Blue Jays Discussion: It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Kevin Pillar!

[ShaneFalco]

 

[zeke]

I think actual scouts love Pentecost as well. The real question is the health. If he's healthy, he's got the athleticism and bat to ball skill to be Jason Kendall-esque. You have to remember the Cubs were considering him at the 4th slot that year before ultimately taking Schwarber. I imagine the only reason he remains in A+ is due to the proximity to the training center as they are monitoring him daily.

That's not to disparage Jansen, whom people around here have talked about, and loved, since he was at Bluefield. He's got the best plate discipline of all three (by far), and he's been a darkhorse prospect for most of us since 2014.

McGuire gets love because he's considered the best defender/game caller/manager (plus-plus) of the three. It's doubtful he hits at all in the Majors, but he'll be there as a Mathis\Malle type.

Catchers are fickle, though. In '11, we had four who were considered actual decent to blue chip prospects. One is retired, one can't stay off the DL, and two are essentially quad-A guys now.

Jansen - my one big worry with him is his arm. if opponents can run with impunity then it's hard to stick at catcher. but i love the plate discipline, and i love that he's shown the ability to put up eye popping numbers (not just for a C) at age appropriate levels. And i still think he has power left to tap into.

Pentecost - scouta love athletic catchers. sometimes too much - see Blake swihart. athleticism sometimes blinds them to actual catching skills - though to be fair i have no idea whether max is a good receiver or not (nor does anyone else yet, really). My issue with him is still the bat - while the topline numbers look good, they're actually not that good for his age and level. and his underlying numbers still look problematic to me - too many Ks and not enough BBs. I will say that the most encouraging thing about him since he came back last year has been his power - i was worried that it was never really there but now it looks real.

Hey, I like both of them. I'll just wait to get excited about Max until he shows he can catch regularly and shows he can hit in the high minors. Jansen, though, has always received good grades as a receiver and gamecaller, has shown the (inconsistent) ability to put up big numbers at the right age/level, and even in his bad years all the underlying numbers have mostly still looked strong.

McGuire I like too but see him most likely as just a good defensive bench catcher.

 

[Diamond Joe Quimby]

This sounds far more like a description of Jansen than Pentecost.

I imagine you mean because of the low K%, which I would agree with. My comp is more towards the tools themselves with a comparison to lates 90's\early 00's Kendall, i.e. the athletic ability for a catcher (remember, Pentecost stole 17 bases in his junior year as KSU, and had a spd rating of 7.2 at Vancouver, and 5.4 at Lansing), and Gap power (50+ XB hits). If we're talking K% and current hitting profile wise (if we believe he won't improve those figures with more AB's), then Russell Martin (offensively) might be a decent comp as well.

To me, Jansen has a little more Paul Lo Duca to his game.

 

[zeke]

I see Jansen as more of a Varitek type.

 

[Diamond Joe Quimby]

Jansen - my one big worry with him is his arm. if opponents can run with impunity then it's hard to stick at catcher. but i love the plate discipline, and i love that he's shown the ability to put up eye popping numbers (not just for a C) at age appropriate levels. And i still think he has power left to tap into.

Pentecost - scouta love athletic catchers. sometimes too much - see Blake swihart. athleticism sometimes blinds them to actual catching skills - though to be fair i have no idea whether max is a good receiver or not (nor does anyone else yet, really). My issue with him is still the bat - while the topline numbers look good, they're actually not that good for his age and level. and his underlying numbers still look problematic to me - too many Ks and not enough BBs. I will say that the most encouraging thing about him since he came back last year has been his power - i was worried that it was never really there but now it looks real.

Hey, I like both of them. I'll just wait to get excited about Max until he shows he can catch regularly and shows he can hit in the high minors. Jansen, though, has always received good grades as a receiver and gamecaller, has shown the (inconsistent) ability to put up big numbers at the right age/level, and even in his bad years all the underlying numbers have mostly still looked strong.

McGuire I like too but see him most likely as just a good defensive bench catcher.

And I wouldn't disagree with any of that. What bothers me about Pentecost is the lack of walks, which does not translate well as hitters progress up levels. The K% has to almost be expected given the stops and starts, inconsistent AB's, and missing a whole year at 22 years old. He's now got 400 AB's since the second surgery, so I would expect the rate to steadily start declining. The power is a huge plus, spoken from somebody who's had shoulder injuries in the past, and knowing what it can do to a baseball swing.

 

[Discoverer]

I imagine you mean because of the low K%, which I would agree with. My comp is more towards the tools themselves with a comparison to lates 90's\early 00's Kendall, i.e. the athletic ability for a catcher (remember, Pentecost stole 17 bases in his junior year as KSU, and had a spd rating of 7.2 at Vancouver, and 5.4 at Lansing), and Gap power (50+ XB hits). If we're talking K% and current hitting profile wise (if we believe he won't improve those figures with more AB's), then Russell Martin (offensively) might be a decent comp as well.

To me, Jansen has a little more Paul Lo Duca to his game.

Martin is a good fit, yeah. The combination of Pentecost's K% and HR power makes Kendall feel like a poor comp to me. At his absolute power peak, Kendall was a gap hitter who squeaked out a couple double-digit HR seasons in one of baseball's most offensive eras as long as he got 600+ plate appearances. Pentecost seems to have real HR power.

 

[Discoverer]

The age/level thing is usually any important factor, obviously, but I think experience is something we often tend to overlook. Pentecost is 24, but he's just now approaching a full season's worth of professional plate appearances. It's the same reason we cut Alford some slack for the huge swing-and-miss issues in his game the last couple years. I expect it'll start to decline for Pentecost as well.

 

[zeke]

The fact that we still look at him as a prospect at all despite being 24 in A+ I think is already giving him plenty of leeway for his injury history and lack of experience, though.

I mean at 24 a good prospect should be knocking on the door for MLB duty.

 

[Diamond Joe Quimby]

Martin is a good fit, yeah. The combination of Pentecost's K% and HR power makes Kendall feel like a poor comp to me. At his absolute power peak, Kendall was a gap hitter who squeaked out a couple double-digit HR seasons in one of baseball's most offensive eras as long as he got 600+ plate appearances. Pentecost seems to have real HR power.

I've always thought of Pentecost as a line drive, gap to gap power, kind of guy. Which he was in college, the cape, and in Lansing. Weirdly, since going to Dunedin, he's been doing this dead pull, extreme fly ball thing, and living off a high HR/FB rate. And of course, his K% has risen along with that approach. I imagine they'll try to refine that. I agree, I can see more homeruns than a Kendall on a season by season basis (maybe high teens/low 20s).

Just a fun fact: Prime Kendall was low double digit HR, ~35 2B, ~5 3B (beast) with a 150-175 ISO, 20+ steals, and plus defense. the five tool catcher

 

[Discoverer]

Just a fun fact: Prime Kendall was low double digit HR, ~35 2B, ~5 3B (beast) with a 150-175 ISO, 20+ steals, and plus defense. the five tool catcher

Even at his peak he had less power than almost any starting catcher in baseball. Like I said, those "low double digit HR" were based almost entirely on getting way more plate appearances than other catchers.

For the record, if the Jays develop a catcher who puts together a career even close to Jason Kendall's, I'll be ecstatic. He was always one of my favourites growing up (mostly because he was a catcher who could run).

 

[ShaneFalco]

4pm start today boys and girls

Chips pitching

 

[ShaneFalco]

 

[metafour]

The fact that we still look at him as a prospect at all despite being 24 in A+ I think is already giving him plenty of leeway for his injury history and lack of experience, though.

I mean at 24 a good prospect should be knocking on the door for MLB duty.

You don't seem to even understand what age/level actually means. Age is relevant as a function of innings and at-bats...ie: the more innings and at-bats you've amassed, the further along you should be from a scouting and development sense. Obviously this typically correlates with age as the older you are, the more seasons you will have played. However, for players with recurring injuries, it simply isn't AS relevant because their age doesn't even give you an accurate glimpse of developmental time. Max Pentecost at 24 has 505 at-bats under his belt in 126 games. Bradley Zimmer, also 24 and from the same draft class, has 1245 at-bats in 337 games. Therefore it is silly to say "oh this guy is 24, that means he should be in the MLB by now or else he's not even worth talking about" without looking at actual context. You also don't seem to grasp that Pentecost very easily could be up to AA or AAA by now had they not wanted to obviously be conservative with his shoulder. Why is he in Dunedin still? Weather, he's right at the spring complex and can be evaluated constantly, etc. The opposing team's scout who talked about Pentecost also said that he wasn't being challenged at the plate at all and that he should be in AA, so the fact that he's still in Dunedin at 24 really isn't a function of a lack of skill or ability.

 

[deletethis]

Production from Jays' catchers other than Martin:

3 for 63 with 3 walks, 1 run scored

When I didn't care about anything other than defense and game calling from the team's backup catcher, I was still assuming something in the vicinity of a hit per 5 ABs.

 

[zeke]

Yeah, I'm confident in my understanding.

Age and experience are different things, with different effects.

 

[metafour]

i know what the interweb scouts think. and they also like mcguire better.

but i've long thought that i wouldn't be surprised to see Jansen be the one who ends up as an mlb starter in the end, and i'm probably less surprised than anyone to see jansen doing what he's doing this year.

(and hey, if you're using a month and a half as proof you/they were right about Bellinger, i should use the same to prove i was right about jansen, no?)

The quote came from an actual scout; of an opposing team who was watching Dunedin play.

You really seem to struggle with valuing the importance of actual tools in a scouting sense versus just looking at stat sheets or age. Being really young for a level with average at best tools isn't better than being old for a level yet with well above average tools. At the end of the day you need a certain collection of positive tools to become an impact MLB player, this means that a 22 year old pitcher in A+ who throws 95-97 with the makings of a plus breaking ball is more of a prospect than a 20 year old in AAA who throws 88-90 with no secondary pitch that is worth talking about. Being "young for the level" is only a positive if the actual tool-set will play; otherwise you're just a young guy who will probably be exposed at the MLB level due to a lack of actual skill.

 

[zeke]

Hey, if all you want to do is regurgitate internet rankings when discussing prospects, have at it. But if you want to pretend that i ignore tools when evaluating prospects that's fake news.

i've had some success in finding over and underrated prospects via the numbers, and this doesn't require me to ignore any tools analysis whatsoever.

You take pleasure in pointing out failures of statsline scouting, without ever considering the failures of tools scouting.

I will not argue that Max doesn't have better raw athletic tools than Danny, but raw tools aren't everything.

 

[Eyedea]

Production from Jays' catchers other than Martin:

3 for 63 with 3 walks, 1 run scored

When I didn't care about anything other than defense and game calling from the team's backup catcher, I was still assuming something in the vicinity of a hit per 5 ABs.

Also shows how valuable Martin still is to the club.

 

[Discoverer]

Also shows how valuable Martin still is to the club.

Russell Martin - 96 PA, 0.5 fWAR
Everyone else - 67 PA, -1.2 fWAR

The backups have been almost unfathomably bad.

 

[metafour]

Hey, if all you want to do is regurgitate internet rankings when discussing prospects, have at it. But if you want to pretend that i ignore tools when evaluating prospects that's fake news.

i've had some success in finding over and underrated prospects via the numbers, and this doesn't require me to ignore any tools analysis whatsoever.

You take pleasure in pointing out failures of statsline scouting, without ever considering the failures of tools scouting.

I will not argue that Max doesn't have better raw athletic tools than Danny, but raw tools aren't everything.

I'm not a proponent of either side over the other, I'm bringing it up because almost every time you post its under some pretense of "this guy is old for the level, therefore dock points"/"this guy is young, therefore great"/"these two have similar numbers, therefore they're equally as good". Its not as relevant as you make it out to be. Also, I'm sure you're aware that stat-line scouting really isn't that valuable at all in the lower minors and only really becomes somewhat useful at AA/AAA.

 

[Diamond Joe Quimby]

To be fair, in the "tools" vs. "stat-line scouting" debate; had you spoken to scouts and experts in 2010\11, they would've called you a fool to think that Matt Carpenter had a chance to be better than Bobby Borchering and Matt Dominguez, or that Paul Goldschmidt would've been better than Yonder Alonso (hot 2017 start aside) and Jonathan Singleton. However, looking at their wOBA\wRC+\ISO\BB-K in retrospect, its not that big of a surprise at all. Obviously, a player's tools are a very important portion of the eval and shouldn't be ignored, but the question must be raised as to when they should be adjusted given the performance of his underlying numbers.

Hilariously, those examples also fly in the face of the "he's old for the level, so ignore him" argument as well.

 

[ShaneFalco]

Russell Martin - 96 PA, 0.5 fWAR
Everyone else - 67 PA, -1.2 fWAR

The backups have been almost unfathomably bad.

Navarro couldn't be worse, could he?

 

[zeke]

I'm not a proponent of either side over the other, I'm bringing it up because almost every time you post its under some pretense of "this guy is old for the level, therefore dock points"/"this guy is young, therefore great"/"these two have similar numbers, therefore they're equally as good". Its not as relevant as you make it out to be. Also, I'm sure you're aware that stat-line scouting really isn't that valuable at all in the lower minors and only really becomes somewhat useful at AA/AAA.

Yes, I will always, always take age/level into consideration. Always. No matter what. It always matters.

And thanks for your advice as to what is valuable, but I'm quite happy with how my stat-line scouting has turned out in real life.

 

[zeke]

To be fair, in the "tools" vs. "stat-line scouting" debate; had you spoken to scouts and experts in 2010\11, they would've called you a fool to think that Matt Carpenter had a chance to be better than Bobby Borchering and Matt Dominguez, or that Paul Goldschmidt would've been better than Yonder Alonso (hot 2017 start aside) and Jonathan Singleton. However, looking at their wOBA\wRC+\ISO\BB-K in retrospect, its not that big of a surprise at all. Obviously, a player's tools are a very important portion of the eval and shouldn't be ignored, but the question must be raised as to when they should be adjusted given the performance of his underlying numbers.

Hilariously, those examples also fly in the face of the "he's old for the level, so ignore him" argument as well.

There's countless examples.

After buying in on prospect rankings and being forced to deny the stats so often with jays prospects, the last straw for me was Kyle Drabek. A guy whose numbers clearly didn't support his tools ranking, at all. Yet I trusted the rankings anyways. After that debacle, I'd had it with ignoring the numbers I knew were important.

After that it became surprisingly easy to spot overrated prospects (Drabek, Stewart, Wallace, Hoffman) and underrated prospects (Thor, Osuna, Stroman, Travis).

 

[Woodman19]

To be fair, in the "tools" vs. "stat-line scouting" debate; had you spoken to scouts and experts in 2010\11, they would've called you a fool to think that Matt Carpenter had a chance to be better than Bobby Borchering and Matt Dominguez, or that Paul Goldschmidt would've been better than Yonder Alonso (hot 2017 start aside) and Jonathan Singleton. However, looking at their wOBA\wRC+\ISO\BB-K in retrospect, its not that big of a surprise at all. Obviously, a player's tools are a very important portion of the eval and shouldn't be ignored, but the question must be raised as to when they should be adjusted given the performance of his underlying numbers.

Hilariously, those examples also fly in the face of the "he's old for the level, so ignore him" argument as well.

Exactly, far too many are on either extreme when it comes to the quantifiable vs. qualitative scouting debate. Over the years I have gone from about 90% stats and 10% physical tools to about 60% stats and 40% tools. You get burned too easily by boxscore scouting only.