Tampa BB and K Rates

Written by Sean P | 27 September 2010

After an especially hectic week, we're back up and running here.

Here's your primer:

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 we may be running into sample size issues in the minors where most guys don't get enough PAs for BB and K rates to totally stabilize.

When looking at these graphs, make sure you take into account the age and experience of each prospect before rushing to judgment on them.

tampa_bb_and_k

The Florida State league has an extremely suppressed offensive environment so we should keep that in mind when looking at these figures as well. Mitch Abeita is nothing more than a system catcher, but he has always had good strike zone judgement, never walking less than 10% of the time or striking out more than 26%...Among qualified Florida State League players (325 PAs), only 11 had higher walk rates than Corban Joseph or Jose Pirela. Joseph had a solid season in the FSL before getting called up to Trenton, posting a .367 .wOBA. Pirela wasn't especially impressive, posting a .331 wOBA...Melky Mesa had a good year, but a complicated one as Greg touched on earlier. His tools are extremely impressive but the results have always been muddled- for instance an FSL leading .210 ISO but posting a career HIGH .338 OBP. He did managed to significantly cut down on the Ks and wound up walking an average amount, but I still have no idea what to make of him...Bradley Suttle initially really struggled out of the gate, looking understandably rusty after missing all of 2009. He finished the year hot though, over August and September hitting .292/.385/.576. His walk rate didn't rebound to his career rate but he had a nice come back year.