By
Jason Comack 
July 23, 2009, at 12:54 am
Here’s an interesting tidbit from MLBTradeRumors vis BP
According to Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus, the Rockies pulled pitching prospect Jhoulys Chacin from his start tonight “as a precaution for possible, future organizational moves.” Chacin tossed one inning for the Double A Tulsa Drillers, tallying just nine pitches.
The line “as a precaution for possible, future organizational moves” is pretty telling. Read between the lines and it should say “Chacin might be about to get traded and if he suddenly got hurt that would suck.”
After a rocky (pun intended) start the Rockies find themselves right in the thick of things as the deadline approaches. With Fowler with the MLB club Chacin is the Rockies top prospect. Chacin is not overpowering but has five pitches, inlcuding a sinker, that does lead to strikeouts. Scouts also praise his poise and maturity on the mound. Ideally Chacin could be a front of the rotation starter. At AA this year Chacin is 8-6 with a 3.14 ERA and 86 strikeouts.
[Update: Could the injury to Manny Corpas have anything to with this? The Rockies needed a reliever before he went down and have been linked to Chad Qualls and George Sherrill but Chacin seems like an awful lot give up for either of those guys.]
By
Jason Comack July 17, 2009, at 7:59 pm
I mentioned to Anthony recently that I had heard of a website, FanGraphs.com, that was supposedly on the cutting edge of statistical analysis. I gave the website a quick look over and was intrigued. However, the website can be overwhelming, even to someone familiar with Professor Beane’s teachings.
This afternoon I decided I would take sometime to figure out what FanGraphs.com was all about. I have to say I was thoroughly impressed with what the website has to offer. As the post title implies I could, and did, spend days/hours/weeks absorbing everything FanGraphs has to offer.
So what’s the big deal with Fan Graphs? (This might read like an advertisement but trust me I’m just an excited baseball stat nerd)
-Fan Graphs tracks Plate Discipline like never before. Type in any players name and you can find out how often they swing at pitches inside or outside the strike zone, how often they swing at the first pitch and much much more.
-Win Shares are awesome. A Win Share is a players runs above average (where an average player produced 20 runs per 600 plate appearances) + their defensive runs above average + replacement value + an adjustment for the position they play. For example take Vernon Wells. Wells, having a terrible year, is actually worse than a replacement level player. Wells is -3.2 runs below average, his defense is a dismal -21.3 runs below average. A replacement player would score 13.2 runs. Wells plays center field so his positional adjustment would be 1.3. So: -3.2 + -21.3 + 13.2 + 1.3 = -10.1. Meaning by starting Wells everyday over a replacement level player the Blue Jays will lose 10.1 runs over the course of the season. Since every 10 runs = 1 win, Wells actually will cost the Blue Jays 1 game this season.
There’s so much to find at Fan Graphs that it’s a must read for any baseball stat nerd, like myself. It’s hard to say the Fan Graphs hasn’t emerged as the leader in statistical analysis even trumping Baseball Prospectus (in fact in Baseball Prospectus’s most recent article they actually use stats from Fan Graphs.)
By
Jason Comack July 6, 2009, at 1:34 pm
Yankees universe meet Jesus Montero. Wear the name out because in the future you are going to be hearing it an awful lot. Montero is 19 years old and stands an impressive 6′4 and 225 pounds. He’s listed as a catcher but few scouts actually project him at that position in the majors. Montero is a future designated hitter, let’s not pull any punches, but he’s also one of the best hitting prospects to come around in a very long time. How many 19 year olds do you know that can post a .912 OPS in AA?
Did I mention that Montero recently homered four straight games in a row?
Here’s what Baseball Prospectus’s Kevin Goldstein had to say about him recently
Basically, if you go deep in a fourth straight game, you make the Minor League Update, and continue to do so until the streak ends. If you need someone else to keep track, the 19-year-old Venezuelan product is now 8-for-14 in those four games with 24 total bases, upping his season averages to .325/.395/.571. For a teenager in Double-A, that is entering nutsy koo-koo territory.
I didn’t know “nusty koo-koo” was a technical scouting term but it excites me none the less. My guess is by 2011 Jesus Montero is going to be a house hold name.
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