your statement that Beltre is a MUCH better player than Winn on his being projected at 20 runs better by CHONE, you may have a little difficulty in your math. According to www.fangraphs.com, CHONE projects Adrian at a wRC of 81.9, which is far less than 20 runs higher than Randy’s 78.2. What are you LOOKING at?

In addition, Randy smoked Adrian in wRC last season with a nice 93.5, or more than 15 runs better than Adrian’s 77.6. Over the past two seasons Randy has averaged a wRC of 92.4, easily outstripping Adrian’s 82.3 by just over 10 runs.

Over the past three seasons, Adrian’s average 84.7 wRC just edges out Randy’s 84.5, but if we go back four seasons, Randy’s average of 89.6 easily outshines Adrian’s 80.3. We have to go back five full seasons to bring Adrian’s unweighted average wRC over a run above Randy’s. At that point Adrian averages 91.2 to Randy’s 90.1.

If we go back six years, Randy takes the lead again, at 89.8 average wRC to Adrian’s 86.4. If we make it seven years, Randy leads 90.1 to 86.4. At eight years, Randy still leads at 86.9 to 83.2. In order to get Adrian ahead by a significant margin, we have to go back nine years to 2000, when Adrian had 475 at bats to the fledgling Winn’s 159. At that point Adrian is ahead 83.5 to 73.9.

What was that you said about Adrian’s 20 run seasonal edge?