Sunday, July 24, 2011
The Yankee Analysts: Jesus Montero’s Declining Stock
The three year trend line is headed straight down in OBP, SLG, wOBA and wRC+. As the competition he’s faced has improved, the concerns about plate discipline and pitchers exploiting his aggressiveness have come to pass. Since peaking in High-A in 2009 his results have gone down annually when you look at his advanced numbers. This is not one bad season, its a manifestation of an underlying trend that’s becoming more evident as the sample gets larger. If anything, Jesus has been lucky with the bat this year. His .346 BABIP is higher than it was in AA or last year in AAA, though it has to be noted that 09 was a split season between two levels and it’s very tough to come up with a reliable xBABIP for a player in the minor leagues.
The Yankee Analysts is a great blog, but I found this article to be somewhat sketchy.
First of all, trends aren’t predictive in baseball. Especially if the trend is happening at least partially due to the competition improving.
Second, BABIP is a skill for hitters. You should expect a good minor league hitter to have a high BABIP. It likely means he’s hitting the ball hard.
That being said, the premise of the article is probably accurate. Jesus Montero’s stock has fallen this year. His MLE in AAA last season was around .254/.309/.441 and this year it’s about .245/.296/.352 and we’re no closer to knowing the answer of whether or not he’ll be able to stick at catcher.
Of course, it’d be crazy to think a player of Montero’s age is anywhere close to a finished product, and perhaps he is frustrated by the fact that he was on the verge of breaking camp with the team this spring and didn’t seize the opportunity. It’d also be crazy to assume that because of what’s happened this year we can ignore everything else he’d done prior. But there’s little evidence that he’d be more valuable than either Russell Martin or Jorge Posada right now.
If you want to see Montero in Yankee pinstripes, the fact that his value has dropped probably has a silver lining. If other teams aren’t going to give the Yankees anything valuable enough for them to part with him, maybe the Yankees will be forced to keep him.
Comments
I think he could outhit Jeter and play a better SS than him right now.
#ThinkingOutsideTheBox
Random thought, is there a reason why newspaper guys don’t ask certain questions? What I mean is…I hate reading stories like this on LoHud:
He admitted afterward that his velocity in Friday’s shaky start wasn’t what it had been in his previous strong outing in Toronto. But he said he’d like to think the concern over his velocity is behind him.
And I just don’t get it. Hughes’ velocity has not been good in terms of what we expect from Hughes in any single game this year. So, why just take what the player/management is saying at face value and why not ask them point blank about what is going and referring to the publicly available data which flies in the face of their lies?
[2] Maybe they are afraid the player/management will just stop answering questions for them. Or maybe newspaper guys are just too dumb to think to ask.
[3] It’s both. Zillo has a reputation of boxing out reporters when they don’t dance. PR reps, depending on how aggressive they are, aren’t shy about wielding access like a club to keep reporters in line. Veteran scribes have more leeway, but those aren’t the guys who are going to ask pointed questions.
Even if you do want to go off-script with your questions, once a flak says “don’t ask about XY” and you do anyway, you find out interview subjects have already been coached to either obfuscate or flat-out refuse to answer hot-button queries. It’s a losing game.
Even though I’m not in sports, I get situations like that all the time. You can ask hard questions and make it highly likely your interview gets cut short and you risk access to that flak’s clients in the future, or you play ball and look like a chump. It leaves you in the shitty situation where the best you can do is either cajole connected sources into giving you off-the-record background or maybe anonymous quotes; or else poke around the edges, ask your questions obliquely and hope your subject lets something slip or goes into freak-out “fuck it, I’m talking on the record” mode.
damn…two dunked hits and a bad hop on a good throw to the plate. Cheesy run.
Runs, please.
[4] Thanks, that makes some sense.
[4] Why aren’t the veteran scribes, the ones with the leeway, going to ask the pointed questions? Too wise to the game to bother? Or too risk-averse to rock the boat?
wow, gift call there.
Base-ruining.
Serling really torments you. His calls are like the serials from the 40s. BTW did anyone ever see the original Batman serial that took place during WW2.
have to tag up on that, bleh.
Tex is a nightmare right now. Yeesh.
Bad base running. You’re way off the mark Texeira.
[8] It’s likely a combination of boredom with inside baseball (it’s the more human stories that are trickier to write—and that also win awards), and willful ignorance of stats-based analysis. Throw in a healthy dose of laziness, too. You don’t need to do research to do Lupica-style armchair psychoanalysis of players you barely know.
Teix just wanted to make up for that “swing” of Jeter’s.
Mariners open up with 2, Townies answer with 5 against Pineda. I’d lament why does everyone roll over and play dead for the Townies but we’re the biggest culprits.
I would ban or severely limit pitcher/catcher conferences. Work that shit out before the game or between innings.
Nuney!
Nunee!
If Bartolo Calzone were American, he would be a national hero.
[19, 20] Nuney!
The Yankees have put up some tough ABs against Gio-pet Gonzalez. His pitch count is up around 80 after 4 innings.
[19, 20, 22] Nuney!
Montero is still a 21 year old in AAA with ridiculous power. I’m not too concerned with him helping out eventually. I think that part of his stock (among ML teams) dropping is that he’s having a pedestrian year, but other teams also know that if he doesn’t stick at catcher, the Yankees have no place to put him. Hence, they’re not going to overpay for someone that they Yankees can afford to jettison.
Nice play Curtis!
Jesus Robbie ...
National hero Bartolo Calzone is getting lit up today. Time for another radioactive serum injection?
[27] feed him Manny Banuelos
[28] many little bathrooms or one big one?
Granderson!
Nuney! What? Grandhi!
Curtis Granderson!
C-Grand!
Granderson IS Santa Claus
That spike in Cocoa Crisp’s neck makes him look like Afrofrankenstein.
Cano be slow, yo.
Kurtis Motherfucking Suzuki runs out of room on the towering Swish foul ball.
grandiloquent-Serling that is.
RussMart likes the high fastball.
If I were the King of Aruba, I might be smiling all the time too.
Yay Androoo!
Andruw treats all lefties like they’re Boone Logan
Why does WAR undervalue Granderson so much? He should be at like +12 already.
[43] Because of Jacoby Dinglebury’s infinite superiority.
43 because Grandhi practices passive non violence rather then WAR
Way to ole’ that ball Cano.
Lot of movement on Calzone’s radioactive balls.
[45] WAR, good God y’all. What is it good for? Absolutely nothin.
I guess it’s safe to post. No sign of fgas.
Could we possibly backtrack for Matsui as DH ?
48: The original title of Tolstoy’s famous novel (per Ms Benes)
Why is the ex-player color/analysis man asking the play-by-play stiff what Laird’s prospects for staying up at ML are ? Shouldn’t it be the other way around ?
Productive Out from Cappy.
In that it only produced a single out.
[43] War, being scientific, doesn’t understand the powers of supernatural beings.
You’re way off the mark Texeira.
[54] His pop foul did manage to beat the shift.
Might have to get me this t-shirt
[56] Love it.
I was surprised to see DR in with a 4 run lead but didnt imagine this shit.
I know he’s terrible defensively, but…I’m starting to like Nunez’ overall offfensive package as a backup and as a potential SS if he ever works things out defensively.
what absolute crap from Cano. how can he not make more of an effort on that groundball? any decent second baseman makes that play
So this is going to be Mo’s second blown save in a row caused by a terrible non-strike three called by a moron umpire.
WTF is this?
Better to be lucky AND good.
Amazing luck. Anyway, Mo’s first two hits were just pathetic dribblers, but then he started giving up line drives, each harder than the last. It couldn’t have been the heat, right? I mean, he’s over 40, but he’s from Panama.
64 Townies?
Soriano gave up a HR in his 1 inning. Brackman 4ip 3h 5bb 0k 1r nice line huh as Scranton beat up on CMW.
[65] He’s from northern Panama.
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