Staten Island Walk and Strikeout Rates

Written by Sean P | 10 September 2010

The next team in our set of BB/K graphs is the Staten Island Yankees. Below are my introductory remarks from the Wednesday’s graph.

I wanted to take a look at BB% and K% for each level because it can give us a rough outline of a player’s strike zone judgment. Strike Zone judgment encompasses a player’s ability to avoid strike outs as well as draw walks.

Thanks to Jeff Sachman who did some work on translating amateur K%, we know that a strikeout rate of 25% in the majors roughly equals a 21% rate in single A ball. Of course we know that players are going to cut down on these rates as they get older and gain more experience- I don’t think anyone would blindly write off a top talent because he struck out a lot as an 18 year old in the Gulf Coast League. Also because these are short season leagues, we may be running into a sample size issue with some of the results. So keep that in mind as well.

When looking at these graphs, make sure you take into account the age and experience of each prospect before rushing to judgment on them. The average K% in the NY Penn league among qualified batters was 23%, while the average BB% was 9%.

click to enlarge

That Shane Brown has good strike zone judgment shouldn’t really be a surprise, considering he’s an advanced college bat who had a terrific season at UCF. He profiles as utility type if he progresses but didn’t really do anything well except get on base in SI- .235/.375/.297….Kelvin DeLeon would certainly qualify as a contender for most disappointing season- .236/.288/.359- definitely not encouraging. DeLeon has always struggled with strike outs, still over 30% this year while actually drawing fewer walks than last season as well. Not good…. Kyle Roller was another polished college bat with a history of taking walks and getting on base, so it wasn’t surprising for him to find success in SI….Eduardo Sosa had a terrible 2009 which may have been partially due to a rock bottom BABIP so it was nice to see some improvements, however minimal in 2010- Sosa walked more and actually struck out less in 2010 which was nice to see…Kevin Mahoney had a nice year doing what he does best- playing defense and getting on base. He’ll strike out a decent amount, but a combined .286/.400/.471 across 4 levels is pretty easy on the eyes.