Written by Greg Fertel | 26 October 2010

Back in April, I asked a bunch of Yankees bloggers nine questions regarding the farm system for the upcoming season. I would like to take a look back at what the rest of them said, but to make my life easy I'm just going to review my own answers and see how terrible they were.

1. Is there a prospect you see breaking out in 2010 and having more success than he has had in previous years?

Greg Fertel, Pending Pinstripes: I want to go with Jeremy Bleich here, because the common thinking is that he struggled last season after advancing to Trenton. The peripherals tell a different story, and that's why he's a very good bet to improve on last season. The velocity reports from Mark Newman are encouraging as well. Another guy who I think will break out is Brad Suttle. He missed all of last season, but that guy can really hit and I think he'll be able to play third base adequately as well.

Look at that, I'm brilliant right off the bat. That's a joke. Bleich got off to a very poor start for Trenton and then underwent Tommy John Surgery. Suttle, on the other hand, wasn't an awful pick. He got off to a slow start and wasn't displaying any power, but steadily improved as the season went along. In August, he had a season-high walk rate of 14.2 percent and a season-high ISO of .253. He finished the year with a .272/.341/.411 batting line playing for Tampa the entire season.

2. Which prospect that has some hype do you think will disappoint Yankee fans this season?

Greg Fertel, Pending Pinstripes: I'll go with two guys here also. First, Eduardo Nunez still has fans, and it seems that the Yankees like him a at least little bit considering that they added him to their 40-man roster. His BABIP was high and his batting average was empty, with no walks and no power. I wouldn't even be mentioning Christian Garcia because he's a perpetual disappointment, but there has recently been a lot of hype surrounding him. Look, Garcia has nasty stuff, but there's just no reason for anyone to expect him to stay healthy.

I'd call this one 2 for 2, but you Eduardo Nunez fans would disagree, and that's fair. By all reports, Nunez's defense improved greatly this season and he maintained his "good" offense from 2009. I just don't think his BABIP-aided .289/.340/.381 line is ever going to cut it for the Yanks.

Sadly, I was spot on with Christian Garcia, who was injured in his first start of the season and is not with the Yankees organization anymore.

3. Tell me your sleeper candidate -- someone who is barely on the prospect map right now but will be at the end of the season?

Greg Fertel, Pending Pinstripes: I'm going to go with Jimmy Paredes. He'll be 21 this year and it will be his first year of full season ball with Charleston. I do wonder why the Yankees haven't tried him at shortstop more, given that he has all the defensive tools to excel there. He was solid in Staten Island last season but I think he could really break out this season.

Well, there's one complete whiff. Jimmy Paredes had 433 uninspiring plate appearances for Charleston before being shipped off to Houston in the deal for Lance Berkman. He did steal 48 bases this season though, so he does have that going for him.

4. Which Yankees' minor league affiliate are you looking forward to following the most this season?

Greg Fertel, Pending Pinstripes: I am looking forward to following Tampa, just because of Andrew Brackman and Manny Banuelos. Many have Banuelos as the best pitching prospect in the organization, and Brackman really needs to build on his mediocre season in 2009 and start to reach some of his potential. These two guys may be the most interesting pitchers in the organization.

Not much of a prediction there, but those guys didn't stay in Tampa very long.

5. Who is someone to watch from the 2009 draft that we might not be paying too much attention to?

Greg Fertel, Pending Pinstripes: I know Axisa loves Graham Stoneburner, but I haven't seen him get too much attention elsewhere. It looks like the Yankees are sending him to Charleston, where I imagine he'll be a starter. He'll be an interesting guy to watch.

That reads like a non-answer to me right now, so I'm not going to give any credit to myself for choosing Stoneburner, regardless of his good season. Credit goes to Mike Axisa for this one.

6. Do you see a prospect in the Yankees system that is routinely underrated?

Greg Fertel, Pending Pinstripes: Zach McAllister. He really doesn't seem to get enough love given how successful he has been. Hopefully, he can use his time in Triple-A to prove some of the doubters wrong.

Yeah... another big miss. Maybe I'm not too good at this after all. McAllister was really bad for Scranton this season before being traded for a fourth or fifth outfielder in Austin Kearns.

7. Of all the players the Yankees traded away this offseason, who do you think the Yankees will miss the most, long term?

Greg Fertel, Pending Pinstripes: It's tough to do this, because he doesn't have the ceiling of an Austin Jackson or an Arodys Vizcaino, but I'm going to go with Ian Kennedy. I just think he's an extremely good bet for at least league average performance starting this year. I can't say the same for either of the other two guys.

This question asked for long-term so can't really be answered definitively right now, but both IPK and Austin Jackson had good seasons. Jackson continued to benefit from an absurdly high BABIP, and Kennedy put together 194 above average innings for Arizona.

8. Will there be a Ramiro Pena of 2010? Is there someone who comes out of nowhere and has an impact at the major league level?

Greg Fertel, Pending Pinstripes: I don't know. Ramiro Pena really came out of nowhere last season. He wasn't a top prospect and wasn't on the 40 man roster so I'm not sure anyone else fits the same profile. If there's an injury in the OF, Greg Golson will get called up; if there's an injury in the IF, Reegie Corona will get called up. Other than those two, I don't see any other real possibilities unless there is a real emergency.

I was way off again here with Reegie Corona. I was right with Golson, but wasn't really saying much.

Overall, that was a pretty poor performance, so there you have it. If you've been wondering why I haven't been blogging, there's the reason. No, I kid; I've actually just been busy, but I hope to provide some more content in the near future.

Written by Josh W. | 19 October 2010

With CC's next start quickly approaching, I decided to look at when he's at his best compared to how he usually is. I have done this by choosing his 5 best starts (somewhat abitrarily chosen) and comparing them to his entire season data.

Pitch breakdown

Entire Season (from trip somers' pitch f/x tool):

Best Five Starts (539 pitches):

FF= fourseam, CH = changeup, SL= slider, SI= sinker, CU = curveball

And because I thought it deserved its own table, here are his whiff rates

His raw stuff seems the same in both time periods. His fastballs have a little more run to the them, and his slider actually has less movement, but that's about it. The main difference is in his pitch selection; in his best starts, he simply through more offspead and breaking pitches.

Command

Here are density plots of CC's horizontal pitch location:

entire season, LH **********************************************************************five best starts, LH

The red lines represent the width of the strikezone. This is kind of like an overhead view of the plate, where the leftmost line in each graph represents the inner part of the plate to a right handed batter.

We can see that in both time periods, he pounds the outzide against lefties. However, in his best starts he seems to be able to pound the inside part of the plate too.

entire season, RH******************************************************************* five best starts, RH

Here we can see that in his best starts, he pounds the inner half of the plate (to a right handed batter) much more often than the rest of his starts.

Finishing Thoughts

It seems that there's really no mystery to CC's success. When he's at his best, he commands his pitches to both sides of the plate and throws more breaking balls. It's that simple. There's also the caveat that 5 starts is not a lot of information to work with, so there's only so much we can take away from this.

Written by Sean P | 04 October 2010

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.

Jesus Montero had a great year, specifically in the 2nd half but perhaps one overlooked aspect of his year would be his BB rate. Traditionally in the 7% range, Montero was much better at taking the free passes this year. His strikeouts rose too however, which shouldn't be surprising for a 21 year old in AAA. Still, having a K% of around 20% is better than average, certainly a good sign for the young catcher....Will Juan Miranda ever get a real shot in the majors? I'd guess probably not, but it does make one wonder...Chad Huffman isn't much of a player but has always displayed good strike zone judgement- a career walk rate of around 10% always is nice to see...Reegie Corona's AAA season was interesting if only because while his numbers were terrible, he wasn't noticably overmatched in any particular way. That .265 BABIP may have something to do with that...In related news, Eduardo Nunez continues to give me reasons to hate him....

Written by Sean P | 30 September 2010

Once again, the 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.

David Adams was in the middle of a breakout year (.403 wOBA) as we all know until he ran into serious ankle trouble. Let's hope he bounces back strong in 2011...Austin Romine got off to a hot start before wearing out down the stretch. Still he managed to post his highest BB rate yet, which at 7.4% isn't terribly good....Justin Snyder had a great season in terms of strike zone judgement but the results didn't really show up in his batting line- .245/.365/.345. There might be hope for him as a super utility man (he played every single position except CF this year) if he can turn the good walk and strike out rates into results...Dan Brewer had a nice season, certainly better than what I expected- I thought he'd hit the wall jumping from A+ to AA but he posted a solid .272/.347/.407, .346 wOBA line... Corban Joseph had a great season in Tampa but struggled in his first 130 PAs in Trenton, which is isn't terrible surprising from a 21 year old. It was nice to see his plate discipline hold over somewhat and I would guess the K% will come down as he adjusts to the level....Damon Sublett had his first awful year since being drafted by the Yankees in 2007 (.214/.343/.321 in AA). The excellent walk rate was still there but the K% ballooned from 23% in 09 to 33% in 2010.

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.

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.